Friday 17th April - ah... end of the week eeek...

 The day began with an unscheduled magical mystery tour along lanes I'm sure we've never travelled before. The main road was closed, and the back lanes were quite a challenge. I think, I  hope they are dealing with the state of the road surface which has been steadily going from inconvenient to bad to worse to properly dangerous over the winter.

Meanwhile I enjoyed visas of bluebells glowing under the greening woodland canopy, while BB dealt with steering the car between narrow hedges and potholes.

The purpose of our expedition? It's covid vaccination time. Done and dusted this morning, that's it for another six months. So far, so good; I'm fine, BB has a bit of a sore arm.

Today Me was grateful to Last Month's Me for poaching several chicken breasts, slicing and freezing them in portions. It meant producing stir-fry chicken in satay sauce for lunch took very little time. 

Today Me had more cause for gratitude as supper was tomato and vegetable soup with some fried pancetta, and toast. I add a bit of cold meat, or some pasta or rice, or any leftovers, to vary these batch cooked soups.

Now, of course, I'll need to replenish the freezer for Future Me. 

How about another flashmob? I love Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. And I love looking at the expressions on people's faces

I've worked out it's the Vienna Opera Company, and I think it's the main train station;

SolistInnen, Chor, Orchester der Volksoper Wien boten im April Fahrgästen und Passanten eine besondere Performance. Die KünstlerInnen lösten sich aus der Menschenmenge - eine "Passantin" begann, weitere "PassantInnen" - sowie als ÖBB-MitarbeiterInnen verkleidete KünstlerInnen - setzten nach und nach ein.: 

Thursday 16th April - flowers in a teacup

 

Aren't these gorgeous! My April flowerbe box arrived today. 

The cup and saucer have sentimental value for me. I remember my parents buying boxes and boxes (so it seemed) of this pattern; plates, bowls, cups and saucers, in a market on holiday in the Netherlands when I was about ten years old. It's a good thing our car had a decent sized boot. (Might have been the Triumph Herald Estate).

These dishes were to bulk up what was left of a set with a very similar pattern. That set came from. Cornwall, and I know it was bought in around 1930 by my grandmother. I've got the half dozen bits from it, and still use one of the last breakfast cups and saucers for a proper cup of tea.

Good heavens, I've just worked out they are nearly a hundred years old!

Verdi's drinking song from La Traviata... though I don't think this song is about tea.

Italian opera stars spoof customers at Australian market. This is an effort to tease and bring classical opera out of the symphony hall and to the masses who may not normally see and hear it.

Wednesday 15th April - knit, sew, read, repeat

I have been knitting;

The first two strips of the experimental cardigan almost completely sewn together. Another three to do and I will have finished the back. 

and sewing;

the next quilt-as-you-go is underway, and more prosaically the elastic in my pj's trousers has stopped being elastic. Still a bit of sewing to finish stitching up the waist band.

and continuing to binge read through the Dr Nell Ward thriller whodunnits. I'm on to book three; A Mischief of Rats. In about twenty minute's reading time I should have reached the bit where Nell's life is in danger - it's always just after three-quarters through the book!

Now, after a 'sitting down' day I need to do something about my woeful step count  🤔 before bedtime 🌙 

Tuesday 14th April - needles and threaders

This was originally a box of Christmas chocolates from M and S, a present from my father several years ago. When the lid was opened, the picture inside lit up and it was full of delicious chocolates.

The box was far too pretty to throw away, so we used it for 'chocolate o'clock' treats for several years. Then the lights eventually stopped working, but still we kept the box. Which it just as well, as I was looking for something to keep my perle threads in, where they wouldn't keep unravelling and tangling.

I'm able to fit them all inside the box! How lucky is that!

BB gave me some attractive sewing notions one year, bought at an exhibition at the V and A. They included the best needle threader I have ever owned;

And a little wooden container of self- threading  needles. I rather ignored the needles for a while. They looked too large and thick for ordinary sewing. 

