Wednesday 26th September

 I spent an entertaining ten minutes or so watching a squirrel bustling about burying acorns in various pots around the garden. The upturned wire pot stands and hanging basket supports seemed to be enough of a deterrent to prevent it burying them in the freshly planted tubs, so it had to make do with scrabbling in the parsley and basil, and even in the pot with a dahlia in it. The squirrel dashed off, looking very affronted, after checking out my little water feature and discovering  that the solar powered fountain was not a stable stepping stone.

I shall wait and see if oak trees start growing out of my herb pots.

We nipped out before it got dark, well, He nipped, l walked slowly like a very, very old person (!), to earth up the potatoes. Should have been done a few days ago, but the days keep ping by without wait for us, 

I'm wearing the second pair of socks that I made. I was wondering if they would survive the washing machine, zipped up together in a net laundry bag, but they still fit comfortably and are very warm.

Back in the days when I would only ever knit things in at least aran wool on biggish needles I could never see the point of knitting socks. I suspect I may have become addicted,  especially now I have discovered the traditional Norwegian heel. It's a pattern that I have memorised without effort so all I need is sock yarn and needles and away I go. Sock yarn will be on my Christmas wishlist!

While I've been sitting around waiting for this episode of breathlessness to go, (which it is, little little) I've been watching youtubes on various topics including watercolours. 

Today was the day to have a go at trying out one of the demos for painting random 'made-up' flowers;

this was done very quickly by spattering some violet and red on the page and pushing the colours around with a wet brush, and doing the same with some greens. Later I added the lines to kind of make sense of it.

From another youtube a couple of years ago I learned to mix greens from pressman blue and azo green. I don't know if this works for paint in pans; my paint comes in tubes, but I can't offhand remember the make. 

I'll find out for another post, when I've rummaged for the tubes.

This is the Five Minute Watercolour book I might revist; I used it a few years ago and found the tips and techniques very interesting and useful.