Wednesday 24th January

Here's my November December January cross stitch picture;

As usual the finished piece was not quite how I imagined it;

Somehow the curves of my sketch didn't quite work out as I'd planned, but I'm happy enough. I stitched the background with nearly all the different greens I had in my stash. I had promised myself NOT to buy any more embroidery thread, so I only ordered two skeins.... oops

Having done all that mish mash of green for the vegetation, I couched brown perle thread and a metallic filament to make the frosty outlines of holly leaves (new technique for me) and then embroidered cream or white perle plus metallic filament - I wish I had a sharper needle, but didn't have a combination of large enough eye AND sharp point to hand. It took a bit of thought to work out how to do a holly flower... 

Finally I added the berries - three or so perle stitches set close together. No filament. I had broken a couple of needle threaders by then and run out of patience. 'Enough is as  good as a feast', I thought!

The theme was the 'sans day carol'; here are the words

1. Now the holly bears a berry as white as the milk,  (I'm sure I learned the word flower, not berry)
And Mary bore Jesus, who was wrapped up in silk:

Chorus: And Mary bore Jesus Christ our Saviour for to be,
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly.
Holly! Holly!
And the first tree in the greenwood, it was the holly!

2. Now the holly bears a berry as green as the grass,
And Mary bore Jesus, who died on the cross:

Chorus

3. Now the holly bears a berry as black as the coal,
And Mary bore Jesus, who died for us all:

Chorus

4. Now the holly bears a berry, as blood is it red,
Then trust we our Saviour, who rose from the dead:

Chorus

I had intended to use 'The Holly and the Ivy', but after I had done the holly leaves I decided against trying to couch down the outlines for any more leaves!

I love the way many of the Christmas carols tell the whole 'Jesus' story, from birth to resurrection. This one doesn't mention Christmas at all, so covers the tie from November to now quite nicely!

Sunday 14th January

pilgrimage

/ˈpɪlɡrɪmɪdʒ/   (don't you love these weird and wonderful symbols to aid pronunciation!?)

noun

1. a pilgrim's journey.

   "he wanted to go on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela"

   Similar:

   religious journey

   holy expedition

   crusade

   mission

   trip

   journey

   excursion

   yatra

   hajj

verb

1. go on a pilgrimage.

   "thousands pilgrimage there every year"

You may remember I am 'walking' along the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I say walking - I'm using a virtual app where I enter my step count at the end of the day, and then my little flag is moved along a map to show me where I am.

As I don't go out and walk any distance (I find I can't walk fast enough in cold weather to stay warm unless I am wrapped up like a Michelin Man) my daily step count tends to be 2000, give or take, unless I've been stirring a cake mixture, winding a ball of wool, chopping vegetables, or playing fast, dynamic piano pieces. That can quickly add a few hundred steps - but I allow them because it is a form of physical activity! These means I meander along the 400+ mile route at about one mile a day.

A pilgrimage isn't a race, though; it's a journey, and if I were really travelling along the road at one mile a day I would have plenty of time to observe, ponder, investigate, consider;

to 'hear, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest' 

(to quote one of the Advent collects, and, incidentally, our long suffering English teacher at school).

Here's where I am now. 

Pamplona is half a mile ahead, so I should be there sometime this evening. It's ften quite difficult to work out what season it is from the photographs. Warm and sunny; the grass to the left is bleached dry, the fields to the right are ploughed, dry and crumbly. Summer, perhaps? From reading the blog posts of people who have really walked the camino, it seems that the best plan is to get up before dawn, set off as soon as it is light, and try and reach your overnight destination before lunchtime After then it can be too hot to walk; looking at this path I can imagine it would be unbearable in the afternoon sun. 

I'm not as alone on this 'walk' as the picture would suggest. I am part of an endless stream of pilgrims, all travelling in the same direction. Because it is a virtual app, people can convert running, jogging, swimming, cycling, even dancing, exercising, buying groceries, and doing housework into distances to add to their journey! Imagine that! 

