Tuesday 30th November - Music of Eternity Day 3

Day 3; Eternal love brooding over creation

That sounds more ominous than it needs to. Maybe 'brooding' is better thought of as 'watching', or 'mulling over', or even just providing warmth and safety like a hen sitting on her eggs?

For me the real nugget comes at the end, in these paragraphs on prayer, how to respond to this Eternal Love;

In prayer, my soul and God draw near – His fullness to my emptiness. If I realise a little of His Spirit working in my deeps, His action is most directly felt. All my prayer must be penetrated by this sense of my helpless imperfection, quiet abandonment of my formless soul to the Spirit brooding on the waters, bringing order, if I yield to His action. Without God’s grace I’m chaos. With that grace I’m a tiny bit of the Spiritual World being organised for His service. Come! Creator Spirit! Fill with grace the hearts You’ve created. 

So, what matters most in my prayer is not my desires, feelings, asking, efforts – not even my poor little bit of worship: but God, Who calls forth these stirrings of life. God, the Master of the Tides, changing and creating me, bringing, out of my unpromising depths, surprises of His wisdom and love; because my tiny will has made a slight response to His Mighty Will. ‘You have fashioned me behind and before and laid Your hands on me’ (Psalm 139.5). 

Now we turn to souls with whom we’re linked, for whom we must pray. We see them, too, without form, void; they often seem empty of love, trust and adoration; turbulent, uneasy, lacking meaning and loveliness – given over to ceaseless activity; at the mercy of every wind and current; and in their restlessness, so unpromising, so recalcitrant to God. Such easy subjects for our pessimistic indifference, but they too are part of Your raw material. Infinite possibilities are hidden in their deeps. There, too, Your Holy Spirit is brooding with cherishing power, bringing forth unrealised possibilities of life. Keep in my mind Your invisible action and Presence, where it’s most difficult to see – in the callous, greedy, earthly minded, flippant, cocksure; check my arrogance, intolerance, lack of patient, confident love. 

Keep in my mind the boundless possibilities of life, power and beauty hidden in every soul: and Your untiring, loving patience. I’m ignorant of these restless lives surrounding me. You’ve taken the turbulent, unharmonious, sinful, rebellious; and have created Your saints. Teach me to await Your creative action on other souls, and especially in those I’m tempted to dislike or neglect. Teach me reverence for all that unformed human nature on which Your Holy Spirit rests, which You can penetrate, transform, make holy, and in which You did deign to be incarnate, and showed us the Father’s glory.

Tuesday 30th November - The Music of Eternity 2

 

Day 2; Mighty Symphony of the Triune God

And once again there is so much in the Chapter that I've ended up skim-reading, just waiting for the phrase that will 'ping out'...

Or phrases - and here they are;

Right at the beginning;

Welcoming God will involve shifting focus from 'Mine' to 'Ours', for we're all linked as we respond in worship to our Triune God'..... We are drifting towards a religion which consciously or unconsciously keeps its eye on humanity rather than on Deity - which lays all the stress on service, and hardly any of the stress on awe: and that is a type of religion, which in practice does not wear well...in those awful moments when the pain and mystery of life are most deeply felt...It does not lead to sanctity. 

  and later;

We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have and to Do... forgetting that none of these verbs has any ultimate significance, except so far as it's transcended by., and included in, the fundamental verb, to Be: and that Being, not wanting, having and doing is the essence of a spiritual life.

Furthermore;

Dante says that directly a soul ceases to say 'Mine', and says 'Ours', it makes the transition from the narrow, constricted, individual life to the truly free, personal, creative, spiritual life; in which all are linked together in one single response to the Father of all spirit, God. 

At this point I stopped highlighting the text... quite soon the whole chapter would be turning yellow. 

At first sight I might think that I was being asked to simply focus on our awesome God, whose power and capacity to create, save, forgive is constantly rehearsed in the Psalms.

However the emphasis on 'Mine' becoming 'Ours' as a response to this worship speaks of a mirroring of the Three Persons in the Trinity being combined together as 'Ours', not completely separated individuals each with their own 'Mine'.

Creative Commons
image of the Holy Trinity from and Antiphonary

  

 

Monday 29th November - The end of the day!

