I'm 'following my tree' at the end of every month, so here's the October photograph. I'm so glad I took the picture on Tuesday; as you can see the sun was shining, the sky was blue... it's like someone threw a switch that night as it has been pretty horrible outside ever since.
The leaves on the tree are only just beginning to turn. The others on the far side of the stream, to the left, are already heading towards brown. This tree has always taken its time, coming into leaf later, and holding on to them longer.
Today we managed to get to the bank in between rain showers. I've been waiting to deposit some cheques but the branch has been undergoing refurbishment so I've had to wait a couple of weeks.
Walking up from where we parked, I spotted this;
It's not a real little dog! (I had to look twice to make sure)
We parked in a quiet road full of the most beautiful houses, it's quite the most desirable place to live, less than five minutes from the centre, but so quiet and calm.
Houses like this;
If you zoom in to the window above the door you will see what really caught my eye...
You would have to be very sure to remember to lower the blind before climbing into the bath!Following a tree
This one, from Ang for the 2By2 collaboration, is perfect.
She created it using autumnal shades of embroidery threads using a speed weaver to make a woven darn on aida fabric. 'A speedweaver?', I hear you ask...
One of these.
I've got one too... they take a bit of practice but you can make neat, intricate, and decorative darns.
She also made me a scissors case for folding scissors. If you nip across to her blog you can read all about how the patch and the scissors case were made.
I put the last few stitches into my 2By2 patches this morning so they will be posted when we go into the town tomorrow.
This afternoon I swiped through 'The Simple Life' magazine on the Pressreader app. My library offers both the Pressreader and Libby apps; Linby let's me read e-books, listen to audio books and read current magazines and newspapers. Pressreader is only for magazines and newspapers but you can read back issues as well. I'd be reluctant to buy Simple Life, but I enjoy flipping swiping through it occasionally.
An advertisement for this patch caught my eye;
Did they design it especially for me?
This morning I mended a hole in one of my gloves. I didn't have fine red yarn to hand, but there was a length of blue and white sock yarn in the basket... ah well, visible mending is the fashion at the moment!
There's an address to send off for the rest of patches...
It absolutely tipped it down with rain all day today. Those rather dreary backgrounds I made yesterday, each one about the size of a large postage stamp, were exactly right...
This is a selection of panels taken from the website. Well worth zooming in.
The artist is Jacquie Parkinson; you can find out more here. Several of my friends have seen the 'Threads - through Creation' exhibition that toured the country several years ago, so I was pleased to have the opportunity to see it for myself. But - this is a different exhibition by the same artist! She has a third series, on the book of Revelation and I think they could be combined in the future.
Each panel, as well as depicting a scene, also incorporates a small frame with a different bird, relevant to the scene. For example, bottom left, there is a magpie - 'one for sorrow'.
I would have liked to have spent longer... we won't be able to go back as sadly it closes on Sunday.
I've been itching to knit this hat since I found the pattern in a book LindaG sent me last year.
It's the top-down 'Swatch-less Watch cap', with the ribbing starting right at the top. That means that the lines of ribbing subdivide as you increase the number of stitches, and you have to follow the pattern very closely as each line is different! Aargh... at one point you add a marker every six stitches, and in theory the number of stitches in each section should always hatch. The trouble started when I checked a few rounds later and discovered that some sections had six stitches and others had seven. Half an hour's tedious 'tinking' and knitting later and order was more or less restored.
This is the book;
all the patterns, even the teddy bear, are knitted in one piece... mind-boggling. The Swatchless Watchcap is the simplest.
The sock pattern starts at the heel and sort of grows into a sock shape. Mind-boggling. I know, I've already said that. But it is.
Now, what is this mucky page of watercolour destined to become?
The bobs of colour have been created (?) Perhaps 'applied' is a better word, by adding water to the painty mess on my watercolour palette and blobbing it on the page. It's the wrong sort of paper too. Oh well. It's just a play a doodling. Not important.
Here's a clue;
this is a monochrome experiment on my kindle scribe. Lucia Leyfield, the artist who offers the free 'winter trees' video was more 'intentional' in her tree doodling than I was. When I add the trees to the blobs above I'll try and be more 'intentional' too! The results are surprisingly satisfactory for such little time and deliberation.
