Spring is really, really here. It has been beautiful weather all month. The daffodils are finished, the tulips are just past their prime, the borders are full of hundreds of forget-me-nots, bluebells are opening and the apple trees are covered with blossoms.

My new sewing studio is nearly done and now I have to put it to good use. Two tops are finished for baby quilts with the third one in the planning. Now I just have to layer and quilt. My bird quilt is coming very slowly but will be worth it in the end (I hope). Hand quilting is very slow on the Dear Jane quilt, but that is because I have been doing a lot of reading in the evenings instead of quilting. Pictures of bird blocks to come.

With the lovely weather I want to spend more time in the garden and get frustrated with my knees as I can't do as much as I want. The stiffness and pain in my hip (the replacement one) had me worried so I went to the physiotherapist and she is convinced it is the muscles and ligaments, so I am doing more exercise. The up side is that I have rediscovered Lilias yoga and will soon receive her new book and DVD for the older yoga student. I know that will be inspiring and, hopefully, really help me limber up. It won't repair my knee joints, but it should strengthen my muscles and make me more flexible again.

Spring is here. The birds are so noisy you can't hear yourself think, but they haven't made any approaches to the nesting boxes yet this year. It won't be the same if we don't have baby blue tits this year.
I have recently joined Facebook and amazingly found my old friend Janet from WMU in Kalamazoo, but also a group of women from the Kalamazoo Central High School class of 65. It is really not possible that most of us haven't seen each other in nearly 44 years!!
In any case Marilyn had the brilliant idea of trying to organize a girls only Class of 65 at 65 get together in 2012. A big slumber party sounds like fun.

Mother's Day here in England and a beautiful day with daffodils blooming. We worked on the garden over the weekend and my knees are suffering for it. The newts are visible in the pond, most of the new vegetable seedlings are up in the propagators and there are bumblebees about. Ladybugs are extremely prolific. I hope that is a good sign.
This week I linked up with a group of women from Kalamazoo Central class of 65 and we are now trying to plan a girl's get together for summer 2012. What an amazing thing this internet is. It is really wonderful to find all these long lost friends and aquaintances.
I have begun a quilt for the new great grandson--red, white and blue fabrics in a friendship star pattern. The backing will be a dark blue fabric with teddy bears with little American flags.

Getting behind again. Winter is still with us here in Suffolk, England. We also had a sort of blizzard at the beginning of February. While it may have been quite severe in the north, it didn't seem like much to me here in the south. The worst part was when the snow melted and the ice formed overnight. Here is a picture of a school closing day with the view of the school from our front garden.

Last weekend we had some beautiful weather and got to work in the garden. I also started all my tomato and pepper seeds, etc. But now we are moving back toward cold, rainy gloomy days, at least for awhile. This has been a long winter and we haven't had the best health luck either. Hopefully that will improve with the weather.

My quilting has come to a slow down too. I don't know why, exactly. I have made a nice Raggedy Ann doll for a friend. Anyway, still working on my Baltimore type applique American birds and trying to hand quilt the Dear Jane quilt. I haven't even cut the fabric I brought back with me for the double wedding ring. Maybe I will get to that when the weather breaks. It will be nice if we can get some work done on the shelves for my sewing room soon as everything is crammed in boxes and bags and I can't find what I want.

I will have to live to about 200 to finish all the projects I want to do.