But I am a complete convert. I would definitely use finer traditional needles for 'proper', fine sewing, but for everyday stuff they are brilliant. I've found they work well with ordinary thread and perle cotton, but are not so easy the thread with stranded embroidery floss.

Here's a diagram I found that shows how they work;

You just pull the thread through the gap at the top, until it rests in the centre space. Some kind of magic stops the thread from freeing itself as you sew.

They have certainly made it much easier for me to thread needles, especially in the evenings.

Reading...

I have been enjoying the Dr Nell Ward thriller series, so when I saw the latest book 'A tribe of tigers' was 99p on kindle I only took seconds to click on 'buy now'. It's about number eight in the series, ando I don't think it would make much sense to readers unless they started at the beginning with 'A Murder of Crows'. Nell is an ecologist, and in the course of her work - advising on conservation and rewilding etc - gets mixed up in murder...

I'm also reading 'All the colours of the dark' by Chris Whitaker, another 99p download. It is... odd, but strangely addictive because of the characters of the young girl, Saint, and boy, Patch. It's centred around the abduction of Patch, and Saint's efforts to find him, and now I'm reading about how their lives are changed by the experience. I'm a bit apprehensive at the moment because they both look set to marry the wrong people for the wrong reasons, and I'm hoping that's not going to happen...

Sunday 12th April - The Day of Rest

 And so we rested. For most of the day anyway.

I stood and watched the squirrel struggling to get to the last of the sunflower hearts.

The lilac is in flower.

The garden is sunny, although there's a chilly wind still.

Perfect. 

Offenbach; the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman 

Saturday 11th April - braving the weather forecast

 Cloudy start, 40% probability of rain, temperature feels like 9°C, sunny periods later...retty normal for April. We wrapped warmly and set off to meet with Son and Daughter to celebrate his birthday (belatedly) and Easter (even more belatedly)

And hurrah! The sun shone and the temperature rose. Every met-up is an occasion, whatever the weather... but especially when it's spring and there are flowers and little lambs and sunshine.

So I've had plenty of fresh air today, enough for weeks!

....

Before we left, and after we came home, I managed to finish three things;

The first of the strips for my experimental patchwork cardigan. I'm enjoying it, because the rows are short so it's easy to pick up and put down, because the patterns are simple and change every six inches, and I'm using a variegated yarn which keeps changing colour, all exactly right for my butterfly brain.

I have completely finished this patch now. I managed to talk myself into outlining the flowers and it has hade such a difference. 

Finally I sewed up the hat. It's too big for me, and I don't like the colours, so I'll save it for the shoebox appeal at Christmas time.

Finally, Next-door's cat has found a new hiding place in our front garden;

at least he's away from our bird feeders. The RSPB are saying we should stop feeding the birds now it's warmer, so we'll put them away now.

Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev; the cat theme;

My favourite moment is listening to the orchestra illustrate in sound when Peter lowers the rope over the wolf to capture it. I used to get the children to listen out for it, and watch  for the smiles to appear.

Friday 10th April - and Thursday 9th too

 We've had several days of sunny warm weather which has been enough to let the countryside erupt into greeness. Bluebells in the woods, leaves on the trees, hedges filling out. Some friends came home from holiday landing at the local airport this morning, and noticed how green the countryside looked from the air.

I thought we'd go out yesterday morning for a coffee and a sausage sandwich. Unfortunately I became hopelessly confused about which Village Stores we were heading for; Alfold, Kirdford,  Loxwood, Plaistow, Ifold.... we drove round in circles going to all of them in the end - they are close together, linked by leafy crinkle crankle narrow lanes, narrow bridges overcstreams, shadowed by bluebell woods... and finally arrived at Kirdford Village Stores. BB was very patient, said it helped to keep his skills driving skills sharp.

They didn't have any baps; to their consternation I picked up a packet of hamburger rolls, and asked 'if I buy these, will you put our sausages in them?' After some thought they said they could, so we sat outside with our sausages and dr8nks, soaking up the sun and lovely countryside. 

There were these two large carved wooden garden ornaments beside the apple tree trees, aren't they wonderful?

Today we did - nothing. 

