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; 
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• 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.
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• 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
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• 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!
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• 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.
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Friday 19th March - Dreams...

 I woke in a state of suppressed rage last night, at about 3am. Someone, I don't know who, had snatched the tea cosy I am knitting out of my hands, pulled the needles out and chucked it in the bin because 'it was just an expensive way of wasting time'. I was so furious that I went to the common room (what common room? where?) which has a grand piano in the corner, and spent two hours alternately hammering through Hanon piano studies at top speed,

and then doing slow, intensely detailed work learning a Schubert Scherzo. This probably to do with a fairly frustrating piano lesson I taught on the Hanon, and other rather more melodious studies, and the Schubert yesterday evening. The student, a teenager (!) has a large collection of  Japanese plush toy snails

which tend to interrupt the lesson at very frequent intervals. 

'Do you like my snails, Miss?'

I used to say something slightly positive about the snails and bring the conversation back to the piano, but now I just say

'No, not really, and I'd like you to play bar 10 with the fingering and rhythm we've just been talking about.' 

Harsh. 

We are all ready for a holiday.

One consequence of the weird dream was that I did sit down and the piano and do some serious practice today; maybe a couple of hours, learning the Schubert - it is SUCH a pretty piece - partly for my own pleasure, and partly to work out how to teach the next bit. One thing lead to another; I can still sort of play the early part of Schumann 'Papillons' - my, that's SO stretchy - Ashkenazy makes it look easy. And I still can't play Fantasiestucke.

The tea cosy - is progressing well;

I'm just creating the lids of the teapots that march round the middle of the cosy. It is a delight to be using the correct yarn, which is in one long piece rather than bits, and on the proper needles. There will still be loads of ends to darn in, but nothing like the number for like the trial version.

The cotton bag I am using to keep everything in is a Japanese 'bento bag', created from a length, or two lengths, if you want the lined version which is much nicer, of fabric three times longer than wide, folded and sewn and turned and hey presto a bag has happened.  

https://tinyhappy.typepad.com/tiny_happy/2016/08/tutorial-lined-bento-bag.html

I'm over the dream rage now - maybe a brief spell in the garden in the afternoon sunshine was the final part of the cure. I have sown sunflower seeds, and savoury seeds (sounds like they should grow into canapes, but it is a herb) and cucamelon seeds. They are all upstairs in a spare bedroom - hopefully I will remember to water them. Cucamelon?

Melothria scabra, also known as the cucamelon, is a vine grown for its edible fruit. Fruits are about the size of grapes and taste like cucumbers with a tinge of sourness. Vernacular names include mouse melon, Mexican sour gherkin, cucamelon, Mexican miniature watermelon, Mexican sour cucumber and pepquinos.^[1][2][3]

This plant is native to Mexico and Central America,^[3] where it is called sandita : 'little watermelon', from sandía : 'watermelon'. It is believed to have been a domesticated crop before Western colonization of the Americas began.

Not something I have come across before,. They were a Christmas present, and We Shall See what happens...

Also broad beans; four seed, one in each corner of a container outside.

Spring is here at last! 

 
 
 
  

 

Friday 6th November - It's harder than it sounds. Or Looks.

I'm wrestling with this as the moment.

well, not the original manuscript; not even a nice copy in a book. I've downloaded it from an "out-of-copyright" sheet music site.

I'm learning the slow movement in my harpsichord lessons, at such a slow speed that even a tortoise would struggle to keep in time.

Oh, didn't I mention that I'd become the proud possessor of a digital harpsichord? Digital, because the real thing would take up the WHOLE of the dining room and needs constant "fettling" and tuning, whereas the digital version is the size of a small side-table and copes with changes in temperature and humidity without becoming all temperamental (that's an "in" joke).

When I turned up for my lesson, my teacher had been called away to another class, so I spent the hour practicing.

By the end of the hour I was able to place the first line - that's the bit before the tune starts - they way I wanted it. And it took the whole hour to achieve it.

Eventually, it might sound like this? Well, one can dream.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIhteTLwwqs

Keep listening; he does the Goldberg Variations next...

Thursday 7th November - Early to bed...

and early to rise

makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.

