wakey wakey, rise and shine
So, what about this halfterm? What happened? I feel as though I have been turned inside-out and upside down!
Met up with friends for a low-key 'hen do', I suppose you could call it - we all had breakfast together at a local eatery. I then spent some time having a look around the wool shop (yes, I bought yarn, no, I'm not posting any pictures yet).
Sunday 16th
I have a feeling this was a lull before the frenzy of the rest of half term. I've no pictures on my phone to remind me Looking through my sketch book I've found pages like these - I discovered a free on-line brush-pen calligraphy tutorial which is so simple even I can manage it, even at the end of the day. Instead of winding down with a couple of suduko grids at bedtime, I fill a page or two with 'pot-hooks'. I'm up to drawing the letter 'o' now, surprisingly complicated and needing concentration to get right.
Monday 17th
The writing on the page above refers to a 'draw your day' idea; this is a drawing of Monday.
Lazy morning in bed, surfing youtube for tutorials on how to join granny squares together, and also making a few granny squares to practice with before I start on the real ones. Watching the stream behind the house come up and overflow the footpath and cycle track, until it was a broad rushing torrent of water. Copying tutorials on doodling flowers and leaves.
Tuesday 18th
House clearing. Keep or chuck or charity shop. Keep or chuck or charity shop. We came back with bags and crates of stuff - it is uch more tiring going through everything than I thought. The hardest part is dealing with things that my god-mother held dear, but that I have no affinity with, nor any desire to own.
Wednesday 19th
Going through bags and bags of clothing. Charity shop or chuck. In the end, ruthlessness took over, and the heaps of clothes were reduced to one bag of spectacles, one bag of bits and pieces, one load of clothes through the wash to go to charity, and four bags for recycling at the tip. They have a textile bank.
Going to meet with friends in the evening for our regular tea and cake and set-the-world-to-rights was a reward for the labours.
Thursday 20th
Back to my god-mother's house. To see the estate agent to sign paperwork, to the housing estate office to sign paperwork. To her bank to sign paperwork. To her house to scope out the next phase of house clearing.
Everything in the house sits on a green hand crocheted mat. There are dozens of them. Keep, sell, charity shop? Keep sell, charity shop?
Friday 20th
James the gardener came, and I followed him around the garden recording his comments as he named plants and pruned them.
From this....
to this
It was fascinating to watch him chopping and snipping with a pair of long-handled shears - within an hour the whole border was trimmed ready for this season. I would never have dared grab a little lavendar plant by all the loose stems and just take off all the top growth with one snip...
Then I went back to making four dozen Zimbabwean sweet potato cookies for a coffee morning on the Saturday...
Saturday 22nd
World Day of Prayer (formerly Women's World Day of Prayer) is coming up (Friday 6th March) and we always have a coffee morning in our area to show a powerpoint presentation about the country for the year - Zimbabwe - but you've probably guessed. As usual I loaded up soundsystem, microphone, table cloths, a tray of primula plants to make table decorations (just bung each pot into a tea cup), paper napkins (leftover from Christmas as I forgot to buy any), laptop, HDMI cable, printed copy of the script, and two tins of cookies. And, most importantly, my Best Beloved who has to put up with so much. I needed his skill to set up the TV/laptop/sound system/microphone connections, and his strength to put up tables and fetch and carry chairs. The other ladies appeared in good time and somehow, together, all working but not necessarily as a well-oiled machine, the coffee morning happened.
Afterwards I planted up the primulas with the last bit of energy and then sat in a collapsed heap for the rest of the day.
In the evening, Himself went round to deal with a problem on my father's PC, and brought him back for Roast Lamb, roast potatoes, roast sweet potato, carrots and peas.
We were in bed shortly after nine, and asleep before ten.
Sunday 23rd
That's today!
I've sat about - upstairs in bed for the morning, and downstairs still in my dressing gown this evening.
Himslf has brought me breakfast in bed (actually, he has done this just about every day this week!) and lunch (he has done this just about every day this week) and supper (he has done this just about every day this week).
I've been adding squares to this blanket that I'm making using yarn that I've found in my god-mother's house. I might not be able to, or want to keep her stuff, but making this blanket is a peaceful sort of thing to be doing, and when it is finished I'll have something useful to keep or give away.
Deep breath, and back into the fray! I've an easy start though - just three pupils to teach all day.
I enjoyed reading about your half term.
ReplyDeleteThe sorting of stuff to send to the charity shop overwhelms me when I read about it- there's just so much stuff in the world! Stuff, stuff, stuff! So hard for you to have to deal with it not wanting it to go to waste!
I really like your painting and your plant doodles.
The gardener did a good job!
Haha, that sounds like the way I pruned my lavender last year! I was a bit slap happy with it!
Zimbabwe is where the previous priest at my old church came from. I do miss his family- they moved to Kenya last year as he and his wife wanted their children to have a chance to spend some of their growing up years in Africa.