 At first I couldn't understand why I was feeling so 'done in' by the end of today. Then I thought back...

In the morning I sorted out some books for the charity shop, clearing about three feet of much needed shelf space upstairs in the bedroom. I've easily got that amount of books stacked all over the place downstairs, and it will be a relief to shelve them at last. That took an hour I suppose, by the time I had reorganised the other books as well.

Monday is the day I clean the bathroom. So I did that. 

Downstairs; yesterday we nipped outside just before going to bed to rescue my pelargoniums and cuttings from the garden after seeing how the temperatures were forecast to plunge overnight.

They needed sorting out today; no way could we keep them on the table forever and ever. This house is slowly silting up with stuff from the edges of the room towards the middle.

I snipped cuttings from the pelargoniums but couldn't plant them as the earth was so cold! So I have left them in water upstairs on the back bedroom windowsill, with the pots of earth nearby, and will plant them tomorrow. Everything else has gone into the cold frame in the garden.

I'm working on a picture for the Advent trail round the village which our church is organising. I ws meant to be drawing a wreath.

The day before yesterday I did all the black ink; 

Yesterday I tested how I would manage the sky and the stars, using blue ink and gold marker pens. I also had a go at putting in the other houses, but they went a bit blurry. Today I tried again when the background was properly dry (the church and house nearby)

Today I added the sky and the windows, and also painted the cave in the bottom left, where I shall put a silhouette of a Nativity scene. The pictures have to fit a 45cm square window pane, and be ready by Wednesday. Did I say this was meant to be a wreath? I'm not quite sure what happened there. I checked with the organiser this morning and luckily it doesn't seem to matter that I'm doing something different! 

I found the idea from scouring google - the original has no cave, but Father Christmas in his sleigh against the moon. Too tricky for me!

Then I taught two piano lessons to two tired year 7 children, who both spent from Friday to Sunday involved in swimming galas. They are both very tired and teaching them was quite hard - Next week will be the last lesson and I sincerely hope they will just play easy Christmas carols from now on! 

I shall now cast off the green scarf, even though there is still some yarn left. It is about 5 feet long which will do nicely.

That will do for today, I reckon. I shall do much less tomorrow, for sure!  

Monday 29th November - The Music of Eternity 1

This one of the two Advent books I will be reading between now and Christmas.

The Music of Eternity - Meditations on the writings of Evelyn Underhill, by Robyn Wrigley-Carr. It is the choice of the Advent Facebook group I joined several years ago.    

It is fascinating to see what the other members 'find' in each chapter. I plan to put my 'take-aways' here, if I remember. We don't all post everyday.

The book starts on the first day of Advent, which was Sunday. I hadn't realised this, so already I am one day behind! Never mind, the other book runs from the first to the twenty-fourth of December so I have a day to catch up.

Day 1 - God's Perpetual Coming

There is so much packed into each day's reflection that it is hard to know where to start...

I'm still reeling from this;

'Attention to God is the primary religious act.....If we put His worship last and our needs first, all proportion goes'.

But I have the attention span of a goldfish...

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Sunday 28th November - Pause in Advent 1

 

This year I am ruminating on the subject of Prayer.

Here is George Herbert's poem called 'Prayer (1)', taken from the Poetry Foundation Website

Prayer the church's banquet, angel's age,

God's breath in man returning to his birth,

The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav'n and earth

Engine against th' Almighty, sinner's tow'r,

Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

The six-days world transposing in an hour,

A kind of tune, which all things hear and fear;

Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss,

Exalted manna, gladness of the best,

Heaven in ordinary, man well drest,

The milky way, the bird of Paradise,

Church-bells beyond the stars heard, the soul's blood,

The land of spices; something understood.

As a starting point this provides plenty of choices! At the moment I am wondering what prayer as 'the church's banquet' might mean - choices, who is there, sharing, being fed,

picture from creative commons

Action - I will make a donation to a charity which provides food at Christmas to those who would otherwise go without.

Thursday 25th November - Chit chat, this and that

 My poor little Christmas cactus is making a valiant attempt to flower. I have neglected it all through the Summer, and was on the verge of chucking it out several times. Only laziness on my part saved it.

 I've moved it to the kitchen windowsill where I hope it will have a better chance of survival.

