Hot Off the Needles

 as promised. I've been knitting this Aran sweater for a while - C picked out and determined on a v-neck cardigan pattern which he wanted converted into a crewneck sweater, so the sizing required adjusting and the whole front neck shapings had to be calculated. And there was a pause while I knit the baby blanket - but it's done.

 I also made him a shirt. I had ordered 1/4 metre of peacock feather fabric for masks, and when he saw it, he requested a shirt. So that was his anniversary present. For some reason it's very hard to get the colour of the fabric right. I sent my sister a photo of a spare mask to see if she would like it, and when she got it, she said the fabric was even nicer than the photo. It is - I've ordered more to make a summer dress for myself - and didn't think the photo I took of the shirt was worth uploading. There's more jade green colour in the fabric in real life. 

From Wednesday in the park, a coot chickling.

And on Thursday, as C had taken a couple of days off, we went for a drive and a change of scenery. This is Lough Tay, in the Wicklow mountains. Of recent years it's been used to film The Vikings, and the houses and piers visible in the second photo are part of the film set rather than authentic original scenery. From the amount of trucks and vans in the car park above it, I suspect that shooting was happening on the day. 

It was intermittently cloudy and quite windy, but after the prolonged lockdown that started at the end of December, it was lovely to see some totally different scenery.