Saturday 26th August - in praise of granny squares

 They are one of the most portable handicrafts around; a ball of yarn and a crochet hook in a little bag and you are good to go. 

My mother made hundreds of the traditional multicoloured squares, each bordered in white, on long haul flights when she was living in Indonesia and later in Singapore. Later she handed over the whole bag to my godmother (her very good friend and a superb needlewoman) to sew up.

 Almost perfect for travelling.

Almost? I made the blanket above a few years ago using adriafil knitcol dk wool on our long car journeys to my godmother every week, sometimes twice a week, as we did our best to support her in her final months. Instead of doing the traditional thing of choosing different colours for each round, I just let the self-patterning yarn do its thing, and kept going until the ball was finished. The lovely colours fascinated her, and she looked forward to seeing how it was progressing and changing each visit.

And even less to carry around!

I've just finished the Tunisian crochet square. It was a little small, so I went round and round a few more times in what might be double or treble crochet, or both, or neither (I'm a bit hazy and need to refresh my memory. until I finished the yarn.

I'm not too bothered either way, as it is only destined to be another dishcloth. I'm just happy it's another 'finished object' and another bit of yarn gone from from my stash.

Saturday 6th June - Possibly my last post ever...

Now here's a thing - they have updated blogger, and on the new version I cannot find how to create a new post.

Luckily I have found a place to click on 'revert to the old format' so I can post for now - but it is 'all change' in mid-June...

What was I going to post - well, nothing much.

It is the weekend - Saturday, the one day of the week with no scheduled activity.

I've finished the Pat of 'Silver Bush' series by L M Montgomery (author of 'Anne of Green Gables' and 'Emily Moon' other series). I discovered I could download EVERYTHING she published for 99p - now that's an offer I couldn't refuse. I say 'finished' - 'finshed with' might be closer. I skim-read the second book to see if she really did marry Jingle at the end because I was getting tired of all the twists and turns.

I've started 'The Family Upstairs' by Linda Jewel which is our book club read - a murder mystery which is switching back and forward through time. I think I'm going to have to stay with this one as I'm three chapters in and already confused. I was so grateful for the little symbols at the beginning of each chapter of Joanne Harris' 'The Lollipop Shoes' so I could keep track of who was narrating each chapter - something like this would be useful in 'The Family Upstairs'. No-one has been murdered yet, or rather, the deaths (suicide or murder?) occurred before the book starts, but the atmosphere is definitely pregnant with plot.

I've listened to a TED talk on 'Reading Slowly' - interesting, but didn't make me feel bad for skipping chunks and chunks of Pat and her obsessive love of Silver Bush Farm - never actually described as obsessive in the book, but I would be worried for her if it hadn't turned out all right in the end.

I do want to add a square to the scrap blanket - it is easy mindless knitting, but McCavity has adopted it. I have to wait for my chance.

 
I'm using up a whole load of scraps of yarn left over from my godmother's house, and from projects that I remember doing in the past, and scraps that I have no idea where they came from.  You just add on a square when you feel like it (which is NOW, as it happens). I'm using very short needles which are a joy to knit with. (But that hairy electric blue square was a mistake - oh well, McCavity doesn't care and I don't either).

It is very quiet when I pause in rattling the keys, just the ticking clock (a bit brisk for Pat of Silver Bush, I wouldn't mind betting).

Leo-the-cat has just come in. By the sound of the miaow, her plate is empty...

Friday 20th March - Unreal Times

In the past 8 days,

I've visited my godmother's house for the last time, saying goodbye to things which I can't keep but hated parting with;

The cabinet came from my childhood home and I'm pleased that my brother took it. The wall hanging(it's huge) and pictures were all made by her, but there's a limit to how much I can fit into my own house.

I decided to stop teaching after last weekend. I felt that I was a bit of a 'typhoid Mary', collecting the germs from one school and taking them along to the next. That took endless phone calls and emails, and I've had to organise refunds or credits for a dozen pupils. As part of this exercise I ended up working out the self-employed part of my income for the tax year ending April 2020; everything was a complete tangle as so many lessons were cancelled or rescheduled over the year while my god-mother was ill. Still - that is a huge achievement - this could be the first time ever that I get my tax return in within weeks of close of year!

I've restarted my music blog, www.themusicjungle.co.uk, which has lain dormant for over a year. I'm posting up various music bits and pieces to keep the pupils going in the meantime.

On Tuesday I went to Nymans Gardens with some friends. Bitterly cold, but the place is full of flowers;

I was wishing that I had added my nose to the fingerprint sensor so that I could unlock the phone without taking my gloves off.