So sad to hear that Prunella Scales has died*. I loved her as Miss Mapp in the first Mapp and Lucia series. She was so good; if she had read the telephone directory she would have been enthralling.
* (I have a deep-rooted loathing of the phrase 'passed away', and even when it is abbreviated to 'passed'.)
Except perhaps today, when the clocks go back and we have an hour to catch up...
I've read a couple of amusing blogpost, here (cyber-coenobites) and here (jabblog, hope you don't mind ...)
Both posts are along the same kind of musings I was indulging in... what happens during that hour? If, like me, you enjoy fantasy fiction especially stories involving parallel worlds, then this non-hour is full of potential. (I love the 'Rivers of London' series by Ben Aaronovitch)
None of the above is what I had in mind to post today!
This morning, when I did get up, I stood by the bedroom window and looked out to see a clear pale sky, and a completely still, calm day. Nothing appeared to be moving.
As I waited there I began to notice the birds; gulls, from the sea or more likely from the landfill site a few miles away, and small groups of fluttering starlings flying apparently aimlessly hither and thither. A pigeon waddling around in the middle of the road. A few puffs of smoke from a fire or central heating boiler. A thin white streak way up high from a plane travelling west...
In spite of all this activity it was still very peaceful, quiet, calm out there. A scene to store along with the others in my mental photo album;
Yesterday was busy (apart from arranging things on the shelves of my new little table). Today was... not busy... so here are some pages from.my last Commonplace Book instead of regaling you with the entirely uninteresting details of the day.
I'd noticed a lot of '3 ingredient cake' recipes or ssimilar, and when I looked, they all seemed to involve 'bisquick' or 'a box of white cake mix'... ingredients that I had no knowledge or experience of. So I researched...
The next photo is something shared by a good friend. I don't know the original source.
I'm slowly reading 'Meditations for Mortals' by Oliver Burkeman;
This was a card from my son from a few years ago. Inside, the cat says 'is there anything you need pushed off a table or counter top you?'
Random quotes;
Random recipe (I haven't tried it) and a quote from a stitching blog I rate highly
I've been writing in Commonplace Books off and on for a number of years, collecting all sorts scraps, and sometimes adding my own thoughts and opinions. I find it fascinating going through the old ones as it brings back memories of what I was reading and doing at the time.
I could pretend that ordering a little flat-pack table was solely so that BB, who likes assembling kits like booknooks
and complex wooden models
(this is a u-gears kit, when you turn the big wheel a secret compartment is revealed)
was an act of kindness, giving him a larger scale kit to 'play' with. I'm afraid it was nothing of the sort; I've been turning over ideas to help resolve the chaos occupying half the settee where I usually sit. BB made short work of putting the pieces together, and now I have a neat little table beside the settee with three shelves underneath;
I've still got a small stack of books and bits at the end of the settee but it's nothing like as big as it was.
Not only that, but lookee lookee;
The top swivels! I can bring my sewing basket / tea tray / whatever I like over to me, within reach.
This morning I was wandering around the house from one room to another, not settling to anything, not doing anything. Rather like a child, (or the cat?) I kept looking out of the front windows and then the back windows but the weather was the same at both sides of the house. Cold, grey, damp, and did I say cold? It's worth saying twice. English cold. Seeping cold. I stuck my nose outside and withdrew it again.
The last few leaves on my little witch hazel tree hung like limp dirty rags.
I had twenty minutes before I was due to teach a piano lesson.
There was a jar of cleanish, well, only slightly murky, water on my craft table, so I sat down and splodged neat autumn colours onto a page in an open notebook. Weirdly, I could feel my mood lifting as the colours merged and changed where they met...
The piano lesson, as always with this lady, was fun! We both prefer to learn through 'play' rather than slog. Half term next week, and like all teaching staff everywhere, she's done. It's been a tricky and difficult half and, as is so often the case, the break has arrived not a day too soon. So we played!
After lunch I added the leaves;
That's worked out OK. I might add some more leaves and squiggles tomorrow.
(The day ran away with me yesterday, hence no post)
Goodness, but it gets dark early these days! And my oh my, but isn't the sun slow to rise in the mornings!
