Wednesday 31st August - Last day of the Summer holidays

Well, not for me. The schools go back tomorrow, but I'm not planning to get going with the full teaching schedule until Monday 12th September. There's too much shuffling of timetables and changing of lesson dates to be wrangled before then, as the students change schools, clubs and classes.

It has been feeling quite Autumnal the last few evenings and mornings, and there's definitely a change in the weather, even though it is still warm and sunny.

A seed catalogue arrived in the post and I have spent several mornings perusing the pictures, and adding page markers... I have a fancy to grow cauliflowers in pots - it seems you can only fit one plant into a 12 inch pot though. Maybe if I buy the dwarf variety?

This is last week's Johanna Basford picture in the last year's journal, all in French, that I bought so cheaply. I decided NOT to use green, and I've come to the conclusion that I am missing a touch of green here or there. I'm not a great butterflies and fairies person, but it was a useful experiment.

I've at last decided what to record - books, as I start and finish them, with maybe a comment. Or maybe not.

I've also made a start on this week's picture. I found about five leaves I had missed after I took the photograph. The picture might be on its side. Or it might not. It is certainly an education seeing how she manages to ring the changes for designs in order to provide 52 different pictures.

Drawings - I've got a bit further on with August's picture since I drew this, but it is still not ready to post Ang posted her card a few days ago, but it hasn't arrived yet. The Postal strike and Bank Holiday weekend does not make for a speedy service!

Do you want a clue for this month's embroidery picture from me? Oh, alright. I've just bought this on Kindle; I suspect I have (as usual) let myself in for more than I bargained for, but will muddle on through.

I didn't do any stitching at all on the postcard on Sunday, as we went round to our next door neighbour's for an hour or so in the afternoon, and after wine and crisps I thought I'd better not pick up a needle!

That's meant to be one of our cats, Leo. She drags her ancient body up the stairs most mornings to spend ten minutes or so with me. Highly inconvenient if I have just decided to get up, because I hate to disappoint her after she has made such an effort. So I go back to bed and read my book for a little while... and another chapter.... and to find out what happened next.....

and before I know it, another half hour or so has disappeared.

I'm managing to hit my daily step target of 2750 steps, sometimes even getting more than 3000. However, there are uncertainties in the gadget's discrimination between activities. I now take it off when I practice the piano, (and then get very annoyed if I forget to put it back on). Today I gained about 100 steps just changing all the pillowcases on our bed - 12 pillowcases in all, three 'top' pillowcases and three 'under' pillowcases, and we both have three pillows; two for sleeping on and another for sitting up in bed reading. Then there were a number of pillows in the two other bedrooms so I stripped them off too. I am forever trying to match up pillowcases, sheets and duvet covers in colour-coordinated sets, but continually thwarted. I reckon in a few washes' time I might have nailed it. 

Tuesday 30th August 2022 - too much for one post?

There's been a bit of a gap - and I find once a gap in something has happened it gets increasingly hard to restart.

What have I been doing for a week and a half?

The simplest way to try and recall everything is maybe to post all the pictures I have taken since the last post on 18th August;

Which I have just done, and then deleted anything which was in the nature of a reminder to myself about something or other, or relating to a piano lesson...

Ah, here we go, this was the Johanna Basford picture for week ending Sunday 21st August. I'm pleased with how it came out, but I still hadn't decided what to put in the diary spaces on the facing page. I have a diary on my computer, linked to the phone, and a paper journal-cum-diary, and also a page-a-day diary I write up in the evening.

Scibbly sketches; - one of the folksongs set by Benjamin Britten is 'Oliver Cromwell is buried and dead - hee, haw, buried and dead'. I've always loved this song, and the setting.

How Peter Pears can get the words out so quickly and clearly is a marvel.

We have developed a terrible mini-magnum habit. "Just the one," as Mrs Wembley always said in the sit com "On the up". I can barely remember anything about it except Joan Sims as the cook, Mrs Wembley.

There have been quite a few takers for the apples I have left out at the gate.

and there is a slight possibility of someone wanting djembe lessons, or wanting to be in a djembe group. There are significant problems in running a drumming group over zoom, namely the time lag between the different people on the zoom! I suspect that drumming in the garden would have to be severely limited too, for the sake of the neighbours.

Wednesday morning is always and event - our on-line grocery order arrives - what shall we actually get this week? We usually accept the substitutions unless they are truly bizarre. This tie a pizza was squashed, and we got to keep the pizza AND received a refund. There was always the memorable time our curry meal with rice for 2 turned out to be two packets of rice and no meat... 

I packaged up a couple of water brushes (where you fill the handle of the brush with water) for a friend to try, but she had gone ahead and bought them. Just as well, with the postal disruptions. They are so convenient.

