Monday 30th November - Last day of November Blog post challenge

You might be able to prove me wrong, but I'm not going to look and check, I'll just guess - I think I managed about 28 out of the thirty days. 

I remember one night going to bed and thinking - tough - I need to sleep more than I need to blog.

Advent is traditionally a time of waiting - for Christmas, yes, true enough.

Last week was a time of waiting - for phone calls,  messages, emails, to find out what was happening for my father. working out who to tell and what to say. This coming week there will be further waiting times, but this time it looks as though these will be for him to have assessments to work out when he can return home. A better kind of waiting.

I'm typing up this post as I wait for the next piano lesson to start. We're all ready, me and the gang

The birthday present finger puppets have all been sewn up, and have already had their first outing this morning. You might spot a row of rainbows and stars next to the disgruntled owls. The owls have been busy showing pupils which notes to play, and they don't look to pleased about their new rivals. 

Puppets and these little tiny pencil erasers make piano teaching play an important part in helping the younger students in zoom piano lessons.

Any other news? The advent wreath is hanging up outside the front door but it is too dark to take a photograph. Next time. 

I can't show drawings as I am now about a week behind - I put the date on each page, but now I am trying to do two pictures a day to catch up.

Yeah - catching up - that's the plan for this week...

   

Tuesday 24th November - Distracted

That would have been the word for today if I had chalked one... but I was too distracted.

There's rather a lot going on at the moment, but hopefully things will become calm, sort themselves out, settle down, become clear, in the next few days.

It's nothing life or death or scary, just to many things to remember, think about, deal with, all at once!

I've snitched this picture from the internet

   Some of the things are to do with music teaching - suddenly being bounced into running an on-line music exam yesterday, for example, some are to do with houseworky stuff, some of it is because my head is buzzing with art ideas and they are not ready to go from head to hands yet. Not forgetting the anenome corms that I want to plant in that patch of flowerbed that I haven't cleared yet...

Monday 23rd November - Silence?

 That's two days in a row I haven't chalked a word outside the house.

Why?

I don't know - maybe it was too cold, maybe I couldn't think of one, maybe I wasn't in the mood?

I'm reading a book called 'Amazing Grace' by Kathleen Norris, one very short chapter at a time because I don't want to spoil it by reading too fast. She takes words from her childhood experience of church and unpacks them; so far I have read her chapters on eschatology, the antichrist, and, this morning, silence;

Here, she is describing how, when teaching creative writing, she used to let the children make a noise at their desks until she held up her hand, and then they had to be silent, and listen to the silence; 

The nugget is right at the end of this chapter...

'and in a tiny town in North Dakota a little girl offered a gem of spiritual wisdom....' 

I often sign in for an online journaling workshop on Monday mornings. There tend to be a rather long time of chit-chat and reading out people's comments and saying hello and so on before we get down to the writing bit. Today the starting point was silence... synchronicity?

I usually find it difficult to stop and be still, but, for once, today was the day, almost to the point of wanting to sit and listen to the silence more than I wanted to journal about it. A new experience for me.  

Sunday 22nd November - Stir up Sunday

Having finished all my 'work' (I think - there's always something overlooked) I had  lazy day today. Which also meant no words chalked up outside the house.

And, in spite of it being 'Stir up Sunday' I didn't get around to doing any stirring, not of cake, or puddings, or trouble.

The cat and I shared a peaceful morning upstairs. She slept, and I read, listened to music, and did some Christmas card thinking

Though how I turn these into lino cuts is another problem. I've had a go at using the narrowest blade, but I find it very hard to control.

I started carving this one out yesterday with the fine blade, but soon changed to a broader one which has made the lines coarser than I wanted.;

I made a very rough trial print using coloured felt tip pen instead of getting out the proper ink which is why it is so faint;

but it is enough to show that the white lines are thicker than I wanted. More practice - live and learn. I'll have another go tomorrow, maybe. 

Saturday 20th November - The Shed

 

Everyone needs their own shed.

