It's Raining And Smooth Sophistication Has Been Restored

I was delighted to see grey skies and drizzle this morning , though less delighted when it started pouring while I cycled home from the market , it's true . But this song has been haunting me all week and , quite frankly I was getting a little tired of skipping about ,  chirping "Hip , hip , hip  hooray ! " . Our neighbours  are quite relieved , too , I expect .
Luckily before I turned into a midsummer version of Scrooge , I managed to drag Husband off to Harlingen and we had coffee and apple pie in a little cafè opposite this pretty flower shop in the middle of town

 We found an elephant for Small Grandson , too ,  though he'll have to make do with the photo. , poor boy

And these irises are for you ...

 

Edited .

I've just listened to the song for the first time all the way through and I must apologise for some of the lyrics  .  They're "very of their time ",  I'm afraid .

I'm Not Lost After All !

Sonata:
I don't know what happened . There I was wandering along blogging now and then , when the fancy took me ... and , all of a sudden I wasn't . I mean , as Smitonius reported , I was still wandering along ...  I just couldn't access the blog's dashboard and write about any of it  .

 I was still  Keeping Fit . I staggered into the supermarket on the way home from the class last week and the young shelf-filler , rather concerned  , asked if I was alright .
' It's fine , ' I gasped , ' I've just been to the gym ' .
And I'm quite enjoying it , actually . The physiotherapist is a great believer in Mind Over Matter and she's almost convinced me . I only faltered when she told us to find our inner belly dancer ....

Going to the summer fabric fair , admiring the new season's designs and and wondering where I'd wear this Nightwatch dress to

 ... not the Rijks Museum , anyway .  Sewing little squares and planning  to sew these new fat quarters into Log Cabins .

Cycling past the City Farm , checking the progress of turkeys , hens, swans , goslings and ducklings and the new baby black and white goat whose bleats always seem to end in a question mark  .

Watching Masterchef ( and now delighted that Ping won ) and buying old cookery books whenever I see them ... my current favourite is "At Blanchard's Table", written by Melinda Blanchard and her husband Robert who have a restaurant in Anguilla . I seem to have become addicted to their Grilled Portobello Mushrooms , stacked with spinach and shaved Parmesan . ( They taste better upright , I think you'll find )

And searching for the key to open our blog ... which lay under my nose , all the time . that little blue thing like a Gruffalo's teeth in between the padlock and the refresh buttons at the top of the browser .