April in Retrospect

I don't suppose we can have a post about April without a picture of flowers.  The saying may talk about flowers in May, but they definitely start here in April, if not earlier.

OK.  We have that out of the way.  Now we can talk about

2008

• I seem to have had my own version of a Happiness Project before I discovered that of Gretchen Rubin.  If you've never made a Happy List, I highly recommend it for several reasons, mostly listed there.
• We'd practically starve in this house without rice dish.  Thirty-minutes from start to table is about as fast as food gets, warm food anyhow.  That and a bowl of chopped fruit with yoghurt and we have fruit, veg, carbs, protein.  Perfect.
• I've never yet made it back to Colchester, or to Essex, even.  (But I'm still wearing and loving the clothes I thrifted there!)
• I told you everything I knew about my Dad.  I had no idea then what I didn't know.
• We started our Square Foot Gardening, such as it was.  Bill was never very impressed with it to start with, then the brick layers tramped through and now Bill is in charge of growing food and will likely redesign the beds anyhow.  Still, it worked reasonably well for me at the time and made gardening seem almost manageable.

2009

• I showed you some spring flowers in my neighbourhood.
• This Coffin Company has since relocated and is now a betting shop or bookies.  Not a place I've ever been or envision going, but a major part of British culture all the same (betting shops, that is).
• Sure enough, Bob's never returned to Dubai.  I' don't think he's even left the country since!
• I took you to Tynemouth Village.  
• If you want a lot of hits on your blog, write about a popular shop.  This post about the Raspberry Bazaar has the second highest number of hits in my whole blog.  The first highest?  Find an image that applies to Boxing Day.  Isn't blogging weird sometimes?
• More than you probably want to know about fashion history, but I'm thinking of re-reading that book and looking for other textbooks, actually.  I was fascinated.
• I took you to Washington Old Hall.

2010

• We toured the Royal Yacht Britannia. (OK, this series started on the 31st of March, but then we spent a couple of weeks in April on board.  I've just linked you to the first post in April).
• We noted the Queen's birthday.  I believe she turns 85 this year.
• I introduced myself to Josephine Baker; you had probably already met her.  Actually, I have since found a series of six videos that are brilliant.  They skip over some of the more scandalous bits, but there's plenty of great stuff left!
• Remember this bathmat I made?  It didn't survive its first washing very well.  Two of the squares disintegrated.  I started to replace them, but then lost interest and put it in the recycling bin.  Takes care of loads of guilt, you know, being able to recycle fabric as well as plastic, paper and metal...