My side of the dining room table;

His side of the same table. We are still managing to clear half of it in order to eat. It has saved considerably on the laundry, and one is far less likely to get spaghetti sauce all down one's shirt.

I should say I am far less likely to get spaghetti sauce all down my shirt.

This is something called Plum Shrub. The jar is two-thirds filled with halved and stoned plums (you add the stones as well), then one third filled with sugar, the zest of a lemon also goes in (I now have an odd-looking bald lemon in the fridge...) and then you fill to the brim with rum. Seal tightly - I've added tape as the lids leaked - and keep in a cool dark place until Christmas if you started it in August. Then you can strain and use the liquid as a mixer or a liqueur to drink, and eat the plums. 

I have never made this before, so you can follow this recipe at your own risk. It comes from 'It's Raining Plums' - a collection of recipes from the Daily Telegraph, edited by Xanthe Clay. One of the cookery books I saved from my mother's hoard.

Perennial Kale. I might give this a go. The suppliers look most interesting and I shall have a browse around their website.

I've posted these pictures of seed packets here as I got sick of having them hanging over my guilty conscience. So the other day I emptied the contents over a couple of bare patches in various flower beds and will just see what happens next year. I put the picture here as I didn't know where else to put them, and the last thing I wanted was to have Empty seed packets cluttering up my life!

I reckon that's more than enough for now - we are up to Saturday 27th August. I must reassure Ang that I have started on the stitching for August (better late than never?) and will hurry it along...

Thursday 18th August - It rained! it rained!

 It rained enough that the grass is now green and brown, instead of yellow and grey, and no longer crunches underfoot! We have had a couple of days of relief from watering - very welcome, although we have continued to fill rows of buckets and garden tubs with 'grey water'.

Drawings;

There's quite a lot of catching up... 

Wednesday last week was when I did a sudden backwards roll when trying to crouch down to write 'MILK' on the up turned bucket, ready for the new milkman.

Tuesday's milk delivery, the first in the new schedule, was safely deposited under the bucket. Today's was just left on the door step. On Friday night we shall try and remember to leave the bucket on the doorstep where he will be able to find it. Although at 8am rather than 4 am when used to be delivered it should have been light enough to see it beside the door. 

I've started doing bits of water colouring again, just 'pits and pieces' as my godmother used to say. She was Finnish, and came over in the 1950s so her English was very good, but she still counted her stitches in Finnish, and remembered the Lord's Prayer from Sunday School in Finnish.

I started on my French 2021 planner, originally with pencil, but found it easier with a fine brush and watercolour. The paper is too absorbent for water colour really, but manageable. It's really for getting practice.

    

The spaghetti squash seedlings I gave to our neighbours produced two squashes. Their little boy, about 2, was convinced it was some kind of unsatisfactory ball. Too heavy to kick, and it didn't bounce at all well. They gave me the one that he hadn't been playing with.

My vines have also produced two squashes; the LH plant has leaned oved and laid its squash in the right hand tub, so the RH plant has dangled the squash over the side.

Tuesday it rained a little, like a sort of 'trial run'. We collected about an inch in each bucket - enough for just one half bucket in total!

Our cats have never seemed to mind being caught in the rain; they come in absolutely dripping and then demand to be dried off. Preferably while sitting on a lap.

I've never cooked a spaghetti marrow before, and went for the easiest recipe as it was hot and I was feeling bothered. I found a website with several different methods for cooking them, and chose the slow cooker one. The instructions were simple enough; pierce through the skin in a few places, put it in the slow cooker and leave it. 

• SLOW COOKER SPAGHETTI SQUASH

For this method, do not cut the squash in half and instead leave it whole.

With a small, sharp knife, poke several holes into the outside of the squash. These will allow steam to escape. Set the whole squash into a slow cooker. Add the lid and cook on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours or on LOW for 5 to 6 hours. Depending on the size of the squash, you may need more cooking time.

When the squash is done, allow to cool for about 5 minutes, and then cut in half. Run a fork through the flesh to separate the “spaghettilike” strands/noodles.

Yup - it worked, just as they said! I seasoned the 'spaghetti' with butter, salt and pepper and it was delicious. 

I came over all dizzy and faint at the beginning of the week, felt very unsteady and very unhappy about it. Then I had a brainwave; when living in Indonesia and Singapore in the 1970s I experienced the same thing several times, and the cure was to eat or drink something salty.

I'm a great fan of  this brand of vegetable stock, and quite often drink a teaspoon of the stock powder in a mug of hot water as a quick and easy alternative to tea or coffee if I want a hot drink. I therefore had a cup of bouillon in the morning several days running (I did feel as though I should be lying on a deck chair on a transatlantic liner, being served by a superior white-coated steward, but that part of the dream remained a dream).  

It seemed to do the trick, and I've been fine since, especially now it is cooler. 

