Back in the Saddle

 Don't faint but I finally dusted off (literally) my bike and went out for a proper cycle this morning.

 It's starting to feel like the turning of the seasons and Autumn colours are creeping into the landscape.

 Every time we come home from Killarney over Bealach Óisín we pass this little hidden grotto and every time I tell myself that I must go there on my bike...today I finally made it there!

 My legs are really stiff now after a 35km round trip! I think I'll regret it when I'm back at work tomorrow but hopefully a soak in a hot bath a bit later will sort that out.

 I've set up a little work station in the conservatory this afternoon while I'm relaxing!!

Making the most of my days off work

 So, the day before yesterday was atrocious (it rained ALL day long) but yesterday was a warm sunny day so in the afternoon I packed up my crochet and went to the beach :)

 This is about as busy as this beach (Lohar beach) gets in the holidays. I'm not one for sitting out and baking in the sun so I always find myself a shady spot away from everyone else.

 Voila! I stayed here for over an hour - I've been making the men's hats for Barbara's artists and then headed back up to the car.

 For most of the year there are sheep in this field (right by the beach) but lately there's been a herd of curious cattle!

This is one of the men's hats - I really like the charcoal grey and it's full of tweedy flecks in oranges, burgundy, green and cream so it isn't just like a 'flat' colour. I love working with the Studio Donegal wool so much every year. Barbara is a great patron to me.

As well as all the hats, she's asked if I would make wrist warmers to match the ladies' hats this year - I'm hoping that I will have enough wool left from the 2kg cone (those puff stitch hats used a LOT of wool each!) and that I won't have to buy some more, as it would probably be from another dye lot.

I've made a start on the first pair this afternoon - I'm making them from alternate rows of single crochet and trebles: it's a bit of an experiment but so far so good!

Catching up

I've got three days off work so I'm hoping to use the time to relax but to also catch up on replying to my messages (waves hello to Mary Ruth!) and hopefully will make it out on my bike on Tuesday. I'm back at work on Wednesday evening --I did a day for Senan so he's paying me back by doing my morning shift today.

I am just SO glad that I'm not working today: it has rained constantly all day.

I've spent most of the day sitting on one of the deckchairs in the conservatory and crocheting - the light is great there (even on a dull, rainy day) 

 This is what I'm working on -- the grey wool is for the gents hats for Barbara the artist's retreat - I need to make two of them -- and the rainbow one will be wrist warmers!

I bought these temporary tattoos on Etsy and love that this one matched my yarn :)

 I bought all of this lovely yarn from my friend Sonya on facebook!! I had to shoe-horn it into my wool cupboard.

It's a new yarn for me -- Boho Spirit by Cygnet. It reminds me a LOT of King Cole's Riot but this is 100% acrylic. It's actually really really soft and is nice to work with - I had to give the rainbow coloured one a try!

Crochet

I had to reorganise my wool cupboard and boxes when I got my last order of wool and found a few that I'd totally forgotten about so I've used up a couple of them on these wrist warmers :) The soft pink is a Louisa Harding yarn - I've used it in a few colours before and had forgotten that I'd more of the pink...

 These ones are made in a Lang sock yarn - it's so fine to work with but I love the colours -- I have a pair in this shade myself.

And these are just some made in my King Cole country tweed/riot to build up some stock...

August

Argh, it's already nearly half-way through August and it's only now that I'm getting around to updating my blog this month...this time of year is just bonkers at work. It's the same every year but this week always catches me out - I think that things *should* start to quieten down a bit now that we're on the other side of the bank holiday weekend (and Puck fair) but it's still crazy busy. Yesterday on the ferry we'd nearly 900 cars in the day - and goodness knows how many cyclists/pedestrians.

It's the same for me every year - I start to feel really burnt out in the middle of August and really could do with a week off work to get my strength back. That isn't going to happen of course, so I just plod on through it with a smile on my face. In about seven weeks the ferry season will be over for another year so I guess this craziness is just a blip in the big scheme of things.

I'm off work tomorrow so I'm planning NOTHING for the whole day apart from crochet, a glass of wine, some chocolate and hopefully a beach somewhere in there too. My days off work are so precious at this time of year as it's when I get a chance to recharge my batteries.

Progress with our conservatory is really moving on now - it's all finished now apart from all the interior stuff such as getting a radiator plumbed in, getting the electrics sorted, getting the floor in and getting the builders back to finish the plastering/tidying up. We'll get them to make us a new patio too once we can decide on how big we want it to be!

It's going to be such a great addition to our house - our little bungalow is so tiny (big enough for the two of us really but it's always nice to have some extra space) - I can't wait until it's all finished and we can start moving furniture etc in there and enjoy it properly.

The garden is still like a building site - things won't improve there until we've got the patio in place and can start tidying things up again; there's just no point in the meantime. It's going to be so worth it in the long term - I'm already looking forward to next year :)