I used to become steadily more apprehensive of the cold, and the gloom, and coming dreariness, and driechness of the winter months. Last year was different. How?
Here are my anti-gloom strategies;
Warmth;
I have warm socks, and proper slippers, so that my feet and ankles stay warm.
I keep a couple of cheerful rugs close at hand on the back of the settee, ready to wrap myself up in
I've chosen some really cheerful wool to knit and crochet with - watching the next colour slip through my fingers and up onto the hook or needles is a tiny little pleasure
Still on the subject of wrapping up warm; I bought winter weight thermal lined hiking trousers! I might look like a michelin man but I don't care!
That's the outer warmth (did I mention my lovely winter pjs? Brushed cotton from Land's End?)
For inner warmth;
I try and notice things here and there and around and about, maybe a tree, a flower, or, if I get the opportunity, indulging in a favourite activity of people-watching;
For example; overheard on a chilly day when having lunch outside at a NT gardens;
Older Man (like our age, oh dear!) carrying a tray out from the cafe service area; 'I couldn't stay there. Too hot. Far too hot. Had to leave.'
Wife, soothingly 'That's alright dear, let's sit here'.
He puts the tray down and rips off his jacket. She reaches for her bulky winter weatherproof coat and bundles herself up into it. They settle down companionably to have bread and soup and hot drinks; he's in shirtsleeves, she's cocooned in jacket, scarves, topped off by woolly hat.
Well, I found that little scene amusing...
Talking of trees and flowers; a small bunch or pot of flowers where I can see it at odd times of the day, like the sweet peas I mentioned yesterday, or the last few roses I can see through the window, are a great pick-me-up. When there's nothing left in the garden, (there's always something left in the garden!) I'll get some potted bulbs from a shop and enjoy those instead.
Reading; it was one of the blogs written by Sue (but which blog? which Sue?) that put me on to the idea of a seasonal bookshelf. I never know whether to pick books that will bring Summer back - or books that will reflect Autumn and Winter. My current book is set in the midst of a Canadian winter - now that's WINTER! I've read a couple of murder mysteries set in Iceland - they know about cold, and about staying warm!
I cleared out a small vase this morning; it contained a few sprigs of lavender and a couple of chrysanthemums, the little flowers that get snipped from the stems when filling a tall vase. Two of the lavender sprigs had developed roots! So they needed to be potted right away.
What to replace them with?
But what could I find to put in their place? Some bits of rosemary and a couple of sweet peas. My sweet peas only started flowering at the beginning of October. I'd given up on them. I love having a small vase of flowers on the kitchen windowsill. I wonder if the rosemary will root?
While I was out in the garden, during a break in all the rain today, I took a photograph of the fatsia flowers. The buds are opening;
creating creamy white pom-poms. It looks quite spectacular when each little stalk expands to make another pom-pom. I'll keep you posted.
You might be able to make out the little metal birds fixed to the top of the fence. They are so sweet!
I decided to 'zone out' for another day. BB kindly walked round to our corner shop, only a few minutes away, which has a COOK freezer, selling posh frozen meals, and came back with a lamb moussaka. He got there and back in between one bout of rain and the next. We're pretending we've gone out for lunch; I suppose, in a way, we have...
So we're having a restaurant quality meal in the peace and quiet and comfort of our home.
Music!
It's a 'scrolling through YouTube' sort of day, and this is too good not to share.
Scene: The stage shows a grove in a forest in America, on the borders of the French and Spanish colonies, where the ceremony of the Peace Pipe is about to be celebrated
Adario, a Native American, is in love with Zima, daughter of a native chief, but he fears the rivalry of the Spaniard Don Alvar and the Frenchman Damon. The Europeans plead with Zima for her love, but she says Damon is too fickle and Alvar is too jealous; she prefers the natural love shown by Adario and the couple vow to marry. The act ends with the Europeans joining the natives in the ceremony of peace (Chorus: Forêts paisibles)
I got all this information from Wikipedia.
Hope you too had a peaceful Sunday, or at any rate the kind of Sunday you wanted or needed.
After yesterday, we went nowhere, did nothing, saw no-one.
