Tuesday 30th September - Following a tree

 

Here it is, the oak, and the apple at the bottom of the garden. Still very green.

We've had nearly all the apples from the tree now, sharing them with friends and neighbours. The oak tree is still full of acorns, dropping to the ground or onto your head all day every day. If you walk on the grass down there your feet alternately crunch on acorns or squelch on fallen apples.

Here's the same view at the end of January;

I find it hard to get my head round how a tree can go from bare branches to full leaf in a matter of months; how a seed grows into tomatoes or beans or flowers in such a short time. 

'We sow the seed and scatter the good seed on the land' and then just weeks or months later we are eating what has grown. 

Or, in the case of a fruit tree, from bare branches to hundreds of apples in 8 months.

It's all very mysterious. 

Pome 

You have to imagine this being recited my Cornish friend's father, in a strong, slow West Country accent, with an expression of great solemnity;

What a queer bird, the frog are
When he sit he stand (almost)
When he walk he fly (almost)
When he talk he cry (almost)
He ain't got no sense, hardly
He ain't got no tail, neither, hardly
He sit on what he ain't got hardly

I couldn't remember all the rhyme so I looked it up

It appears to have originated in USA, and it's a song, and a round! I never knew!

Monday 29th September - the fatsia

 This is the most extraordinary plant. Most of the time it's just leaves, and then, in Autumn, this appears;

Some kind of bud... I'll keep you posted as to what happens next!

Actually, I do already know what will happen. But the first year this border was planted we had no idea. 

The border was designed and planted up by a gardening expert. All I said was that I wanted there to be something interesting to discover every month of the year. He was, to my mind, a bit high-handed about how he went about things, assuring me that it would be great and I'd love it. Well, I trusted his judgement and the first year was certainly a year of surprises as I only had a vague notion of what the plants were. 

The fatsia was only one of many delights that were in store!

Sunday 28th September - Furnace

Window from Buckfast Abbey, Devon

Furnace

May God in whose furnace faith is forged   

 In whose being beauty breathes   

 From whose dawning darkness flees   

 Shine on you     

 May the Father whose love for you  

 Beats with a rhythm time itself can’t stop   

 Whose presence in your exile   

 Is the promise of home   

 Whose certainties are deeper   

 Than the cellars of your city   

 Whose breath is life   

 Breathe on you     

 May the son whose story   

 Is a mirror of your own   

 Who has journeyed into darkness   

 To find a key to your prison   

 Who has dived the deepest oceans   

 To find pearls for your wisdom   

 Who has looked into your heart   

 And found a beauty worth the battle   

 Who has written your name   

 On a white stone carved in secret   

 Hold you     

 May the Spirit   

 Who has waited millennia to fill you   

 Who shaped the word that moved the wind  

Of the morning that conceived you   

 Who holds the earth on which you stand   

 As a midwife holds a newborn    

 Who fully knows you   

 Wholly own you     

 So may God   

 The faithful Father   

 God the scarred Son   

 God the sculpting Spirit  

 Journey with you

Gerard Kelly, ‘Furnace’ in I See a New City: Poems of Place and Possibility (Chamine Press, 2020) pp. 50-51. 

Used today in the Lectio morning prayers.

Lectio is a free app delivering morning, midday and night-time prayers every day. I used to follow it, but got out of the habit. Today a friend alerted me to this wonderful prayer - maybe it's time I thought about restarting following Lectio again.

 

Saturday 27th September - through the letterbox

 came the next 2By2 stitching collaboration letter - oh happy happy happy! We always have not a clue what to expect. 

All this

was tucked inside the envelope, plus the write-up to give the background to the stitching.

The fabric comes from a recent visit to Quarry Bank that Ang and Bob took the grandchildren to earlier this month the summer. She was able to buy a fat quarter of the fabric they weave in the mill, printed with bees. She's added the hexagons, and embroidered over the bee with a with embroidery floss. The wings are filled with a delicate glittering tracery of rainbow metallic thread.

Just beautiful. 

The letting was stitched over waste fabric, the sort which dissolves away in warm water - very clever! That's why it looks so neat. 

Here's my September square; I have crocheted a granny square using variegated sock yarn and one of my godmother's fine crochet hooks.

She would say it's quite a thick hook! The others in her wallet are for crocheting using cotton thread, as she used to make loads of intricate doilies and table runners, lace curtains and other items. She was born in 1929 and grew up in Finland, knitting and crocheting everything including her stockings from a young age.

I sewed the granny squares down onto the linen fabric using brown perlé thread.

 

The August squares are below, and the September ones above.

I'm temporarily out of Limericks, but

The common cormorant, or shag

Lays eggs inside a paper bag.