Hrrmph. I'm not healthy or wealthy, so all that leaves is Wise. Which I therefore must be. Very.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owl
The Little Owl, 1506, by Albrecht Dürer

I've been falling asleep on the settee since 7pm this evening. But, on the whole, that was a bit too early for an early night. So we toughed it out until 9pm, and then I remembered that I had forgotten to post anything for today.  

So that Durer Owl picture is all you are getting from me today.


Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bugs bite

(how do you stop them? apart from mosquitoes I've never had any experience of bugs that bite in the night? There's a "TOO MUCH INFORMATION" passage in "The L-shaped Room" by Lynne Reid Banks about how to catch bed bugs; you need a bar of soap which is slightly wet; you sweep back the covers and quickly capture the bugs by sticking them to the bar of soap... somehow that graphic description stuck in my mind when I read the book all those decades ago. By the way it is NOT a children's book like "The Indian in the Cupboard". You have been warned)

Time to go. Really. I'm going. Now. This minute. Any time right now. Yes yes yes alright. Gone.

Monday 27th August - "Just 2 kinds of stitches" part 1

Anita laid the knitting on the table and carefully measured its length. Just about one metre - perfect, time to cast off the stitches. The completed scarf lay in a loose coil on the table, the autumnal colours glowing gently. She ran her fingers over the fabric, enjoying the soft, springy texture, before taking a sewing needle and her personalised label to add the finishing touch; "hand knitted for NewCreations by Anita".

She folded the scarf and added it to the collection that was growing in the hamper in the corner of the workshop.

"How many is that now?" asked Lizzy,
"Ten, I think," replied Anita. Lizzy pulled out a ledger from the shelf nearby, and turned up Anita's page.
"No, that brings it up to a dozen," said Lizzy. "Do you want to do another the same, or try the new style?"
"Let's go for it," suggested Anita, looking as though she was preparing to do battle. "I'm sure I'll be able to get the hand of those cable patterns now."

The NewCreations workshop was an inspiring haven of warmth, colour and activity in a corner of the shopping mall. In one corner there was a row of hampers containing different hand knitted items; scarves, shawls, even whole blankets. There were shelves with baskets of yarns and tubs of knitting needles. Around the edges, a random variety of chairs were arranged informally in conversational groups, leaving space for a worktable in the centre. A few toddlers were playing with toys om the floor.

NewCreations had only been open for a month, and already it was getting a name as the new place to be. It was the brainchild of Lizzy, who had roped in some friends to get it going. The plan was to set up a group to help find work and employment for local people. Lizzie had settled on knitting as the basic medium as the raw materials - knitting needles and yarn - were easy to source. Her friends had been press-ganged into the enterprise because they they really knew how to knit. Lizzie was under no illusions about her own skills in that area.

Ideally there should have been months, or even years, of research and discussion before NewCreations opened, but that just wasn't Lizzie's way of working. She had gone round the shopping centre, eyeing up all the empty shop units, and then plunged into the management offices to cajole them into letting her have one on a temporary basis "after all, isn't it better to have something going on in an empty unit, if only to attract people to the shops either side and help them to keep going?"

A structure for the group was needed. There had to be some kind of way of agreeing a basic level of acceptable quality, and maintaining standards. A range of goods for NewCreations had to be agreed. Sue, one of Lizzie's friends, put up her hand for that, and put together a small portfolio of patterns, suitable for different skill levels. Lizzie wanted members to be able to start contributing as soon as possible after joining. Using the test swatches to create blankets and throws was a simple way to achieve this. The personalised labels was another of Sue's ideas. It made sense to give the knitters a personal connection with the group rather than turning them into anonymous workers.

The other local charity shops were a source for acquiring knitting needles, so the main investment had been the yarn. Newcomers to the group were given yarn and needles to either demonstrate their skills, or learn how to knit. Once the quality of their work was suitable, they started working for real, using the beautiful yarns piled enticingly on the shelves at the back. This was where Lizzie, Sue, and the other founder members had to put their hands into their pockets, and start committing their own money as well as their time to the project. Suddenly, it all became frighteningly real, frighteningly immanent.

to be continued