No, that's not entirely true; I finished knitting that hat and it just needs sewing up. If I knit another I shall buy double pointed needles and knit it in the round; I do so dislike knitting rows of purl!

I'm also a good away along the first of the five strips which will make up the back of the next cardigan I'm hoping to make.

For supper we had sausage baps again. I cooked three sausages and some sliced onions in a dish in the airfryer (30 mins at 180, turn halfway through), and toasted the baps. Then, I put a smear of chutney, the sausages and onions and some spinach leaves in each one. They were delicious!

....

Aaron Copeland, from Appalachian Spring

Wednesday 8th April - Knitting Madness

 We had a long long morning, or so it seemed; traipsing round Curry's electrical superstore to look at ovens, mini ovens, built in ovens and hobs... then moving three stores along to look at new kitchens (Wren). Finally to another superstore to look for buttons! 

I would reckon BB was very relieved that I was near the end of my stamina, so we just went in, found the buttons, paid for them and came home, with barely more than 5 minutes of eyeing up the yarn in passing...

I was very pleased with myself for knitting a small swatch with a buttonhole in it. So much easier to tuck into my little bag than the cardigan! Here's the Completely Finished Cardigan;

Those are BB's hands holding it up. It is still too warm for me to put it on for a fashion shoot. You can see how the back is longer than the front.

Here's the photographs on Ithe pattern so you can see it's supposed to be there

I'm using up a ball of super chunky left over; I'd bought an extra one, thinking I was going to run out, but fortunately I didn't need it as I'd bought the wrong colourway! Here's it is;

Being a variegated yarn the cable panel doesn't really show, which is just as well because I'm not used to doing them at all. I'm using a 10mm crochet hook as a cable needle, to match the knitting needles and it's working very well.

Finally, I have embarked upon this cardigan

The pattern is a freebie from Lovecraft, and uses a paintbox super chunky yarn. Except that I'm knitting it on thinner, Sirdar Jewelspun yarn on smaller needles. It's knitted in vertical strips of different patterns, so I reckon as long as my strips are the same width and length I might be ok. I'm not thinking about shoulder and neck shaping yet. Inspiration will come in due course...

And now here's a sweet little story; apparently Borodin's daughter came and sat on his lap when he was at the piano, and played this well-known tune, and he improvised and then wrote down this duet part;

I used to base an entire music lesson, several, perhaps, on this piece. I'd give the children two chime bars, or boomwhackers each or whatever was to hand. I'd arrange them in groups of four; the first person would play the first line, then the second person the second line, etc. Slowly, slowly we would work away until everyone could play their line in time with the recording. 

I was going to say you could have heard a pin drop, they were concentrating so fiercely, but of course it was actually far too noisy!

Tuesday 7th April - one week behind

 Today I caught up with last week's daily Lent email course... 

and now I'm putting up this month's photograph of my tree, the little witch hazel in a pot, which I was planning to post on the first of the month.

BB took the picture for me on Sunday. Just look at all those leaves, all new and crinkly! Those are red tulips in the background. 

The peony that had apparently started flowering last week turned out to be red tulips buried among the vigorous tall late daffodils. That's a bit of a relief! 

I do love tulip season.

Monday 6th April - My Christmas Cardigan

 'It will be finished for Christmas New Year Epiphany Valentine's Day Easter Day Bank Holiday Monday...' and so it was.

I could look back and see when I started this - or I could not... too long ago. I finished knitting it (after many fits and starts and adjustments) several weeks ago, but stalled out at the sewing up stage. Partly because I didn't trust myself to do a decent job, and partly because I always lose confidence in the fit, even after obsessionally measuring everything at least half a dozen times, and holding it up against myself.

It's come out fine! Not exactly like the pattern - I hadn't intended to choose the cuff option for the sleeves, but it looks like I have, and the original pattern has a lower neck, which I wasn't keen on, so I'm quite happy that this has come out somehow with a high neck. I was also trying to alter the pattern because I didn't care for the way the back was intended to be longer than the front - some kind of design statement? - but what will be, will be. I won't be able to see 'the statement' when I'm wearing it...