I've finished last week's 'toadstools on a stump' picture, using watercolour pencils for the background.  I'm part way through this week's now; a wreath of flowers and leaves. 

  

Sunday 14th August - Bible Society Video Trek

Bear with me, non-churchy types; I think this is interesting for anyone who is fascinated by Ancient History...

I was looking for the next project or theme or whatever for my very casual church homegroup (we meet on zoom to chat, and talk about whatever we were supposed to have looked at during the week but forgot or didn't get round to). The constraints are; 

It must be freely available, as I don't want us all to have to buy some book or course,

It must not be prescriptive as in, 'read this and then answer these questions'

I need to be able to quickly and easily print off something to send to one member who is not on the internet, and joins the group at a friend's house

I need to like it and find it interesting and thought provoking

It needs to be amusing (sorry, I have a mostly, but not always lighthearted and frivolous approach to things)    

At the Bible Society website I discovered this video series;

and so we are sorted. The videos are only a few minutes long, so it is easy to watch them during the zoom, and I can easily copy and paste and post the extra information.

What is really interesting is seeing the places, so different to here in England, where the events of the Old and New Testament took place, and hearing Andrew Ollerton's quirky take on them.

And yes, I did buy his book 'The Bible', after doing a 'look inside' on Amazon.

Anyone who can write this gets my attention

  

Saturday 13th August - Ooo err, What happened there?

 I have just deleted yesterday's post as the formatting for the blog seemed to have gone crazy, and somehow yesterday's post and the day before's were somehow overwritten on top of each other.

Deleting yesterday seems to have solved the problem.

But time and tide wait for no man, and you will never find out about yesterday...

I woke up at 4am this morning, and crept down stairs and out into the back garden without switching on any lights to try and save my night vision.

Luckily the full moon was still just to the side of the house, but it was still pretty light, light enough to see the flowers in the border. After a while more stars became visible as I became accustomed to the darkness, and eventually I SAW A SHOOTING STAR, a single bright silver-white streak across the sky!

That was the only one; I didn’t stay out long because star gazing is jolly hard on the neck muscles. I expect I could have spent longer outside if I had brought a blanket out to be able to lie down, but neither the hard paving nor the prickly dry grass seemed like comfortable options. I wonder if you can buy specially designed star-gazing camp chairs? Probably one of those loungers that capsize when you try and get out of them would be a possibility.

I have had this as an ear-worm for several days now; but a lovely ear-worm all the same. 'Moon and stars' is the bit that has got stuck, like a needle on a record.

 Today is another day of seeking out cooler spots. One cat is almost invisible at the back of a flowerbed close to the house; her fur is exactly the same colour as the earth. The other laboriously oscillates between ‘her chair’ and the floor by the piano. The current afternoon spot for humans is outside in the shade where a breeze comes around the corner of the house, not too far from the fridge.

Thursday 11th August - How are you doing?

 We. Are. Melting. 

I have opened every single door in the house, including the front door, in an effort to get some kind of air flow, but the breeze that comes through the house is roughly the same temperature as the blast that meets you when you open the oven door while cooking.

"Could you limit yourself to no more than half an hour on the computer?" he asked, "as I haven't got round to hoovering out all the fans yet."

At last, the desire to do watercolours has returned, after many, many months. It is a good job that I don't earn my living from painting pictures. All it took was idly scanning through youtube videos, and then one high-speed tutorial caught my attention, and I thought "I can do that!". And in time, I will be able to. I have re-labelled a part used book "Experiments and Mistakes", rather as I labelled my very first sketch book, and am beginning to use it.

Drawings;

Saturday 6th August

- I have forked out the princely sum of £10 for a set of six five-minute stretching sessions from www.balletbasedmovement.com. I strongly recommend them; here is one of their free videos

It is a delightful older mother / dance teacher daughter combination. She started teaching her mother ballet exercises because her mother had balance and foot strength issues, and many of the videos are free. 

Sunday 7th August - water saving continues. We now carry a couple of buckets of bath water downstairs to save for the garden and let the rest run down the plughole to prevent the drains from clogging.

Monday 8th August

We joined a large (about 40 people?) family lunch party, at the most gorgeous location about 90 minutes drive from us. It was a boiling hot day, but the venue had an elegant covered terrace in the shade, so it was perfect. We came late, in time for coffee, speeches and toasts (the occasion was a memorial lunch for my Aunt who dies in 2021), as I desperately wanted to be there, but also need to be so careful about avoiding catching Covid.

Tuesday 9th August - Oh thank heavens for the piano tuner, who worked his usual magic!

  Time's up - need to power down!

Wednesday 10th August - Siesta time

 It feels as though we should be having siestas; and it is supposed to stay hot, or even hotter, until the weekend.

