I had a superb week this week. I only went to work for two days, which is a good place to start. Better yet, I spent the other three days with Mum, Dad, Leavy and Pippa. We had lots of outdoor time: we looked at barges in Maldon, took a day-boat up the Thames from Datchet, and walked in Richmond Park. We had lots of quality time with the dogs, and they had such an adventure going on their first train, bus and tube. Pippa found it all a bit stressful but Leavy took to it all like a duck to water, sprawling across the floor of the tube, clambering around the bus and wagging her tail at everyone we met. I'd write more but I'm too hungry to type - maybe Tuesday I'll say more.

Ow, my legs hurt. We set out this morning for a 38-mile cycle around the Yorkshire Dales. 3 miles in we realised this was not going to be easy. We were cycling into what felt like a howling gale, and the route was an awful lot more hilly than it looked like on paper. So we wimped out a bit, and cycled 18 miles instead, taking a little detour to Malham Cove which was very lovely. I just mapped our route on MapMyRide - it says we climbed around 850 feet, which is quite a bit really.

Anyway now I'm hungry and I want to eat an entire cow or something. I think we're going to go get a curry which should fill that stomach hole, and eat it with a small bottle of champagne my work buddies gave me when I left on Friday. It's approximately Andy and I/my/mine/our (can't quite figure out which word fits here) four-year anniversary, so combining that with the cycling trip, I think we have a good excuse to drink champagne, stuff our faces and vegetate on the couch.

This weekend I made:

a picture of a camper van for Andy (quite cartoon-like now I've photographed it) and ...

... three cushion covers. I enjoyed making the cushion covers quite a bit (they're so jolly, and even better, machine washable), and am now looking forward to my pattern arriving so I can make myself this exciting dress:

I think I'm going to have to figure out a way to transport my sewing machine to Geneva. After a full, frustrating day's shopping on Saturday where I bought just one thing (and even that is a bit big), I need to  learn to make my own clothes a la Gran.

I think putting multiple pictures in is too complicated, so I won't do that too often. Here are other things I have done recently:

• gone to Thorpe Park with our neighbours Daniel and Nathalie
• took a tourist boat to Greenwich and pottered around the market
• took a Clipper to Greenwich and visited the Royal Observatory
• went to Wiltshire for a five-mile walk
• cycled to Woking, just because it was about the right distance away
• went to a clothes-swapping party where we agreed to start doing sewing/crafty stuff together regularly.

I've done lots of other stuff too, I'm sure, I just can't think of it yet. Here's Thorpe Park:

I thought that while we're sitting around waiting for anything interesting to happen, I'd take the opportunity to update you on what I've been up to lately.

A month or so ago now, I went to afternoon tea with Katy. We put on our posh frocks and ate fancy sandwiches and cakes, and drank fancy tea, at the Sanderson. It was such fun, even though it was raining very heavily. Look how pretty the cakes are.













I also went to the Lake District for some yomping. We were fortunate enough to have very lovely weather. In fact, we were also fortunate to be allowed to go outside in the lovely weather - I often find myself stuck indoors on sunny days in London. We were very energetic and walked Mountain No 2 (Helvellyn) on Sunday, and Mountain No 3 (Skiddaw) on Monday. We did Mountain No 1 (Scafell Pike) two years ago, so we're working our way through the list of England's highest mountains.

What was exciting about both mountains, but particularly Helvellyn, was that although it was very hot, the snow on the top hadn't melted. So we were wandering around in blazing hot sun, shorts, tshirts and lots of suncream, throwing snowballs at each other. Here's some pretty pictures:

 

Aren't elections funny? A bit like Christmas or birthdays, you look forward to it so much and then are rather taken by surprise when it turns out to be a day like any other. In fact, apart from the UKIP plane crash, there hasn't been very much election news.

I'm aiming to stay up until 3:30 as original predictions suggested loads of results around then, but turnout has been so high that I think it'll be later than that. I don't think I can stay up any later than 3:30 and still function tomorrow.

The whole people-not-being-able-to-vote thing is very disappointing, what an awful shame. But there's some happy news too: let's just take a moment to pause and reflect on the fact that at this very moment, the UK Parliament consists entirely of women. 100%. Okay, that's just three people, but isn't it exciting?