Monday 30th May - a day of firsts

Himself had a three-hour optician appointment... so he drove us both there, and I went on to a nearby National Trust House and Garden to wait.

That makes it four times now that I have driven the car since March 2020!

And today was the first time either of us had visited a National Trust place  since March 2020.

And the first time I had been out and about (apart from meeting up in a garden with a friend for coffee) on my own since March 2020.

And the first time I have been into a cafe and bought a coffee since March 2020.

And, when I drove us both home afterwards, the first time I had driven more than 3 miles since March 2020  - this trip was roughly 20 miles or so each way.

So now I have clocked up five trips, and about thirty miles since March 2020. Before then I used to drive around 200 miles a week, criss-crossing the county from one school to another, loaded up with such a weird variety of instruments - trumpets, clarinets, recorders, keyboards, ukuleles, cellos, violas, samba drums and djembes, ocarinas and a wild and wacky selection of percussion instruments. How things have changed!   

Both of us were feeling fairly wiped out by our experiences today - when we got home we had just tomato soup with toast and marmite for lunch. Come suppertime we put the planned meal into the freezer and and settled for comfort food - scrambled eggs on toast, with fried tomatoes.

Normal life (what IS normal these days?) might be resumed tomorrow - after a zoom routine clinic appointment following on from the lung function tests last Monday!

I have posted the 'Postcard Project' to Ang this afternoon; I was determined to try and get it to her before the end of the month, and I may just have managed it. I won't put up any photographs today, as it would spoil the surprise.

And the next four 'daily drawings' are here;

Wednesday; I have had a set of Derwent colouring pencils for maybe twenty years, and have been trying them out, following some youtube tutorials. I quite like using them, but don't find them 'exciting', like watercolours or lino printing.

Thursday; these poppies are amazing; they were a joy last year and the same this year. They have a white cross in the centre, formed by a pale stripe on each petal.

Friday; Vicky and I are planning a living willow screen to hide an ugly plastic garden storage shed at the bottom of the garden.

Saturday; every so often Himself bakes a batch of gingernuts and a kind of flapjack called 'flakemeal shortbread', recipes that his mother used to make. It's only Monday evening and we have already eaten most of them.  

  

Tuesday 24th May - Full Schedule

Yesterday, we took 5 hours to travel 62 miles; 60 miles in the car, and 2 miles on foot.

We drove up to London (now I really understand why the train is so much easier, but we are still not venturing on public transport at the moment), parked in a pre-booked space in Sloane Square car park, and walked across to the Royal Brompton Hospital a scant mile, for my routine lung function appointment. My average walking speed is around one mile per hour these days, especially is it is even slightly uphill. Wearing any kind of mask also slows me down. That accounts for two of the miles, and two of the hours. 

But I did enjoy the walk. It is such a pretty part of London, and as it was the day before the opening of the Chelsea Flower show, there was plenty to see. Many of the shops, even in the back streets, had exuberant floral decorations spilling out onto the pavement.

 I shall find out more about the results when I speak to someone at the clinic (over zoom) next week, but the lovely man who was operating the machine talked me through the figures in outline, and they were pretty reassuring. I'm always such a doom-merchant as the time for the tests draws near, and usually discover that I have been worrying over nothing.

The drive is only 30 miles each way, but once you get anywhere close to London the the speed of travel slows dramatically!

Both of us were pretty well zombified by the day - it is the most public outing we have been on since March 2020, even including the two trips to the Royal Free Hospital last year, once for routine tests, once for a 'right heart catheter', a procedure like an angiogram, but on the other side, to measure internal blood pressures in the heart. I find myself having these every five years or so, to see how things are progressing ( so far the results have been stable, which is good).

Today I did my experimental sewing for the postcard project. I've bought some stuff called 'magic paper'. According to the information, you can draw on the paper (what kind of pen, I would like to know??), cut out your design, peel it off the backing and stick it on the fabric. Then embroider, using stranded cotton or perle embroidery cotton. Finally you dissolve the magic paper with cool water. 