The reason why is clear, no doubt;

It is to keep the lightning out.

But what these unobserved birds

Have never noticed I that herds 

Of wandering bears, all eating buns

Steal the bags to keep their crumbs.

I've just checked; this was perpetrated by Christopher Isherwood. 

Why is it I can remember verses like these but struggle to learn Proper Poetry?

Friday 26th September - great housewives of modern art

 This is a favourite book. I don't know how it came my way; I'm almost certain it was a present from someone.  Every so often I nearly manage to pass it on to a friend when I'm looking for a small gift, but my hmd hesitates, and it goes back on the shelf!

It's a picture book, with pictures of wonen doing ordinary housework, but done in the style of modern artists. 

I think of it whenever I get out the duster and wreak havoc on the cobwebs that trail along the tops of the walls where they meet the ceilings. I've found the best technique is to use the massively ecologically unsound Flash Dust magnet, so I'm consumed by guilt every time I get it out... I hope to find a better solution one day. The feathers on my feather duster aren't firm enough and just dust them, leaving the strands in place. A broom or vacuum cleaner turns the cobwebs into black sticky lumps that glue themselves implacably to the ceiling. 

But, by twirling the dust magnet gently along the length of the strand I can collect it like the girl operating the candyfloss machine at the funfair. 

Overcome by success on the cobwebs front, I levered myself out of the settee where I was slumping, half asleep after lunch, and set about the sitting room bay windows which have been getting on my nerves every time the sun shines through them. I could manage to reach them by climbing onto the blanket chest pushed into the bay.

I won't know if they are all streaky or not until the next sunny morning. That's the depressing thing about window cleaning; they look wonderful when you just finished them, and then, the next day, you realise you have to do them all over again!

These fits of houseworkiness don't come over me very often, more's the pity...

Another Limerick?

Don't mind if I do...

There was an old man of Tralee

Who was stung on the knee by a wasp.

When they asked 'does it hurt?'

He replied 'not a bit!

But I'm s glad it wasn't a hornet!'

Blame my dear old Dad, he taught it to us.

Thursday 25th September - ???

 What shall I blog about today?

Do you want to know what we had for lunch? M and S chicken and cashew nuts, with a Tilda microwave rice and a home made from scratch vegetable medley of thinly sliced carrots and quartered sprouts, cooked for 5 mins in a little butter, and then braised in some vegetable stock along with an elderly tomato which had seen better days, skinned and chopped. Surprisingly delicious.  I was enjoying my new word for the day, detritivore, courtesy of jabblog's post today as I prepped the tomato, wondering if detritivore soup was a better name for what I usually call 'Saturday soup' and others call 'fridge bottom' soup...

I stood looking in the fridge this morning trying to fathom out what on earth I had been thinking of when I created this week's grocery order back on Tuesday morning. We'll manage; one just have to have an inventive, creative and open-minded attitude to what might make a good meal...

Anyway, I'm still no nearer having any clue of a suitable topic for a blog post, so I'll leave you with a favourite limerick...

There was an old man of Japan,

Whose limericks wouldn't always quite scan.

There was also the line 

Which didn't quite rhyme

So I'd best stop as soon as I possibly can.

There.

Writing a blogpost wasn't so hard after all.

Wednesday 24th September

 I've finished 'This List of Suspicious Things' by Jennie Godfrey, and I'm still mulling over what I've read. 

I was expecting something lighter, less intense, and this was a deceptively deep dive into the darker sides of ordinary lives. But I'd still give it plenty of stars, as an excellent and thought-provoking read.

Yorkshire folk are renowned for plain speaking, something that is less in evidence in the book, as young Miv and her friend Sharon, both aged about 12, have to deduce what's going on from the elliptical conversation of the adults when children are about. 

Today I had a routine respiratory checkup to make sure the prescribed oxygen flow rates are still correct. 

'I've two medical students with me today, is it all right if they stay?' asked the Respiratory Nurse.

I indulged in some plain speaking of my own;

'Fine, as long as neither of them has a cold or the sniffles, in which case I'm going home!' was my rather direct reply. I did smile as I spoke!

'I'll just go and check,'

A moment later one of the medical students left the room! I hadn't seriously expected that! 

When I did go through I to the consulting room a few minutes later the nurse had opened the window and arranged the chairs as best as she could in the space. 

Otherwise everything went fine, and I'm just to carry on as I am. That'll do for me.

Tuesday 23rd September - Books and a memory

 I'm reading one book upstairs and another book downstairs. It works for me.

Much to my surprise they have a lot in common inspite of such different settings.

The Upstairs Book is Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell.

