A good day

Yesterday was a very good day. The day started early with Katy arriving at 8 and laden down with tasty pastries for breakfast. The coffee pot went on and I made myself tea before we all sat around the dinning table and enjoyed our breakfast. It was fun to chat as a family and just enjoy being together. Richard was working so he needed to get off to work and the rest of us planned our day.  To start with Katy and I did a dress fitting and then I set up my machine. She had bought her fabric with her but she wanted to go shopping with Lucy first. Soon there was just me, John, Scamp and Casso in the house. After the noise of us all talking at once the quiet was very welcome.

I set about making the needed alterations to the bust area of the dress and then started work on the sleeves. The sleeves are very pretty with three small sets of pleats to give them a little puffiness. This was another first, as I've made a range of different sleeve types but never ones with pleats.

Once the sleeves were in and I'd finished some hand stitching around the front facing I needed to do the hem. I pressed up the hem allowance and then turned in the raw edge before stitching down using the machine. Finished one dress, all ready to wear. By now I was the only one home so I planned to get someone to take a photo of me wearing it once they got home. Unfortunately I forgot. Once everyone was home we all started chatting again and life moved on to other things.

Katy and Lucy went swimming in the afternoon. Our local pool only does lane swimming and you end up racing up and down the lengths with very little time to stop at each end. This isn't their idea of a fun outing to the swimming pool so instead of the local indoor pool they had booked to go to Tooting Bec Lido. The lido is an open-air fresh water swimming pool in South London. It is the largest fresh water swimming pool by surface area in the UK, being 100 yards (91.44 m) long and 33 yards (30.18 m) wide and contains 1 million gallons of water. You can find out more about the Lido Here including which scene Brad Pitt filmed here. The girls really enjoyed their swim and are planning on going again during the week.

At the end of the afternoon we drove Katy home. The shopping trip with Lucy had increased what she needed to carry by several bags so she was happy and John and I decided to take a walk in Richmond park before returning home. Richmond park is quite close but we haven't been walking there very much because there are ticks in the long grass. This isn't a problem unless we take Scamp with us. He loves running in the long grass and so we have to check him very carefully for ticks when we get home.

In the middle of the background of this photo you can just see the buildings in the city of London.  The last few time we have been in the park we haven't seen any deer but there were several about, possibly because it was early evening when we were walking.

We walked down to Penn ponds to see how the ducks, geese and swans were doing. Earlier in the day this scene would involve lots of people and dogs but by evening everyone has gone home to eat and peace reigns.

On the other side there is a smaller pond and these two greylag geese had 4 goslings with them. They did a very good job of keeping them away from me. Shame about the finger!

On the very right of this picture you can see a white building and as we got a little closer I took another photo. It's a bit grainy as I only had my phone and we were still quite a distance away. This building is White Lodge and the home of the Royal Ballet School lower school (11 to 16 year olds). The Georgian building was originally a royal residence.

We had taken our shadow selves with us on the walk and by the time we started back to the car park they had grown very tall.

 

The walk was a great way to finish a really fun day. Back home we had dinner and I drew out the next pride and prejudice block. I didn't have any time for hand stitching on my frog embroidery but will work on it today.

My plans for today are quite fluid. I want to spend some time in the garden and I need to bake some bread. If I have time I will do a little work on the bag project and this evening will be slow stitching time.

Take care

Lyndsey