Wednesday 2 nd July - A musical oddity?

 The 'oddity' is at the end of the post.

Following a tree

I meant to take my pictures at the end of the month. It's not far into July. The leaf cover is so full that the two trees, giant oak and little apple tree, appear to have merged into one;

Our cave under the apple tree has been a wonderful retreat in the past very hot days.

I can sit there and peer out through the branches and see right into the house, right through the house to the street beyond. I believe it is called 'June drop', when the excess little green unripe apples fall to the ground.  There are still plenty left on the tree.

Soup

I gave away my stick blender and whisk last week, and bought, or rather BB bought a cordless one. Reaching over to plug in my blender was really a bit of a reach for me, and I'm all about simplifying things wherever I can. My friend needed a blender, I wanted a cordless one. A no-brainer. So fresh pea, or rather frozen pea soup is back on the menu. I added a big bag of frozen peas and some creme fraiche to my shopping order in anticipation. 

Surprise

When I enter the previous days step count onto my virtual hike along The Cotswold Way, I always use the 'little yellow man', google street view', to look at the countryside. 

A few days ago, in the heatwave, this was the view;

Not what I expected! I guess it all depends on who uploaded what, when and where!

Musical Oddity

When this came up on youtube I just had to share it!

BEETHOVEN - Duet in E-flat “with two obbligato eyeglasses,” WoO 32 Pinchas Zukerman, viola Amanda Forsyth, cello Tanglewood Music Festival June 2020

Further googling brought me this explanation. I'm sorry,  something has gone mad with the highlighting, and I'd rather watch Emma Raducanu than fiddle around with it any longer!

The piece is actually a Duet in E flat major for viola and cello, not violin and cello. It's titled "Duett mit zwei obligaten Augengläsern" in German, which translates to "Duet with two obbligato eyeglasses". The "eyeglasses" part of the title is a humorous reference to the fact that both Beethoven (who played the viola part) and his friend Nikolaus Zmeskall (who played the cello part) needed glasses to see while playing. 

Tuesday 1st July - Cover Story for June

June's stitching was to embellish the horizontal joins, and add the lettering.

This is Ang's

Her lettering is amazing! She's been adventurous with the embellishments too; the rick rack braid border is so clever. It's worth zooming in to be mystified how she did the fancy work.

Her flat gifts too... back when we started it was just 'a little something'; now it's like an early birthday 

I think she's made the bookmark on her machine perhaps. Also coriander seeds, and a needle threader quick unpick thingy, and a book of poems from the local hospice. I've got things to do and things to read!

Here's my stitching;

I used stem stitch, and added an extra ribbon to cover the white space that mysteriously appeared above it.

The next challenge will be finishing off... I've bought a new notebook specially!

Music 

The Cantique de Jean Racine, set by a 19-year-old Gabriel Fauré and sung by by Voces8

Monday 30th June - tooooo hot

 Suddenly, in the afternoon, I couldn't bear to be indoors another moment. It was so hot, and the air so still in spite of every window and door (except the front door) being wide open.

BB helped me transfer myself to underneath the apple tree with books and coffee and writing stuff and drawing stuff and painting stuff and O2 cylinders (2) and a cushion... I was settled in for a good long stay!

Inside the leafy cave it was cool and shady and there was a breathe of air - it was definitely cooler, slightly fresher.

I finished writing up my holiday diary, did some drawing,  partly of the holiday,  partly of what I saw around me;

Until it was time to go back inside several hours later. It's going to be the sane tomorrow;

Whenever I am sure I'm going to melt, I reread this entry for 14th June, the second one, from a collection of diary entries for each day, in an old book I found;

('Starved' is an old-fashioned word for feeling very cold)

.....

Cover Story; Ang and I both received our parcels from each other today. I'm going to send her a picture of her work and as she forgot to do that before she posted it.  So I'll share my pictures of both pieces tomorrow. Now comes the final part of fitting it onto a notebook; I might have to buy one first!

.....

Music

It's still much too hot for Tchaikovsky or Elgar or Dvorak. But this tinkly piano piece is perfect. I'd run out of inspiration and turned to my copy of 'A Year of Wonder' by Clemency Burton-Hill for ideas. This was her choice for 28th June.