It's an unusual style; a series of very short chapters, if you can call them chapters. Some are only a few paragraphs. Each one describes an incident; maybe an overhead telephone conversation, or going out for an evening meal with acquaintances, or similar. But they open windows on Mrs Bridge's life as a 'nice' small town American lady in the 1950s, living in a nice house in a neighbourhood and desperately trying to live a nice life with a nice family, and knowing that she is somehow missing something in her efforts to be so correct and polite and right.

It was strongly recommended by a friend who described it as simultaneously very funny and very sad. I'm finding it fascinating. 

It's being serialised on Radio 4, but I'm sticking with the book at the moment.

The Downstairs Book is 'The List of Suspicious Things' by Jennie Godfrey.

I think this popped up on a suggestion by Amazon. It appealed to me because it is set in Bradford at the time the Yorkshire Ripper was terrorising women. Again, there is a strong emphasis on 'doing things right', but this time it's not about being a gracious middle class lady, but the grittier life in the terraced houses near the closed and abandoned mills.

Miv's father is thinking about moving the family away as the police having much success in tracking down the Ripper, so Miv and her friend are doing their own investigation so that they can catch him, and she needed move.  

We worked in Bradford then, and lived just outside on the road between Bingley and Keighley. I vividly remember what it was like living in the area while the Ripper was at large. We were all scared.

One evening I went with another student to a piano evening run my our piano teacher. We all took turns performing in a sort of informal concert. A woman I didn't know very well was going to give me a lift home (we didn'thave a car), but for some reason she couldn't, or didn't want to, drive all the way. So she dropped me off at a bus stop on Manninggam Lane, beside the cemetery, late on a dark, bitterly cold winter night.

What was she thinking of? I was shaking with cold and fear until, after what seemed like hours, and could have been half an hour at that time, a bus came.

I've never forgotten that night.

Monday 22nd September - Doodles... 2By2

 We went out for lunch yesterday with our son and daughter. We had a great time, and the weather was obliging. always a major consideration; we had planned to meet last weekend but it was too wet. Yesterday was sunny, cloudy, warm cold, breezy, still, by turns, but it didn't actually rain.

They were delayed, so while we waited we had a serving of crispy skin-on chips, and drinks, and I amused myself doodling in a notebook. 

The couple at the next table each had their own little dog tucked inside their fleecy jacket, peering out at everything going on.

I nipped into the farm shop afterwards to buy a 'flat gift' for Ang. I'd like to have looked around more, but it was too busy. They have all kinds of interesting foodie things; there was a tray of onions each the size of a small melon!

My 2By2 patch for September went in the post this afternoon, fantastically early! I'll have to keep quiet about though it until we've each received our September patches. Ang thought she might post hers today too, so I might not have lompng to wait.

More doodling; I copied some sheep from Hannah Dunnett's illustration for Psalm 23.

Sunday 21st September - Heaven...

'At the toll-booth on the Rainbow Bridge'

I've been musing on death, or rather what comes after death, or 'over the Rainbow Bridge' as some might say. Or, in other words, heaven.

It must be having done my tax return; 'nothing is certain in this life except death and taxes' as many people, most notably Benjamin Franklin have said.

Or perhaps it's all those advertisements, people 'of a certain age' encouraging each other to take out life insurance, prepay their funeral plans or 'have the conversation' in a suitably respectful and sympathetic tone of voice.

My father died right at the beginning of the year; we've been busy with organising the funeral ceremony and associated wakes and celebrations of his life for much of this year, as well as resolving his affairs. So that's another reason for my thoughts running in this direction pretty frequently. 

I've also heard people say 'I hope I'll be good enough to get to heaven...'

Here are *Archdruid Eileen's thoughts on the subject of getting into heaven, titled

 'At the toll-booth on the Rainbow Bridge'

(*actually a CofE Vicar, and shared with his permission)

Food for thought...

Saturday 20th September - a slow couple of days

 Sometimes I've nothing interesting to post... 

While every day is full of small happenings, not all of them are noteworthy, let alone blog-worthy... like yesterday...

But today... I've been experimenting with making watercolour bookmarks.

These were the first. I had read that you can seal the painting with a thin coat of furniture polish. I tried it on the right hand one, but I must have used the wrong sort of polish because the paint smeared over the border. So I used a soft brush and 'Modpodge' pva glue on the left hand one. I actually did these wo earlier in the week.

I did the 'Modpodge' treatment again on the next four, but used a bristle brush. It means that the coating is much much thicker and has a streaky, textured finish. I'm not so happy with it, but they'll do.

I've found it's always a good idea to leave a painting alone for a couple of days, and come back to it before doing any more to it. 

