I made the mistake of heaping all luggage, laundry for drying and shoes into the guest room, out of sight I thought!
Unfortunately I forgot about my friend from Switzerland being in the country, and that before the wedding I'd invited them to stay over when they'd be around. So yesterday I got the phone call to say they'd be here this evening and we quickly had to do lots of tidying up, move all that laundry to the study, set up the 2nd guest bed, hoover and hide lots of bric-a-brac under the beds... and generally give the house a dusting...
The garden will just look the way it looks, after 4 weeks of not mowing the lawn and rain every day it's quite wild, and it's still too wet to mow!
So much for impressing friends from college...
While in Portugal I noticed there are still many women doing crochet and embroidery of every day items, like tea towels, towels, tablecloths and napkins, the shops sell fine cotton thread that is used to make lacey edges around these towels, they used the tiniest crochet hooks. Of course i couldn't resist and bought a few balls in great colours and the teensy crochet hooks, unfortunately they didn't sell any patterns. One shop had a folder of photocopies of actual lace edges, but no diagrams or instructions, my phrase book Portuguese was just about enough to figure out that these photocopies are all the average Portuguese crocheter needs as a pattern...
I also saw some cute crochet flowers, so on one of the occasions when i was soaking up the evening sun (can't do it before 4pm, am to fair!) i decided to give it a go and came up with this little flower! I was extremely pleased with myself, no pattern, and it's the 1st flower I've made, ever!
We were in Coimbra and there was a Folklore Festival on, with craft on sale and (the most delicious!) sardines on the BBQ, rice pudding for desert, and elderly ladies dancing in the street in broad daylight, while waiting for the main event to start on stage. We just came across it in a Square and decided to linger!
And this little gem was bought there for me by my husband, it's a love poem (or so we've been told) in Portuguese and had a crochet edge. We're going to frame it! What background shoud i use?
When we got home I felt like doing something crafty in the evening, and so repaired my favourite PJs with this little hear patch, (I also had to a split seam in the hip area! what's that telling me!?) while watching 'the illusionist'.
And finally, 2 photographs from the Bucaco Forest