It seems that almost any everyday activity can contribute to one's progress along the path!

Well, this is Sunday and no doubt you are waiting for the 'religious' bit. Here is comes;

I want my 'real' pilgrimage to be towards Christ who said 'I am the Way, the Truth, the Life'. 

Knowing that there are so many fellow-pilgrims going along the path in their own way, not racing each other, but travelling a their own pace, is a great encouragement.

There you are, that's the religious bit. (mine's the marker with the tartan, from one of Ang's cross stitches pieces for our cross stitch collaboration)

    

 

Sunday 3rd September - Job Done

I shall be putting August's cross stitch collaboration piece in the post to Ang tomorrow morning. It's gone 9pm and I finished stitching about ten minutes ago.

We've just been out slugging, but it's too early. Yesterday evening's jaunt round the garden with a torch was a great success and I can report that slugs appear to be as susceptible to cider as they are to beer. We'll go out again later before we go to bed. I'm still obsessing about these sneaky molluscs as I have transplanted the swiss chard now as well;

They are all looking a bit despondent at being turfed out of their pots, but hopefully they will recover. I have covered the entire surface of the pot in slug wool, and also propped up any leaves that were flopping towards the edge of the pot so the slugs and snails can't reach across. 

It was a beautiful day for being in the garden; I cleared a number of pots which had optimistic labels like 'spring onions', 'spinach', 'cauliflower' stuck in them, but after over a month no evidence of anything growing. 

The earth is so lovely and soft and crumbly that I prefer not to use gloves but stir it around with my hands - I love the feel of it. The pak choi and kohl rabi have survived overnight. The pot right at the back is labelled 'lettuce' but now only contains forget me nots. I haven't decided whether to let them stay or weed them out.

That's Aki, the cat next door. He had been an 'indoor cat' for the first year or so of his life; he was completely astonished when tentatively exploring our garden to discover other cats. He obviously knew about, and understood people, but had not met another cat since he was a kitten. It was very amusing to watch him and our elderly (sadly no longer with us) cats; he was non-plussed by our cats, and they were alarmed by him. Partly because he was a new cat, and partly because he had no idea what was going on when they hissed at him, or tried to stare him out.   

My friends in Canada were asking if we had issued our slugs with passports and sent them their way - apparently their borders are crammed full of them too....

Friday 1st September - best laid plans

No 1 plan, to send my August Cross Country Collaboration off to Ang hasn't worked out. It's partly because having hummed and hah-ed I have decided that I DO want to fill in the white space between the motifs - and having missed the post today there's no chance of Ang getting it before Monday. Ho hum.

One serendipitous discovery is that having started filling in the white space (Yes, it was the correct decision) is that there was one line that needed a border stitched, but this would have impinged on Ang's 'Bless this Home'  piece. But, hurrah, close inspection and careful counting revealed that her picture is off-centre by a whole row!  

The picture above doesn't show the full space, but to the left of the border there are 5 squares, and to the right of the border there are 6 squares. So I have encroached by one square, making Ang' piece exactly central.

Filling in the white space is going quite quickly, I'm glad to say, just using one colour (well, two thread from different skeins) so I can track up and down the rows doing all crisses and then all crosses. No thinking required. Or not much.

So, Ang, if you are thinking about September already, firstly my apologies for delaying your start, and secondly, at least you know that I am filling the bottom right corner!

Secondly, I was going to post a photograph of Ang's lovely piece of stitching for August here. She must be a real high-speed stitcher because she appears to have all the stitching over the weekend! I'm happy to manage 50-70 stitches per hour if I am reading a chart, and can reach 100 per hour if I'm just doing large blocks of colour.  