I just have to source some 2 inch buttons. At the moment those are stitch markers dangling from where the buttons are to go.  

Sunday 5th April - Easter Sunday

 There must be a hundred versions of this hymn on the Internet,  but this is the best I've ever heard for celebrating Easter.

Saturday 4th April - an in-between day

The day between Good Friday (sad, solemn, subdued) and Easter Sunday (joyful, laughing, exuberant) seems neither one thing nor another.

So I've been doing a bit of this (sewing)  and that (reading) and the other (making a crockpot of soup, and a loaf of bread). In-between activities. 

And all the time eyeing up the one Lindt mini egg left from last weekend, which I decided to keep until Easter. It's 8pm, I only have to hold out for 4 more hours.

Yesterday I caught the last bit of The Sound of Music, from when the family sings 'Goodbye, Farewell' at the competition and then escape. I don't think I've watched it for at least 10 years. I remember we were taken to see it in London on a school trip when I was about 9 or 10 years old. I was at a convent prep school, and I think I realised even then that the nuns who lead the trip were buzzing with excitement. We had to wear our summer dresses, white ankle socks, blazers, straw hats and white gloves.

Today this little clip caught my eye;

They dance so beautifully.

Our family used to occasionally holiday in Austria with an Austrian family, friends of my parents. Their children were the same age as us and they all spoke very good English. The children, teenagers by now, all learned the traditional dances (waltz, landler, etc) at school, as they were expected to dance them at the school end of year prom, clearly a much more formal occasion than ours.

Friday 3rd April - Good Friday

 It's raining, somehow appropriate for the mood of today. 

Bernard Daddi (14th Century). Mary sits to one side, exhausted, John on the other, watching her. Jesus is no longer here; his body is just a grey husk. 

Thank heavens, thank God, for 'spoilers' as they are called; we know, as they do not, that this is not the end, but the gateway to the beginning. 

This is one of the pictures the Patrick Bringley discusses in 'All the Beauty in the World'.

Tenebrae singing 'Crucifixus' by Antonio Lotti (1687 - 1740) conducted by Nigel Short, in the Sainte-Chapelle, Paris.

Crucifixus etiam pro nobis;

sub Pontio Pilato passus,

et sepultus est. 

He was also crucified for us;

under Pontius Pilate, he suffered

and was buried. 

From the Nicene Creed

Thursday 2nd April - Maundy Thursday

 It's been a long day today; a whole series of quite tiring (for me) activities.

Nothing major - going out for coffee, browsing for kitchens...

but I'm off for an early night.

Here are Yo-Yo Ma and Kathleen Stott. I love the way he makes his cello sing so gently, as though the notes are just floating like bubbles.

Sleep well!

Wednesday 1st April - Properly Spring

Still too cold to sit out today, unless you are swathed in hat, coat and scarf. Which I wasn't,  so I didn't.  But I  did stick my nose out of doors for a few minutes to see what I could see. 

Lilac in leaf, wallflowers almost about to flower, and my peony is already flowering, rather recklessly. I thought they didn't come out until later. I can't see the flower though, because it is completely hidden by a clump of tall vigorous daffodils.

I've been reading 'The Violin Maker's Secret' by Evie Woods.

 How would I catergorize it? There's the backstory revealed as the book progresses, tragic romance, passion for music, and the present day romance/thriller, and the whole thing shot through with a kind of magic.

It was one of the options suggested (not by me) for the Book Club. I'm not sure if all the group would gave liked it; it's what I think of as an easy, light-weight book. Fine by me - I enjoy this kind of easy reading as a contrast to weightier tomes. I do like a happy ending. 

....

Here's some 'light-weight' music; Anitra's Tanz from Grieg's 'Peer Gynt' Suite. This has always seemed to me to be as light as air...

Tuesday 31st March - More Donkey Poems

 The Priere du Petit Ane (in English!) was where I began when I was looking for for yesterday's poem. I've got an old copy of Runer Godden's English transactions, but here's the original French as well. My French is nowhere near good enough to read it without the help of the English version. 

