Wednesday 5th July - Turning over another new leaf...

 What is it about the idea of starting afresh, turning over a new leaf, trying again?

This page should have been portrait orientation but I've even turned the page through 90 degrees to make it use less space. It's been ages since I stopped drawing a sketch a day, and I'm missing it now.

Writing is another activity which has gone by the board; I notice the last entry in my notebook was in April. It is very easy to be overtaken by events and then lose the impetus.

A couple of things have helped re-ignite the creative embers; A couple of books of poems by Wendy Cope were probably the first sparks, then tripping across this book in Sue's blog (actually, I follow a couple of blogs written by ladies called Sue so I am often confused as to which is who!) aha, it's this one  where she lists the books she has ordered from the library. I've picked up many a recommendation from her blog, and others too, I might add;

Anyway, this is the book; 

I wasn't about to pay lots of money for what was obviously a little gift book, but it was for sale on the secondhand book site I use quite often (rather often, to be more truthful).

It is a little bundle of joy, and I have put it out of reach to avoid reading it all in one go...

It is just a collection of just about daily observations; three- or four- lines describing a small, everyday incident, seen while walking in the park, overhead on a bus and so on.

I try an limit myself to just one page at a time, and will pass it on to a friend when I have finished with it.

So now I am trying to 'stop and notice' things and jot them down. Since I am still avoiding what they call 'unnecessary social contact' and indoor public spaces this limits my opportunities for 'people-watching' - something I used to love doing at cafes in the past. (Hopefully those days will come again...)   

I've also downloaded 'Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris' - the book by Paul Gallico which is behind the film. If I enjoy it, I'm in luck as Mrs 'Arris also goes to New York, Moscow, and becomes an MP in subsequent books!

 

Tuesday 14th February - Happy Valentine's Day

I made a small heart shaped chocolate cake, and himself has eaten most of it with some vanilla ice cream this evening. We shall finish it tomorrow. 

 The maths was correct,  I just didn't put the correct figure on the board for the weight of unused wool. 37g, not 27g, so I will have plenty for the second sock.

My new slowcooker recipe book 'Bored of Lunch' arrived yesterday. 

(Is that title grammatically correct?). I chose 4 recipes, 2 soups, 2 mains, and just went down the ingredient lists, ordering everything from Ocado to be delivered tomorrow.  Then I shall make up the recipes, one every day. Chilli con carne, potato and leek soup, honey shredded chicken, chicken noodle soup. I know, who needs a recipe for potato and leek soup? But the other recipes are full of interesting flavours; sriracha, hoisin, peanut butter, curry leaves..., none of which we have in the cupboard. 

All the recipes make 4 large servings so if I portion things out carefully I may well get more than this. I will often hold back some of the extra liquid to make the beginnings of another soup.

We tend to have a main meal at lunchtime, and then soup, or something on toast or sandwiches at about 6 in the evening. It seems like we were doing a sort of 12 hour overnight fast long before Dr Michael Moseley made this the latest healthy eating thing.

Tonight was smoked mackerel, bread and butter and a small salad of tomatoes, peppers, sweetcorn and cooked green beans. For salad dressing I combined hot paprika tomato ketchup and mayonnaise. Excellent! 

Monday 28th November- Drawings Roundup

Going backwards from 25th November to 2nd November.  I do enjoy flicking back through the journal for a quick reminder of that day.

25th oh yes, the Christmas cake ingredient measuring incident, also finished the prototype cowl. I've been wearing most of the day. Also, made sausage meatballs in slow cooker for tomorrow's lunch and the freezer.

I'm not giving secrets away with the cowl, as I  have changed all the patterns for the actual Advent cowl

24th early birthday present of large and very delicious coffee walnut cake! The beef goulash came out of the slow cooker, half for the next day's lunch, and half for th freezer.  The excess l8quid became soup for the evening. 

 

23rd Two glorious balls of wool arrived from My Yarnery in Havant. I'm already thinking about knitting one through Lent!

22nd Vicky came and planted up tubs with layers op tulips, daffodils in the middle and crocuses on top. Crockpot vegetable soup was delicious.

18th Finished knitting  a mini-cowl to test the concept. So far so good.

19th This was the beginning of days of 'to-do list' overwhelm. I think I am just about emerging  from this state. Maybe.

