Wednesday 4th June - Early Start

 What is it about 5am in the morning? I'm sure it is wonderful for some people to rise at dawn, but I'm not one of them. There's some deep force at work trying to convert me to early rising - or perhaps it's just the milkman. 

I gave in at half past five. By then we were both awake, each trying not to wake the other. So we both got up, and once again the day ran early, all day. 

Ah well, plenty got done in the morning, including the rest of the edges of the Cover Story Collaboration. I think Ang and I have agreed the wording so I can make a start on it tomorrow. 

I'll try out my solution for the knitted cowl this evening after I've written this post. It might work, or it might become a random texture. Either way that's OK by me - it's not really going to show. 

I was flagging by the end of the afternoon, so I wasn't really put out when my piano student cancelled just as her zoom lesson was about to start. She sounded all flustered and bothered and apologetic. Her computer had crashed and she couldn't get it to work. That's one of the biggest problems with zoom lessons. We are at the mercy of the technology!

Instead I went outside and had a look at the garden;

Hello, lavender! It hadn't quite started flowering a couple of days ago, look at it now

We gave this rose to our neighbours as a thank you for putting up with the inconvenience when the fence was replaced about 10 years ago. Aren't we lucky to be able to share it

The fence is 6 feet tall. So the cardoons must be at least 8 feet high. Our neighbours get to share them too. There's rather an aphid infestation, but hopefully the cardoons are diverting the pests from the roses.

It's still not quite warm enough in the mornings to commune with my crimson flowering broad beans. I have a feeling I should be pinching the tops out, or maybe I'm too late.

And peas.

There are no beans. Perhaps it was too cold when I sowed them, perhaps the seeds were too old. I bought a packet of 'Racing Runner Beans' from the children's seed selection along with my grocery order, and I'll put them in today or tomorrow. 

This is really what I wentbout to photograph;

The apple tree! I haven't done my tree pictures for May (I'm taking them at the end of the month,each month so I'm a bit behind) but just look at all those little apples.

Here's the apple tree at the end of March, just 2 months ago. The difference is astonishing.

Music

I've always loved the Clog Dance from 'La Fille Mal Gardée'. I saw it live in a big top in Sheffield, oh, about 40 years ago, back when we lived in Yorkshire, a most spectacular production. 

Now for some knitting...

Tuesday 3rd June - now get out of that...

 Knitting

I've set myself a bit of a puzzle here... that's what comes of free-styling without charting first.

I was knitting along creating vertical stripes, 

- (p2 k1 p2) repeat along the right side, (k2 p1 k2) along the wrong side - 

and then I tried adding extra stripes, 

- (k1 p1) along right side, (p1 k1) along wrong side-

 but when I had a good look it had come out differently to how I imagined it. So now what shall I do? My original idea won't work... I'm at the stage of 'I wonder what might happen if I did this? Or that? Or maybe...'

I'll photograph it tomorrow. If I don't point out the puzzling bit maybe no-one will ever spot it.

Cover Story

Cover Story Stitching continues apace. A couple more edges to embellish, but then it's time to add the wording and the dates... that will slow me down. I'll write them on the area set aside for this purpose with a frixion pen and then carefully backstitch or something over it.

Oh me oh my! The end of the Cover Story draws ever closer!

I really love Katherine Turner's daily stitching. She divides an area into 30 or 31 (or 28) slightly irregular shapes and completes one every day ver the year. If you follow the link you will hopefully see the finished stitching for May.

I've found a short video introducing her course which gives a good idea of the result (I've no plans to take the course though).

I don't think it would work so well for our collaborations, and anyway, I think we are more or less decided on our next collaboration. So exciting! 

Books

Once again I have abandoned the book club choice.. After about three chapters of 'Landing Gear' by Kate Pullinger I baled out. 

I quoted 'Humankind cannot bear too much reality' to a friend the other day (I had to look it up to find out who had written it; T S Eliot in one of his 'Four Quartets' poems),  and there was too much reality in this book for me.

So what am I reading?

I'm reading a book by Helena Atlee, 'Lev's Violin' where she is researching everything about violins, inspired by holding an old Italian violin. The history, and at the moment, how the wood was harvested back in the 17th and 18th centuries and brought down from the Dolomites (had to look them up) and along the rivers to Venice and eventually Cremona. I'm finding it fascinating, lovely lyrical writing. 

Also - I can hardly bring myself to admit to this - 'Wedding Tiers', a Trisha Ashley rom-com. Of course your partner is having an affair with the lovely Olivia, can't you see the signs? I'm waiting for the rugged stranger to appear and sweep her away from all this heartbreak; it can't be long now.