Priere du Petit Ane / The Prayer of the Donkey by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold

Mon Dieu, qui m’avez cree

pour que je marche sur la route

toujours,

et que je porte de lourds fardeaux

toujours,

et que je sois battu,

toujours!

Donnez-moi beaucoup de courage et de douceur.

Faites qu’un jour on me comprenne

et que je n’aie plus envie de pleurer,

parce que je m’exprime mal

et qu’on se moque de moi.

Faites que je trouve un beau chardon

et qu’on me laisse le temps de le cueillir.

Faites que je rejoigne un jour

mon petit frere de la Creche.

O God, who made me

to trudge along the road

always,

to carry heavy loads

always,

and to be beaten

always!

Give me great courage and gentleness.

One day let somebody understand me –

that I may no longer want to weep

because I can never say what I mean

and they make fun of me.

Let me find a juicy thistle –

and make them give me time to pick it.

And, Lord, one day, let me find again

my little brother of the Christmas crib.

Amen.

From Prayers from the Ark by Carmen Bernos de Gasztold, translated by Rumer Godden.

I downloaded a cheap kindle book of the King James Bible which is in French/English, the verses repeated in both languages, in the hope that it might inspire me to improve my French. I do sometimes go back to it.

Beth, in the comments yesterday introduced me to this poem;

THE POET THINKS ABOUT THE DONKEY -Mary Oliver

On the outskirts of Jerusalem

the donkey waited.

Not especially brave, or filled with understanding,

he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow,

leap with delight!

How doves, released from their cages,

clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited.

Then he let himself be led away.

Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds!

And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen.

Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave.

I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him,

as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

There is plenty to think about in both poems.

Meanwhile,  I have dared to reach for 

I think, with the garden full of daffodils and tulips, and the forget-me-nots about to flower, we can say Spring is here!

Monday 30th March - what has happened to Hot Cross Buns?

 I was looking to add hot cross buns to my ocado order; these are the varieties that came up;

Red Velvet, Luxury Fruited, Tiramisu, Extremely Lemony Curd Filled, Granny Smith Apple, Extremely Cheesy, Extremely Chocolatey,

I'm pretty sure BB came home with a Millionaire caramel chocolate and fudge version a week or so ago. I tried one, against my better judgement, and left the rest for him! I bought some Luxury Fruited hot cross buns last week, toooooo sweet for my taste.

So I was amused to hear this raised as a topic in the latest episode of the radio programme 'The Kitchen Cabinet' (available on BBCsounds). The panel were unanimous in their outrage at all these flavoured breads masquerading as hot cross buns s. I'm with them every step of the way.

I've ordered ocado hot cross buns with no fancy description on the packet, and as a backup some Fruited tea cakes. The latter are excellent toasted and turned into cheese sandwiches cheddar for BB, brie for me.

And please, please save me from salted caramel in my chocolate Easter Egg!

Time for some calm...

Ascanoi Trombetti (1544 - 1590) Diliguam te Domine, performed by the Royal Wind Music

Sunday 29th March - Lent 6; Palm Sunday

 Palm Sunday is the day when we remember Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, beginning the last week of his life on Earth.

Ang shared a prayer on her blog post today, For the church, for our leaders, and for the people. 

I had the same thought. 'I'll switch on a candle for you', I said to a friend a day or so ago. It doesn't have the same ring to it as lighting a candle, but I can no longer have flames in the house!

It's not the candle that is the prayer, no indeed! It's just a visual sign to remember to pray, off and on through the evening. The actual circumstances and names and details of the request are unknown to me; I don't need that. I just hold the situation in my thoughts, asking for God's blessing and mercy for the people concerned.

So that's my tiny spiritual change for this week; to remember to pray for others.

Back to the donkey,

Saturday 28th March - not lamb kofta as planned

 I dug out a recipe for lamb koftas - goodness me, I posted this in February 2012! - and a good thing too because I can't find the page I ripped out of the magazine. It all went very well until I started to fry the little patties and then everything began to fall apart. Literally. 