It was rather pleasant...
Lunch; Stir fried chicken and thick udon noodles with homemade 'teriyak-ish' sauce;
2 tbs dark soy, 1 tbs runny honey, a glug of dry sherry, chopped garlic, ginger and red chilli. Mix together in a little dish and pour into your wok frying pan as the noodles go in. I add a little splash of hot water to the pan after I've stirred the vegetables around in the hot oil to sort of steam them. When we lived in Singapore in the 1970s, we used to eat at 'the car park' some nights; literally a large car park that transformed itself into a mass of street food stalls. My mother noticed that they used to add just a little water to speed up the cooking of the vegetables.
Supper; M and S marmalade ham sandwiches made with a smear of mayonnaise on fresh bread (bread machines rule!) this morning.
How did we get hooked into watching Strictly Come Dancing? Well, we are now!
I made photocopy, and had a go with a brown 0.5 fineliner;
I painted the original in the notebook swap with a friend, so it's still untouched.
Now, the outings;
This morning we both had our covid vaccinations at a village hall a few miles away. We like that centre; parking is easy, the hall is modern, large, high-ceilinged and airy so everyone is well distanced and the organisation is excellent. It seemed to take longer to walk the short distance to the car than the time taken to book in, answer a few questions, have the vaccination and be walking back to the car again.
The second outing was after lunch, meeting with friends for tea and cake. She and I swapped our notebooks. I've included the photocopy I added pen to, and a spare in case she wants to have a go. We are both interested in painting and drawing, and usually include something 'arty' in the notebooks.
It was also a chance for us to catch up on all our news, our children's news, plans and so forth.
Although it was cloudy and and definitely cool to be sitting outside, we were all well wrapped up. I even had a plaid travelling rug to put over my legs!
The farm shop had a wonderful display of apples and pumpkins arranged around the fountain in the courtyard
I think the aftereffects of the vaccination, and all that fresh air is catching up on me. I'm not sure I'll manage to stay awake until 'Have I Got News For You' at 9pm tonight...
First thing this morning the sun came out and lit up the trees around our garden;
Berries on the neighbour's yew tree
Birch trees over towards the stream
The oak tree at the bottom of the garden
That was more or less all the sun for the day, but it was enough to make me smile.
We took one of our portable oxygen machines, the Philips, to the workshop that services them. We'll take the other one, the Inogen, over in a week or so now that we know that they service that make as well. It's a fair drive; I was the human satnav for the journey there, but knitted half the left front of my cardigan on the way back.
They have a metal plaque hanging up;
I just had to have a photograph of it!
Foolishly, I glanced inside this book to read 'just a little bit'.
Now I am hooked... everything else is on hold until I've finished it.
By which I mean not the lovely bright sunny days we had earlier, but the cold, drear, grey, colder days... that's what today was like. Luckily I didn't have to rely on sunshine to find some happinesses through the day.
I made bread in the bread machine - oh, the appetising aroma as it nears the end of the bake!
Vicky, the gardener, came this morning and she can brighten any day. Plus the garden looks all spruced up. I've found somewhere to keep all my geraniums (I still can't think of them as pelargoniums) over the winter; a friend has a sun room and has agreed to look after them. I suggested we split the survivors between us as there are so many. Vicky has dug out the ones in planters and put them into pots for the winter.
I cleared masses of the most irritating little bitty admin tasks off my list.
With a little more stock, a few drops of Lea and Perrins, and a bit of a mash with a potato masher I had four bowls of warm winter soup for our supper, two for tonight and two for another time.
I was sitting on a bench strategically placed to catch the late afternoon sun through Autumn and Spring. A tea tray, and my Winter knitting, the colours chosen to 'zing' on sunny days and brighten dull days.
The sun was shining on these Fatsia buds;
They have grown enormous since I posted a photograph a week or so ago. You can just see my hand holding a leaf out of the way. The first year we had the fatsia we thought it was just a sort of statement foliage plant; when the buds started appearing that autumn we were totally surprised.
Then they started doing this...
An on-going saga...
Here's the knitting again. As I was measuring it, I looked more closely at the colours. They all make my heart sing!
I finished the back this evening. It didn't take long. Now for the fronts.