So I did all that today;

I used a frixion pen to draw the picture. The magic paper sticks nicely to the linen, giving it a satisfactory stiffness which makes it easier to sew. I used some black perle cotton.

The finished embroidery - as usual things changed as I went along...

And when I dunked the sewing in a bowl of cool water, the paper turned into a sticky goo within seconds. I shall know tomorrow when the fabric has dried whether all the goo has come off.

 I'm very pleased with how simple it was to use.

So now you know the theme for my picture this month...

 

Sunday 22nd May - Daily Drawings

 But first, my first ever baby surprise jacket, knitted in 1986 from the pattern in the Sunday Times.  

The original pattern was for a double-breasted jacket. Later versions are single breasted, with an additional bit for increasing the overall length, and also some very slight shaping to the sleeves at the cuff.

I remember that I was running out of yarn, and had difficulty in managing the cast off - the result was that the jacket was so tight around the neck that I always buttoned it as single-breasted! Also, Never, Ever use these cute fancy buttons on a knitted garment for a baby. They were an absolute nightmare to fiddle through the buttonholes. I've kept very few of the baby clothes from when my children were tiny; this jacket in one of them.

I'm still on track with the daily drawings. Sometimes it is a bit of a problem thinking of what to draw. I have been tempted to just write 'this page intentionally left blank'...

Sunday 8th May; I met the three ladies from Ukraine staying with my cousin on a zoom call. They are wonderful! 

Friday 13th May; we used to have the same problem with our previous cats as our neighbour has with theirs; they used to follow us when we went for a walk. Next door's cat gives up and goes home after a short distance, but ours kept on and on, so that I often had to go home and shut them in the house. They were a liability on a walk, as they would attack any dog on sight...

Friday 21st May; I have at last settled on a design for this month's embroidery. I don't think it is going to be as complicated as this drawing...

 The design Ang chose is one of the ideas I had been playing with - she has posted pictures, but the parcel hasn't arrived just yet. I can't wait to see it for real! 

Saturday 21st May - No Tea!

The worst has happened - we have run out of ordinary, 'brown' tea!

I like to go out into the garden in the morning with a mug of English Breakfast tea and see what is going on.

I have all kinds of ginger tea, peppermint tea, 'relax', peace', night time', 'refresh' or 'revive' tea, 

but no English Breakfast Tea. At least, not until tomorrow, when normal tea drinking can be resumed.

I did discover an ancient packet of Darjeeling in a dark corner, marked 'best before October 2020'. It was certainly a long way past its best and was promptly tipped into the compost bin.

The compost bin that I bought maybe 25 years ago has been worth every penny that it cost. It contents have survived a smouldering fire, (too many grass clippings) and drowning, (too many rotten potatoes from a sackful that went off faster than we could eat them) and now I am hoping it will survive relocation.

It is a green johanna, (now faded to grey with age) designed to operate in a shady spot, and since the shed was dismantled six years ago it receives full sun for half the day. Quite often we find all the worms have climbed to the top, waiting for an opportunity to escape the heat it generates. It has coped with everything we put into it including bones, meat and fish scraps, egg shells as well as the usual vegetable waste. I've even used it as a sort of shredding machine, tearing up papers into strips and stirring them in. Everthing, that is, except apple stickers, peach stones and tea leaves. And we do get tomatoes growing in surprising places in the garden after using the compost.

The plan is to empty it and move it to a place in the shade of the new shed. So far we have he has dug out about 50 litres of beautiful compost from the base, leaving it more than half empty. The last, and smellier, contents will need excavation, and then I'm hoping we can roll it to its new position. 

 I'm very anxious that Johanna should survive the move, as the same bin costs about £130 nowadays! 

I know there are others, which are cheaper, but the dear old Johanna has proved to be predator proof - living near open ground and a stream there are plenty of opportunist foxes and rats about.   

The vegetable patch is looking wonderful; those are potatoes sacks in a row at the front, spaghetti marrows and tiny kale plants in the middle row and then lettuces, broad beans and Brussel sprouts in the third row. I spend a lot of time here, just looking and watching.