So we had lamb mince for lunch, with Mediterranean-style flavours. I found a little tin labelled 'harissa' in a corner of the shelves - wow, that stuff packs a punch! I'm glad I was fairly delicate in adding it to the kofta mince with a tin of chopped tomatoes and some tinned chickpeas! 

Afterwards I  thought I'd sit outside in the sun, in a sheltered spot, with a little tea tray. BB was mowing, so I made my tea and washed up a few bits while he finished. I was treated to a delightful little comedy scene; he paused, looked up, and made best speed with the mower straight to the shed, pausing only to wave at a neighbour while emptying the grass box into the garden waste bin. Over the fence I could see the neighbour's rotary drier shaking as a pair of arms stripped the washing off it at a tremendous rate. 

The skies were darkening and heavy drops of rain were splattering the patio. As soon as the mowing machine and washing were all safely stowed away, and everyone was indoors, the sun came out and it was all just as it had been five minutes before...

British weather...

Chopin, Raindrop Prelude, played by Martha Argerich

Friday 27th March - March madness

 I could have been doing more batch cooking

Instead I spent time browsing YouTube and found this...

Enjoy!

Thursday 26th March - time to relax

 It's been a busy week so far... time to stop and breathe

Emil Gilels playing the Grieg Notturno. Lovely.... listen to the birds, the wind rustling through the trees....

Wednesday 25th March - John Torode Salmon? and weird weather

 John Torode's '10 minute salmon teriyaki noodle' recipe was delicious, at least, if my version was good, his must be amazing.

His recipe uses Chinese noodles, salmon, teriyaki sauce from a bottle or home-made, pak choi, tenderstem  broccoli, spring onions, stock, red chillis and liads of garnishes like fresh coriander and crispy onions and bean sprouts.

Mine was sort of similar, at least regarding the stock and teriyaki sauce. Two out of eight is pretty good for me when I'm 'following ' a recipe. I did ignore all the garnishes.

I used loch trout, Japanese straight-to-wok noodles, a pinch of dried chilli flakes, carrots cut into short thin sticks, broccoli florets, and finely shredded carrots, a sachet of blue dragon sticky teriyaki sauce. 

Having straight-to-wok noodles instead of dried ones meant I had to rethink the cooking order... marinade the fish (I skinned the fillets first), chop veg, bring slightly less water to the boil.

Drop in the fish and marinade, add all the veg except the cabbage, simmer 5 minutes, add cabbage and noodles and simmer another couple of minutes until three noodles were hot, and the fish was cooked.

It all looked pretty good and tasted as though that was how it might be meant to taste... more or less, but not as pretty as John's picture! 

This afternoon has been a good one for weather watching. 'Rain moving across the Southern counties from the west', the say on the television. Several times today it really was raining at the west side of the house, the back, but not at the front. The sky had a band of billowing white clouds along the horizon, a broad band of clear beautiful blue sky, and then a bank of uniformly dark, uncompromisingly grey clouds above. 

Then you'd look again and the skies were totally different. 

There was a sudden clap of thunder, then... nothing.

A sudden pelting of little pellets of white hail skittering along the road and pavements in the rising wind, which vanished as quickly as it had arrived. 

Bright sun for half an hour, then three minutes of rain.

The weather seemed bewitched! I had thought of going out, but I'm glad that we didn't. 

Boud often references exercise videos by April and her mother Aiko on her blog. I tripped across the Japanese 'Radio Taiso' 3 minute exercise programme, which is broadcast every day, and followed by many many Japanese people in their offices, schools,  homes and out in parks.

Here's April and Aiko explaining some of the background and demonstrating the exercises 

This is the youtube link so you can read the description as well.

I think it might make a change from the ballet exercises I had been doing (but wasn't any more!)

Monday and Tuesday, 23rd and 24th March

 Monday; 52 tiny changes for a quieter mind: this week it is all about taking a rest, a proper rest, away from screens and scrolling and working and busy busy busy busy.

Disconnect for a little while once a week; have a leisurely bath, or go for a gentle walk, read a lovely book, listen to music, or just sit without feeling you ought to be doing something useful. You are doing something useful; you are looking after yourself!