I got my new glasses yesterday. As I had hoped, they are making it easier for me to read the music and teach. They are large and fairly round so the lenses are bigger which all helps. And lookee lookee at the wonderful case they came in! Sparkly! That was a nice surprise.

Several of my piano students have gone severely off the boil as regards practicing. Sometimes it is because they are 'stuck' and become discouraged over a particular piece, sometimes they have too much on at school, especially with Christmas coming on, sometimes they are tired of everything except their phones and computer games.

Strategy Number 1; 'as soon as you have done three practices, sent me a text or email and I will post you a postcard.' She has chosen this one, and I have set it aside for her. 

Strategy 2; for a very competitive student 'We can do a practice challenge together; we will each do scales, sight reading, a new easy piece and and get on with learning a 'proper piece' each day'. Oh, hang on, that means I've got to start practicing every day too. Here's my chart (I only started on Tuesday).  

Strategy 3; 'Just do a tiny amount every time you practice - one bar of your Bach, and as soon as you've played it twice you can move on, and the next phrase of the other pieces, left or right hand, and any scale you like played twice, and a Christmas Carol from your easy-peasy book. Then you are done'.

Let's see where that gets us.

The secret is in the word 'play' - as in 'playing' the piano. Now, do you suppose it would help if I called it 'houseplay' instead of 'housework' and had a star chart?

(probably not!)

Tuesday 23rd November - Slow Down for Advent - HaHaHaNo

 What has gotten into me? I won't keep it up! And I don't really care if I do or if I don't.

So usually I re-read Stephen Cottrell's 'Do nothing, Christmas is Coming', but this year I think I will give it a miss.

I have already joined the usual facebook Advent group and bought the book;

which a random group of people join to read and comment on together.

And then a friend pointed me in the direction of this book;

who could resist a book where a duplo pig lands up in an Advent scene, and I'm dying to know where the buderigar comes in...

There's a knit-a-long which looks interesting - about 10 lines of pattern are released every day in Advent, I have already got enough wool and the needles for the projects - why not join in? I've already tried the tutorial pattern, to teach 'twisted stitches' - in fact I'm on my third version. I'm not Completely Insane; I haven't started going in for miniature knitted jumpers for doll's houses. I shall knit the adult version to make a cowl.

The tutorial is for a little Christmas ornament with a raised Christmas Tree pattern. The one on the left uses Shetland wool and twisted stitches, which do look better; I made the one on the right with a different yarn and ordinary knit and purl. I just wanted to check whether twisting the stitches was worth the effort. It is. I shall stuff them it with a lavender bag as a Christmas presents for someone. 

Finally, (no, probably not finally!)

I am trying to re-motivate a piano student who has gone completely off the boil by challenging her to match my own practices. Well - that's put me on the spot - I can't remember the last time I managed a regular piano practice regime. Anyway, here's my 'star chart' with this morning all filled in and star awarded.

She and I are both committed to scales, sight-reading (from a Grade 6 tutor called 'Right@Sight, harder than I expected!), a piece to study properly and a piece to fiddle with every day. I have emailed her my chart, and also what I did in today's study to show her how I mark up the music, dividing it into sections and then going through the chunk for today. 

 And here's today's 'fiddling about' piece; The plan is to play through this book, one piece each day, just for playing experience and repertoire. If I like the piece I migt put a bit more effort in...

She has got a similar set of things to go through; the Grade 4 Right@Sight, scales, a piece from the Burgmuller studies, a Kabalevsky 'Fairy Story' to learn, and any of the Grade 6 pieces from her exam book 'for fun'. 

Here's hoping that this will get both of us back on track. Actually, I am feeling pretty pleased with myself after this morning's practice session!

It's dress day 81. Still unwashed. The dress, that is, not me!

Tuesday 23rd November - Stir up Tuesday - Christmas Cakes

 Yes, I know, should have been 'Stir up Sunday'.

I could have made the Christmas Cake then, but my eggs weren't perfectly fresh. The are fine for ordinary cooking, but not for Christmas Cake!

I used them for an experimental cake on the Saturday. This is all that is left;

It is so good that I am going full steam ahead with the real version now that I have obtained fresh eggs from the milkman.

