Snap shot ...

I'm going to try and do a post once a week about four lovely things.  I have a twitter friend who lists five things every day, which must be quite difficult.  I'm sure there are five wonderful things that happen to us all every day, even if our day has generally been pretty grotty, but by the end of the day I'm far too exhausted to remember anything!  Hopefully thinking of four things once a week won't be quite so taxing *.  So, here we go for this week:

My sister-in-law gave me a beautiful orchid last year for my birthday and I was a bit worried it wouldn't survive.  Orchids are notorious for being difficult to nurture but I placed it in the warmest room in the house (our kitchen conservatory) and kept the soil damp, as suggested in the little instruction tag.  Within a couple of months it was looking sad and neglected so I cut off the completely wilted section and thought I'd leave it to see what would happen.  Amazingly it survived the freezing winter and lo and behold it has started to shows signs of life with these pretty little buds appearing. 

Katie is back riding Jay!  His 3 months of rest, due to a sprain above his front hoof, have finally come to an end and as the vet requested he see Katie riding him in walk for his final visit (due on Thursday), we felt she'd better get back in the saddle beforehand, just in case!  Our yard owner helped out yesterday with the first ride and today Katie rode unaided.

Would love to hear how you've been celebrating the jubilee this weekend?  I have to admit, it's been pretty quiet in our hamlet, although the pub did have a karaoke on Friday and a bouncy castle on Saturday!  Some of the houses have put flags and bunting up which looks wonderful and it was lovely that the sun made an appearance today, after all that rain yesterday.  We watched snippets of the Thames Pageant on TV - loved the bit with Joey the War Horse puppet doing his little bit.  We also watched Prince Charles' programme - just loved that, and All the Queen's Horses last night which made pleasant viewing.  Have been reading about the picnic goers in the grounds of Buckingham Palace and how they each received a rather special hamper - how fabulous.  We shall be watching some of the concert tonight on TV too - quite a good line up I think.

Finally (and no pic for this one), Katie had her IGCSE English Language exam this week and seemed to feel it went OK.  I didn't realise how hard she's been working on this until I filed all her bits and bobs this afternoon.  Her writing has come along so much since we started on this course about a year ago and I know it'll improve even more as we progress to English Literature for next year.  Her love of reading has lead her to start writing book reviews for various authors which she is really enjoying, and she's set up her own blog purely for this.

Hope you all enjoy the rest of your long weekend - tell me what you've been up to.

Ellie x

* I've decided to re-call my weekly catch up posts "Snap shot ..." rather than "Four things ..." - just in case I'm stuck for four things lol!