Last night was quilting class. Got on well, showed completed Illinois block, and have been working on another, which is shaping up well. I show full details and pictures on my craft site.

Anyway, we get into some interesting conversations in class. We covered last night goldfish (life expectancy of), phantom pregnancy, American quilt tours, and of course the perennial subject of chickens. It turns out that one of the group actually keeps chickens (19 of them) and so we are all interested in buying eggs and have placed orders. We talked about the recent programmes and our tutor said that over the weekend she had bought a free range chicken, costing £12 - eek! She hadn't actually told her husband how much it had cost, and she made us all laugh by explaining that at that price she was determined to extract every single ounce of goodness from it, right down to making stock with the bones, after conjuring about four meals off it.

The atmosphere in class is intensely feminine and cosy, and we have some very interesting conversations between learning and while we are working on our blocks. Apparently that is what used to happen at quilting bees - I can imagine it being very pleasurable, although possibly gossippy?

In the garden, we have two crocus about to bloom and lots of interesting spikes coming up in the beds - interesting to see things starting to happen. The fish have been quite lively too - not as torpid as they were last winter. We are not over the cold weather yet though I feel.