The original recipe comes from BBC Good Food, and is called the 'Simmer and Stir Christmas Cake'.                          

As usual I have NOT followed the recipe exactly! For a start, I want to make a 5" square version in our Air Fryer, for the sake of convenience, time, and energy-saving. However the cake turned out so well that I would be confident to work to the original version if I wanted an 8" cake.

From somewhere else - I think from the Nigella website - I discovered that to reduce the ingredients from 8" to 6" round cake you want to use 40% of the original quantities. That was a useful bit of information to start with.

So, for a 5" square cake, this is what I did;

Weigh into a suitable pan 

• 60g butter chopped into pieces
• 70g dark muscovado sugar
• 250g luxury mixed fruit including mixed peel and cherries 
• juice and zest of either an orange or a lemon
• 20 ml whisky (Laphroig!)

and bring to the boil, stir and simmer gently for 10 minutes. Allow to cool. First time around I did this on the hob, second time in the microwave.

Meanwhile, prepare the cake tin, lightly beat an egg, weigh out 30g flaked almonds, and sift together

• 1/4 teaspoon of baking powder
• 80g plain flour
• generous teaspoon of mixed spice

Once the fruit and sugar mix is cool enough that it won't cook the egg, stir in the egg and the almonds and mix, then add flour little by little and mix well, but gently, until there is no visible flour.

I didn't have to pre-heat the air fryer, so I put the cake in for 50 minutes at 115C, and then 77 minutes at 110C. I have a feeling that maybe I should have take it out at about 70 minutes, but the first cake was a little under baked so I didn't want to risk it. (For the Airfryer, we've worked out that lowering the temperature by around 10C and the time by a guesswork amount seems to be about right.)

When I took the cake out at the end, I stabbed the top all over with a skewer and pour a tablespoon of whisky over the surface. That should deal with any dryness!

It's looking (and smelling!) very promising.  

 

The Great 'O' Antiphons

 If you search for 'Antiphon' on this blog you will find several references to these Advent antiphons in years go by. 

It looks as though I first came across them in 2011, thanks to the ibenedictines.org blog post here  where Sister Catherine Wybourne explains what they are and where they fit into the Advent liturgy.

You can also find the texts in Latin and English, and links to the music at www.themathesontrust.org website here. This site also gives the scripture passages from the Old Testatement book of Isaiah from which the antiphons come.

As I posted earlier, I am a member of a group - two groups now (!) -  which meet on zoom to listen to the antiphons, read the text and the Isaiah verses, and spend time thinking about them to see what comes to mind. I am finding these weekly sessions illuminating, and also restful, and calming, and a time to feel more and more expectant about the coming of Advent. 

We have been taking one antiphon per week, and will finish jst before the fourth Sunday in Advent. The usual liturgical practice is to sing one every evening in the seven days before Christmas Eve.

I'll finish with an extract from ibenedictines;

At present, there are seven O antiphons in use. Each addresses Christ using a Messianic title drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament. Read backwards, the initials of each title in Latin form the words Cras ero or ‘Tomorrow I shall be (with you)’.

Sapientia (Wisdom)
Adonai (Holy Lord)
Radix Jesse (Root of Jesse)
Clavis David (Key of David)
Oriens (Dayspring or Morning Star)
Rex Gentium (King of the Nations)

Emmanuel (God-with-us)  

Pause in Advent is coming up

 

The 'Pause in Advent' series is usually hosted over at Tracing Rainbows , but this year Ang has going to have a busy time in December, so I am hosting it here.

What is it?

A series of reflection on aspects of  this Advent/Christmas season, posted on each of the Sundays in Advent by some of the bloggers who follow Ang's blog. The idea is that one just takes a moment out of all the busy preparations and concerns coming in from all directions and has time to be still, and take a breath, and have a little think.

Search on this blog, or over at Tracing Rainbows, for 'pause' to find posts from earlier years if you want to see more. 

If you would like to join with posting reflection on your blog, please leave a comment below with a link to your blog and I will somehow create a sidebar to hold all the links.  

Oh, and last Sunday was the last Sunday before Advent, often called 'Stir up Sunday', but now celebrated at 'Christ the King'. Whatever you call it, Advent starts this coming Sunday, 28th November (but the chocolates will have to wait until the Wednesday after that!)