And 'Blythe Spirit', a biography of Ronald Blythe who writes so beautifully about village and country life. 

And (yet another book?) 'La vie - a year in rural France' by John Lewis-Stempel. This one is divided into 12 chapters, one for each month so I can begin June now. I love his writing and passion for old-fashioned farming.

I think I should leave my list of audio books audio books for another post...

Music

Countryfile on television promised us unsettled and showery weather. They were right. It felt distinctly un-Summery, as though we were being reminded that we've barely left Spring, and it's only a few months until Autumn!

We had an autumnal lunch of sausages, bubble and squeak and baked beans. Salad would have felt all wrong today.

With autumn in mind I chose this lovely piece by Granados, called Andaluzia. I know it as a piano piece, but here's Julian Bream playing it on the guitar.

Monday 2nd June - it was on the Monday morning...

that the gasman came to call... for the annual boiler service. We were told he would be here between 10 and 2. BB cleared the worktop under the boiler;

 Oh my, it looks all so clear and tidy, but you should see the dining room table. I wish we could keep the worktop this way, but then we'd have to keep the dining room table that way. 

Now, we usually have our main meal in the middle of the day, so by 1:30 we were pretty hungry. Then we had a text from the gasman 'I'll be with you around 2:15'. So I quickly made sandwiches, which is the sort of light meal we have at teatime. I didn't think it would work if I started cooking fish while he was taking the boiler to bits.

Once he had finished we ate our very early sandwich supper (!) and restored the lovely clear worktop to its usual state.

The huge white contraption is the bread machine, hidden beyond it is the crock pot, and the cordless vacuum cleaner lives on the washing machine at the end, handy for charging. 

It's all a bit muddling to have supper as a late lunch and lunch as an early tea...

Knitting 

I'm breaking my self imposed rule not to cast on any more knitting until I've finished sonething. (Rules are made to ge broken,  aren't they?)

It's warm enough to leave off a fleece jacket, but my neck still gets cold. I'm knitting a very loose version of a cowl using dk cotton on 5.5 needles

The new one is on the right. The one on the left is another version I made a few years ago, dk cotton again but on smaller needles.

I'm not really using a pattern. The original was for dk wool on 4mm needles and is warm and cosy, but these two are more summer weight. I've cast on 36 stitches, as for the original, and then I just carry on knitting patterns made using purl and plain stitches broken up with bands of stocking or garter stitch. The only important one thing is to remember to always knit the first and last 3 stitches on every row to stop the cowl rolling up.

Some of my pattern ideas work, others don't. It doesn't matter because I'm really just after texture, and providing it passes the galloping horse test* I'm not that bothered.

After all, when it's wound round my neck, who can see what's going on in the pattern?

*if you can't see the mistake while galloping past at a distance of 10 yards then it doesn't matter.

I'm hoping this will be a really really quick make...

Music

A youtube of Anitra's Dance just happened to catch my eye. Such a light, happy piece.

My parents had a record of the Peer Gynt suite, and I used to play it frequently. It was this one,

and I always found the cover slightly scary. My godmother used to sing Solveig's song for my mother when she came to stay, she had such a lovely voice. They did their nursing training together, the only two foreign girls, one Dutch, one Finnish, at a provincial hospital and became very close friends.

Sunday 1st June - coffee and prayer

 I'm slowly reading 

I heard somewhere; 'Never judge a book by the cover' but in this case I did! I'm hopeless at sticking to plans and programmes and reading schemes. This one, in the title and the sub-title seemed written for me! Each short chapter has an anecdote from the writers' lives, and what can be learned from it, a blessing prayer, and a 'life application' suggestion geaded 'A Good Enough Step'.

Hence the rubber band on my wrist to remind me to pray (doesn't seem to work, currently only reminds me I haven't prayed yet) a day the suggestion to use a regular daily event to take a moment to pray. Something a bit like sending a WhatsApp or text to... to God. Or Jesus. Or the Holy Spirit. A postcard,  maybe.

I've hooked the 'text' to my cup of coffee. I have three coffees every day; breakfast, morning, and after lunch. I usually remember at least one. Truthfully,  I'm more likely to say, 'oh bother, I've finished the coffee and I meant to send you a  'good morning' text first...'

The perils of doing something else at the same time as eating and drinking. The cake or biscuits or chocolates are consumed without giving them any attention; I might just as well left them in the tin! 

My resolution for this week is to notice, and be thankful, rather than waste an experience an opportunity for pleasure.