I thought these two needed a bit of 'sorting out' with a fineliner.

But left these two alone, as I did for the first ones. You can see how the streaky finish reflects the light.

Cutting the watercolour paper, and sticking the masking tape on all the edges is all a bit fiddly, but worth it for the end result. I'm resisting buying precut bookmarks! I have discovered that it's much easier to get a nice even edge if I use washi tape with stripes on it.

I do like giving books as presents, and it's going to be fun to be able to tuck a bookmark inside. 

Thursday 18th September - mood changer...

 Here's the thing...

I've been listening to the audiobook 'Adventures in Being Human' by Gavin Francis, a GP./ I find him a most interesting writer, mainly on medical topics. Some years ago I read 'Recovery' by him, about the lost art of convalescence, and today I finished 'Island Magic' which is very different,  being a series of musing and reflections on his fascination with life on Islands all over the world. 

Anyway, back to 'Being Human'; in the chapter on the face, he discusses the anatomy, how the understanding of the muscles and structures developed over the centuries. One thing that interested me is how various artists, scientists and physicians have suspected that reflecting your emotion in your face increases the intensity with which you experience that emotion; if you are fearful and have a fearful expression on your face, you will be more scared (so there is some value, then, in 'putting a brave face on things'). Likewise sadness; if you can  try and look cheerful it should reduce the intensity of your gloom...

There is now a growing body of research to support this suggestion. 

I suppose in future I should suppress my normal urge to take a swipe at people who call out 'smile, love, it might never happen!' and thank them instead...

So, (gradually getting to the point of this post) I was sat sitting there feeling the dreary gloom descending what with dull weather and a dull day and so on...

I remembered this passage, formed my features into a reluctantly cheerful expression and... 

Well! It did seem to help!

So got up, chopped apples, weighed out dried fruit and sugar and suet, and

My crackpot was soon brim full. I think it was zesting the lemon, oh, that lovely smell! that saw off the last of the gloom.

I used Delia Smith's recipe as always, making half quantities, and now have three jars ready to label and store for... for later.

Wednesday 17th September - Autumn Invasion

 It has started.

On Monday when I brought in the milk I discovered a slug climbing up the outside of the bottle. A woodlouse scurried out from underneath. 

On Tuesday I found a snail inside the kitchen, tucked into the top corner of the kitchen door.

On Wednesday there was another small woodlouse hiding under the soap dish in the bathroom. 

They are growing bolder.

I have the clear plastic box and piece of card ready to deal with the 🕷 🕷 🕷!

Tuesday 16th September - happiness is

Getting one's tax return done - hooray!

I don't have a huge tax bill, and I appear to be in credit, so I don't need to pay anything either.

I don't know why I dread doing it so much every year... it's never as bad as I think it's going to be.

Monday 15th September - not much of a blog today...

 At 11pm, after BB was fast asleep,  and when I was nearly asleep, I was suddenly perked into wakefulness by a tentative 'beep' noise. I lay there, alert, wondering 'what now?'.

The battery on the smoke detector, mounted just outside our bedroom, had finally died. It continued to beep every ten minutes (I timed it) and apparently growing in confidence. BB stayed asleep, and I was grateful that one of us might be functional come the daytime. 

I must have dozed off eventually, after a couple of hours listening to audiobooks on my headphones, only to be gently shaken awake by BB.

'Did you hear that alarm?', he asked. 

'Yes, the battery on the smoke alarm has died.'

'Ah'. He appeared to roll over and go back to sleep. Actually he lay there for a while working out how long we had had the detectors, he told me this morning. Not knowing this, I tossed and turned, wishing I was asleep...

BB nipped round to Screw fix and bought replacements, which are now fitted, tested and working.

It's around 7pm, and I'm ready for an early night. 

So, no blog post tonight, hang on, what is this if not a post? I

Sunday 14th September - Apples

Stir up Sunday, the last Sunday before Advent, isn't until 23rd November, but I have  kitchen full of apples now.

The Christmas story all began with an apple, when Eve was beguiled by the snake into eating the apple, and sharing it with Adam.

Terrible joke alert; skip the sentence in parentheses is you are allergic...

(Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the snake,  and the snake didn't have a leg to stand on.)

There's always Eve's Pudding, basically a 2-egg sponge mixture* spread over a base of stewed apples and baked for 30-35 mins at 160C.

(Weigh the eggs in their shells, or assume they are 2oz each, mix with same weight of caster sugar, SR flour, softened butter or marg and maybe a splash of milk)

And Apple crumble and apple brown betty and any number of recipes...

And then there is mincemeat.