Not just the one for storing stuff, but another one to be a sanctuary, a personal space that they can furnish and use exactly as they please. I laughingly refer to 'my' side of the dining room as my shed; it has a Windsor chair with cushions, a standing desk, the piano, half the dining table and two dining chairs and just enough room to wriggle through. 

I have a tray for watercolour paints and brushes, a box for lino printing equipment, and space on my table for writing OR painting OR using the laptop OR lino printing; the box and paint tray and laptop play an eternal game of musical spaces throughout the day. I have become adept at making whatever activity I am engaged in fit into a space the size on a A3 sheet of paper. Yesterday it was lino printing; 

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I am ridiculously pleased with these lino prints; I followed the instructions that go with the kit I bought last month (only last month - I have no sense of how time passes at the moment). I have cut out and assembled two of the three prints I made last night, and stuck on one the rose bush next to where I chalked up today's word. It has been raining ever since I went out to write on the damp brickwork, so the letters will all be gone now.

One of these little log cabins would make a perfect shed. I have spent a little while furnishing my imaginary shed with sofa and fairy lights, desk and chair, rug, heating and lighting, of course... where would it fit in our small suburban garden?

Today is a remarkably dank and cold and seeping damp day. I was feeling bleah and decided to retire to bed for the afternoon to sleep it off. However Best Beloved has appeared with a cup of tea and ALL my tech - tablet, phone, laptop. and I feel revivified enough to stop hibernating and write a blog post.  

Once I have pressed 'Publish' I may well continue to browse for pictures of perfect sheds...

Thursday 19th November - Don't Panic

 

It is not my birthday and I won' be 19 years old, or even six years old.

Today's word was prompted by the arrival of an email with this picture in it;

and the question 'would I like some?'

Cake????

Of course!

I've just had a slice while sorting out stuff on the internet and it has cheered me up immensely. The Very Good Friend delivered it an hour ago, and I handed over mincemeat and also advent tea lights and the remains of the mincemeat fruit cake I made yesterday. 

I think we got the better of that deal.

I didn't manage a walk today - by the time I had got up and sorted myself out there were other things to do and then it was lunch time.

I did cut out some lino print leaves, and print them on a background that I had prepared earlier;

very happy-making. I just created three leaves, and then splattered the printing all over the page.

I've also started ordering Christmas presents...... oooooooh and a new pair of shoes because my old faithfuls have stretched into boats over the years. Horrors! It appears that Hotter gave up making this style about three years ago and the only pair they have left in the recesses of the warehouse are size 7 extra wide... I was tempted, but sense prevailed and I have ordered a similar style (fingers crossed) in chocolate (it was that or black - my other shoes came in blue or red or burgundy or green or boring brown or black - sigh) and in the proper size (5E, if you really wanted to know).

Lots of deliveries to look forward to!

 

Wednesday 18th November - Keep Going

 

My grandmother, I think it was, used to sing 'Keep right on to the end of the road' but I couldn't remember any more of the song. Here it is on YouTube with Harry Lauder.

It is exactly the sort of song one associates with Patriotism and World War 1. Anyway, this is the phrase that inspired today's word, after slogging round the block today. Maybe it would have been easier if I hadn't already finished off the windows that I cleaned yesterday (there's always a smear or two left) and done my stretchy exercises, and quickly dealt with a couple of emails... and if there hadn't been such a strong headwind snatching my breath away...

Anyway, I did 'Keep right on to the end of the road', in this case, until we were back at the gate again, and felt all the better for it as I knew I would.

Most of this year has felt a bit like the song...

In other news I have been making lino print labels for the mincemeat that I intend to give away;

I would have liked the heart to be a little bigger, but, you know, one moment's inattention... good job I'm not a brain surgeon is all I can say. 

I should have been writing up yesterday's piano lessons but... h well. I have just now caught up with yesterday's lessons and all but one of  today's lessons Some of the time that should have been spent writing up was used in rearranging EVERYTHING around the piano, so that I can have  tablet and the laptop involved in the zoom; tablet on top of the piano for facing into, and laptop to one side with the whole of the keyboard in shot. This is to try and save my neck muscles; I can't get all the keyboard AND my face into the zoom screen, and so I have and achy neck from sitting in a peculiar scrunched up way to bring my head down into the shot.

