Happy Easter

My goodness those little eggs from Denmark didn't disappoint. I put them out on Good Friday but waited until Easter Monday to try them, the traditional day for egg rolling and eating when I was little.  I set them on a pretty glass dish

Then on my special Easter tea towel

They are truly delicious, a crispy sugar coating covers a layer of chocolate and then the most wonderful truffly textured marzipan chocolate and liquorice filling, with I think tiny pieces of liquorice that are slightly salty and bitter, delicious. Mr FF and I are limiting ourselves to no more than two a day and wondering where we can get more.  I shall search the net.

A couple of lovely Easter views from the penthouse, the leaves are coming out on the trees so our view is gradually changing

and of course we also got some snow, it wouldn't be Easter without eggs and snow.

Hot chocolate

I think I have a fairly healthy relationship with chocolate, I don't have to eat it on a regular basis, can go weeks without any and make my Christmas chocolate gifts last for ages.  I used to love plain dark chocolate but as I got older I've drifted back to Cadbury's Dairy Milk as my bar of choice. 

So I was a bit surprised when Mr FF came home with a packet of dark chocolate with orange and chilli for me, surprised enough to say I probably wouldn't like it. Made by Oddfellows Chocolate Co I loved it and am hooked, a little goes a long way which is just as well as it doesn't seem so easy to find other than by mail order.  Mr FF bought mine at the Bradford Beer Festival, the various flavours of chocolate being recommended as pairing well with real ales and ciders, a combination I haven't tried.

I mentioned my new taste discovery to friends recently and they gave me a bar from Hotel Chocolat which is probably more readily available, delicious but not quite as warming.

And can I just show you these which are another favourite, something to do with the way they melt I think, to me the chocolate seems to drop in temperature.  Have a happy chocolaty Easter weekend, I shall selflessly be sampling my Danish marzipan and liquorice eggs on your behalf.

And patterns I have made up

Been a busy time both here at the penthouse and away from it.  We had a great time with our Danish friends who made their first visit to Yorkshire and took particular delight in the dry stone walls that criss cross the hills.  It's nice to be reminded how beautiful your country is by seeing things through new eyes.

They brought me this beautiful candle holder/vase/whatever you wish that is just lovely and pleasingly large as well as chocolates and a bag of marzipan and liquorice eggs, two of my favourite flavours in one.  I'll let you know what they are like come Easter.
The day the Danes departed we rushed off to our friends who live near Pickering in North Yorkshire for five nights cat sitting their elderly boy Panther.   
Surprisingly since we spent so much time keeping Panther company, he gets a little anxious on his own, I haven't done that much knitting. However I have been making space in my knitting bag by using up some left over yarn to produce socks for Mr FF.  I warned him they might not be a matching pair but it seems now, after much weighing, that the socks will be identical with not much yarn to spare

We  got home on Sunday afternoon and life is returning to normal.  Mr FF continues to try to source the perfect doors and windows for our lounge, we now have a builder on stand by for next month and I am delighting in the spring like weather and have ventured out twice now without a coat.

Our Danish friends went out to Lazio on Monday, they said it's unseasonably cold out there and their house is taking a while to warm up.  I'm rather pleased we won't be leaving for a while yet if not exactly delighted at the thought of all that building work.

Patterns I have messed up

I finished the tunic of unknown yarn and I did knit the sleeve cuffs in pattern making them slightly flared, it's not a great expanse of knitting and I don't think eating will be as difficult as I envisaged.  Because of the problems I had getting the tension right, the armholes are a little neat and I wish I'd decreased on perhaps every third row instead of second to give more raglan.  I discovered the yarn came from a charity shop and cost me £1.50, with some leftover, so no complaints. However I like the pattern so much I am tempted to knit it again in proper 4 ply, perhaps cotton, though I do have some Guernsey cotton I could use which might be near enough, here we go again I hear you say.

Another pattern I have messed about with is Kali Kardia by Josie Kitten, my blog chum. 

I think its very clever to produce your own pattern and very generous to offer it free on Ravelry but I'm not sure how she is going to feel about me adapting it. I didn't read the pattern properly and instead of knitting one row purling the next between the chequer board rib, I knitted two rows.  I then pulled it out and following the pattern but decided that I actually preferred the mistake so pulled it out again and went back to knit two rows. 

It's a jolly nice pattern to knit which ever way you do it, I always like it when the pattern follows nicely down the top of the foot and the instructions are very clear, it helps I find to use the right ply yarn.

I am currently waiting for the Danes to arrive, sitting in an immaculately presented penthouse.  Mr FF has even moved the satellite dish he brought back from Italy but now cannot find a use for out of the second bathroom into the loft.  Life just gets better and better.