 If I wait until stir up Sunday I won't have any apples left so I shall get started now.

(I spotted a jar dated 2023 at the back of the cupboard; that needs investigation. It might be okay... or not. It all depends on how well it sealed, and what it smells and looks and tastes like.)

Delia Smith makes mincemeat 'ravioli' which look intriguing 

I've made rough puff pastry before using her method.

 I've spent some time researching recipes for mincemeat as I will definitely need more before Christmas. 

I remember making Freezer Mincemeat from my Home and Freezer Digest Christmas booklet.

Once again farmersgirlkitchen.co.uk came up trumps, so that's back on my Christmas cooking list. It's not a great 'keeper', just three months in the freezer, but I don't think that will prove to be a problem 😉 

On this post she mentions her recipe for slow cooker mincemeat with ginger 

I'm not too sure about ginger mincemeat but I reckon the method will work for my favourite recipe from Delia Smith's Christmas Book. This is the one I have (sort of) followed for the last couple of decades!

Delia melts the suet in a slow oven with all the other ingredients, and then, CRUCIALLY, stirs the mixture several times as it cools before packing it into sterilised jars. The melted fat creates a protective layer around the fruits and nuts, helping to preserve them. If you don't stir it, the fat will form lumps, or even a sort of layer over the top of everything. 

So, back to stir up Sunday...

The collect is worth saying more than just once a year;

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

I need stirring up at regular intervals in order to stay actively involved in the Christian way...

Maybe, as I munch my apples, I'll remember the stir - up Sunday collect.

Saturday 13th September - what have I been doing?

 Yesterday, Friday, I was busy...

No, the busyness goes back to goes back to Thursday...

Although,  come to think of it, did I mention the weird weather on Wednesday? It was such a dreary dark morning, and then I noticed how it seemed to be lightening up a bit. I looked out of the front window and saw that the sun had come out and there was a heavy shower of rain at the same time. I was actually sitting in the dining half, at the back of the house (it's all one long room from the front to the back of the house) and, lo and behold, no rain, no sun. This situation lasted a few minutes, before the rain stopped completely. 

Right, that was Wednesday's notable moment.

Our next door neighbour is a passionate gardener, but his garden in pretty much a scene of devastation surrounded by large pots of salvaged plants. They are having a downstairs extension built at the back. So, he has turned his attentions to ours, partly to show his appreciation that we are happy to have his wheely bins in our driveway, and to havec5he access to the back of his house through our garden. They took a fence panel out so that they could get the old garage out, and we've said we don't mind waiting for it to ge put back. Besides, it gives a grandstand view of the progress!

Anyway, he's had a wonderful time with BB's cordless hedge trimmers sorting out our hedge and shrubs. Then he appeared with a rake and set about the fallen apples under the tree... we went down to join in. At leat, BB did;  I stood on the sidelines cheering them on.

We got a good haul; we took some round to neighbours and he took some home and some friends will be collecting bags too. There are still a good number left on the tree.

I've been making apple pureé and freezing it in the little pots. We have dozens of them; back in 2019 my godmother was very ill with oesophagus cancer, and finding it hard to eat. Every week I would fill pots with apple pureé or a mixture of puréed potatoes and carrots enriched with eggs. We would put them in her freezer, and collect the empties...

So we have dozens of pots!

I consulted my trusty book; 'six months for apple pureé' it states. 

This book is wonderful! I think the magazine is longer being published, actually, I don't think I ever bought a copy. 'Will it Freeze' was published in 1976, and this copy is a reprint in 1979. Well worth every penny of 60p!

In the afternoon there was another sunny spell and I sowed some lambs lettuce. It took me a while to get to grips with the instructions but I eventually deciphered them;

See what you make of it! This was the only packet in the garden centre.

Finally, I found these on the Internet;

No, I didn't send off for them! BB wondered if they went off with a 'BANG' with every step...

Today... I had a bath. Oh, and made a fish pie. It was pretty good, which is just as well as the rest is in the freezer. Banana custard afterwards for BB, Greek yoghurt and... apple pureé for me. Mmmm.

I think that's ALL I'm doing today.

Thursday 11th September - it's officially Autumn

How do I know? 

I'm wearing woolly socks for the first time in months

These are the first socks I ever made. They took me ages, throughmost of 2021 and 2022. I ended up knitting most of them both twice over, as halfway up the leg of the second sock I realised I'd made a fundamental mistake in the mystical process of Turning The Heel. I now use a pattern which uses a simple afterthought heel which is basically the same as the toe, and I am NEVER going to knit ribbed socks EVER again. One lives and learns... let the yarn to the pattern making is my view!