I've been having lovely slow mornings and breakfast in bed! Oh what luxury!

Lent is still happening; I'm reading St Mark's Gospel along with Ryce's commentary, roughly the same vintage as my great-grandfather might have used. How Biblical interpretation has changed over the years... I'm using a Bible with space for you to add your notes and drawings

The font is minute and the pages paper-thin, but I like having them all crinkled up where I paint pictures as I go along. (Maybe painting watercolours in bed is living dangerously, but so far, so good.) Any book looks more cheerful with lots of coloured pictures along the way.

Himself has had a birthday. The off-spring came a-visiting, bearing lunch and presents and cards. We had planned to meet in a cafe halfway, but these days....

Leo the cat thoroughly approves. She pins me down so that I can't move

Today we tried out the exploding chocolate snowman Himself received for Christmas. The idea is that you heat a mug of mild, drop in the unfortunate snowman, stir him about and drink him.

Himself pronounced it 'very good',  the snowman didn't get a chance to express an opinion. It will be the turn of my white chocolate one soon. I wonder if I should drop him into a cup of coffee so that he shows up properly?

Friday 20th March - About Selling my godmother's house

I started a post a few days ago, but abandoned it - why? I can't exactly remember. Maybe there was too much going on to get a clear run at the typing, maybe it was coming out all fed up and whingy? Who knows.

As you know, my godmother died just before Christmas, we had the task of dealing with her affairs, including selling her home.

We've had a stupidly busy week.

Last Thursday, that would be the 12th, the estate agent told us the person buying my godmother's house wanted to on Monday 16th and had we cleared the house yet? The completion estimate we had been given, originally was 'before Easter', so, no, we hadn't cleared the house yet. By a herculean effort, Himself  arranged for the clearance people to book us in for he morning of Tuesday 17th. That same afternoon, the buyer attempted to pay us with a series of 14 - I kid you not - bank transfers, and could we check that they had gone in so they could have they keys that afternoon.

We did make an effort, going straightaway to our bank to see, but by close of day only 2 had gone through, so they had to just possess themselves in  patience for another day.

On Wednesday morning, the ATM showed that the balance seemed ok, but when we requested a printed statement the sht hit the fn. I don't usually use Language, but it seemed that we had been over payed and then had our account cleared out to the tune over several thousand pounds overdrawn. (I regret to say that I used Language, in my outside voice, again, in the bank.) The manager wondered if the unusual way of sending the payment had triggered a money-laundering or scam alert.

We came home, spent some time on the telephone with the scams and frauds department of the bank, and got everything sorted out. Turned out there was no scam or money-trickery, it just took the payments some time to go through, and there was a glitch in the computer system for preparing a printed statement.

'Give them the keys and let that be an end!' we didn't quite shout down the line to the estate agent. 

The buyer then rang the estate agent to complain that we hadn't cleaned the house properly!!!!!

Deep breath.

When exactly, with this timetable, were we going to arrange for the housecleaning people?

We've spent Wednesday and Thursday ringing all the insurances and gas and electric and so on to cancel all the direct debits, and now, as of this morning, I think there's a possibility that we can shove all the files and papers into a box and Put Them Away.

We were planning to book another river cruise as our just reward as soon as everything was done. Think we'll hold off for a few months yet...

While all of this was going on, I had decided over the weekend that I would stop teaching on Monday 16th March. So I was also rattling out emails to schools and pupils - but that's another story.

Sunday 23rd February - Back to work tomorrow

Halfterm is just about over. Another couple of hours until bedtime, and then...

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!

Saturday 15th 

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.

 One of the items of clothing was the sweater on the front cover of this book - such skill. But it wasn't possible to get it into a good enough state to recycle, not even as a cushion cover. Nowhere for it to go but out.

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.   

Tuesday 18th February - Knitting Books

This is a bit of a niche post; I have got all these knitting books to pass on from my Godmother, and I have let a few people know that I am putting them up on this site in case they would like first dibs.

My Godmother was a great knitter and crocheter and embroider, and her house was full of examples of her work - complex crochet mats under every item (if anyone is interested, I can retrieve them and pass them on), embroidered pictures and tapestries on the walls, hand-hooked wallhangings, crewel work cushions on all the dining room chairs...

I can't keep them all... especially all her books and patterns!

She used to knit professionally for Jamie and Jessie Seaton, who sold their knitwear all over the world. I have two of her jumpers with their intricate millefiori designs from this book

There's no way I'm ever going to knit any of these patterns!

