Early Spring

The weather has finally begun to warm up, the time has "sprung" forward and the evenings are lighter... it must be spring! I love spring. Everywhere I look, daffodils have popped up and tulips are just beginning to bloom. Last weekend we bought a lawn mower, unlike any I've seen before, but a lawn mower nevertheless. It doesn't have wheels, but hovers above the ground when it turns on - perfect for our patch of grass in the garden.

So I thought I'd catch you up on the last couple of weeks of our lives. Our main focus has been to get the cars in proper working order again, but I won't even start on that never-ending story.

While I was in Ohio, I bought Martin Gamston, a friend from church, what I like to call a "proper" sweatshirt, a.k.a. an Ohio State sweatshirt. When I first met him, he was wearing a sweatshirt with the name of the state up north on it (we all know which state I mean), and I told him that that would have to change. He bought the sweatshirt at an outlet mall somewhere near London and just liked the color of it and that it had a hood. It was more of a joke than anything, I didn't want to offend his choice of clothing... but once a Buckeye, always a Buckeye... Martin wearing the beautiful OSU sweatshirt and Matt Gamston modeling the old, tattered, dark blue (I won't even mention the state) sweatshirt.

Two weeks ago, I celebrated my 29th birthday. After church, Jeff and I went to Toby Carvery for lunch. A carvery is sort of like a buffet in that you serve yourself and you pick what you want, but it's limited to one trip up to the "buffet", which is fine because as you can see from the picture, we weren't going to starve! On my plate is lamb with mint sauce, turkey with cranberry sauce, beef with horseradish sauce, peas and carrots, cauliflower, two roast potatoes, a stuffing ball, and the star of the show, a Yorkshire pudding with a drizzle of gravy. Yum-o!
After our hearty lunch, we drove over to the Painswick Beacon, which is "250 acres of common land, which offers some excellent views across the Severn Valley. On the top of the beacon the outlines of a large Iron Age hill fort can be seen. The fort covers 7 acres and is triangular in shape. Double banks and ditches on three sides provided defenses to the fort, while the steep slope on the north-east side meant that a single ditch sufficed there. In the centre of the fort is a deep circular depression. It was first thought that this was a well, but it seems more likely to have been made for some ritual purposes."
We had beautiful views of the Severn River, Gloucester, and the Malverns that day.

For Easter, I made lemon and thyme chicken, roasted carrots, asparagus salad with blue cheese vinaigrette, Parmesan and thyme rolls, and lemon meringue pie.