Tuesday 31st July - Another Useful Day

Last night, towards suppertime, Himself appeared with an oozing jar. My sour-dough starter had been over-enthusiastic and managed to make it's way up and over and out of the jar, in spite of the (loose) lid. As the jar was on the top shelf, at his eye-level, it had appeared rather threatening when he had opening the fridge in search of supper. So, the final tasks before bed time were sorting out the sour dough starter into a loaf, a batch of overnight sour-dough pancakes, and a smaller, more manageable jar of starter.   

Today I managed to clear another load of tasks that had been cluttering up my head...

I had a letter and two cards to write, the loo to top-to-bottom clean (yes, as there is no alternative to the upstairs loo you are permitted to use it - carefully) and the downstairs floors to hoover.

I managed all this - and some bonus items as well; dusting the upstairs book case and my bedside table, sending off a music certificate straightaway within minutes of receiving it, and remembering to make the sour-dough pancakes with the mix I stirred up last night. (If you leave the "overnight sour dough pancake recipe" longer than overnight, the results are deeply unpleasant and go straight in the bin. Moral - taste the first cooked pancake before you put yourself to the trouble of making any more)

The sour dough loaf that I had put on overnight was less successful - if I make enough of these we could build an extension. I console myself with the thought that rye bread tends to be a bit solid and chewy, and it does have a very good flavour, especially with Jarlsberg cheese, or even honey.

Hurrah! I don't know how long all this industriousness will continue, but oddly enough, clearing the to-do list is lifting a weight off my mind. I've checked the scales - and regretfully I have to admit that it is not clearing any weight off my body.

I watched yet more watercolour painting videos yesterday and this morning. I'm finding the whole thing completely fascinating. You can click the back button and find something else on the internet if you are bored, because all the rest of this post is going to be pictures.

Here's an apple, drawn last night with Inktense pencils that I bought about five years ago... it is startlingly like the one in the book.

 
Here's a whole selection of different brush strokes made using a smallish flat brush

Here's a random flowery sort of page - the exercise was to paint imaginary flowers "fast and loose", not bothering with accuracy, but to just get the paint onto the paper. It gave me a chance to try the Rose and the Hookers Green that I bought yesterday. I am wowed by the rose colour.

 
I'm doing all these pictures in what I have taken to calling my "Book of Mistakes". It is the Journal that I was given several Christmases ago, and hadn't started yet. The paper is truly unsuitable for water colour, which is a great comfort because if I manage to produce anything half-way decent then that is a success indeed. The creator of the journal, Susan Hable, has obligingly filled half the pages with random designs and quotes, so my plan of completing the journal over the Summer is made that much easier. 



We had a phone call from our Canadian friends, bringing us up to speed with all their news - "ah well," they said, "time for us to get some breakfast". I looked at my watch - half past two.

By the way, the Fiat Panda is 0.9 l, not 2. Although it has 2 cylinders and is turbo. That sounds as if I know what I am typing.