Wednesday 11th April 2018 - So what does my new car look like?

I realised this morning that I couldn't remember anything about what a Vauxhall Corsa looks like. Apart from it being a two-door hatchback, and being black. Something like this, maybe?  

anysnapshot.com

In the morning we did a bits and pieces - arranging the insurance for my new supercar, turning up to play for a church service/sing-along at a local home (standing in for the usual pianist; catastrophe averted - I was convinced it was on Thursday, but he was certain it was today - and he was right!)

Then into town to buy mundane essentials missed off the proper list, and to shift the money into the right account, ready to pay, and also a chance to have another look at a black Vauxhall Corsa, parked a few spaces along from us.

Turns out it looks more like this -

thenounproject.com

higher and dumpier than my old car, but plenty of room in the boot for the samba drums and djembe and all the other stuff I load up with in the mornings.

Lunch in town, then home to carry on with the good work - unearthing all the components for a Poang chair which is going to the new flat. In the process we have sorted out quite a lot of ancillary stuff - who knew there was all that lego in the bottom of the cupboard? And empty cardboard boxes and other stuff to sort into charity donation, recycle and chuck-in-the-bin.

We've also finished the jigsaw (and the cheese straws) this afternoon. A slight crisis - one of the pieces was missing;



This is the first time the puzzle has been out of the box - were we going to have to send off to the manufacturers for a replacement?

Turns out there was an easy answer; the piece had fallen onto the chair, and Leo was asleep on it.



It's a very pretty picture, with loads of "whimsy" pieces and trick pieces to add to the interest (and difficulty).



One to do again. It was surprisingly enjoyable, and peaceful, working on the jigsaw together - I foresee the beginnings of a new tradition of holiday jigsaws.

Tuesday 10th April - Day Out in Kent and East Sussex

Today we took my red alfa romeo to the garage for its annual service and MOT.

We made a day of it - so, after leaving my car to their tender mercies, we went to investigate Chiddingstone; a pleasant drive through the countryside? Not exactly. The weather was dull, but not actually raining, and to our surprise, there was a thick mist over Ashdown Forest...

Chiddingstone is where the Streatfeild family come from - anyone who has read and enjoyed "Ballet Shoes" and "Wimples Wonders" and a hundred other books by Noel Streatfeild will understand why I was interested. As it happens, I had just finished reading the first book of her fictionlised autobiography, "A Vicarage Family" last night.

The village is supposed to be "the prettiest village in Kent" and a "rare example of a Tudor single-street village", rescued from development by the National Trust in 1939.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chiddingstone_Village_High_Street_-_geograph.org.uk_-_151560.jpg

 
This is just about the entire village, the church is on the opposite site of the road, and the castle (an imposing Victorian Gothic rebuild on the site of the various original houses and manors.)

The picture doesn't do it justice, but then neither did the weather today, so after looking round the church, and buying a packet or sweets in the Post Office (possibly England's oldest shop, in business since 1453) we left, and headed back south to Lewes.

The fog had lifted, fractionally, from the Ashdown Forest, so that I could just catch tantalising glimpse of where the views would be.

Lewes; for lunch at The Needlemakers, and a look-around, and an excellent butterscotch and pecan slice at Waterstones, and then to ring the garage to see how they were getting on.

Ah, not such good news. If your car has done in excess of 110,000 miles, and is over 12 years old, you are rather on borrowed time. It failed the MOT on the condition of the floor panels long before they got onto other bits like the engine.

We came up with various strategies for coping with this unscheduled event as we made out way back to the garage. The garage owner had also had some thoughts...

The upshot is that I have test-driven a black (black? We've never had a black car before! Alfas should be red, if possible) Vauxhall Corsa (Vauxhall Corsa? I thought other people drove those, not me!) and decided that it is too good a buy to miss. One lady owner, full service history done by the garage owner, scant 20,000 miles on the clock, cheaper servicing, cheaper tax, cheaper insurance, cheaper tyres... Driving it was a bit of a white-knuckle ride to begin with, probably because it works so much better than my alfa - the clutch is so light, and bites near the middle instead of almost at the bottom, the gears are precise, the steering is accurate, the ride is taught, and the engine is remarkably quiet, with no familiar rattles...

So, just in time for the beginning of term, I will be the slightly surprised owner of a black Vauxhall Corsa. It will be ready for collection at the end of the week.

The only problem will be finding it in the car park....

Saturday 7th April - Cake and candles

Number One Son had presents (not the right day, but close) and we had cake and cream after he's blown the candles out.