In the garden

I sowed rainbow chard, pak choi and spinach at the beginning of the month and have deep rewarded by sweet little seedlings 

It's interesting to see how different they are. I'm slowly moving my vegetable garden to up near the house. It's all in a collection of large planters. I'll have to somehow make them more decorative if they are going to be where we sit out in dry weather. The advantage is that I can reach the plants more easily; currently I have to switch to an oxygen cylinder to get gown to the veg patch which is often just one layer of effort too much to look after them properly. 

Malapropisms 

One of my aunts always called the alphabet the 'A B I' instead of 'A B C'.

I can't remember when we started calling them the 'destructions' instead of the 'instructions'. It became very relevant once flat pack furniture became ubiquitous!

Wednesday 10th September - best typo ever?

 My post on Sunday about saying a Grace before meals has sparked a lot of interest; one day soon I want to collect everybody's comments with their Graces before meals into a single post. So do keep them coming! 

Meanwhile one comment which I deleted rather than publish was a wonderfully obvious spam, too good not to share...

.... has left a new comment on your post 'Monday 8th September - food fail, food win':

Your blog is wonderful. Thank you very much for sharing such a blog with us.

Also, visit to know more about the swimming poos and fountains

Followed by links to contact 'best fountain and swimming pool manufacturer in... Delhi'.

I know I'm the last person who should be casting nasturtiums* at blog commenters, but if I had any interest in these products perhaps I would be wary of theirs!

*Malapropisms are so called because a of a comical character, Mrs Malaprop, in the play 'The Rivals', written by Richard Sheridan in 1775. Other sayings by her include 

 " illustrate him quite from your memory" (instead of "obliterate")

"he is the very pineapple of politeness" (instead of pinnacle) 

"she's as headstrong as an allegory on the banks of the Nile" (instead of alligator).

However the phrase 'casting nasturtiums' (instead of "aspersions") isn't, as I thought one of hers. A history of it can be found here.

Tuesday 9th September - today has been...

mostly about crochet...

In a mad moment I wondered what would happen if I used a very small hook and sock yarn...

I've a wallet full of teeny tiny hooks saved from my godmothers house when we cleared it. She was such a good needlewoman; embroidery, tapestry, dressmaking, knitting, crochet; she could do it all, and do it well. Born in around 1929 in Finland she was brought up by her grandmother. All the women and girls made all the clothes for the whole family at home. Her knitting needles and crochet hooks were all very fine, as she knitted her own sock and stocking, and also crocheted an endless stream of doilies and net curtains from fine cotton thread.

Here's one of her hooks in use, with the sock yarn granny square;

I've included my other crochet project, using a 6.5mm hook and chunky yarn to give an idea of scale.

It's going remarkably well, but it does take time to find the rhythm with fine wool and yarn. All the movements have to be so much smaller, but still with 'soft' relaxed hands and fingers to keep the tension reasonably loose.

I opened the fridge door to be greeted by souvenirs of other people's travels;

Our own local milk delivery doesn't use printed milk bottles so I assume these came back from people's holidays. I suppose one milk bottle is very like another as far as the bottle washing and filling machines are concerned.

A couple more Grace's for mealtimes for the collection;

Granny Marigold reminded me of 'For what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful'. I have a feeling that we used to say 'For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful' which always sounded slightly threatening to me.

Martha contributed 'Rub-a-dub, thanks for the grub', from a trainee youth pastor, much to the surprise of the senior pastor.

I have just remembered 'ta, Pa'; which I think one of our Vicar's said when asked to say grace at a Sunday lunch we had been invited to. (It was a very very long time ago so it might have been a different child, and a different occasion!)

Monday 8th September - food fail, food win

 The BBC goodfood site has a brilliant slow cooker belly pork recipe: 

• 900g–1kg/2lb–2lb 4oz pork belly strips
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 15g/½oz fresh root ginger, peeled and cut into thin matchsticks
• 75g/5 tbsp tomato ketchup
• 3 tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2 tbsp runny honey
• generous pinch Chinese five-spice powder
• pinch dried chilli flakes

Cook the pork slices in the pot on high, just lay them in, for three to three and a half hours on high and then fish them out and drain off the liquid and bits from the pot.

Make a barbecue sauce from everything else. Put the pork back in the pot, pour over the glaze and gently turn the pieces over and over to coat them. Cook for another one to one and a half hours on high. Mmmmmm. 

I made some on Saturday to reheat for Sunday lunch, to have with airfryer baked potatoes. But, horrors, one of the potatoes was still too firm. We shared the other, contented ourselves with a very modest helping each.