This song was billed as 'a 300 year-old song about living in the moment'. I guess that is part of what it is  about... the joy of nature in early Summer, and a celebration of love and tenderness, (with a subtext of a young man trying to persuade a shepherdess to join him in enjoying the beauty of nature with him)

What an amazing instrument he is playing. It's a theorbo.

Saturday 31st May - meeting friends

The Swingle Singers having fun the 'Pastime with Good Company'

I've only ever heard them scat-singing Bach, on LP vinyl records back in the 1960s; I think this must be one of their most famous track, Bach prelude in F minor.

Where was I? I wanted the song 'Pastime with Good Company' because that's how we spent yesterday. Last month we went to Dorset in order to be able to meet up with friends who had lived just an hour away but moved to Devon mumble mumble years ago. We hadn't seen each other for all that time, so it was wonderful to get together on a cold but sunny day and discover it was as though only weeks, rather than decades had passed.

Well, wouldn't you just know it, but they were cat-sitting for family quite near us last week, so we were able to have lunch together again! The weather obliged with sun and a warm breeze and I had a lovely lovely day.

While we were waiting I did a couple of very small rapid sketches of people;

The little notebook is half the size of my phone. It's long past time I stopped reading up on how to draw people and just got on with it. At the moment the are more of an aide-memoire than a likeness. Practise, practise, practise...

Out table was by the play area... one moment there was cheerful chatter, next raucous shouting, and a brief interlude of serious wailing- something to do with a toddler and an ice lolly... and then, peace, as they all disappeared for lunch.

I was going to post 'Tuileries' from 'Pictures at and Exhibition' for the playground,  and then I remembered 'The Aviary' from 'Carnival of the Animals' and chose that instead.

 

Friday 30th May - Cover Story Collaboration

 Yesterday Ang  let me know that she had received the Cover Story stitching I sent her.

... Perhaps I should explain; this is the third stitching collaboration the Ang and I have done together. We started several years ago after she blogged about an sewing exhibition she went to in Norwich Castle, I think, which featured a 2020 Lockdown collaboration between two sisters. They took turns to embroider a motif of a piece of cloth that they posted to each other. I said I'd love to do one but would want to keep the cloth! To cut a long story short, Ang and I, strangers at the time, started 'The Postcard Project', followed it by 'Cross Country Collaboration' all in cross stitch, and are now most of the way through 'Cover Story' - a book cover each. 

And we've become friends, keeping in touch through emails and WhatsApp, very occasional phone calls, the booklet and postcard we include with the project and once, memorably, meeting up ...

So, on with this month's progress;

Here's what Ang did on the vertical seams on the piece which will ultimately become hers;

If you zoom in you will see all the lovely stitching she has done. We are taking our inspiration from Victorian crazy quilts, where the joins between patches were embellished with decorative stitches.

Here is mine;

We've both used perle cotton which gives a great texture, and simple stitches such as chain, blanket, stem, and. French knots. Ang used fly stitch, and I used chevrons and coral stitch. These stitches are transformed by lacing and weaving threads through them so they can look far more complicated than they really are.

We also include 'flat gifts' that fit in the packages; I sent Ang a pair of sporks to take on picnics.

I feel quite spoiled by Ang's flat gifts;

a sashiko kit, sunflower seeds in a card, and little booklet about hedgerows AND a lovely felt brooch! My birthday isn't for months!

This month we are doing the horizontal seams on each other's Cover Story cloths. 

It is such fun receiving the parcel each month, seeing what Ang has added and reading the story of how and why she created it in the accompanying notebook. 

Thank you Ang - I'm so glad we have begun to plan the next one!

Music

I heard a snatch of this on a TV program (all right, I confess, we like Antiques Road trip as background TV, in spite of the vastly irritating commentary)

Fingal's Cave - Mendelssohn 

When I was about 17 or 18 I was on a sailing trip on the West Coast of Scotland. My father, and the son of an Austrian friend of his were the most experienced sailors; another adult, Ian was cook and slightly experienced and a  schoolfriend of mine and I were enthusiastic but fairly ignorant crew members. Any trip anywhere with my father tended to be a series of 'exciting adventures' aka narrowly avoided disasters... this was no exception. 

But we successfully circumnavigated the Isle of Mull (a few tense minutes when we dragged our anchor one night) and travelled along the Crinan Canal. At one point we sailed past Fingals Cave; I was asleep as my father had decided the us two younger ones should take sea-sickness pills as the wind and waves were getting stronger and larger... 

Never mind, there's always YouTube these days!