I still haven't got me, my phone and the sewing all together, so I am 'borrowing' Ang's photo from her post; (hope you don't mind) and I really recommend you follow the link as she has written in detail all about the inspiration(s) and why she chose shades of purple.

the writing is 'tenui filo magnum texitur opus', the original motto of the company which is now DMC threads and means 'from a single thread comes great work'.

Yes indeed.

Other news - I don't know. Is slugging news? We went out again, and I took a bigger pot, and we collected at least another 20 slugs and snails. 

I'm hankering to get back to the pen and ink stuff I was doing - I've tried an idea or two but not started the next topics in the work book yet.

Books; Oh how I have been reading books this past week!

I finished

'How to run your home without help' by Kay Shrubsall, a Persephone book I have read before. This time I read it with increasing horror; daily dusting, sweeping, brushing and vacuuming carpets, washing and polishing floors, the labour of laundry ('first assemble everything you will need; soap, jelly soap, soda, buckets, brushes, bowls, make sure you have arranged plenty of hot water and set the boiler to heat, fetch in the mangle'). She fills every moment of the day with unrelenting cooking, cleaning, shopping and house work, and the evening with knitting, sewing, ironing and mending. 

and

'Cotillion' by Georgette Heyer - I snapped it up for 99p on kindle as my own copy is a well-thumbed paperback from my teenage days. I had completely forgotten the plot, which is oneof her more complicated ones. But the right people paired off in the end (as if it were ever in doubt...)

I'm still moseying through Isabella Bird's 'A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains'; an account of this intrepid lady's travels in the 1870s. Fantastic adventures and descriptive writing, but not light-weight.

and 'Coot Club' by Arthur Ransome. Rattling good yarns, which I have been reading every few decades all my life.    

Tuesday 22nd August - You'll be so pleased when it is done

This has been my motivation for much of what I have done today. 'Getting things done' is a mysterious and arcane skill that it can take many decades to learn - at least for me.

So I have hoovered downstairs, and yes, I am pleased that the task is completed.

I have paid an invoice straight away, rather than thinking 'I'll get round to that sometime'.

I did an hour's cross stitching in the earlier part of the morning, and I have to say it's turning out as I had hoped - so far. Ang does trial pieces before committing to anything that is a bit uncertain; I ponder for a while (sometimes days!) and then just GO for it. I have finished all the counting business, so can just play about with different combinations of colours and thread and see what happens.

An hour is about what I can manage before my eyes go funny. I'm sure I ought to visit an opticians at some stage. The main obstacle to enjoying the piano at the moment is being able to see the music clearly; my current vari-focals are hopeless as I need to look out of the bottom third for both the keys and the music, so my head nods up and down like the Churchill Insurance nodding dog;

https://admascots.fandom.com/wiki/Churchill

Trawling through the internet, I discovered that he has been replaced as part of a campaign by animal welfare organisations to stop breeders from breeding dogs with ever more extreme faces, causing all kinds of health problems for the dogs. A good thing too; this demand for 'designer' dogs and cats bred for their 'cute' appearance regardless of their welfare needs to be checked.

Now, what is it I ought to have been doing instead of hunting down information on nodding dogs... I've forgotten. I'll remember later when I find I didn't do what I intended to do...   

Friday 28th April - strange dreams

I found I was dreaming cross stitches last night, rather in the way I used to dream minesweeper and tetris grids in years gone by. Disconcerting,  and not restful.  After yesterday's lack of cross progress I set to big time today, so I suspect I'll be dreaming of stitches again tonight. But, I am within shouting distance of completing it and posting it tomorrow or Sunday. The bank holiday means that it's going to take an extra day to reach Ang. She's already posted hers to me!

When I can't sleep and my thoughts keep going round on a loop I distract myself with selected audiobooks. They have to be just interesting enough to distract me, but not too exciting or terrifying!

I'm currently most of the way through the second of the Green Knowe children's books by Lucy M Boston. It is nearly too interesting, almost too exciting to be properly sleep-inducing. I set the timer for 30mins, after which the voice fades away, but last night I gave myself an extra 30mins as the story had come to an exciting bit.