Then there is the garlic, with tiny little radishes just coming through, and behind that the tomato plants. Today I discovered a couple of sunflowers left over from last year making their way up through the forest of broad beans.

The plastic bottles make good cane toppers and bird scarers.

This part of the garden is still a work in progress. The three wooden barrels, from left to right are sweet peas and sunflowers, poppies, and herbs. I've also got courgettes and dwarf beans behind; the plan is to train the courgettes up canes like vines, to keep the courgettes off the soil and away from pests, and for space-saving, and because it might look pretty as well.   

But I've no idea where to put the pumpkin!

Friday 19th May - Dozy sort of week

 I don't know where he time went - things just kept happening. Nothing majorly major. 

Every so often, about once in two years, I get distracted when sorting out 'morning pills' and 'evening pills'. If I'm lucky (!) all that happens is that I miss a complete set. But just occasionally, I take the wrong set. Like on Monday night. I woke up at about 2am thinking 'there was one of those shiny blue capsules in that handful I took at bedtime, which means I used the 'morning box' instead of the 'evening box'. So I spent the rest of the night waking up from time to time and trying to work out if that is what happened, and what to do about it... if I had actually taken the wrong ones...

The worst consequence was only a disturbed night's sleep - I came to the conclusion that as long as I didn't take the morning pills AGAIN, everything would probably be fine. And it was.

But Tuesday was another disturbed night - too hot. 

I find that a couple of 'non-sleeping nights' can really slow me down the next day. It would have been okay, but several piano pupils have changed their lesson times this week and that always throws me as well.

Sitting and knitting might have been restful, but I had ripped out the Adult Surprise Jacket I had started, as I was feeling very doubtful about the measurements I had concocted. I went on the Schoolhouse Press website and bought the digital pattern, downloaded it, read through, recalculated and cast on again. I was right in that my previous attempt was wrong.  

In my befuddled state it took several attempts to write up the figures for the size I am making, cast on 268 stitches and mark the decrease points, and then get the first couple of rows done but eventually (several hours later!) all was well.

Do you know about knitting bowls?

It is a wonderful accessory. The surface is highly polished, and the rim curves inwards just a little, enough to persuade the ball of wool to stay inside. The curly whirly slit comes into its own when the ball becomes too light to stay inside of its own accord. I used a small wooden bowl until I was given the real article as a birthday present. The bowl was OK, but nowhere near as good as the real thing.

I have been going through the bookshelves and CD stacks and music (piano music) piles to see if I can sell them to ziffit.com. The reject pile was twice the size of the accept pile, but I still had enough books to be able to arrange collection by courier. Here's hoping they will still be happy to accept them once they have seen them. Meanwhile that's about two feet of bookshelf space cleared.

I'll try the rejects again when we go through the next set of shelves. Maybe they will take them then. Otherwise - there's a fete happening soon on our local common and a flyer came through the door for contributions for the bookstall. They are about to get lucky! Or unlucky...

We have been sleeping much better since we changed the duvet from the all-season one to the summer one on Wednesday night - even Wednesday's thunderstorms didn't keep us awake. Hopefully a couple of night's sleep will clear the brain fog...

    

Saturday 14th May - FOMO versus HOGO.....

 FOMO - fear of missing out - we all knew that one. My own FOMO has mostly subsided to a dull rumble over the last few years, but is beginning to revive.

On Thursday evening I found myself double-booked; a book club meeting starting at 7.30 and then the 'But it's not Lent anymore, we can't go on calling ourselves a Lent Group' meeting at 8.30. No problem on zoom - I joined the Book club for a short hour, and then left and started up the 'Lent Group' zoom just in time for 8.30.

At the book club someone mentioned HOGO, which has become 'a thing'. partly because of Covid, and partly because we have all reached, or are approaching 'a certain age'. 

HOGO - hassle of going out. Oh yes indeedy, zoom has made everything so much easier! 

