A walk trough Hyde Park …...

I really like to have a good and long walk, when possible!
It was really cold the first weekend we were in London, but the sky was so blue and tempting… so we waited some extra days before buying our Oyster cards !!!! ;oD

What I really enjoyed is to have the opportunity to share nice chit chats with my boys while walking to our daily destinations and it was really good to have the opportunity to taste winter (when it was the last time ????) and listen to the "crick crock" of the ice under our feet !!!!!

Tobia had even the possibility to have a kind of bath in the Serpentine …… There was a plastic bag in the lake and he wanted to pull it out from the water …. such a good boy, but the bank was slippery, so in few seconds he had water reaching his calves ….. Luckily he came out quickly and not far away there was a Primark department store, where we entered to buy, at least, a pair of thermic socks…. phew!!!!

The following 10 pictures, instead, were taken 2 days later in the same park and puddles …

Tobia is the author of this splendid photo!!!!

…. reading some comics together after lunch!

xxxx Alessandra

Fingerless gloves …. knitted !!!!!

…. Do I have a hat ? I have one ….
…. Do I have a scarf ? just done ….

…. but what about some gloves? Work to be done !!!!

This time I put aside my crochet hooks and collected, instead, a pair of straight knitting needles ….

I knitted them in one afternoon, so they are really quick to knit …

… and as you see from the various pics, I preferred to "sew" them not by using the mattress stitch, but by crocheting a row of single crochets …. final touches : a braid at the base of the gloves and a mini tassel at the top of them …

my left glove

my right glove

The pattern I followed is from this book …

… and the pattern is this one ….

They seem very tiny, but they fit properly, I must say …

Tobia asked for a pair, too ….

… same size as mine …. this is a good quality about ribbed gloves … one size fits all !!!! ;oD
The only difference from the original pattern (and my pair of gloves) is that I casted on 30 stitches, instead of 26, so that the thumb is in the centre of the glove and there are no more right and left gloves : they are all the same!

xxxx Alessandra

…. London we are ready (!!!!) and NO, I'm not going to crochet/knit a jacket : no time left!!!!!

Lowveld National Botanical Garden, Nelspruit (South Africa)

Last Monday we jumped on the car and we went to South Africa in Nelspruit, where we stayed for 4 days.
We had some Christmas shopping over there, as there are a couple of lovely malls (forget this kind of things in Maputo) and where the things are affordable (forget even this in Maputo!) and where we enjoyed a couple of movies with our kids (the last Hobbit and the cartoon from Disney Big Hero 6)!!!

One morning, we decided to visit (a good stroll in the open air was needed!) the Lowveld National Botanical Garden, where we had a lovely walk immersed in the greenery of the African Rainforest and where the silence was interrupted by the roaring of the falls ….

I took the following pictures with my smartphone, as my camera was forgotten in the closet of our hotel room….ooooppppsss…….. !!!!!

Enjoy!!!

…some plastic bottles, but ..

do you see a horse's head, too?

the Balloon Milkweed

the Strangler Fig Tree

Fig Tree

…. Those faces !!!!!

It was not a sunny day and we were not able to see any hippos, but you know what?? It was a very good day spent together with my 3 men, big, medium and little!!!!

xxxx Alessandra