Friday 12th June - harvest lunch

 This looks like being my vegetable harvest for 2026. Because of the impeding house extension work I haven't sewn, planted, or grown anything this year apart from three stunted broad bean plants.

Yesterday I noticed a few pods had filled out. I picked them this morning and we had them at lunchtime.  Delicious!

There won't be any more produce until the apples are ripe.

....

Knitting the squares is a very pleasant way of filling in a few minutes here and there in the day. I've got a wooden knitting bowl which is perfect for a couple of small balls of wool and my needles 

I've photographed it with the current square wrong side up in order not to give away the pattern, and I've added a few extra balls of wool for further camouflage. 

The square I've chosen has an easy repeated pattern over a couple of rows so it is really simple to work out what comes next when I pick it up to add some rows.

I've also cracked continental combination purl knitting, a game changer for me.

Somewhere else I read that this method twists the stitches - true - and the work around if you want to knit these stitches in the next row is to knit through the back of the stitch - yes! Easy peasy too.

Thursday 11th June - Reading all day!

 I think I must have spent nearly the whole day reading Kate Morton's 'Homecoming'. I had to pause a couple of times; a piano lesson to teach in the morning, a long detailed telephone conversation with our architect about the extension, and making supper. (BB cooked lunch; we had steak, his speciality, yum yum very yum yum!).

I also had to pause and brace myself a few times; there were moments when characters did things that were so breathtakingly awful that I needed time to think about what I had read before I could continue, and instances characters who where pillars of rectitude were concealing such terrible wrongs - but one could understand why, what had tipped them over the edge.

Finally, I needed to keep reading in great chunks as the book switches between 1959, 1979, 1989 and 1999, and even though the chapters and context were clear in the chapter headings it was still a bit of a jolt to time travel back and forth.

It's a meatier read than I was expecting, and although I had several ideas as to what the plot twists might be, I was still caught by surprise by the several revelations.

It's set in Australia, and I realise I have no idea of where the cities and provinces are. I should think my ignorance is not unusual for British people, judging by the woeful answers whenever Australia is the continent for the 'where is Kazakhstan' game comes up on 'Richard Osman's House of Games', where you have to mark where various cities and landmarks are in answer to the questions.

Maybe tomorrow something will get done!

Meanwhile it is nearly bedtime and my step count is a measly 1700 - I'll get a couple of hundred in before I go to bed, and will try and make them up over the next three days (or I could just play Relampago a few times on the piano...) 

.......

Or I could try a bit of this... (in my dreams!)

Electro Swing by ShuffleDance.pl Parov Stelar Booty Swing, Em Delacrem choreography

     

Wednesday10th May - midweek news

 There isn't any...

I knit, I write up my diary, I add a few bits to the ever-growing pile to go to the charity shop, I cook lunch, I read, I might tackle a housework chore (or I might not)...

Wednesday and Thursday are a piano lesson days, so I taught a piano lesson. 

I played suduko, 

and soon it will be bed time.

I'm happy enough with this... slow steady days are a blessing. 

The New List; BB and I are compiling a list of places to visit, things to do, in the area. His 70th birthday, some years ago, was massively overshadowed by othe family events, and mine is later this year. So we're thinking of slightly celebrating both of them. At the moment we're concentrating on places within an hour or so of where we live;

Pallant House gallery in Chichester

Bignor Roman Villa

Wings Aviation Museum

Tangmere Aviation Museum

a Little Local Library box in Hove just because it is there

I'd love to set up a little free library outside our house! 

That's as far as we got with the list today. 

Monday 8th June - Relampago

Which means 'lightning'.

 This piece by Amy Ferguson won a composition competition run by 'the Pianist' magazine. They printed the score in the May issue and I made a point of getting hold of a copy as I love it.

Here's the first page; as I hoped it's not that difficult, but sounds very impressive. You have to remember to play it 2 octaves lower than written.

After I'd spent about half an hour on it, I discovered my fitness watch had added about 400 steps to the counter! That felt too much like cheating, even for me, so I took the watch off and added 400 real steps to balance things out.

I'm trying to achieve a total step count of 100,000 by then end of June. Not as a target, I don't like targets because I feel pressured by them. It's just a notion...

The first week is looking promising. 

......

This looks a promising new book: Phillipa Perry well known psychiatrist and agony aunt, and also wife of artist Grayson Perry, has written a cosy mystery.

It's out in hardback, audio and rather expensive  kindle editions at the moment, so I will have to practice patience and wait for the price to come down.

Meanwhile I shall carry on with 'Homecoming' by Kate Morton. It's all apparently disconnected strands and secrets at the moment; it had better start coming together soon or I fear I will abandon it!

Sunday 7th June - Psalm 23

 I'm thinking of the verse

'Peverse and foolish oft I strayed,

But yet in love he sought me,

And on his shoulder gently laid

And home rejoicing brought me.'

Today it came to mind when we saw this bizarre little scene through the window. 

It's not very clear, but you should be able to make out the geese which nested by the pond. For some reason they have arrived in our road along with three goslings, and a neighbour is trying to persuade them to walk to the corner (about three houses along on the right) and then up to the pond. That road has about 14 semi-detached bungalows. Then there's quite a busy road to cross.. It's going to be a tricky bit of shepherding.

Next-door's cat it watching with great interest, but is keeping a safe distance away.

...

I vividly remember my class being made to sing that verse on our own in school hymn practice as a punishment for being too chatty. We were so embarrassed. We were a perverse lot, and often strayed from the rules.

Friday 5th June - Ang's squares

 Ang has written all about her square here;

She's called the colourway 'syrup and cream' 

You can see the difference between having a yellow background with a cream stripe (left) and a cream background with a yellow stripe. She sentbme the left hand square.

There was also a little Lyles Golden Syrup recipe book to go with it. There are some delicious looking recipes in it.

(I've taken the images from her blog... for ease of posting. That'swhy theyare both so beautifully in focus!)

I over-watered  my supermarket basil plant and suddenly it went all horribly droopy. So I snipped off all the plausible looking stems, trimmed off the bottom leaves, and put them into a little jar of water. They seem to be much happier! 

It does please me that they are in a little 'mixed herbs' jar.

Here are some yarn cakes;

I went on woolwarehouse just to snip the picture to show what I ment by yarn cakes, but I should really have stayed away... the colours are so tempting! These are lion brand... as they say on TV 'other brands are available '! I did manage to resist... (repeat three times at four hourly intervals NO MORE YARN.... NO MORE YARN.... NO MORE YARN....)

I was thinking that maybe this collaboration could as count as a slow decluttering project, except for every square that goes out of the house, one comes in...