I do have three zooms a week that last over the '40 mins for free' limit (I'm too much of a scrooge to subscribe) so will have to cope with the weird head position for those, but at least the other 9 zooms will be more comfortable!

The Christmas cactus has been renamed Advent Cactus - it's even a bit early for that.

 

    

 

Tuesday 17th November - Taking a walk

 

I just had time to chalk this up as we set off for a walk round the block this morning. I'm full of good resolutions, and going for a daily walk is one of them, but I am fast coming to the conclusion that I need to go in the morning, as after-lunch-lethargy can a to easily get too strong a grip on me.

I remember that Nanny always insisted that the three Fossil child had a walk every day up and down the Cromwell Road in London, and how dull they found it, and what a long, long road they thought it. This was in the book 'Ballet Shoes' by Noel Streatfield.  (My copy was a tattered green cloth bound hardback from - where? a second hand shop, or school bazaar, back in the 1960s? Long gone now). The roads around here are more interesting, if you like flowers and dogs and watching people and just thinking about things.  

Today was a very active day - I actually did my exercises before I came down, and also finished washing the bedroom windows. So that must be three times the amount of exercise I usually manage to do.

  

Monday 16th November - Fresh New Week

 

Every so often in these lockdown days I find I lose the plot slightly and fall into a sort of lethargy. I'm sure I'm not the only one...

So went I went out this morning and there was a fresh, mild, if rather damp feel to the air, today's words formed themselves without much thought.

Taking the whole of the weekend as 'slobbing out' time - that is, once I finished teaching on Saturday morning caught up with me in a big way on Monday morning - three lessons to write up from Saturday, and one from 8am today (I do start EARLY on Monday - takes a bit of effort!). I got that lot done throughout the morning, as well as taking time to join a regular Monday morning online Journaling hour run by WritersHQ. That took me up to lunch time.

After lunch I messed about with a Christmas art project which is still in its very early stages, and made Delia Smith's mincemeat.  I'm quite glad to have looked up the online recipe s it says makes 6 jars - I was wondering how many jars I would need. If you do decide to have a go, be warned; when she says 'use a large bowl', she means it; I had to decant the mix into the biggest roasting tin part way through adding the ingredients. It was then that I remembered that I usually made half quantities...

Oh wow!. The aroma of fruit and spices and whisky, which we used instead of brandy, when I lifted the foil lid to take the photograph!

Tomorrow it will go into a moderately cool oven for a couple of hours for everything to melt into a delicious gloop. 

I just about got this finished before a chatty zoom with friends, and then lessons with three very different piano pupils.

Well, compared to Saturday and Sunday I reckon this was a more active day.

Oh, and did I mention the poodle that forced its way through the back gate and spent a happy ten minutes exploring every nook and cranny of our garden while ignoring frantic calls from its owner? Leo the cat was totally appalled. 

Sunday 15th November - Cherry Blossoms

 

It is a bit hard to read; Winter Cherry Look Behind You

The words didn't stay there long. I chalked them up n a gap in the successive rain storms just before lunch, and then the heavens opened again.

I went out again in the rain to take pictures of the cheery tree across the road covered in little flowers. The leaves have almost all been blown away but the fragile petals cling on.

There are a number of cherry trees in our road. I would guess that most of them date back to when the houses were completed, in 1955, judging by the battered state of them. Delivery wagons and removal trucks, and, for one year, a twice-daily double decker bus, have sheared off the lower branches However the trees do their best every winter, the flowers lasting almost until the leaves reappear in spring.

The light was extraordinary when I took the picture of the tree; the rain was thundering down, indeed, there were several thunder-rolls, and the sun was shining and there were rainbows in the sky.

Rain, sun, a silver sky, a golden oak, and the rainbow, all at the same time. It sounds like something Gandalf would have said, words from an ancient prophesy, or  mystical charm, or a portent for the future.

Mix that in with reading Ecclesiastes 3 (A time to sow, a time to reap etc) and my head is buzzing.

What was the title of this post - cherry blossom?