20th Alarming and sudden hailstorm, Hailstones nearly the size of walnuts hurling themselves onto the ground and bouncing 3-4 feet high

21st Non-stop activity day...

14th the beginning ofvthe Advent cowl obsession after searching the Internet for a similar Advent knit-along project

15th I  ordered a mini crockpot!

16th Another day of being brave, this time to see the hygienist 

17th a day of doing everything except what I should have been doing... it all caught up with me a few days later!

10th evicting spiders and letting the sun shine brighter through the windows 

11th Remembrance Day

12th My birthday celebrations began early, meeting up with our children 

13th I  xame away with early birthday presents.  The chocolates didn't last long

6th Planning a postcard project version 2?

7th a day of rattling away at the laptop- very satisfying 

8th at the dentist - I didn't need any work doing but my husband wasn't so lucky.

9th started on a cross-stitch picture  (which I  have just finished after many distractions)

Here we are at the beginning of November 

2nd getting the steps in stomping up and down the garden

3rd thank heavens for zoom; regular contact with church and friends has been wonderful 

4th we watched fireworks for free from our front doorstep

5th my first attempt at cross stitch (yes, it was a bit cross-eye making and a bit cross-patch making, but I  got the hang of it eventually)

Tuesday 19th April - In other news

 I mentioned that I was knitting, and un-knitting;

The 'Baby Surprise' Jacket took a couple of restarts, but is now underway;

I have knitted this pattern twice before. At this stage it is impossible to visualise what is going on. The blue line (deliberately chose to be easily identified once I have finished knitting!) will form the cuffs of the little sleeves, and the top of the back. Somehow. At the moment I am knitting in towards what appears to be the centre, decreasing by two stitches at each of the diagonals. Eventually, once I am down to 90 stitches from the original 160, I will increase by two stitches along the diagonals, creating a weird 3-dimensional shape. By some magical sleight of hand, the lower edge of the blue strip will be folded up and over, and something sewn to something else to make shoulder seams, and hey presto - a jacket! It worked the last two times so I am hopeful.

The cardigan that I was ripping out is almost completely unravelled; 

One thought I have is to just knit up another 'Surprise' jacket, following the same instructions with thicker yarn and larger needles, to see if I get a me-size jacket. A better idea might be to get hold of the book 

 which has the pattern written up to make a number of different versions in different sizes. It is rather expensive though... The annoying thing is that I remember cutting the pattern out of the Sunday Times magazine about 35 years ago, and throwing it away about ten years ago. It just goes to show that you should never throw anything away, ever. Not never.

The weather was so warm on Friday that we spent a lot of time sitting out in the garden under the tracery of the apple tree branches, just coming into blossom. I took my tablet out, intending to read, but the light was too bright, so, using the stylus and a fairly primitive drawing program produced this instead;

I've not really got my head around how the different 'pens' in the program (called Bamboo) work, so it was all a bit hit and miss. Sadly the following days grew progressively cooler, until today it really wasn't warm enough to sit outside. The scattered pink dots of blossom have given way to a complete canopy of white petals, and the big old oak at the bottom of the garden, always the last to realise that it is Spring, has suddenly burst into leaf.

Yesterday we finished the Hot Cross Buns, and tomorrow we will start on the Simnel cake. I do like to make a celebration last as long as possible! 

 

 

Friday 25th March - the day after the day before

 Yesterday was a series of social events;

Coffee with friends  - the Lent group I am in - sitting in the sun among the daffodils and violets under the old apple tree at the bottom of the garden which is just coming into leaf. The sun was warm, there was hardly any breeze, and it was a lovely slow morning.

We had just spent a hectic half hour arranging chairs and tables so the less mobile friend could sit in a chair with arms, with the only reliable table beside her, and trimming low branches, and clearing trip hazards along the path. Sitting and relaxing was doubly good for me!

Lunch, outside again, just soup, ryvita and some bits of salad to munch. One of the coffee morning friends stayed. We moved up to sit nearer the house as the patio was now in the sun, and just enough of a breeze had arrived to stop us from melting. We had marmite with the ryvita - that brought back memories! Back when I was at university, there was a sudden craze for marmite and cottage cheese on ryvita... note to self, add cottage cheese to the shopping list!

Then two lessons to teach - they do count as social events, as listening and conversation takes place, at quite an intense level for me, and usually for the student as well.