We've sent off for a light-weight compact folding rollator, not for me, I hasten to add, but because my father’s super deluxe rollator is an absolute nightmare to fit in the rather small boot of our car. We have to put half the back seat down, empty the boot and and wrangle with the folded rollator while trying not to injure ourselves.

Now that he's accepting lifts from us instead of driving, we need to solve the rollator issue as he prefers it to his walking pole. He's due a visit from an occupational therapist who will hopefully find a better walking stich than this pole he's been using for a couple of years. 

And I've made spring rolls in the air fryer! I made up a mixture of  cooked chicken, spring onion, sriracha sauce, a couple of pieces of jalapeño pepper from a jar, red peppers, fresh coriander and lime juice all chopped small and stirred together. Because I was using cooked chicken I could taste it as I went along.

Then I took two sheets of filo pastry, cut each in half, and made 4 spring rolls. I sprayed them with oil and cooked them for 8 minutes at 190°C, turning and spraying the other side half way through.  For a first attempt I was very pleased; we had them for supper with a little soy sauce for dipping them. It sounds a huge amount of effort, but was actually not that bad. I'll make them again to use up the rest of the filo pastry.

Sunday 13th August - Almost nothing

 has happened today in terms of events to write home about; 

• a friend called round to collect her very, very late birthday present on her way from the 8:30 service at church; 
• 
  
• I managed to persuade myself to join the live stream of the second service at 10:30 (joining very late at nearly 11!). I'm glad I did; I heard a very good sermon. 'How can I learn if I have no-one to teach me?' asked the Ethiopian when Philip, the disciple joined him in his chariot (the story appears early in the book of Acts) and explained the Old Testament book of Isaiah to him. Ethiopia is now called Sudan. So the new Christian faith must have reached Africa early in the 1st century.
• 
  
• The usual after church zoom for us stay-at-home members was, as usual, a lovely time to meet up and chat, if only via screens
• 
  
• I have done a minute amount of cross stitch, along the lines of stitch around the sides of a box shape, and unpick one of the lines... I spent some time last night (probably only minutes, maybe even just seconds) having vivid dreams about my chart being wrong and the stitching being wrong. The chart is ok, but the rest of the dream came slightly true!
• 
  
• Now it is heading for tea-time so it looks as though once I have put something on a plate to eat, I have done all that I am going to do today.
• 
  

   

    

Friday 14th July - so many reasons for feeling better

 Such as

getting started on the cross stitch! It doesn't look like much yet, and I'm still mulling over the colours but at least I can get on with something while I ponder.

Next, these miniature rose seeds arrived in the post today. I've read the sowing instructions several times over; they need a temperature of 18-22C to germinate, so, having looked at the weather forecast, I will have to start them off indoors. 

Just 15 seeds in the packet, but if they should all germinate then I will have more than enough!

These roses;

There are nine blooms on the one spindly stem, clamouring to be allowed indoors out of the rain!

And talking of rain - there will be no need to water the pots and tubs this evening.

My father nearly had a wardrobe malfunction; we had a plaintive telephone call asking if we had a thingy for making holes in his leather belt! The answer is no; but Himself took round his Dremel drill set when he delivered the shopping and drilled several holes as requested. Things should be easier now! That drill was a leaving present ('you want one a what?') when he retired from work. It has proved its value many and many a time.

I discovered a 'new to me' gardening magazine today (thanks to the pressreader app) called 'The English Garden'. There were only two issues available on pressreader; The older one was 'A Year in the Garden' and goes through month by month with luscious pictures. I am the other issue for tomorrow; it will be my reward for after the next stitching session!

Friday 30th June - just a weeny bit weird?

Cross Stitch Collaboration Update;

We have managed to exchange our June stitcheries just before the end of the month - Ang received my box yesterday, and hers arriveded here this morning.

