A week in London helping out with house and childcare came to an end on Friday with me waving the family off on holiday to France. I shall remain here for the coming week to keep an eye on the household’s new members –  Mac and Mabel, two stripey ginger kittens whose age I can’t remember, except I know they’re too young to go out yet. (And small enough to both fit comfortably in the shoe box where odd socks accumulate which they have now claimed as one of their favourite sleeping sites.) Surprisingly well behaved and tolerant (the smallest person tends to go gentle pat, gentle pat, heavy pat/thump) the kittens  have been good company and one of them has already shown he’s happy to be a lap cat.

A whitework alphabet: letter F (hand embroidered by Mary Addison)

Though itching to get back to the altar frontal, I’m enjoying lazing in a sun soaked first floor sitting room where the light is perfect for whitework – so whitework it is this week – perhaps I’ll even manage to get ahead of myself so I can be single mindedly set on the altar frontal when I get home. Yesterday, for the first time ever  I even watched The Trooping of the Colour (the annual event marking the Queen’s official birthday)  and really rather enjoyed it. Unimpressed by series 2 of Killing Eve (for me, style smashing content to a pulp, too much gratuitous violence and really rather slow moving), this evening I’m happy to go back to reading and silence. Meanwhile my husband is free to spread his research work out over the three tables still occupying our sitting room … until my return when the 2 craft tables will go back to the garage and our sitting room will become just that once again. (Such are the benefits of my absence!)