 ....

I'm working on the next Quilt as you go patch

I've done needle-turn applique to add the flowers, and I'm using green embroidery thread and stem stich to fill in the space with leaf shapes. 

Every scrappy stash-buster quilt seems to create smaller scraps!  Where does it all end? I'm using an old matress protector as the padding for the  QAYG patches, so now I have scraps from that as well...then inspiration struck;

I have made an Extremely Portable project kit from a sweetie tin.

I've got scraps of fabric and mattress protector, leather thimble, spool of thread, thread cutter, pins and some self-threading needles. Plus card templates. I'm using English Paper Piecing, with a scrap of mattress protector as the 'paper'. The finished patches are about the size of a stamp.

In due course I'll make another project pouch from the patches... I  suspect that day could be a long way into the future. That's ok. I've come to the conclusion I like starting things and doing things more than finishing them. Which bodes ill for the current half-a-hundred UFOs  (UnFinished Objects) scattered around the house...

Sunday 22nd March - Lent 5 - Tiny Changes

 BE KIND, TO OTHERS AND TO YOURSELF

I never really did like 'The Water Babies' by Charles Kingsley. I read it when I went to stay with my grandmother as there weren't many children's books on her shelves, and the ones she had were all from her  own youth (She was born in the 1890s and educated by her much older sisters at home). 

So I read Hilaire Bellocc's 'Cautionary Tales', Rudyard Kipling's 'Jungle Book,', 'The Just-so Stories, 'Stalky and Co', and the dreadful, terrifying 'Strewelpater' which still gives me nightmares.And Charles Kingley's 'Water Babies'. a deeply moral story about Tom who became a waterbaby.

I've always remembered the two ladies, Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby who is loving and kind, and the opposite of the rather frightening Mrs Bedonebyasyoudid who teaches Tom to be good.

This is, of course, Charles Kingsley's rephrasing of the second part of Jesus's summary of the Ten Commandments;

.... to love God with all your mind, body and soul

... to love your neighbour as yourself.

I think in years gone by, people tended to focus too much on 'loving your neighbour', and that denying yourself was good for you.

Now, perhaps, things might have swung too much the other way, 'love yourself' and you should let yourself have anything you want.

Oh the 'Happy Medium'; so difficult to manage in real life! 

I tripped across this poem which makes it all so simple;

 

Small Kindnesses

• 
• 
• 
• 

Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk
down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs
to let you by. Or how strangers still say “bless you”
when someone sneezes, a leftover
from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.
And sometimes, when you spill lemons
from your grocery bag, someone else will help you
pick them up. Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other.
We want to be handed our cup of coffee hot,
and to say thank you to the person handing it. To smile
at them and for them to smile back. For the waitress
to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder,
and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.
We have so little of each other, now. So far
from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.
What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these
fleeting temples we make together when we say, “Here,
have my seat,” “Go ahead—you first,” “I like your hat.”

St Paul in the first letter to the Corinthians Chapter 6 verse 19 says

You surely know that your body is a temple where the Holy Spirit lives. The Spirit is in you and is a gift from God. You are no longer your own.

The last verse of this poem are surely a reference to this?

So, my tiny change this week is to be sure that I make an effort to do the small kindnesses to the people that I meet.

Saturday 21st March - running away!

No, not really,  but that's what it felt like...

We made the most of a cheerful day, driving off to the same Village Stores and Café that we visited last weekend for an early lunch/late second breakfast. It was a bit of an adventure getting there; we turned off the main road into the lane and found ourselves face to face with a low-loader parked o  the wrong side of the road and facing the wrong way! We were wedged between the curb and the driver's cab, with nowhere to go but backwards into the main road. We'll, I'm here now this evening,  writing this, so you can assume we successfully reversed into a stream of traffic, flung the car into drive and got ourselves out of difficulties. 

'I think I know where there's a back road into the village', I said, and it turns out I was right. We wended our way along a twisty turny uppy downy lane, dodging several heavily laden groups of scouts just setting off on an overnight hike across the Downs. Their starting point turned out to be the village hall next to the shop and café,  handy for stocking up on last-minute sweets and chocolate. I hope they had packed warm sleeping bags; the nights are still pretty cold.