Friday 19th November - Celebrating Early

 Well, so much for blogging every day in November. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday have slid by...

It has been a good week, though, in spite of the fairly cold and dreary days. Tuesday was a sunny morning - we had intended to take bags and bags and boxes and boxes full of stuff to the charity shop in the morning, but I derailed the plan by inviting friends round for coffee and croissants. 

We had a very pleasant, if slightly chilly time sitting well wrapped up under the apple tree in the pale weak sunshine, not as warm as it looked, but ok for an hour or so.

Yesterday I tidied up the Christmas stash, and also created more mess, by getting out the Christmas cards and the wooden Advent calendars from the chest. After a bit of a disaster one year when we put the tree up before we remembered where all the Christmas cards, thriftily bought in the January sales had been stored, I have been better at remembering.

For some reason I am feeling all anticipatory about Advent. I can't remember if I have already mentioned the Advent tea lights. So simple - you just put a strip of Christmas Washi tape around each one. These are the fifth and sixth sets I have made this year... using 3 bags of 50 tea lights! It is always so satisfactory when you find a box that they will go into. 

 The pink box is an empty 'graze' box from my son; we met up with son and daughter this morning at a cafe halfway between where they live and where we live. The weather was far less favourable, but not exactly raining, although wearing waterproof jackets turned out to be a good idea. After hot chocolate and waffles with maple syrup (mmmm, sugar overload.....) we exchanged gifts; I handed over their chocolate Advent calendars, sets of tea lights and their Christmas stockings, and they handed over early birthday presents. The graze box contained super silly google-eye rings;

and a selection of Christmas teas; daughter gave me a Roger de Borde Advent calendar which I spotted last year and put on my 'wantables' page; you assemble it throughout December. It is with great restraint that I have left it in the packet until at least my birthday at the end of next week.

Also the Mary Oliver poetry book 'A Thousand Mornings' which I have had my eye on. I shall endeavour to read this slowly, highlighting ideas using the little mini highlighters included in the package.

So! My birthday has started - and will last all week as I savour these presents - drinking the tea and reading the poems.

As for the Christmas stash I tidied; a good deal of it went into the Christmas Stockings. (We are unlikely to be all staying together or meeting up over Christmas while covid is still quite so endemic which is why I have handed them over so early!)

And I have already filled all the little drawers in Himself's Advent calendar...

 'It's beginning to feel a lot light Christmas....'

Meanwhile, the charity bags sit waiting patiently on the hearth rug...

Tomorrow is another day....

Saturday 13th November - Why? Why? Warum?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYjy-pjHxnI

Why did I dream that He cut down the old apple tree at the bottom of the garden and then park our car underneath it?

Why did I dream that we decided to take a short cut across Wimbledon Common in our car, only to find the track disappeared into a muddy footpath with a stream of children walking home from school along it in the deepening twilight? 

Why did I dream that I walked over a deserted moorland track to take a bag of something or other to some people we had met, and when I got there, the entire front garden was covered in big dozy bluebottles and the friends who had seemed so nice were now rather scary and alarming? 

I stopped drinking ginger tea in the evenings because I was getting wild and slightly threatening dreams, surely peppermint tea can't be the cause?  

From Fantasiestucke by Robert Schumann

Just now, I have narrowly avoided pouring milk into the tea pot and not the mug, and sprinkling loose tea all over the meatballs and pasta dish waiting to be reheated in the oven for our lunch. By an extreme effort of will I have succeeded in putting the grated cheese on top for the past, the milk in the mug, and the tea, followed by boiling water in the tea pot.

   

 

Friday 12th November - That cake was good!

 The new Air Fryer arrived today - we tested it with chipped potatoes at lunchtime, and then I made the 'Coffee Cake' - with adaptations to that I could make it in the Air Fryer.

So, here's the original recipe;

and here's the correction - it should read 350 F, not C, but hopefully you have realised this. Now 350 F is roughly 180 C, and the Air Fryer instructions say to reduce the temperature by 20 degrees, so I cooked it at 160C. I think it could have done with 30 minutes - I gave it 25 and it was just cooked.