Fortunately the slow cooker was in action again during Sunday morning, cooking a slow cooker apple crumble. It's the usual recipe; I used four moderately large apples from our tree which is some kind of Cox, we think. Then 'half fat to flour; 4oz plain flour,  2oz butter, about 1-2 oz sugar and a 1oz oats rubbed together. The apples went straight into the pot, followed by the crumble mixture. Lay a clean towel or some kitchen paper under the lid to soak up the condensation, and cook for three hours on low. Remove the lid and cook for a further half an hour, uncovered, on low.

I prefer not to add lemon or orange or cinnamon or ginger, and to rein back the amount of sugar because our apples taste so good on their own.

Apple crumble and cream made up for the potato fail! I saved the potato for another day.

In the afternoon a friend came round, and we had tea, cake, and started learning the basic granny square. We're taking it very slowly as she's never tried crochet. 

Besides, it's hard to crochet with a piece of cake in your hands!

We covered 

The Slip Knot

Other Unexpected Knots

Chain Stitch

Joining The Chains To Make A Circle

Treble Crochet Into the Circle

Treble Crochet Not Into The Circle

Pulling Out Everything

Starting Over From Scratch

She's taken a hook and a length of yarn home to practise with. 

And also a bag of apples!

Sunday 7th Sunday - Grace and thankfulness

 At the zoom church service today we celebrated our harvest festival. 

I'd already read today's blogposts by Ang and Frugally Challenged, so I was especially conscious of noticing things to be thankful for, and things that blessed us.

In the harvest festival service were several traditional harvest hymns, including 'We plough the fields and scatter'

The refrain goes

All good gifts around us are sent from heav’n above;

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord for all His love.

We often sing this together before a shared Harvest Supper, or any other shared meal at my home church. (We joke that our church does love a shared meal)

Later, in a novel I am reading (engrossed in would be closer!) someone said a grace before a meal, remembered from their days as an undergraduate at Oxford;

Benedictus benedicat, which means 'may the Blessed One give a blessing'

And finally, the harvest hymn refrain reminded me of this little sung grace I learned from the children at a Church of England primary school;

Thank you for the world so sweet, ho hum.

Thank you for the food we eat, yum, yum.

Thank you for the birds that sing-a-ling-a-ling.

Thank you God for everything,

Ho hum, yum yum, sing-a-ling,

Amen!

Grace before meals. I'm not good at remembering to say it, but thankful when I do remember. 

Friday September 5th - A Tail of two cats

The other day we spotted Aki, the big, scruffy, fluffy cat from next door trying to drink from our little water feature/mini pool;

I see I've not the scale right; either the cat should be bigger or the plastic half barrel should be smaller...

It was just hilarious watching him teeter unsteadily as he tried to drink from the little cheapo solar fountain, with all four paws tight together on the rim. I guess he's already learned the hard way that the bit surrounding the water jet is just a light floaty platform...

I watched a squirrel use the solar fountain as a springboard to scamper across the garden; it wasn't pleased when the platform tipped and it's paws got wet. It sat on the fence nearby re-evaluating the situation and flicking its tale.

We've since put a couple of bricks inside for his paws. I'm happier about that too; it means animals that fall in have a chance of escaping. 

Aki's determination to drink the rain water in the barrel reminded he of one of our last two cats;

I was horrified to come outside one day and see McCavity, our small but fluffy cat,  drinking from a plastic watering can. It only has a small hole for filling it,  just large enough for a small cat's head.... neck.... body.... to fit through, and the water level inside was quite low. It seemed to me that there was nearly as much cat inside the watering can as outside...

We promptly hid that watering can and bought one with a much larger hole... at least it wouldn't be quite such a struggle to for her to get out if she happened to fall in. 

The other cat we had at the time Leo, always preferred to drink from whichever tub held the dirtiest water, it seemed. Maybe she thought of it as a cold soup? (Yes, female, and called Leo. It turned out they were sisters, not brothers as we were told)

We're without cats of our own now, and luckily Aki hasn't cottoned on to the watering can as a drinking supply as it plays a vital role as a door prop to hold the French windows open.

Family Chant

When we were out on a walk, a post, the kind that blocks people from taking a car down a footpath, was always an opportunity for

'Here stands a post!'

'Who put it there?'

'A better man than you!'

'Touch it if you dare!'

Followed by a race to get there first; we waited to start running until the last line.

Thursday 4th September - The Korean Chest

 Yesterday,  or maybe the day before (I lose track of what I did when so easily) I opened the final drawers and the cupboard at the bottom of the Korean Chest.

The drawers;

I've found the playing cards! I remember that the drawers all seemed to have playing cards or sunglasses in them; obviously over the decades the contents were continuosly shuffled and altered.

