Saturday 7th February - cooking and footwear

 I've been winter batch cooking. The freezer is full to bursting but it's all that needs cooking, are there have been so many days recently when summoning up the energy to create a meal from scratch has seemed like too much.

The local corner shop has a COOK freezer selling delicious ready-meals - a terrible temptation! But we can't keep succumbing to it's siren call.

Now I have a winter beef casserole to add to a bacon and pepper pasta sauce and I'm feeling a little bit virtuous. I've also made several portions of winter veg and lentil soup for evening meals. Now I'm feeling even more virtuous! The bonus is that all the chopping up of carrots and celery and onion somehow adds to my step count... what a win!

.....

Here are the finished slipper socks. But not on my feet... the yarn was thicker than the one I used before and they are just a bit too big. I gave them to a friend and she says they are a good fit. She sent me this picture, and said I could share it... they are certainly bright. Much easier to find than my old drab ones.

Did anyone, does anyone follow the FlyLady? She was/is a cleaning supremo. When I followed her, many years ago, it seemed her mission was to inspire people who were despairing of every getting on top of cleaning and tidying and clearing up their houses. I couldn't keep up and abandoned her checklists and methods. But I do remember her insistence on putting on proper lace up shoes when you get up.

If you flop around barefoot or in socks or slippers all day, she said, it's harder to motivate yourself to put out the rubbish, or do any outdoor jobs. 

Well, these past few days I've been wearing slippers with proper rubber soles, and yes, it's so much easier to get past the door step and into the garden, even if it's just a yard or two. Maybe I'll hold off getting started on a new pair of slipper socks for now.

Friday 6th February - Rainbows!

 There was one, honest, for about 5 minutes in a short break in the otherwise endless rain today. What a gift.

I can post my final 2By2 stitch now, since I know Ang received it yesterday.

I've sent Ang the right hand one, obviously! I was so excited when I had the idea of doing a nine-patch quilt that I got going straight away. I've recently read 'The House of Silence' by Linda Gillard, and quilts are a feature of the story. One of the unmarried sisters living at a vast, decaying mansion on the bleak East Anglian fens makes endless quilts, including a postage stamp quilt, double bed sized. Imagine it... each patch is the size of an old-fashioned postage stamp.

The advantage is that you only need very small scraps of fabrics, and squares are so much easier to paper piece than hexagons.

I've ysed all the fabrics in previous collaborations except for the 'joy' patch. 

Reading left to right, starting at the top;

A recent Christmas choice, a postage stamp print to represent trips to the post box, some Japanese style flowers, 

Another Japanese flower, 'joy' from a Christmas print, which is what these collaborations mean to mem and a batik print from the last collaboration 

Time spent on the collaborations (a print sent to me by Ang), a Christmas print which I used as the basis for 'Spring' last time, and a print with writing to represent our correspondence. 

I pieced the first patch over felt squares which I've left in. It came out rather wonky! The second one is done the traditional way, except I've used thin card instead of paper. 

Ang and I have started arranging and stitching them. This is where I've got to;

I'm ending with another rainbow, from Ang's 'Noah's Ark piece;

Wednesday 4th February - Sunshine!

 Sunshine in my heart... the postman has been delivering wonderful things yesterday and today.

A postcard of a favourite NT garden came yesterday; a sunny scene on a rainy day... thank you! 

And today a notebook swap from a friend - must post mine to her tomorrow, and a box of delight from Ang; this is her 2by2 stitching in her own words;

I'm in awe of the blacksmith, and also of Ang's piece. Isn't is beautiful 😍 

I'll post mine tomorrow when I'm sure Ang has received it.

Today we were blessed with a sunny day, the last until bext week if the weather forecast is to ge believed. I stood on the door step and gazed at the blue sky, noticing the leaves of the bulbs appearing, a few crocuses and the last of our snowdrops. Next-door's daphne wax wafting a lovely fragrance over the fence.

This recording of Dinu Lipatti's last recital at the Besançon Festival is so well known to ne. My mother played it all the time when I was little, and later when she was in hospital she just played it through her headphones on repeat. Schubert's Gflat major impromptu,  preceded by sone 'preluding'

Tuesday 3rd February - beauty and books

 Frittering away a bit of time on YouTube I came across this

'O salutaris hostia' by Latvian composer Ēriks Ešenvalds, sung by Voces8. 

TEXT

O salutaris hostia,

Quæ cæli pandis ostium:

Bella premunt hostilia,

Da robur, fer auxilium.

Uni trinoque Domino,

Sit sempiterna gloria,

Qui vitam sine termino,

Nobis donet in patria.

Amen.

TRANSLATION

O saving victim,

Who opens the gate of heaven:

Hostile wars press upon us,

Give strength, bring aid.

To the one and triune Lord,

May there be eternal glory,

Who gives us life without end,

In our heavenly homeland.

Amen.

Just, just glorious. Even without the video you can hear the joy in the sound.

I've finished reading 'The Egg and I" by Betty MacDonald. I got it because of a mention in Jane Brocket's newsletter (you can follow her on substack') two Sundays ago. It's an account of the first years of her marriage to a marine who decided to be a chicken farmer, and bought an old farm up in the mountains in the Puget Sound area. It's back in what must be the 1930s, there's no running water or electricity. Be warned though, she has a shocking opinion of the native Americans living nearby. I hope things gave changed since then... it's a very backwards, backwoods community. Some of her stories are hair-raising, others plain hilarious. 

I'm now about to start Brian Bilston's "Diary of a Nobody", and I've also been dipping in and out of "My Family and other Animals" by Gerald Durrell for a bit of sunshine, for there sure ain't any change in the weather round hereabouts!

Monday 2nd February - here we go!

New month, new moon, (we should really call it the Rain Moon, not the Snow Moon), new week...

Same weather, same routine, 

It's quite reassuring, I suppose, when life is just a series small surprises, rather than humongous upheavals.

Today's happy little surprises; listening to the dawn chorus while I was having a bath this morning as it was still dark at about 7.30, and spotting daffodils are for sale on Ocado. 

That will do me nicely.

Snow, Moon, Flowers by Peter Sculthorpe, played by Jill Morton

Sunday 1st February - Candlemas

 The actual date of Candlemas is 2nd February and there are many traditions associated with it. 

This picture is hauntingly familiar to me. I managed to track it down to a book called 'My Book of the Church Year' by Enid Chadwick and Peter Kwasiewski, written in 1948. Did I have a copy as a child? Grandmother might have had one, but it's published too late for her children, all born in the 1920s and early 1930s. A mystery.

All the people in my family who could have shed any light on it are now sadly gone. You can find the whole book and all the charming illustrations here.

It's the day for particularly remembering when Jesus was brought to be presented at the temple by Mary and Joseph as their firstborn child.

Simenon, a very old prophet says, 

 Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word.

For mine eyes have seen thy salvation;

Which thou hast prepared before the face of all people;

To be a light to lighten the Gentile and to be the glory of thy people Israel.

(Luke chapter 2, verses 29-32)

This brings me straight back to the phrase I have chosen to sustain me through the year;

'Arise! Shine! For the light has come into the world, and the glory of the Lord is upon us'