Also, because the pan that fits inside the Air Fryer basket is only 6 inches square, (but quite deep) I used 2/3 cup of caster sugar - vanilla sugar indeed, because I store my vanilla pods in my caster sugar. and 2/3 cup of self raising flour and left out the baking powder and salt, and a scant 1/3 cup of milk. I added it slowly in case I didn't need it all - and I didn't. 

The batter was more of a pouring consistency than a dolloping consistency.

Final point - NEVER put a topping of sugar on something cooked in an Air Fryer - the current of hot air flowing around in the over chamber is far more vigorous than an ordinary oven, and the inside was liberally scattered with cinnamon and sugar. Cleaning it was an outside job involving a tea towel, dishcloth, and two of my paint brushes.       

But worth every mouthful!

Thursday 11th November - Two posts in one

 I was just settling down to go to sleep when I remembered - I forgot to write a post!

No way was I going to un-settle myself! 

It was a bit annoying though - I had got some thoughts and photographs ready. Such as catching up on a few days of the Johanna Basford 30 days of creativity. The art materials were fun to draw; I drew a pencil circle around a glass, and then fitted all the items inside. Similarly, I drew a circle around a glass for the wreath, and this time pencilled in all the flowers and leaves in first. (I was bored by balloons, does it show? Thought as much!

And here are a couple of recipes copied from the www.susanbranch.com website. She is an American blogger, author, country style sort of  writer. Her blog is long, arty, full of photographs, recipes, inspirational quotes and cutesy pictures just comes out once a month and there's usually a couple of ideas that catch my attention.

I've made the mistakes in writing out the cranberry marmalade recipe because I was thinking about whether it would be good with turkey and remembering that I have promised myself that I will never cook a turkey for Christmas again - well maybe never, and also wondering if you couldn't cheat by just combining cranberry sauce out of a jar with marmalade out of another jar! I have not tried making or sampling it yet.

From the same blog, a 'coffee cake', made without coffee!

This is also on my 'hmm, this might be good' list - I love cinnamon and sugar.

More Johanna Basford; yesterday was 'cakes' -  

and today was drawing patterns in a page of hearts. I fitted my hearts inside a pencil square.

I admire Johanna Basford for the variety of patterns and shapes she manages to think of; I ran out of ideas and so left some of the hearts blank.

Right - off to another blog; Catherine Fox, a favourite author of mine, has been blogging her latest novel about Lindchester, written in real time - well, a month behind - at https://companyofheaven.blogspot.com  and the latest instalment was posted last week. I've been saving it as a treat! Last years, and other year's novels have all been published as books now. 

Tuesday 9th November - Cheering myself up with broad bean seeds...

I had a phone call which for various reasons too long and boring and complicated to go into, had quite spoiled my afternoon. In order to do what is required I have to go through a whole load of arrangements and planning and getting my act together at a time when I would rather sit in a heap and eat chocolate biscuits.

Luckily I am able to cheer myself up for very little expenditure; Monty Don says that now is a good time to plant your broad bean seeds in pots ready for spring, and he suggests 'Crimson Glory'. The Sarah Raven catalogue has lovely pictures; the seed packet is so pretty I'd like to frame it!

and the description of the flowers; 'beautiful enough for any flower border' doesn't seem to be an exaggeration,

Ah, broad beans, picked before they grow too big, steamed, served with a vinaigrette, or lemon juice, and herbs...

Monday 8th November - Round the weeks we go again

I managed to go for a very short walk - up the road and back again - before lunch. Not much to say. Peering into the gardens, looking at the last of the summer flowers, and a few autumn flowers. It was fresh air. That's all I can find to say about it.

That sounds a bit grey - and that's what the day is. I call them 'eating days', when no biscuits, cakes, crisps or anything are safe from consumption. The only thing to do is NOT TO TAKE THE FIRST BITE but it is tool late for that advice now.

The  chilli sour dough croutons were delicious - the end of a load, cubed, tossed in chilli oil and zapped in the air-fryer for maybe 5 minutes at about 170. The load was pretty old and dry so they didn't take long to go crisp and golden.

However, it was a few days ago that I made them. (Oh, chilli oil? That is simplicity itself. Shove a couple of whole dried chillis into a small bottle of olive oil and let it fester, sorry, infuse for some weeks. How many? I dunno - it gets stronger as the weeks go by and the oil is used. Just tip more oil in as necessary).