We had an excellent meal; the Forge Full Breakfast for BB, the Forge Small Breakfast for he. Basically the same, except his seemed to be two of everything and mine just one of everything.

We had a lovely drive home through little lanes instead of main roads, checking out more possible cafes for future expeditions. 

Many of the trees are in leaf now. In just a few weeks the whole colour palette of the countryside has changed from grey and brown to green and yellow,

Just recently I've starting adding tiny sketches to the page-a-day diary I keep of the day's events. You can tell from the handwriting that they are roughly the size of a postage stamp.

Mothering Sunday crochet daisies 

Steak for Sunday Lunch

A day of paperwork 

I'd forgotten I'd added daffodils to my grocery order

a friend was going away and brought me the bunch of irises she'd been given as they were still fresh

A little posy of flowers for March

I'm enjoying doing them; because they are so small I don't have to worry about details! Thinking back, I did this for a couple of months during the summer of 2020, to keep a record of high points of each day. The pictures were a little bigger, so I was able to include a bit more. I'm keeping these small in order to have enough room for the writing. 

Friday 20th March - my new project bag

 Now that Ang has posted her collaboration, I shall do the same;

I think of this side of my little bag as the front, as the two bottom left patches are the first in this collaboration,  and the two top right patches are the last.

Here's the other side.

I had to stop for a couple of days for Deep Thinking before I began tommake up the bag. I had 12 patches, a blue zipper, and the red and grey fabric that Ang sent me.

I made the bag by piecing the patches together English Paper Piecing style into a strip three squares wide, four long. leaving the sides and top open.  Next, I stitched the red lining to a grey woollen backing, both supplied by Ang, to make a piece of fabric which was the same size.

Time for More Thinking.

I finangled the zipper next; I wanted to arrange things so that the zip was sandwiched between the lining and the outer, and so that all the stitching was invisible. And, most importantly, I would end up with the zipper on the outside of the finished bag!

My word, that was a Brain-hurty thing to work through, but I got there! 

I over sewed the edges of the lining together, and then oversewed the edges of the bag outer, remembering to include the 2x2 tag 

Finished!

No, not quite, II still needed to sew in tthe tape with our names and dates.

It's now my mending pouch, with room for socks (or one thicker sock), a darning mushroom, Ang's scissor pouch, some needles and cards of mending wool.

Now, what shall we do next? It might be fun to do something that incorporated Ang's experiments in machine embroidery... my own machine is a very basic elna lotus which I bought way back in 1979... but it is possible to embroider with it... I did try once, a very, very long time ago... But what should we make... ?

Wednesday 18th March - Posting in haste

Book club starts i a minute or so; Last month's book was 'The Frozen River' by Ariel Lawhorn -  maybe tooo much information on childbirth and sexual assault in the Northern America in the Winter of 1789 for comfortable reading, but a gripping story, well told for all that. I really enjoyed it.

This month we meet to discuss The Frozen River and choose the next book from

Patrick Bringley's memoir 'All the Beauty in the World', which I strongly recommend and am more than happy to re-read 

Alan Bennett's diaries 'Keeping on keeping on' - I love reading diaries

Evie Woods - 'The Violin Maker's Secret' which I think I will read regardless as it looks good

M L Stteadman - -A Far Flung Life' - family saga, which doesn't really appeal.

I'll let you know!

I ave now got 6 Amaryliis bulbs on the go! Two have finished flowering and are growing ENORMOUS leaves.

The have been moved to an upstairs windowsill o make room for these;

No 1 was packaged in the same sort of box as the earlier ones, left over in the shop from Christmas, no doubt, It was growing out of its box when I planted it.

The others are left over from last year.

No 3 suddenly came to life of its own accord. I hurridly watered it and brought it downstairs. No 4 likewise, and then I thought I might as well water no 2 and see what happens.

Right. I attend the book club via zoom, and it's past time to join. Toodle-oo