Here are the rest of the books;

I doubt there will be many takers for the last two; the 'Family Knitting Book' is full of those photographs of men trying to look as though they are enjoying wearing their manly knitwear.

And the last one comes from Finland - which is where my godmother was born!

There's also  binder full of loose patterns.

If you would like any of these books, leave me a comment. I don't want any money, although a donation to a Cancer Charity would be much appreciated.

Friday 17th January - Week End, Week Beginning

I find working out where one week ends and the other begins rather tricky.

When does the 'weekend' begin? When is the weekend?

I think of Friday as being the 'weekend', as it is a non-teaching day, apart from the drumming workshop in the evening which is very informal.

Saturday is NOT a 'weekend' day, as I have a fairly gruelling teaching session taking up all of the morning - eight pupils back-to-back. Saturday afternoon is 'recovery' time.

Sunday - ah yes, another 'weekend' day, especially if I am not down on a church rota. Playing the piano or organ in a church service is definitely 'work' - if I do a whole service then I will play a couple of pieces at the beginning, a couple of pieces while people go up to receive communion, and a short burst of something cheerful at the end. Oh, and three hymns, of anything up to six verses each. That's work.

Then it's Monday again! Just like that!

So, today was a sort of 'weekend' day. Up early, off to my God-mother's house to tidy up, meet the Estate Agent, clean the loo and the fridge, collect up all the unused medicines (three bags full - she'd just had a new prescription delivered), break open a filing cupboard in the garage (pots of old paint and a painter's floor cloth securely locked away from... who? whom?) and return the despised and ignored Zimmer frame to the hospital.

After lunch (fish and chips at the same garden centre as last Friday) we called into an amazing furniture store in Guildford. Our favourite computer chair in the sitting room has a tendency to catch the underside of the desk, lifting it and dropping it onto the cables, so we've swapped it for a better behaved chair from upstairs. However, the fabric is wearing through and it is showing its age (about twenty years).

Here's what we bought, in a darker colour wood. Happily, it is in the sale! We should be getting it in a couple of weeks.


   

On the way I finished the second slipper, and I'm wearing them both now.

Now I am in between knitting projects - what next?

Tuesday 7th January - Goodbyes...and back to normal (ish)

Today was the day of the funeral. It dawned dank and drizzly, but improved as it went on - a gentle sunshine for the actual occasion.

'Are you the celebrant'? er, yes, I suppose that is what I was. On the whole it went well - I have others to confirm my impression. Apart from starting a bit early, so two people slipped in a few minutes late, the ceremony went off more or less as I had intended.

There were buttons that had to be operated, the thought of which had caused a sudden lack of confidence on my part. However proved astonishingly easy to operate, especially when I practised beforehand, starting and stopping music, closing and opening curtains (not that I planned to open the curtains once I had closed them). 

I had a slight frisson when I realised I had nearly forgotten to press the 'close' button for the curtains during that piece of music, and a further scary second or two when I couldn't make it work (the secret is NOT to press the 'close' label, but to press the button BESIDE the label).

As for the flowers, I did the same as at my mother's funeral. The staff had told me that the deer would come and eat them, being very selective as to which flowers they liked. Well, my godmother had had a running battle with deer in her garden and I didn't see why they should win at the last, so I pulled out flowers from the big beautiful spray to make posies for the people who came (very few) and took the rest home. (They told me that it depended on which flowers were used; if the wreath spelled out a word like 'Mum', sometimes the deer would eat everything except 'Mum', sometimes they would only eat the word 'Mum'. Disconcerting.)

I spent the afternoon deconstructing the Christmas wreath (my word, that had been made to withstand a tempest!) and used the flowers for a table decoration, and a vase, and a spring wreath for beside the door.

  
A picture of the Spring Wreath will have to wait until morning. It's dark and drizzly and cold out there now.

I also cleared out a kitchen drawer (It's on a list of houseworkly tasks called 'the January Cure'

Just as well - the base was about to give up the struggle.

Look how tidy the drawer is now, no really, it is MUCH tidier. All the mess is an organised mess.

Cat news; Leo has scratched the top of her head nearly raw, where I put the topical worming treatment. I was a bit horrified when I saw the way she was going at the patch, which explained all the fur lying around everywhere. I quickly washed her head with warm water; to my surprise she thoroughly approved of this and started purring, and hasn't been scratching anything like as much since. 

Tomorrow is a working day. I have packed my school bag with various books of music and will hope for the best. Seven piano pupils in the morning, a whole class full of guitar pupils in the afternoon, and another three or four piano pupils in the evening. I did the planning a while ago - maybe it will come to me as I go along...