Saturday 14th November - Raindrops

 

Rain has been dropping out of the sky for most of the day.. I nipped out at about half past nine in the morning to chalk up the word, at a moment when it wasn't raining.

Later in the day there was another less rainy moment. Himself went for a brisk walk round the block, and I took secateurs and bucket outside to tidy up the plants which were trailing over the wall, and cut back the last dead flowers on the rose bush. All the writing on the pavement and wall had been washed away.

The cats took a dim view of the weather

McCavity has just four or five doses of the horrible probiotic paste left. It is a two-person job; He holds her firmly and I attempt to squirt the paste into the side of her mouth, and she chews and chomps at the plastic nozzle of the dispenser. She has managed to chew through nozzle twice; it is reassuring to know that her teeth are still functional; but I have had to trim the damaged part of the nozzle away each time. If she continues to wreak this destruction, she may end up going without the last dose or two. I don't think she is clever enough to have worked this out in advance.

Yesterday's word, procrastinate, seems to have taken over today as well. The list one things that I haven't done is quite impressive.

Ah well. Tomorrow...

Friday 13th November - getting ready for Christmas

 

here are seventy-two tea-lights ready for Advent. The washi tape was delivered today, so I was able to complete the task of wrapping a strip round the tea-light this evening.

I made enough for me and two friends; we used to meet up every week to drink too many cups of tea and eat too many scones and slices of cake, and get on with whatever we were making at the time. I have really missed our gentle evenings together this past year. I'll pack up a mixed selection of 24 tealights and deliver them to their front doors before 1st December.

We added the doings for Delia Smith's mincemeat to our supermarket order two weeks ago and it is more than past time I got on with making that too.

Friday 13th November - Procrastination

 

I chose this word because...

It took me forever to get myself outside and write a word...

I didn't feel like doing much today...

Friday 13th is a good day for not doing things...

Take your pick - I would have written 'procrastination' but I didn't leave enough room.

Thursday 12th November - Sparkle

 Today's word.

It was a sparkling morning, and I reached breaking point with the un-sparkly appearance of the bedroom windows (I had a project back in - September, I think it was - to clean all the windows. I managed them all except for the bay windows upstairs and downstairs, and the window in the hall).

So today I made two of the five bays in the bedroom window sparkle - I had just about finished, and, to be honest was just about finished off, by this effort when a phone call came for me and I had to clamber down the rickety folding step-stool (the one we 'borrowed' from my parents ten years ago having decided that it was too rickety for their safety and our peace of mind).

Himself dealt with the couple of streaky bits I had left which was much appreciated.

Wobbling at full stretch, balanced on the same step-stool that I remember from my childhood had left my legs feeling as though I had done an hour at the gym.

I fully expect son or daughter to 'borrow' the step-stool in a year or so... That will be fine so long as they replace it with something equally convenient, as we did for my parents.

The windows are looking good; two more panes tomorrow?That's a definite maybe.

Wednesday 11th November - Be Still

 

Be still - for 2 minutes at 11 am, wearing last year's poppies, along with a couple of neighbours up and down the road - different ones to the people who stood outside their doors on Sunday, apart from us.

I don't feel too bad about wearing last year's poppies as I usually end up buying three of four each year to replace the ones I lose in the days before Remembrance Sunday. 

I suppose, in some kind of weird way, this is my generation's 'war', albeit more of a 'home front' sort of thing for most of us. But the healthcare workers and bus drivers and school staff are all very much on a front line, and a deadly front line at that. So many of them have died from coronavirus this year that it felt right to remember them as well as the soldiers and civilians of all nations and all conflicts. 

Two minutes isn't long.

I see I still haven't polished those shoes.

Tuesday 10th November - Fallen Leaves

 

Today's word(s). I walked outside, rather late in the morning, wondering what to choose, and saw a neighbour opposite hard at work (I have cropped him out of the picture). What with the trimming of the shrubs and the recent rain and wind and frost, he has carpeted the pavement with leaves. 

Our fuschia bush at the front of our house is all but finished for the year;

and the aforementioned frosts have had their effect on the agapanthus plants; the leaves will disappear (where - I can't remember - do they just rot away, or fall off and need sweeping up?)