The book club meeting was a slightly weird experience though, as four members had met up 'face-to-face' as is on the good old days, bringing a selection of delicacies to share, while the another four of us were on zoom, watching as they poured wine, or elderflower cordial, and shared delicatessen ham, home-made coleslaw, artisan breads and speciality cheeses, followed by home-made date and walnut cake. It felt like watching one of those weird real-time youtubes, eg

we three zoomers chatted together, as the others munched and passed plates. What was also weird was that the main picture on screen was of the table, spread with good things, with occasionally a hand, or half a head coming into view and disappearing again.

I enjoyed the experience - and if I'd been able to stay longer I know it would have become a more general meeting. It is the first time I have been in a hybrid meeting.

I do think zooms are here to stay. Not only for catching up with far-flung friends and relations, but also for meetings where you don't have to turn out in the cold and wet and dark, but can join in frm the comfort of your own home. 

Friday 6th May - Random things...

 I finished the Baby Surprise Jacket on Sunday. All except the buttons - I was not expecting to find that there would not be a matching set of buttons among the over-flowing contents of my mother's button tin. (I've put my own button jar in a safe place so that was no help either.)

Before;

And 'abracadabra'! But I still need to sew along the should seams to complete the jacket.

Ang, of 'Tracing Rainbows' has come to the rescue - one of these sets that she sent me is bound to fit. 

Then I shall have to search out a suitable baby to receive the surprise.

I spent the rest of Sunday doing loads of measuring and maths to try and work out how to knit an Adult Surprise Jacket;

But in the end I have fallen back on my roughly deciphered instructions and have cast on 189 stitches on 6.5 mm needles at a gauge of roughly 3 stitches and 8 rows per inch, and set to work. 

I started the double decreases at stitch 42 from either end. I need to decrease in this fashion until I am down to 103 stitches (or something close to that - I can't quite remember), which will be the under arm, and then double decrease until... I'm not quite sure without checking my notes. But that's a long time away. I'd be crossing my fingers for luck but that makes knitting much harder.

I'm still doing 'sketch a day'

 They are done from memory (in bed, before I get up!) rather than looking at the subject as I scribble with my pen. Yesterday I evicted two spaghetti squash plants from the cold frame into their own outside pots as they are growing at an alarming rate. That leaves two, which are destined for a friend next door (he doesn't know his luck yet, or should that be fate?) and a friend in the next street, so I shall be able to go and visit. I've grown quite fond of them already.

I haven't got many colours to play with, as I use this amazing (and rather expensive) multicolour colouring pencil

It is like those multicoloured biros we used to get in our Christmas Stockings, only with decent colouring pencils instead. I have discovered how to layer up different colours to vary the shades; the green is a bit harsh on its own, but turns into spring green when given some yellow; and the brown comes alive with the help of a bit of orange or red. Of all the extravagant 'I HAVE to have one of THOSE' purchases I have made over the years, this has been one of my favourites.

While I was pottering in the garden this morning I did that thing I haven't done since I was a child - filled a boot with water. Ho hum. 

I was rearranging the cats' drinking provision; their preference is for slightly stinky garden water, and as they are now so old a creaky (poor old Leo limps now - arthritis in her shoulder, we suspect, but the vet says giving her painkillers - loxicom or something - would finish her off) we are constantly looking for ways to make their life easier. So today I was finding and cleaning and filling a a shallower basin for their stinky water, and somehow managed to transfer some to my boot.

Mind you; those two cats are pretty neat at sorting through the mixed biscuits we put down for them to pick out the cheaper (and clearly tastier) go-cat and leave the nutritious and expensive dark brown 'Meowing Heads Senior Menu' nuggets on the plates. Guess what is no longer on the shopping list. At their age, they can live on junk food if they like. 

I can remember that my mother-in-law's main daily food intake was most of a freshly batch of a dozen fairy cakes - mid-morning, after lunch, tea-time and supper-time - for the last year of her life, in preference to anything else set before her.

Right. I've off to buy a new iron - this morning got off to a slightly shocking start when I got the iron out to improve the appearance of the dress I am wearing today. The iron much be over 20 years old; all the plastic around the steam nozzle is crumbling away (and it doesn't steam or spray anymore, only hiss in a menacing fashion).  

I shall have a cup of tea first, with one of the teabags that accompanied the buttons.