I've had to move the new bird feeder. The fluffy black and white cat (we don't know where it lives) has taken to hiding in the ivy next to the feeders.

I used up one of my lines scribbling in  a green background.

Friday 6th April - In search of lunch

We went in search of lunch by the sea; The Bluebird cafe in Ferring seemed very appealing. Many, many other people, with hundreds of dogs and thousands of children seemed to agree with our choice. So we left and headed for Arundel, and  found monumental traffic jam. So we zipped down a convenient lane signposted 'Poling'. There we found no pub, but a minute village (population 174) with a cold, damp, but interesting church.

The font (possibly Saxon, as is the earliest part of the building) wooden cover with painted panels which opens up like a cupboard.

There is a framed record of the Radar station at Poling during world war 2.

But no pub in the village. So, now very hungry, we returned along the lane (Poling village is at the end of a single track dead end) and found the traffic jam just as we had left it. So we crossed over to go back towards home. At Clapham roundabout we doubled back along the old road and stopped at The Fox. Yes we could have food if we ordered quickly. Two portions of whitebait and one bowl of chips suited us just fine.

Meanwhile, more about the birds; we have a robin nesting in the ivy. It rushes back and forth with huge leaves in its beak. I need to look a bit more closely to spot the exact place he goes in. I'm quite pleased with this drawing, but it took more than ten lines;

so here's another scribble sketch, of a scene that may come true later when it is Much Warmer.

Thursday 5th April - Hello World

Apart from a fruity cold, I am feeling restored and revived after the exhausting efforts of last term - Hurrah!

I've started reading Ironheart by Charlie Fletcher, the sequel to Stoneheart. It's all a bit fast-paced and complicated,  and I would be surer that all will end well if there wasn't a third book in the series. At the moment no-one except the baddies are doing well.

I've knitted a foliage design on the scarf. I'll take a picture tomorrow when there's more to see.

I've learned the hard way that a 300 piece jigsaw is too fiddly for a tablet. I did finish it in the end.

We've beem to the garden centre to buy flowers for some friends, and more bird seed. Feeding the birds has become rather to watch. The expert in the garden centre recommended a slightly different feeder (at £3.50 it was worth a punt) and said the birds liked sunflower seeds best. So that's what we've put up, next to the old one, on a branch sticking out of the hedge.

I've done my 10-line drawing - honestly, just ten lines...

The squirrels have found our older feeder. Number One son caught it in the act. I've done the drawing from his description. Afterwards the pigeons waddle in to hoover up the seed scattered on the ground. The feeder goes from half full to empty in a few minutes.

There's a challenge...

Number One Son was in charge of tonight's meal. Chicken Satay - most excellent.

Wednesday 3rd April - Awake at last

I woke up 'awake' this morning, if you see what I mean. Awake as in 'not-tired', as in 'eyes staying open'.

Now all I have to do is stop snuffling.

I should be sorting out the invoicing for next term's piano teaching, or casting off the blue jumper that I finished last year and then found I wanted it to be longer, so added some more, or sewing up the yellow jumper I finished some time ago, but all these tasks require proper concentration, so I will leave them for a day or so yet.

So far today I have

clipped the cats claws  - a first time for them. I wasn't sure how that would go, but they just looked a bit bemused and confused by the whole process. Leo has been getting her front claws stuck in things - they don't go out enough at the moment to wear the sharp point away.

added some more to the scarf - it now has two rows of  roses (no way to make that sound any better) and a criss cross pattern. I'm just using up the rest of the blue-green colour on a sort of zig zag before I go hunting for a leaf pattern to do next.

done my ten-line drawing - it was going to be just a few lines and lots of space, but then my pen started running away with me.

Last night I finished "The Winter Story" from Brambly Hedge - the series was going to be my Lent reading, remember? Lent was a bit of a non-event this year. If I had read it a week or so ago, it would have been snowing properly for the Snow Ball in the story.

I have downloaded "Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine" by Gail Honeyman, for the book club which I didn't go to, and "Iron Hand" by Charlie Fletcher, the sequel to "Stoneheart" which I read last year (or the year before? can't remember when, but the book was excellent)

       

And  read a couple of chapters of Nehemiah which is the book for the Bible Book Club, next meeting on Monday. It is only 12 chapters long, and I am up to chapter 9 so I should make it to the end before Monday.

Gustave Doré; Nehemiah Views the Ruins of Jerusalem's Walls, 1866.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehemiah

Now I need to update the BOOK page on this site, and eat some more chocolate.