Now, I promise you, we try not to even hint at what we are doing, but more and more often we are clearly thinking along the same lines;

here are my initial ideas for my piece;

Originally I thought of some kind of hexagon back ground, with a bee, or maybe bees, and perhaps a hive, and could I fit the words of the old rhythm about swarms? 

like this, perhaps, with the bees in and around the words, and something pictorial - hive and folowers at the bottom, or between the words?

 It all got too complicated and I completely changed my mind. Perhaps I'd revisit this for July.

Here's is Ang's piece;

She made larger, honey-coloured hexagons so that each one could be filled with a different blackwork pattern. Isn't it brilliant!

I was going to use an all over hexagon pattern for mine, as you can see in my first doodles. But I think Ang's version is terrific, and would make a great sampler! 

Ang also slightly re-jigged the top left border to solve the problem of the empty space in the 'no cross, no crown' piece for April. ('I have a cunning plan....') 

The 'flat presents' are a sample sachet of granules for adding to pots and containers to retain moisture, and a matchbox size box of bee friendly seeds.

So, if I gave up on the bees, what did I sew instead?

I liked the effect of the completely red 'no cross no crown' piece, but didn't want to use red, or the equally traditional black thread. Green seemed a good choice, for the bird - probably meant to be a dove, by my garden is full of pigeons - and plants. This is part of a Victorian design for a border, with an alphabet added top and bottom.

Here's my chart;

As usual, once I've sorted out my ideas I chart it on a photocopy of the actual fabric, magnified to about 140% . As I go along I can mark the design, either by colouring in shapes different sections, or by numbering the stitches in each row to help me keep track of where I've got to. 

But both of us thinking of bees........ I wonder what we are both going to do in July? Perhaps I should do something Christmassy to be sure of being different?

Saturday 17th June - better than Friday

That's not to say there was much wrong with Friday, but today was better.

How?

I just had more energy, completed a couple of tasks, and feel the lighter for it.

Cross-stitch8ng, and un-cross-stitching, and un-re-cross-stitching and re-re-cross-stitching happened after lunch. Probably not the best time of day as it was getting hotter by then, but overall it was progress. I sit here to sew;

but with the curtain open. In the afternoon the sun works round to shine in through the patio doors, so I close the curtains to make it a bit cooler. Everything is cleared away, ready to begin again tomorrow morning.  I shall probably stitch while the church service is livestreaming. Either that or knit more sock...

Lunch was spaghetti with sausage meatballs. Himself is usually in charge of the victuals, but today he was feel uninspired by the sausages listed for today, whereas I was feel8ng in the mood to cook.

A rummage in the cupboard produced a jar of red pesto which had been lurking for a while. 'Stir 1-2 tablespoons per person through cooked pasta and serve hot' was the serving suggestion on the label. 

Here's what I did;

I divided each of the 6 sausages into four pieces. They have changed the skins, these new ones are so thin that next time I will just cut them, rather than skinning them and rolling them into little balls. Then I cooked the little meat balls in the air fryer for 5 mins at 180. While that was going on I sliced a red pepper into thinnish strips. After the five minutes were up, I lobbed the bits of pepper on top of the meatballs and gave them another 10 mins. If you don't have an air fryer, a frying pan would do.

The 150g (enough for 2) spaghetti took 10 minutes so this was going on as well. Just before the pasta was done I added a handful of frozen peas. 

Although I made 24 meatballs the plan was to eat 12 and save 12 for another meal.

So, I drained the pasta and peas, returned it to the pan,stirred in 4 tablespoons pesto, 12 meatballs and all the red peppers. 

Served it with parmesan and and black pepper and some basil.

Now we have 12 meatballs in the freezer, and half a jar of pesto in the fridge ready for another time.