I remember teaching this; such a gorgeous piece to play as well.

Sunday 29th June - Experiments in prayer 2 - Colouring

 Last Sunday I wrote about praying 'with the breath', taken from Miranda Threlfall-Holmes' book 'The Little Book of Prayer Experiments'. 

I've been geen trying this all week, repeating a phrase or a verse in time with my breathing as a way of staying focused, connected. It's something I shall continue doing.

Another 'experiment' relates to Ang's recent post about a Scripture Journaling workshop she went to. M T-H calls it 'Colouring the Bible'.

You can create your own page to colour in, or there are plenty of free sheets to download and print, and even books of prayerful phrases to colour.

Eg www.flamecreativekids.blogspot.uk

In order to avoid copyright issues I've just quickly roughed out an example;

The idea is that as you colour in the picture, you let your mind dwell on the words, and think about the meaning of them, letting them sink into your mind. She puts it so much better in her book! Anyway, I shall give the colouring prayers a go this week and see how I get on.

Music 

Having discovered that so many suites called 'serenade' have been composed by so many composers I thought I'd explore further. Here's Elgar. I'm surprised how familiar they sound. I've obviously been listening to them for years without realising who composed whatl

Saturday 28th June - phase 1 done

 Pat on the back! Gold star! Proceed to next level!

Here's the old table with a few boxes stacked on top. I've offered the tile cutter set, and indeed the actual table around our church. If there are no takers then off they go to charity. This was the state of play last week.

This morning, before the day heated up, BB cleared the boxes to... to... to somewhere else and dismantled the table. Then we, or rather, he hoovered the carpet AND the wall (!) and cleared the old desk in our bedroom. 

I have a feeling this desk dates back to the beginning of yhe last century, as we know that the country house it came from burned down in around 1905, give or take a few years, and this was rescued from the fire.

We dusted off the desk and moved it in. To our surprise we discovered that it has  matching false drawer fronts, including handles, at the back! Presumably it was designed to be a free standing table in the middle of a room.

Now it needs a more thorough dusting, and a proper polish. The plan is for this room to become a study / spare room, once we have excavated the accretion of stuff in and around and under and on top of the high sleeper bed on the other wall. 

All this clearing and shuffling is complicated by the fact that the room is 9nly about 8 feet by 8 feet!

....

My Cover Story Collaboration stitching is now trundling across the country, and will probably cross paths with Ang's, as we both posted them at our respective post offices this morning.

I decided mine needed an extra addition, and quickly stitched away before posting. Only running stitches, so it didn't take long.

After many years of trying and failing to get on with traditional metal thimbles, I came across leather thimbles. What a game changer! Here's mine on one of my stubby fingers. 

It has made everything so much easier, and well worth investigating if you can't make a metal one work. I wondered if the eye of the needle would pierce the leather and stab my finger, but that hasn't happened in all the years I've been using it.

....

Music

After reasonable temperatures this morning, this afternoon suddenly became so, so, hot. It's only now, at about 7.30pm, that I'm beginning to get any energy back!

Here's the first movement of the Serenade for Strings Dvorak as a suitably gentle way of easing into the evening. Or morning. Or afternoon or whatever time it is when you read this! I think this is op 22... there are so many serenades for strings I'm losing track.

Friday 27th June - small victories!

 We managed to get all the way to the wall in the snall bedroom, uncovering the table that we were trying to clear right down to the wood. And the dust. No spiders, thankfully,  at keast, not that we actually saw.

Our efforts were punctuated by cries of 'I was looking for this the other day' (the LEGO maze kit we built and played with one Christmas) and 'what on earth...?' (Son's GCSE Design and Technology project from mumble mumble years ago).

Four more bags for charity, one bag of rubbish, and several crates of defunct computer bits for electrical recycling. 

(I don't want to even open the door of the other spare bedroom... guess where a lot of stuff got moved to!)

I've finished the Cover Story Stitching for June, and will pack and post it tomorrow. The next stage will be to attach a lining and choose a note book for it. I can't wait!

Music

Bilbo's song, sung by the vocal group Cantabile, on their album Lullabies and Goodnights. 

A favourite song from a favourite album.