A walk and sewing prep

Today John, Lucy and I had a walk planned around the Devils punch bowl in Surrey. The Devil's punch bowl is a visitor attraction and is a biological site of special interest.  The Punch Bowl is a large natural amphitheater. John and I had visited the area before but Lucy hadn't . We started the walk from the car park and cafe. This was the view from the rim of the bowl.

We kept Missy on her lead.  Our reasons for this were

1 so she couldn't run down the steep slope and maybe get herself into difficulties,

2. to protect the ground nesting birds 

3. to stop her rolling in the puddles. Missy is currently being treated for an ear infection so mustn't get her ears wet.

This photo shows the depth of the bowl better.

The ground was very muddy in places. We all had our hiking boots on and Missy thought the mud was great fun. She also tried to get into any large puddles we passed. She shook her head as I took the picture.

During the walk we saw several wild flowers. The gorse was beautiful and oddly it smells like coconut.

This one is Lesser celandine. In places it formed a carpet.

The Wild garlic was in flower and gave off a lovely smell of garlic.

This one is Annual honesty.

and there were lots of dandelions.

We stopped to rest and enjoy the view at a bench. It had some beautiful decoration on it but unfortunately the weather had caused some damage.

We walked around the rim of the bowl and also went to Gibbet hill. The gibbet was used to deter highway men and others with criminal intent.

There is also a Celtic Cross in the same locality.

As we headed back to the car park and cafe we passed this piece of sculpture. Not sure what it is so I need to do some reading.

Missy wasn't impressed. Back at the cafe we enjoyed a toasted sandwich for a late lunch. and Missy had some flapjack. By this time she was flagging and she slept for most of the drive home. It had been a very enjoyable day out.

Once home and refreshed with a pot of tea I set about adding the binding to the blue and red pinwheel quilt. It is now ready for me to stitch the binding down, and  I'll make a start on this tomorrow.

Whilst John cooked dinner I made the quilt sandwich for the pinwheel baby quilt. This is now ready for quilting. A border has been added since the last photo and the backing fabric is the same as the border.  I'm keeping the quilting simple on this quilt as I need to get it finished for next week. I'll start the quilting tomorrow.

Yesterday evening I spent the time knitting so tomorrow I need to get on with the cat cross stitch if I want to have any chance of finishing it this month. For now the evening is drawing to a close and I need to think about going to bed. 

Take care

Lyndsey