Do you want to hear what they are learning? In the first one we were working on 'Bransle de la Torche' composed in about 1600 by Michael Praetorius and also one of my favourite pieces, 'The Snow Melts', composed by Brian Chapple fairly recently.  (He's got a Steinway! have I given up envy for Lent?)

I think I may have mentioned the piece that the second student is learning, another of my favourites, Rumores de la Caleta by Albeniz. 

Finally, I had an evening zoom meeting - the Lent group has been meeting in the evenings on zoom until the weather has made it possible to meet outside.

The point being, that today I have been moving at half speed. I have managed to write up yesterday's lessons, and put some red lettuce seeds into pots into my new plastic greenhouse

Here's the sketch I made on Wednesday, after we had moved the dodgiest of the benches to the side of the house and put the old greenhouse on it. I wrote down the measurements because I wanted to get a new cover; the plastic mesh has perished so that it is just a criss-cross of  webbing and no little plastic squares in between. I wasn't able to buy a cover to fit this shape, so bought a new one. The old one is second hand, bought fifteen years ago by a friend's daughter! It will still give some protection to the plants inside.   

The notes on the side are from tracking the movement of the sun to see where to place things.

Noah's Ark - who knew that there were ostriches in the book of Job?

Last year, or the year before, I forget now, I was enthused by the idea of Spring Cleaning and bought an ostrich feather duster. It is very efficient at sweeping dust and swiping down the cobwebs but only if I take it out of the cupboard.

 
 

Thursday March 10 - Getting EVERYTHING done?

 No, not quite everything. 

I still have a couple of hours left before bed time at about ten o'clock, but I have just about reached The End.

I sat in bed this morning, doom-scrolling through the news and twitter and finally managed to put down the phone and think about the day.

I've started writing 'morning pages' again this month; just one page in a small notebook to get myself started.

Today it turned into a 'to do' list.

I need to

• do my exercises
• send letters to two friends
• do yesterday's writing course ( a short 5-day course from Writers HQ)
• write up three piano lessons from yesterday's teaching
• tech two piano lessons today
• Host a zoom starting at 8.30pm
• read a couple emails 
• Bible study time

I ought to

• hoover some part of the house (it all needs doing!)
• Practise the Bach piece
• Finalise my design for this month's postcard project embroidery  

I'd like to

• order some variegated embroidery threads and buy a small block of beeswax
• sew a line of the 'Try a stitch Tuesday' series
• Write a blog post

Fourteen items to get done between 9:30 am and 10pm- do-able

But then I got on and

• watered the seedlings
• filled the bird feeders
• wrote feedback to a student on a video recording they sent me
• responded to several other emails
• remembered to phone a member of the family 
• checked my bank statement for missing lesson payments

and fourteen items became twenty, just like that!

Well, it is half past six, I am typing a blog with the fingers on one hand while eating pieces of pizza with the other hand - both hands when I can. I have completed

EVERYTHING in green.

The last item; 'host a zoom', will happen in two hours, and up until then I am Clocking Off!

It hasn't been all busy busy;

I have been in the garden a couple of times to admire the crocuses and spring patio tubs

I have opened the window on my Lent calendar; Owls (these would make a good embroidery!)

with the scripture 'I am an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places' from Psalm 102, 6-7.

 

They look utterly doleful; I think they are not happy about being stuck in the ark, when they would rather be in the wilderness.

Here is my (possibly) final sketch for the embroidery. I will probably redraw it a couple of times and choose the one I like best.

It is based on a mix of 'Cat Amongst the Tulips' by Angela Harding, from her book 'A year Unfolding' 

And this birthday card, sadly with no artist name on it so I am unable to add a credit.

Friday 21st January - The Moon

Moon rising above hedge
Quink and coloured pencils (from 2019 10 notebook)

These past few days I have been enjoying watching the moon in the afternoon, at bedtime, and in the morning.

It has been huge and wonderful and gleaming with a kind of benevolent face upon this grey and messy time that we are in - at ground level the politics are frankly depressing, with the kind of behaviour and language that we would never tolerate in the classroom or on the playground at any of the primary schools I have ever taught in.

In the morning, to the West, the moon glows in the dawn twilight, slowly heading for the bar branches of the huge oak tree at the bottom of the garden. (Today I spotted three small birds in the top of the tree, flitting to and fro, four magpies bounding along the middle layer, and a crow perched motionless on the lower branch ignoring the lively bustle and chatter all around).