The two steay cards, bottom left, have the most beautiful atmospheric pictures.  I've always loved the boy on the buffalo. He might become a bookmark as the rest of the pack seems to have disappeared.  The roosters come from Portugal. Anyone who has been to Portugal might remember seeing them everywhere. 

The other set of drawers had a set of marker pens for touching up scratches on wooden furniture. I binned them; surely one shouldn't use marker pens on lovely wooden furniture? 

Finally the central cupboard;

More cards (they look like pictures of sumo wrestlers, producing them at a staid bridge party would have appealed to my mother's wicked sense humour! The red plastic boxes are 'bidding boxes'. I'm not sure how they are used; I think in more serious competitions you have to use the box and cards to announce your bids so that you can't use your tone of voice to add extra clues... I have offered them to a bridge teacher friend for her own classes.

Now the fun begins; I can think about how I want to use the chest in future. 

Family chants and sayings

When I was young, if anyone wanted to offer something round to the others at the table such one of their biscuits, or the last piece of cake, or maybe they couldn't manage all their roast potatoes or something, they would hold it aloft and call "quiz?". The first person to answer "ego" could claim it. I think it is Latin for "who?" and "I".

I'm not sure if that's another from my father’s own childhood. He went away to prep school as a boarder when he was just seven, followed in due course by his brother. I guess Latin would have been in the curriculum straightaway, along with the three Rs, and, of course, plenty of sport!

I taught piano in two local prep schools; both of them timetabled two hours of sport, outside, as well as gym and swimming. I wouldn't be surprised if they still do that nowadays.

Tuesday 2nd September - this and that

 "Sure, I can show you how to crochet granny squares," says I glibly to a friend. "I've loads of spare yan and crochet hooks. Come round any time".

We were discussing things to do in the darker evenings, like knitting and crochet and so on.

Well, luckily for me she's been busy, and then the weather has been too uncertain (I have to meet up with friends out of doors as I take immunosuppressants). 

I had sorted out chunky yarn and 6mm hooks and crocheted a.... mess. And a spider web. And a cat's cradle. And a knotted tangle. What had happened to me since I made this

After a morning I managed to chain the starter ring, read up and relearn treble crochet (UK notation, I believe it is double crochet in USA) and do the first round. 

It took a couple mornings and some tutorials before I could reliably start the second round, and a further morning to complete it. Progress was not helped by accidentally creating a granny pentagon.

I've lost count of number of times I went back to the very beginning because I kept losing track of the starting ring and crocheting through the wrong gaps. I solved that by using a different colour for the ring.

I prefer using a self patterning yarn like the one on the left; it conveniently changed colour for me just as I finished the start ring ready to begin the first row. (I remember buying that yarn back in 2013 to see if my mother, recovering from a severe stroke, could possibly manage tunisian crochet by wedging a hook in her watch strap - sadly it proved  was too awkward for her) 

Anyway, at last I can truly say "Sure I can show you how to make granny squares!"

I've found it quite straightforward once I got the first couple of rounds going to set the pattern.

I think our local Dunelm sells Hayfield Spirit Chunky in lots of lovely colourways, so I'll hand this over to her when we do meet. 

Along the way I have learned 

how to catch the short tail of the yarn in with the crochet shells when doing the first round

a better way of starting the subsequent rounds (genius; you create the 'post' of three chain stitches and then TURN THE WORK ROUND SO YOU EFFECTIVELY WORK IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION!)

and I'm now investigating how to do 'join as you go' for the granny squares. 

Although, when I was making the blanket, it was an excellent 'portable project' as each square, with its self-patterning yarn, and the hook, fitted into a small zipped bag. But, oh the joining and joining and joining at the end!

Altogether these past few mornings have been a bit of an exercise in patience, perseverance and self-control. Very good for me, I'm sure!

The Tree

Here is August's (!) end of the month picture. I don't suppose it will have changed much in three days. There is a lot of fallen fruit around the apple tree; I just haven't got down there. Never mind, the wasps and insects and birds and whatever will deal with them. Does that count as doing my bit for wildlife?

A chant from my childhood

If we had roast chicken for Sundaylunch, it was carved at the table and there was always an eager competition to get the wishbone.

Then, the winner would curl their little finger around one side, and invite someone else to do the same with the other side, and on the count of three, they would pull, and snap the wishbone. Whoever got the larger piece cgot to make a wish.

The loser said "I wish I wish your wish comes true"

The winner replied " I wish I wish the same for you"

Then both had to say the name of a poet; usually Shakespeare because he had a spear, or Burns because he had fire.

Did this come from my father’s family? It wouldn't surprise me.