My haul of tsundoku continues to grow.... kindle keeps offering me books for 99p... yesterday I stumbled across an episode of Hamish MacBeth on television and guess what, one of the books is.... 99p! 'Death of a Snob' by M C Beaton of Agatha Raisin fame. Now I don’t care for much Agatha, but Hamish...

Wednesday 14th June - Flowers, Sewing, Knitting

 I'm so pleased to be up and doing again. Maybe doing a bit much? I can feel my eyelids drooping a little... Ah well. That's what happens...

I spent an hour and a half this morning sewing the cross stitch project. Getting properly started and making some progress - and no unpicking - is a relief. I find getting started is always the hardest part. I've done enough to think that, barring serious mistakes, it is not as complex a design as I feared.

Then I had the usual zoom chat and piano lesson with a friend where we put our worlds to rights and incidentally do a bit of piano. 

Lunchtime! And because I had taken off my step counter wristband at the beginning of the lesson, it now recorded at mere 128 steps for half a day! I do try and take it off for playing the piano, as I can gain anything up to 1000 steps (teaching Scott Joplin Rags and any kind of 'oom cha cha' LH is particularly good, or bad, for step counting).

After lunch I answered a question about my work-in-progress sock that was bugging me; did I have enough yarn to finish the pair, or would I need to start the last ball for the second sock? I did all sorts of complicated weighings of sock (2 inches to go), needles (2 stuck in the sock, one free). In the end, if I had thought about it, all I had to do was weigh the sock, weigh the yarn, and think. (Never do anything the easy way, if you can make it more complicated somehow...?)

But in one way I am glad I did, because on the piece of paper I used is this;

'Apricity' the warmth of the sun in the winter'. What a lovely word.

Later in the afternoon I wandered into the garden and started transferring some of the little plants I've been growing on since they arrived as thimble-sized plugs. Of the 72 wee little babies - too young to have left their nursery, surely! - about 56 survived. The main casualties were busy lizzies and rudebeckias, but the petunias, nicotianas, lobelias, gazzinias, bacopas, begonias and pelargoniums are mostly doing well. I just hope the snails don't find the containers I planted today.

This was a nice cool place to set up a little workstation. In the window box are individual lettuce seeds, on in each pot. On the table; right at the back the latest arrivals, some coleus plugs, a re tray with a few remaining petunias and the nicotinas, in the pale tray the geraniums.

On the ground; a mniature Christmas tree - if it survives then 2023 will be its third year, some mint, a tub with petunias, bacopa, and some snapdragons (I think) self seeded from last year, two smaller tubs with petunias and lobelia. 

Here are the three cardoons, already about twice the size they were when they went in. I was thinking of stashing the nicotina plants in the spaces around them.
 

The sweet pea has some companions now, I am pleased to see.

Sunday 30th April - And so to bed...

I forgot to post this post!!! 

Here endeth an eventful week... 

I have packaged up the cross stitch for April, but there was no rush to get it into a post box, as today is Sunday and tomorrow's a Bank Holiday.

We took my father for his covid booster this morning. They offered us the option of having it done in the car - what a brilliant idea! We sat in the car with doors and windows open to enjoy the sunshine and birdsong and in due course someone appeared with a tray of syringes going from one vehicle to the next. I asked if I could have one too (I hadn't booked, but am allowed a booster because I take immunosuppressant medicines) and she obligingly fetched the appropriate vaccine and did me as well. Unfortunately Himself is underage - irritating,  as it seems to me it would be a good idea for family members of people who are vulnerable to have boosters but hey, who can understand the machinations of The System? 

The whole process took less than an hour door to door.

Here endeth an eventful month; 

Tomorrow will be a new day, a new week and a new month. 

Friday 21st April - I have had some sherry. Expect typos

 The last three days have been heavy on admin, and heavy on zooms; only two extra zooms on top the of scheduled 6 piano zooms and one church house group zoom, but it seems that the effect of increasing numbers of zoom sessions is more than one might think. Still, it's the end of the week, and no more zooms until Sunday (church livestream, not really a zoom, followed by two 'chatty' zooms)

I've written up all the piano lessons apart from the two today. I like to leave a day before I write up the lesson - is that laziness at the end of the day? Or a chance to reflect on the lesson? Or maybe both?