Well, I wished for a white Christmas and the people in Michigan are probably still blaming me for getting my wish!
Our Christmas holidays in the States sound a bit like a soap opera. We flew out on the 15th of Decemember on the longest flight we have ever had to Chicago. The flight path was farther north than we have ever gone, flying over a large chunk of Greenland then heading south across Canada, and it took 8 hours and 40 minutes. Of course we missed our connecting flight to Kalamazoo and so had to wait for the next one which was scheduled for about 2 1/2 hours later. However, it was delayed several times and the gate was moved 4 times. We eventually made it to Kalamazoo at about 7:30pm instead of 3pm. Also, Martin came down with the horrible cold on the flight and felt terrible by the time we reached Chicago. It was a trial for him to drive from Kalamazoo to Otsego. The snow was just beginning to come down.
We had blizzard conditions for the next several days, off and on, and almost continuous snow. Martin got to try out the snow shovel and the snow blower. Pictures to follow.
Also, when we arrived I found one of my mail-order packages was missing. I contacted the fabric company right away and found that they said it had been shipped in November and the tracking number showed it being delivered to the local post office on the 16th of that month. However, it had never arrived at my sister-in-law's house. The woman I spoke to was very helpful and said she had checked the availability of the 13 fabrics I had chosen for my double wedding ring quilt and that luck was with me. They still had all of the fabrics I needed and she would send them out immediately--December 16th.
Well, with the weather and Christmas, I didn't really expect them to come before Christmas, so I waited until the 26th to call again and tell them the fabrics still hadn't arrived. The fabric people were really stumped as they had sent the package and recorded it as being delivered to the local post office on December 19th. Again it had disappeared. We eventually found out that the postal carrier had delivered both packages to another house where the people had the same surname as mine. And this person had kept them. After threats from my sister, she eventually admitted to having received one package only and thought it belonged to her mother-in-law! That was here story anyway. She said she would get the package back from this mother-in-law and return it to me unharmed. When she did bring the fabric, it was in a box labeled "Wendy's frozen french fries, smelled of cigarettes, and there were duplicates of 3 of the fabrics, which proved she had received both boxes. Also, my invoices were missing which would have included my billing address in England. I assume this woman knew that her mother-in-law didn't live in England.
I notified the fabric company and the local post mistress and now the matter is up to them, but I do have my fabric, just in the nick of time to pack it and bring it back with me.
We also had illness, with my young grand nephew taken to the hospital twice in an ambulance the week of the 15th of December because of convulsions. This seems to run in the family as he is the fourth child to suffer from this. Many tests were done and the results so far show nothing except an ear infection with fever. He was perfectly well over Christmas and hopefully will outgrow this as all the others did, but it is terrifying for the parents at the time.
Over the rest of Christmas we had snow, snow and more snow. Then there was some sleet and ice. I think that was the day that the furnace broke down and the house was freezing until my brother got the exhaust pipe repaired and the heat on again. Northern Indiana was apparently covered with ice and that combined with our terrible colds kept us from visiting my friends near Fort Wayne that I haven't seen for 9 years. We hope to see them next November.
In Michigan we also had a tremendous thunderstorm which melted most of the 2 or more feet of snow on the ground and resulted in a blinding fog for a day. The fog blew away in high winds on the following day. This helped lead to some serious flooding and flood warnings on many of the rivers. One evening a few days after Christmas, it was so warm, 61 degrees, that we had all the windows open while the family was there. The next morning it was freezing again. With all the weather fun, it was a miracle that we even got any Christmas shopping done, but it was somehow accomplished.
Coming home, the flight schedule was much better and the return from Chicago to London was only just over 7 hours. However, there was one child who screamed for nearly 6 of those hours. It had just settled down when they turned on the cabin lights and said it was time for breakfast. Upon landing we had to be bussed again at terminal 5 Heathrow. This is a real mess as there is not enough room at the gates to park the planes and passengers have to be transported by bus to and from a kind of plane car park--it takes ages. Then we found that one of our bags was missing and were told that it was still in Chicago. It was the duffle bag with the quilt bats and dirty shirts in one of those vacuum bags. It turned out they searched this bag and I suspect allowed air into the vacuum bag and had a lot of trouble repacking it. Anyway, it didn't arrive at our house until late the next afternoon.
The final adventure was with the car. We took a taxi from the airport to out hotel where the car had been left. After clearing the bill and getting the pass to leave the car park, we put our bags in the trunk and shut it. That was the final act allowed on the apparently dead battery. We couldn't open the doors or the trunk with the automatic key, and even if we could have gotten in the car it wouldn't have started. Several phone calls and a renewed roadside assistance subscription later, we received some assistance, the battery was charged and we finally made our way home.