The garden is looking faded, apart from a few valiant efforts from the rose near the house. The colour appears far more saturated through my glasses, which have reaction tinted lenses.

From this end of the garden, the ornamental grass (no idea what it is called, but it is one of the best things in the garden) catches the light. The feathery ends have filled out over the last couple of weeks from delicate filaments to these brush-like fronds. I would like to get another to go in the border, but closer to the house.

 In the very darkest patch of shade beyond the end of the border is the apple tree, where Himself is sitting reading. I could be there too; the wi-fi reaches that far, but - effort. Walking. Heat.

Here is good.

I am nursing a sightly sore sit-upon; crouching down to write 'MILK' on the upturned bucket by the front door in readiness for the imminent changes to the milk delivery schedule and possibly even a new milkman, I lost my balance and ended up ignominiously on my bottom lying on the driveway. I don't thin I have actually bruised anything and fortunately (in this circumstance at least) my posterior is pretty well padded. So I rolled myself back up and completed the task. At least I know what to draw for today!

We had an excellent light lunch of roast chicken etc, including a glass or so of white wine. This could well be the explanation for my unplanned gymnastics...

The brick is bolted to the bucket to weight it down and act as a convenient handle. We have an on-going problem with urban foxes, and some people further down the road actually feed the brutes ('oh, but they are so cute and we love animals'). Say that to people who keep chickens, if you dare.

Our lunches yesterday and today have been more splendid than usual, not because of the menu, but because we have cleared the table.

Well, half the table;

 It is very pleasant to sit up and face each other, maybe even converse.

The reason is because the piano tuner came on Tuesday. It is just about three years since he last came. I am so lucky that my piano - a wedding present nearly 45 years ago - stays in tune so well. I was just about ready to go to twice-yearly tuning when Covid struck. The piano was beginning to become unplayable to my ear; there was a definite wow-wow-wow going on in some chords, so I was grateful to get this done.

But, oh, the trauma of excavating it from several years of accumulated paper, notebooks, penpots, music heaps! And the assorted bags of knitting and sewing stuff! And the horrific amount of dust and cobwebs to be cleared out!

Still, we got there;

and I am determined to be very considering about what goes back;

I can't get too carried away with re-filling the space as he is going to return (when?) to re-glue the two veneers which came unstuck from Middle C and B. Luckily they slid inside the piano when they came off, so he has been able to retrieve them.

I shall try NOT to return to this state of affairs; (the title of the music seems appropriate, perhaps I'll give it a play through)

 

Thursday 4th August - The other postcard has arrived

 Here it is! The counterpart to the 'postcard' that I sent off at the beginning of the week arrived this morning.

I had an inkling of what Ang might have been doing as her contribution for July, as she has been making Memory Bears all through July. I reckon she must be an expert after the number she has made over the years.

And here's her embroidery; and applique version of a memory bear! I wonder, if I unpicked the patch, would I find that the bear had a little knapsack on his back, like the 'real'  bears? I'm not going to try and find out!

She also included these book marks - very welcome, as I have been reading 'read' books as well as e-books recently. I'm fascinated by the patterns, and will do a bit of research in due course. 

I can also show you my design for June that I forgot to photograph before I sent it; a selection of some patterns on antique Delft tiles.

The next challenge will be to decide what this month's design will be. I am determined to choose an idea and get started in time to post it BEFORE the end of the month this time! 

Tuesday 2nd August - The Postcard Project*

 I posted July's 'postcard' yesterday, and heard that it had arrived today*. It still amazes me that I can put something in a post box in the afternoon, and it arrives halfway across England the next afternoon.

Here's my July embroidery;

It's a view from a National Trust garden across the fields, one sunny afternoon in the middle of July. I had some thread left over in my needle, so added flowers to the clock I made back in - March, maybe? You can see the unadorned clock in the picture above.  

 

Now I have to wait for the other 'postcard' to arrive, hopefully tomorrow, to see what Ang has done. But what to do with all the left-over ends of embroidery floss? I discovered early on that they will stick to felt, 

so made a rough 'thread book' using up an experimental daffodil embroidery, created by the 'let's take a needle for a walk and see what happens' non-technique.

Here are the last four drawings - not coloured in yet - maybe they will stay as ink sketches. You can see why a delayed posting until I knew that Ang had received her 'postcard'.

I don't know what it is with me and days of the week...

On Saturday we had a lovely surprise when our children had an unexpected free hour before meeting up with friends for a party, so we all got together for a cup of tea.

I was sewing pretty well non-stop all week in order to finish the picture

I have so far made scones and drop scones using the whey left over from my cheese making experiment yesterday. I haven't yet eaten the cheese. That's for tomorrow.

*Postcard project; there are two linen cloths which Ang and I embroider a picture on and exchange every month.