Saturday 29th November - scavenger hunt 29; bark

I did briefly think about writing something about the lady who goes past out house every morning with two small dogs in harnesses that pull and stop and go and yip yip yip noisily and hysterically at every dog, cat, bird, man, woman, child they meet along the way... 'No need for that,' says neighbour across the road and four houses along. 'I've told her that as well.' I guess someone was going to say something at some time... He's got a heart of gold, though, and a real concern for everyone he meets, knows everyone's name... an uncharitable person might think he's nosey but they would be wrong. He is genuinely interested in everyone, asks after them and their family, looks out for the older people...

I haven't seen her recently, perhaps she goes the other way now, or maybe doesn't go out so much in winter. I hope she and her annoying little dogs are alright. Perhaps I'll ask that neighbour. He'll know.

Oh, I have written about 'bark' after all. Once I sit down at a laptop (so much easier than tapping at a tablet or phone) my fingers run away and it all just happens.

I posted off my 2By2 stitching yesterday, or rather my husband did, bless him. So I spent this morning resetting my sewing 'wip' basket;

Which had various perle threads, a horrid tangle of embroidery cotton ends left over from the autumn leaves of last month, a biscuit stamp waiting for me to have another go at speculaas (Nigella's recipe gets a 'yes' from me) a felted brooch from Ang, some skeins of floss in Autumn colours, the coloured pegs I use all the time, a tape measure, a card drum of stitch markers for knitting (why?). Stacked behind the felt sewing case are card templates for 2By2, a potential flat gift (hidden out of sight), a tape measure (again why?) and the needle case that should be in the sewing case. 

In other words, a muddle.

Then I turned my attention to the settee where I sit and my the newish table. No pictures; too shameful, and the disturbance to the air as I aimed my phone in the general direction of the tottering piles and heaps of books, printed recipes, letters, pamphlets, and catalogues would have been enough to cause a devastating bookslide.   

Ah. I feel I can sit down safely again.

But oh! the dining room table... 

Here we go again...

I sit and do my stuff on the left, my husband sits on the right. The tidy side.

Poem

A pretty fair summary for quite a lot of November, I thought. But the sun has been out today, off and on... the leaves on the oak at the bottom of the garden suddenly turned to gold...

I've been going back through photographs, deleting duplicated and so on. This was obviously captured from twitter (back in the days before X - that's when I left)

There are times when we need to rediscover words like this.

Chopin (1810 - 1848); Preludes Op 28 no 3 in G, one of the happiest.

Andras Schiff playing on an 1890s Pleyel piano

  

Murray Perhaia on a modern concert grand (probably a Steinway!)