In the afternoon the moon rises in the South, chalky white, enormous against the roofs of the houses, refusing to be entangled by television aerials and chimney pots. (Small children without coats race ahead of their mothers, apparently impervious to cold, galloping, hopping, bouncing along. Their mothers follow in their wake, pushing a buggy laden with coats and school bags, a cold toddler wailing gently from the depths of a cocoon fleecy blankets).

In the evening dark the moon glows brilliantly due East, like a protector against the night hours, keeping watch, eyes always open, mouth in a slight smile. (I stand at the window and look at the lighted windows of the houses all around; strips of gold patterning the dark like jewels. There's a conservatory in a garden several streets away, lit up like an exotic oriental pavilion, and I imagine people sitting in comfortable cushioned wicker chairs, sipping wine as they reflect on the day).

I used to teach this little lullaby to the youngest children;

"I see the moon, and the moon sees me,

God bless the moon, and God bless me"

Now the moon is waning... it will make it easier to see the stars...

"Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight,

wish I may, wish I might, have the wish I wish tonight"  

 I do have more than two pairs, as is happens - they last me a long time. No, today's title is because I now have two pairs of shoes that need cleaning....

I have felt extremely lethargic this past week - covid booster reaction? or was I tired? Did I have a cold?

Today was a sprakly kind of morning, and as I sat there reading the November chapter of Emma Mitchell's book 'The Wild Remedy' 

her words struck home, how being outside lifts your mood, and how much she loves to search for colour in the autumn.. So I got up, put on a coat, and we went 'down the back', which means through the back gate, through the dense laurel hedge which screens the gate, down the steep slidy  bank onto the cycle track/footpath which runs behind all our gardens. 

What a great idea that was! I felt so much more alive after the walk; watching joyful dogs racing in and out of the stream and through the trees, stopping to peer at the amazing lichen growing on the trees, standing in the sun with a gentle shower of beech leaves drifting upon us...

So that's the first pair of shoes drying off in the hallway before being cleaned and polished - some sections of the paths are a quagmire after the recent wet weather.

Later, after lunch, I stirred myself into action again and planted up more tulips and crocuses and narcissuses (narcissi?)

I am have several half-barrel planters, but I like to use them for beans and climbing vegetables in the summer. This year I have bought a lot of bulbs to try 'lasagne planting', where you layer up the bulbs in a fairly deep pot; some earth, some narcissus, more earth, some tulips, more earth, and crocus, and finally, you've guessed it, more earth! So my idea is to do 'lasagne planting' in a number of tall narrow pots, and then sink these into the half-barrel planter, so that when they have finished flowering I can just lift them out and leave them to finish the season somewhere else.

While excavating the half barrel to the very bottom we came across numbers of 'mystery bulbs' already trying to get going, so they have been rescued and replanted. I have no idea what they are - probably ordinary daffodils. What with one thing and another I have ended up with the half barrel full of tall thin pots of lasagne planting, another earthenware pot which has stood empty all summer also full of lasagne bulbs, and two pots of 'mystery' bulbs. Surely something will manage to flower?

Meanwhile that is another pair of shoes looking slightly the worse for wear!

I'm catching up with the 30 days of creativity drawing...

I'm not that much into 'colouring in', but I do enjoy drawing.

 

Saturday 4th September - Some drawings and a new dress

 I'm  still plugging on with walking a decent distance every day. And every day I'm  surprised that I'm doing it again. It's mostly rund the same couple of streets near the house; it's surprising how different the front gardens look when you walk past from  the other direction. So, that's another mile added to the running, or rather Walking total. 

I'm really pleased with yesterday's drawings;

The lesson was on volcanoes and mugs; I added the cup and saucer and the jug. They didn't take long. It makes such a difference when you find the how-to-do-it book that is right for you. 

I've been wondering about the Rowena swing dress 100 day challenge for a while. I remember an Australian newspresenter (male) admitting to wearing the same jacket for a whole year, while his (female) co-presenter's outfits received constant comments from the viewers, especially if she wore the same clothes.

 Can you really wear the same wool dress for 100 days in a row?

After a year of mulling it over I bought the Rowena dress and have started the challenge today. I tried the dress on when it arrived and it is supremely comfortable.

I'll let you know how I get on.