Soon I shall be left with pots of bare earth around the garden. Already the rhubarb has disappeared (again, where?). 

It rained properly yesterday afternoon and evening, so I now have a blank, if damp, pavement to chalk on. 

Every year, once it gets colder, I find it hard to imagine going out without hat scarf gloves and warm winter coat; it was only a few weeks ago that I was walking around out in the garden with no shoes or socks on wearing just T-shirt and jeans.

Monday 9th November - New Day

 

Mondays start a bit early for me - I have an 8am piano lesson zoom to teach first thing... even though I tend to be awake by 6am these days I'm still somehow rushing to be downstairs and ready in time!

The sun was still shining after the lesson finished when I went out to chalk up today's word. \it seemed so appropriate - I was up early, and awake, and ready for the day... it didn't last; by the afternoon it had become dank and damp. I wonder how the words will survive a whole afternoon and possibly a night of rain.

I've also added a picture to my sketchbook for today, taken from a photograph that my so posted on his blog last night. He went out for a walk in the night-time fog and took pictures of the effect of the streetlights though the trees. 

Apart from that, today hasn't been all that full of incident. We watched next-door washing the roof of his car port and resisted laying odds the likelihood of him putting the end of his long-handled brush through our kitchen window (he swapped to a short handled brush part way through the exercise). I cut most of the claws of one of the cats because the clicking sound as she walked around on our wood floors was driving me slightly mad. I started wrapping washi tape around tealights to make an Advent calendar. 

Just odds and ends of bits of activity, mostly not completed because - well, lock-down this time around has a different feel to last time; the days are colder, energy levels are lower, and I think that makes things less everything.

Tomorrow is another day - we shall see what happens...  

Sunday 8th November - Remember

 

If you use your imagination you might be able to make out a poppy (rather pink) and a leaf (rather pale)

I also drew these today

The inktense water pencils I used have a shade which is helpfully labelled 'poppy red'.

My grandmother's younger brothers were both killed in the First World War.

I'm reading a book called 'Nella's Last War', which is an edited version of the diary she wrote when she took part in the Mass Observation Scheme back in 1939 as 'Housewife 49'. It is a fascinating read; she lived in the shipbuilding community around Barrow, and it is more about her feelings and coping with her sons being away and her very busy but humdrum life as a housewife. Just as when I started reading 'I Saw Two Englands' by H V Morton back in the Spring, during the first lockdown, 'Nella's Last War' seems a fitting book for this second lockdown. Both authors are writing in the same period; but from widely different experiences and positions in society.       

As well knowing about my great-uncles dying in the first world war, I also know someone who never recovered from his experiences in the Navy during the Falklands war, and at one point I was working with someone whose son was flying apache helicopters in Afghanistan during the height of the conflict. 

It is all too close to home - I am so thankful to have been kept safe from having to live through war.  

Saturday 7th November - Colour

 

Today's word was an obvious choice - it is such a bright sunny morning. And also, after yesterday's alarms over one of the cats, everything seems so much more colourful. I've written the word next to 'bright' on purpose.

I'm trying to do a sketch or drawing every day - here is this morning's, done before I got up. I was copying some of the flowers on the fabric I used for a quilt, and experimenting with some  Derwent 'inktense' pencils I have had for several years. The colours on the quilt are rather subdued so I didn't try and replicate them exactly. 

I'm a day behind, which is why the heading Thursday 5th - still, Thursday's word was 'bright' so it fits the theme. I'm happy so long as every page gets filled eventually...

Friday 6th November - Flowers

 

I've still got quite a bit of pavement left to write on before I will have to get a bucket of water and yard brush into action.

We still have an abundance of salvia 'hotlips' and a respectable number of salvia 'armistead' flowering, and a small army of bees sorting through the flowerheads. There are scattered communities of cyclamen, mostly arrived under their own steam. I've only ever planted one small clump under the smoke bush which took several years to get settled. This has been THE year for them to choose to become abundant, and I am very grateful.

Only a couple of cosmos plants survived the summer; here they are behind the low brick wall at the front of our house, a variety called cupcake.