The White Cottage

... was the one that started the American home-making dream. It's literally just around the corner and a confederacy haunt, with mentions of Edgar Allan Poe drop-ins.

For me it's the cute cottage garden with giant knotted mulberry tree trunk and lovely, cosy attic bedrooms - all ripe for pinterest-style interventions. However endless updating jobs, as well as a major roof-raising exercise mean it wouldn't be all cocktails-on-the-stoep and dormer reading-corner moments. So the search goes on...

Memorial Day, Belle Isle

Bank Holiday Monday with warmth and wilderness aplenty...

We took to the river with our bikes and were not alone. There were teenagers diving from ridiculous heights, guys just wallowing downstream and plenty of girls on the rocks.

We got to try-out the new bike skills park on Belle Isle. It was all fabulous, until major injury struck on a steep downward challenge and the kindness of strangers gave us water to wash the wound and we wobbled homeward.

Natural Magnets

Fridge magnets never looked so naturally stylish - all thanks to 21 Crafts to Make your Happy and the demands of a major birthday and thank you season.

Materials:
- Carefully peeled magnets from corporate promo materials thanks to Neighbour 1
- A perfectly sized log from garage roof of Neighbour 2
- Paint, raffia and letter stickers c/o AC Moore, on a mere three separate visits, thanks to a sticker clearance issue

Staff:
- 1 circular saw & ladder user, plus magnet-peeler
- 2 painters with spelling & aesthetic opinions
- 1 observer

Secret Journal

M now has one and likes the morning routine of updating it... lots of writing - of the factual and plain kind - but still great and in the lines.

Retirement Party, Collegiate School

We got to be honoured guests at a retirement do, thanks to our lovely neighbour, who was a mere 33 of the collective 325 departing years.

There was an array of pretty food, enthusiastic band and choir plus student and headmaster speeches - all incredibly moving and thoughtful; then photos and cartwheels on the lawn (thanks to M).

On getting back in the van J remarked that it had been a great retirement party and M that she thought this was somewhere she should go, as the teacher's were all so good. We'll just start saving now...

Bon Air Presbyterian Pre School

... and so the American educational experience begins for J, with a play-date at her future nursery.

Natural play at it's best plus some great bits of ageing equipment... all shady and lovely, apart from the rather rambunctious boys just out of shot.

She carefully wrote her own name on the label!

More Colonial Williamsburg

An unplanned afternoon - this one had to have an open aspect and be something that the workers had missed out on. J's favourite memory were noble steeds Ranger and Captain, so we got on the 64 to Colonial Williamsburg... It was humid and full of Sunday tourists but they fell away as the girls climbed up giant trees and then crossed wooden bridges and slipped down to paddle in a little streams.

They gathered daisies a little to enthusiastically, so we headed off on a shady path to the brickyard. They were stomping down the clay pits ready for firing for the future repair of a 17th century church tower in Jamestown. M remained on task long after everyone else. We dunked her in a barrel of water and headed for home. Detouring into a familiar cottage garden with fabulous borders and a bull over the fence.

Captain & Ranger's horseman was on duty and greeted the 'Little Colonials', before they contentedly got back in our wagon chomping on classy crisps and negotiationg in-car music choices.

Aggie Zed: Keeper's Keep, Visual Arts Centre of Richmond

A walk round the block on a damp, argumentative Saturday led us to the door of the Visual Arts Centre. Beyond the peonies and floral tablecloths - a Graduation Party - ceramic circus oddities in miniature with sinister, washy paintings on the walls. The kids loved it and M begged to sketch... hence the elephant, done on the phone and then more spying of strange details. We sneaked back past the party-ladies and out into the green dampness.

Uptown Community Garden, RVA

We got to explore Uptown Garden after a welcome iced-coffee break. Well tended, J found the first strawberry hidden in the leaves and I got all excited about chard.

We got home and did some art. J carefully marked out the black stem lines, then strawberry shapes - a pointy circle - and finally colour with oozing quantities of glitter glue that we both still have under our elbows and in our hair.

There are more allotment-style spots to check out within a few streets of our block.

The Blue Bathroom

This one was not a white house and it had a beautiful blue wet-room with a fig tree brushing against the window. Shabby chic at it's most distressed and gorgeous, with copies of Wallpaper and Elle Deco stretching back a decade on the shelves.

There was a pantry that looked like my granny's and an airing cupboard too. Air conditioning came in the from of gaps in the glass panes. Up the side of the house - a climbing wall!

Roslyn Retreat Centre, Richmond

A mini excursion up along the river to the edge of town. Mist had risen through the trees at dawn and the warmth was balmy, on the ground fresh green moss and a woodpecker was somewhere in the distance - poetic stuff! We ran along woodland paths and then on open slopes before a collapse on a handy hammock.

 On the top of the hill the Bishop's Chapel - completed in 2009 and with a fabulous view falling away from you - 'Like you can fly' said J, before she took to the pulpit and her friend served the invisible congregation.

Children's Museum of Richmond aka CMoR, W Broad

Twice in a week, but I had good company and there was something new - a Capital One sponsored reading corner and lots of amusingly inept employees to gamble around with, if they didn't freak you out. One lent in the window of a play-ambulance and asked for a driving license - that exchange led to tears.

In the art studio we got to make stuff - a patchwork boomerang for teacher-appreciation-week and a bride going to her wedding day...

The next rug

My first official commission is in, now that the original rug has had it's gallery outing and is settling into more mundane home life. So the new one is to be a 5 foot and oval (!) with brown, cream and petrol green in the mix. I think I might throw in some fashionable bright blue too, perhaps some gold...

J did her own variation, as I was sketching up some ideas.

Pizza Night

So we braved going Italian with the Italians, fuelled with local Belgium wheat beers and British crisps (thanks Tyrrels!).

Prizes for the pizza with the BEST
- Face
- Abstract
- Pineapple hair!

The forgotten focaccia came to a charred end.

Our White House

In all its springtime glory. Check out the grassy lawn -- close-up it has balding patches (just like its carer) but this is progress from the blasted surface it has been.

The Project House

The dream is over. In the company of great experience we toured the mid-century palace once more. This time the panelling details and lampshades and balconies could not compete with the vegetative chaos, the lack of solid surfaces and the basking presence of snapping turtles et al.

We shared a chilled beer on the river to digest the loss with the most damming question of the night ringing in our ears - "How much will they pay you to take it off their hands?"

Spongia officinalis lamella

Needle felted under pine trees at the truck park - just perfect and with sunshine overhead - so much easier to see the extra fluff and barren patches. It wasn't a smooth finish but a satisfying end to The Year of the Sponge.

Sick days...

... and nights thanks to an inoculation overload, however in the midst of it all, perky and able to do craft - a fairy house - and watch some TV shows. J delighted at that overload!

Spot my survival items of choice...