Last night - Ooo-er - the air-fryer suddenly switched itself on, no, off, no, onoffonoffonoffon. With loud and anxious beeps. We fixed the firstpart ofthe problem by pulling out the plug from the wall. A bit of research informs us that they last around 4-5 years, depending on useage, and that this was a fault in the earlier digitally controlled versions of this brand. Phillips, if you need to know.

We bought ours in 2017 and use it most days... so, we now had a different problem. Himself has spent the morning researching, and come to the conclusion that the problem in the early models appears to have gone away, and a new near-identical one will be arriving on Thursday because we are very much in favour of Air-Fryers. Might might not leave it permanently switched on...

I've been knitting; the green snakey scarf continues to grow. Every so often I do a stitch count and find there are no longer 40 stitches on the needles. It doesn't matter - I just create one in an inconspicuous place and carry on. The edges are a bit uneven in places but who is going to see?

(The pattern - cast on however many stitches - do some counting and measuring to find out what you would like. I'm using double knitting yarn on 5mm needles, I think. I read somewhere you go up a needles size if you are knitting something in garter stitch if you want a looser fabric. Then, for odd numbered rows, Knit 2 together, knit to last stitch, knit through back and front of stitch to make one so you keep the same number of stitches. For even umber rows, knit all the stitches. It is useful to put a marker on the side where you do the twiddly stuff. It must be that I keep forgetting the 'make an extra stitch' at the end of the odd rows when the action on television gets too intense. If you need to 'fix' by adding an extra stitch, just add a loop with a twist to stop it being an ordinary yarn over part way along a row.)

The blue tea cosy has been a bit backwards and forwards, but having unpicked a whole round, stitch by stitch, I have it bristling with stitch markers signalling the pattern repeats and it is back on track.

Those vertical lines between the tea pots mark where I shall CUT through the knitting to make the place where the handle, or the spout, goes through - there is another set of lines on the other side! 

Talking of tea...

        

 I do have more than two pairs, as is happens - they last me a long time. No, today's title is because I now have two pairs of shoes that need cleaning....

I have felt extremely lethargic this past week - covid booster reaction? or was I tired? Did I have a cold?

Today was a sprakly kind of morning, and as I sat there reading the November chapter of Emma Mitchell's book 'The Wild Remedy' 

her words struck home, how being outside lifts your mood, and how much she loves to search for colour in the autumn.. So I got up, put on a coat, and we went 'down the back', which means through the back gate, through the dense laurel hedge which screens the gate, down the steep slidy  bank onto the cycle track/footpath which runs behind all our gardens. 

What a great idea that was! I felt so much more alive after the walk; watching joyful dogs racing in and out of the stream and through the trees, stopping to peer at the amazing lichen growing on the trees, standing in the sun with a gentle shower of beech leaves drifting upon us...

So that's the first pair of shoes drying off in the hallway before being cleaned and polished - some sections of the paths are a quagmire after the recent wet weather.

Later, after lunch, I stirred myself into action again and planted up more tulips and crocuses and narcissuses (narcissi?)

I am have several half-barrel planters, but I like to use them for beans and climbing vegetables in the summer. This year I have bought a lot of bulbs to try 'lasagne planting', where you layer up the bulbs in a fairly deep pot; some earth, some narcissus, more earth, some tulips, more earth, and crocus, and finally, you've guessed it, more earth! So my idea is to do 'lasagne planting' in a number of tall narrow pots, and then sink these into the half-barrel planter, so that when they have finished flowering I can just lift them out and leave them to finish the season somewhere else.

While excavating the half barrel to the very bottom we came across numbers of 'mystery bulbs' already trying to get going, so they have been rescued and replanted. I have no idea what they are - probably ordinary daffodils. What with one thing and another I have ended up with the half barrel full of tall thin pots of lasagne planting, another earthenware pot which has stood empty all summer also full of lasagne bulbs, and two pots of 'mystery' bulbs. Surely something will manage to flower?

Meanwhile that is another pair of shoes looking slightly the worse for wear!

I'm catching up with the 30 days of creativity drawing...

I'm not that much into 'colouring in', but I do enjoy drawing.