I've written up and emailed the notes from the house group zoom, and printed a set to post/deliver to our non-internet member.

And - this is the biggie - I have started gathering together the facts and figures to construct a tax return... the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth as far as I can manage.

 It's not been all playing the piano keyboard and tapping the computer keyboard. 

I've been watching youtubes on drawing trees;

I finished my sketch-a-day journal on 1st April, and rather than buy yet another notebook, I decided to use my Commonplace Book for the daily sketches. I've had a series of Commonplace Books on the go for a number of years, to note down poems, quotations, etc etc and this particular book has pages which are able to cope with pen and ink, and watercolour (as long as it isn't too wet). 

Just before Easter I bought the companion book to 'Bored Of Lunch - Slow Cooker recipe book', which is 'Bored of Lunch - Air Fryer recipe book'

I had a go at the low-calorie sausage rolls, made with tortilla wraps instead of pastry. They were pretty good - we shared half for supper, and will have the other half for supper tomorrow. The picture shows half the batch. 

I didn't quite understand the instructions so this is what I did; I used half a dozen decent quality sausages (not the low-calorie ones specified), one egg, three large tortilla wraps.

Skin the sausages, and mix the meat with extra herbs if you like. Divide into three lumps.

Beat the egg to use partly as glue, and partly as egg wash (I wonder if milk would be as good?)

Take a tortilla, lay flat and trim off a little of four edges to square it up a bit. Squidge the meat into a long thin sausage and lay near one edge, roll up the wrap and sausage using a generous application of egg-wash to make sure the thing sticks and stays rolled up. Repeat for other two tortillas. 

Cut each roll into bite sizes - I got about 16-18 pieces - glaze with egg wash and cook for 11 mins at 200C. Not bad. I cooked them on silicone air-fryer liner which you can see in the picture - it sits in the basket and saves on washing up.

Some kitting today - the mitre-square blanket. I am slowly re-doing the cuffs of the socks in order to do a stretchier cast off, and that needs brain. 

No cross stitch - I am short on brain power today, and now that I've drunk that glass of sherry the brain power is going fast.

Saturday 15th April - A Good Day for Doing Things

 First of all (and this was a tense twenty-five minutes) I have started the heel of my sock;

Step one was to watch the Arne and Carlos video on how to pick up the stitches for 'the easiest sock in the world' - they make it look so easy...

Like I said, it was a tense time, with many pauses to check a) I was doing it correctly b) that my jaw wasn't clenched c) that I had remembered to blink my eyes d) that I was still remembering to breathe. Eventually I managed to pick up all 60 stitches, 30 on each of my bendy needles as opposed to splitting it between four needles as they do. 

More tension, as I unravelled the contrast thread that I had knitted in where the heel was going to be all those weeks and weeks ago

Leaving the stitches (31 on one needle now - how did that happen? And should there have been 32? Oh well. I couldn't see any dropped stitches anywhere....)

The next problem was 'did I have enough blue sock yarn?' The knitted swatch was a trial for another project, on larger needles, and weighed 1.5g. The little nest of yarn that I had left for the heels was 3g, so not enough for one heel let alone two. The ball of multicoloured sock yarn weighs 24.5g, so that made the decision for me - contrasting heels!

And I'm off!

The heel is going to be the most peculiar shape, as you just follow the instructions for the toe in reverse.

 Arne, or is it Carlos?, assures us that it will sort of round itself out with wear. I believe every word he says, I think... 

I've also cleared another couple of overdue emails, prepared two more tubs for veg planting and done a good deal of cross stitching.

Now why is everything centred on the page, and refusing to left align?

Friday 14th April - weather dependent

What is weather dependent?