Tuesday 3rd April 2018 - An Illuminated 'O'

This isn't such a successful 10-line (yes, I only lifted the stylus from the tablet 10 times) drawing, but hey - here it is anyway.

And here is why I did an illuminated 'O';

I've vaguely following an on-line writing course, and today's task was
'select one of the objects from the list of "things found in the protagonist's pocket" and write for 10 minutes'

The list was one of several lists that I've created last week.

I chose

'A thin notebook, roughly the size of a small matchbook, every page filled with miniscule writing in code'

Here's what I wrote;

Julie sat at the professor's desk looking at the notebook lying in the palm of her hand. All that effort, and now, for what? There were only three days left. She had thought that finding the book would be the solution, but all she had was yet another problem.

The tiny angular markings filling each page looked as clear and distinct as when they had been written. There they were, marching across the the pages in a dense pattern of rows and columns. Chinese? Japanese? A bit similar, but clearly neither. More likely a code.

And only three days left to solve it.

She leafed through the thin, translucent pages carefully, searching for something that might be a way in to this maze, and reveal the vital information she needed.

About twenty pages in there was, at last, something other than coded symbols. At the top right corner was some kind of diagram. Julie reached across the desk for a magnifying glass to inspect it more closely.

Drawn with the finest of lines, similar to an illuminated capital letter, surrounded by, no, yes, the same little shapes that filled all the other pages, carefully positioned within a filigree frame. Like something from a mediaeval manuscript, but with the code symbols instead of stylised birds and flowers. Julie took a photograph of the drawing on her tablet, so that she could enlarge it and see the shapes more clearly.

Where had she seen this before? In a book belonging to the Professor? She gazed across at the Professor's bookshelves, and smiled. She still had three days left.

10 minutes were up at that point.

at this rate it is going to take ages to write a whole book.

I couldn't attempt to put in all the symbols and filigree and so on, not with only 10 pen-strokes.

Monday 2nd April - 'holiday'

Yes, it is in a way.

I've spent most of the time since the end of term in bed. This 'teacher' cold and sore throat and snuffle is not a great problem as long as I stay in bed, drink water and coffee and tea brought up by my ever-loving family, and let time flow through in reading, listening to the radio, browsing on the internet and so on.

I was supposed to be going to a book club tonight and I am disappointed. I've been wanting to join since it started several years ago but it is not until now that I thought I might have the time to read 'proper' fiction and go to the evening meetings. But I have emailed to say I can't make it.

We've also abandoned our plans to drive off somewhere for a few days away, while Son looks after the cats. We were dreaming of finding somewhere to stay with sea views and gentle walks along the sea front from cafe to gallery to shop... but if all I'm going to do is curl up in a corner with a book while the rain pours down outside - well, we can do that more comfortably and more conveniently here at home.

Here's my ten-line picture for today;

Leo the cat is very much enjoying the time I spend in bed. She curls up beside, or on top of me, not really very conveniently. The advantage of using the tablet to draw is no ink, no water pots, no paints, no spills.

Online jigsaws are a good thing to do in bed;

No risk of losing the pieces or dropping them on the floor.

Right, this tablet is down to 37% battery now, so I shall stop here, and read some more of my book instead.

Sunday 1st April - Easter Day

We had a real family day - the Son represented us all at the Dawn Church Service where Paschal Candles were lit at a small brazier. I'm still spending half-days in bed catching up with myself and sleeping off a snuffly cold, so shivering out at dawn seemed a Bad Idea.

Daughter joined us for a second breakfast of Hot Cross Buns; traditional, not chocolate/toffee or any other weird varieties. I emerged from the bedroom in time for lunch!

My father joined us for Roast Lamb and everything, followed by cheese, followed by Easter Eggs.

My Easter Cactus is in flower;

The same one that flowered at Christmas... I think it may be a little confused as to which type of cactus it is supposed to be.

I drew a picture of Husband and Son and Daughter playing a fiendishly complicated extension of Settlers of Catan. Part of an April challenge to do a drawing everyday by doing no more than 10 lines; a line being defined as from the moment your pen touches the paper until you lift it again. I was using my finger and a tablet, and I truly only made ten separate lines;

and I added a row of hearts and a row of criss-crosses to my fair isle scarf.

Now that my coloured yarn has become pink, I shall try and do flowers next; 

I had a look at the pattern for roses but it does look a bit too complicated.

More Easter eggs, and smoked salmon sandwiches finished the day most excellently.

Hope you've had a good day today as well,