Magic of Spring

Along with everybody else, it seems, I’m feeling particularly pleased that spring finally made it. I mean, there wasn’t really any doubt that it would get here eventually, but it did rather try our patience (and being April, will no doubt continue to do so!).

So here it is –  All of a sudden, the crocusses popped up to  take over from the snowdrops and a day’s warm sun brought all the daffodils out, too. A couple more days of sunshine and mild rain has the tulip buds leaping up and a lot of other dormant plants jumping to attention – the dicentra and paeonies are shooting and there are leaves on all sorts of things that were looking decidedly dead, like the hydrangreas! Overnight, we have a cloud of bright yellow forsythia outside the front door and the cherry trees have decided to deck their lingerie and provide a delicate screen between us and the neighbour’s house: In the same vein, we’ve gone from being huddled up indoors to being able to sit, and even eat, outdoors (no, it’s not Paris – though it could be, couldn’t it?! – it’s Lucerne!), which is a most encouraging sign!  Can you believe it’s not even two weeks since we were doing this…? Yes, that is snow!Well, it’s given us something to talk about, anyway, as everyone seems very curious to know if we really did sail over Easter! As a souvenir and a thank you for having stuck it out valiantly, I made my friend a shawlette that incorporates the colours of stormy waters and the frilly, frisky waves we had on our trip: “Holden” shawlette, design by Mindy Wilkes, yarn is Malabrigo Sock in colourway “Persia”

Helen and I had another jaunt and enjoyed getting together again after a long break! We had a lovely day out in Schaffhausen, right up in the northern tip of Switzerland. Drizzle greeted us, but by the time we’d been round the new exhibition that revolves around the artist Albert Anker and his pre-Impressionist Realist colleagues, the sun had come out. Of course, we really just wanted to see Albert Anker’s knitting paintings 😉 Fortunately we have prettier sock yarn these days! But it might be of interest to non-Swiss knitters that naturally, all the Anker knitters are knitting Swiss-style, with the yarn wrapped round the forefinger of the left hand – continental isn’t always simply continental! And many sitters are wearing the typical high-curved bodice and embroidered collar (“Göller”) of the area Anker was from, around Ins, which is in the canton of Berne and lies pretty much on the German/French language border: Anker appears to have been bilingual and attended school in Neuchâtel, studied in Germany and France and later split his life between Paris and his (Swiss-)German-speaking home village, though I noticed he corresponded with his children in French…

Lest we forget that spring is here and summer just round the corner, this is where I’ll be for the next little while – Home Sweet Home!