Whether we get any gardening done... yes, as a matter of fact. There was a brief spell in the afternoon when himself roared up and down the grass with the lawn mower (it was the lawn mower doing the roaring, I should explain). Heavy work, as the grass was long (first cut of the year) and not as dry as would make things easier. Meanwhile I sat on my trusty little trolley seat  and cleared out another couple of tubs ready for vegetable seeds - when? Ah, well, that's weather dependent too.

(No, this isn't me - I've snipped the picture from amzn)

I'm amazed that the trolley still supports my weight. We keep it outside, and every time I trundle it out from under the potting table I expect the plastic to have perished, and to find myself ignominiously dumped in a heap on the round.

Was it really last September and October that I was poring over seed catalogues...

This is the first year that my windowsills haven't been full of little trays of earth and hope... 

Whether I am feeling energetic or sluggish or downright dismal. This changeable weather can switch my mood as many times as the sun shines or the rain pours or the wind blows, often all at the same time and then where am I? 

Whether I get things done - I am slightly celebrating because I have dealt with a number of tasks  including sending the invoices for the next six week's piano teaching. There are too many Monday Bank holidays this half of term so I'm not sure how that will play out for the Monday evening pupil. Mostly we ignore them and keep on trucking through.

One thing I have started today is the cross stitching. I charted it yesterday (twice) and began stitching (twice)... luckily I had only done a row and a half and it was easy to unpick. So no heavy sighs or regrettable language.

The stand magnifying glass makes such a difference...

Whether a blog post gets written or not, no, nothing to do with the weather. More a case of suddenly remembering at 7.59 pm that I was hosting a group zoom at 8pm... 

Monday 27th March - Heartsease

"Heartsease I found, where Love-lies-bleeding

Empurpled all the ground

Whatever flowers I missed unheeding

Heartsease I found."

                                                    Christina Rossetti

The tiny violets are just beginning to come through in the grass now, so small that you might miss them if you weren't looking for them. If you google 'love-lies-bleeding' you will be shown pictures of amaranthus caudatus

from gardenerspath.com

 but my first thought was of dicentris spectablis which I know as 'bleeding hearts', or 'Dutchmen's trousers' 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/

But 'Love-lies-bleeding' is an old name for 'Violas', Ang tells me, the smaller version of the bigger showier pansy.

A viola is what Ang sent to me at the end of last week as her Cross Stitch Picture inspired by a some given to her by friends. 

she filled in the space at the top and bottom of the grid with the kind of patterns they tried (and failed!) to teach be back in infant needlework classes.

I took the poem from the write-up that we do in the book which travels back and forwards with the stitching; you can see a corner peeping out in the picture. 

I'm still adding what seems to be hundred of little stitches to my cross stitch picture. It isn't really hundreds, though, and getting quicker and quicker to do, and another hour tomorrow should see it finished. There's still a good chance of meeting the date of 31st of March! 

The advantage of having identical grids to work on is that a good deal of planning can happen in advance. As I beaver away at the last details of this month's picture, I'm already beginning to think about April, and filling spare spaces in my diary with sketches and charts. Nothing too detailed, as we don't discuss which areas we will choose; that's part of the surprise when we open the box.

My 'flat presents', for there are two, are a small embroidery picture, and a rather lovely paperclip with 'The Lord is my Shepherd' at one end - very handy for holding my music open at the right page when I am practising. Some books have a habit of shutting themselves up, or not opening properly in the first place and this will keep them in order.  

The second half of March has been a strange and difficult couple of weeks, with events appearing out of the blue to turn our usually leisured pace of life into quite the 'swan' act.

image from another blog of mine
www.themusicjungle.co.uk, and was drawn especially for me.

Psalm 23 has been a great help in keeping me going. Things are mostly resolved now, and I shall be grateful for the Easter holidays beginning on Monday.

Heartsease was a great choice of flower!