Four Days Off

On Thursday night, I left work and was looking forward to four consequetive days off over this weekend. So exciting.

OH headed off to Yorkshire on Friday morning by bike, to visit his family for a couple of days. It was his dad's birthday on Monday and he's becoming increasingly frail after several strokes. I thought about driving up to meet him there, but to be honest, I was glad of the chance of a few stay at home days of rest.

LB was working quite a bit, so I had the house to myself for the most part, which was nice and restful. I managed to tackle a bit of the massive ironing pile. I was running out of clothes to wear for work. I was also responsible for double dog walks and dog feeding/medicating whilst OH was away, but that was okay.

I made a beautiful discovery on Saturday.  The small pansies, retrieved from amongst the sweet peas I bought when we visited Yorkshire a few weeks ago, are in fact johnnyjumpsup or wild pansies, the flower that I named this blog after. Serendipity if ever there was any. 

I haven't had any of these beautiful little flowers in my garden for many years.  They used to grow and self seed profusely on the very first allotment I rented 17 years ago and I just loved them. Here's a picture of a couple of them that have started flowering:

I was so happy to discover this, it's great to have them in my garden once again. I may plant some out at the allotment to do their thing. I did have a suspicion they would be wild pansies, that is why I potted them up, but it was still a thrill when they flowered and confirmed this.

Sunday was another quiet day. In the morning, I took the dog out. I got a message from OH to say he was on his way to catch a train back to London. He got back about 3pm. This afternoon, I spent looking up some new free courses on Udemy. They had some interesting ones, which I immediately enrolled on and one in particular I did there and then. It was very useful. I've now got a stack of their free courses to work through as and when I get the time.

Monday, was a busy day. I went to the gym as usual and met up with a friend there, before heading off to do the weekly shop. I decided to have a little splurge on some new summer clothes today, as I haven't spent money on new (as in, not second hand) clothes in a long time. I bought two dresses, one of which I'm taking back, but here's the one I'm keeping;

Please excuse the creases, it's straight off the dryer.

This waterproof jacket for walking the dog on rainy days this summer. I just love the colour. 

A pair of gold trainers which were very inexpensive. 

It felt very nice to treat myself for once. It's something I've not done in a long time and I've spent so long wearing dark colours, it's time for some brighter colours in my wardrobe. Sometimes, it'd just got to be done.