Thursday 16th April - flowers in a teacup

 

Aren't these gorgeous! My April flowerbe box arrived today. 

The cup and saucer have sentimental value for me. I remember my parents buying boxes and boxes (so it seemed) of this pattern; plates, bowls, cups and saucers, in a market on holiday in the Netherlands when I was about ten years old. It's a good thing our car had a decent sized boot. (Might have been the Triumph Herald Estate).

These dishes were to bulk up what was left of a set with a very similar pattern. That set came from. Cornwall, and I know it was bought in around 1930 by my grandmother. I've got the half dozen bits from it, and still use one of the last breakfast cups and saucers for a proper cup of tea.

Good heavens, I've just worked out they are nearly a hundred years old!

Verdi's drinking song from La Traviata... though I don't think this song is about tea.

Italian opera stars spoof customers at Australian market. This is an effort to tease and bring classical opera out of the symphony hall and to the masses who may not normally see and hear it.

Wednesday 15th April - knit, sew, read, repeat

I have been knitting;

The first two strips of the experimental cardigan almost completely sewn together. Another three to do and I will have finished the back. 

and sewing;

the next quilt-as-you-go is underway, and more prosaically the elastic in my pj's trousers has stopped being elastic. Still a bit of sewing to finish stitching up the waist band.

and continuing to binge read through the Dr Nell Ward thriller whodunnits. I'm on to book three; A Mischief of Rats. In about twenty minute's reading time I should have reached the bit where Nell's life is in danger - it's always just after three-quarters through the book!

Now, after a 'sitting down' day I need to do something about my woeful step count  🤔 before bedtime 🌙 

Tuesday 14th April - needles and threaders

This was originally a box of Christmas chocolates from M and S, a present from my father several years ago. When the lid was opened, the picture inside lit up and it was full of delicious chocolates.

The box was far too pretty to throw away, so we used it for 'chocolate o'clock' treats for several years. Then the lights eventually stopped working, but still we kept the box. Which it just as well, as I was looking for something to keep my perle threads in, where they wouldn't keep unravelling and tangling.

I'm able to fit them all inside the box! How lucky is that!

BB gave me some attractive sewing notions one year, bought at an exhibition at the V and A. They included the best needle threader I have ever owned;

And a little wooden container of self- threading  needles. I rather ignored the needles for a while. They looked too large and thick for ordinary sewing. 

But I am a complete convert. I would definitely use finer traditional needles for 'proper', fine sewing, but for everyday stuff they are brilliant. I've found they work well with ordinary thread and perle cotton, but are not so easy the thread with stranded embroidery floss.

Here's a diagram I found that shows how they work;

You just pull the thread through the gap at the top, until it rests in the centre space. Some kind of magic stops the thread from freeing itself as you sew.

They have certainly made it much easier for me to thread needles, especially in the evenings.

Reading...

I have been enjoying the Dr Nell Ward thriller series, so when I saw the latest book 'A tribe of tigers' was 99p on kindle I only took seconds to click on 'buy now'. It's about number eight in the series, ando I don't think it would make much sense to readers unless they started at the beginning with 'A Murder of Crows'. Nell is an ecologist, and in the course of her work - advising on conservation and rewilding etc - gets mixed up in murder...

I'm also reading 'All the colours of the dark' by Chris Whitaker, another 99p download. It is... odd, but strangely addictive because of the characters of the young girl, Saint, and boy, Patch. It's centred around the abduction of Patch, and Saint's efforts to find him, and now I'm reading about how their lives are changed by the experience. I'm a bit apprehensive at the moment because they both look set to marry the wrong people for the wrong reasons, and I'm hoping that's not going to happen...

Sunday 12th April - The Day of Rest

 And so we rested. For most of the day anyway.

I stood and watched the squirrel struggling to get to the last of the sunflower hearts.

The lilac is in flower.

The garden is sunny, although there's a chilly wind still.

Perfect. 

Offenbach; the Barcarolle from Tales of Hoffman 

Saturday 11th April - braving the weather forecast

 Cloudy start, 40% probability of rain, temperature feels like 9°C, sunny periods later...retty normal for April. We wrapped warmly and set off to meet with Son and Daughter to celebrate his birthday (belatedly) and Easter (even more belatedly)

And hurrah! The sun shone and the temperature rose. Every met-up is an occasion, whatever the weather... but especially when it's spring and there are flowers and little lambs and sunshine.

So I've had plenty of fresh air today, enough for weeks!

....

Before we left, and after we came home, I managed to finish three things;

The first of the strips for my experimental patchwork cardigan. I'm enjoying it, because the rows are short so it's easy to pick up and put down, because the patterns are simple and change every six inches, and I'm using a variegated yarn which keeps changing colour, all exactly right for my butterfly brain.

I have completely finished this patch now. I managed to talk myself into outlining the flowers and it has hade such a difference. 

Finally I sewed up the hat. It's too big for me, and I don't like the colours, so I'll save it for the shoebox appeal at Christmas time.

Finally, Next-door's cat has found a new hiding place in our front garden;

at least he's away from our bird feeders. The RSPB are saying we should stop feeding the birds now it's warmer, so we'll put them away now.

Peter and the Wolf by Prokofiev; the cat theme;

My favourite moment is listening to the orchestra illustrate in sound when Peter lowers the rope over the wolf to capture it. I used to get the children to listen out for it, and watch  for the smiles to appear.

Friday 10th April - and Thursday 9th too

 We've had several days of sunny warm weather which has been enough to let the countryside erupt into greeness. Bluebells in the woods, leaves on the trees, hedges filling out. Some friends came home from holiday landing at the local airport this morning, and noticed how green the countryside looked from the air.

I thought we'd go out yesterday morning for a coffee and a sausage sandwich. Unfortunately I became hopelessly confused about which Village Stores we were heading for; Alfold, Kirdford,  Loxwood, Plaistow, Ifold.... we drove round in circles going to all of them in the end - they are close together, linked by leafy crinkle crankle narrow lanes, narrow bridges overcstreams, shadowed by bluebell woods... and finally arrived at Kirdford Village Stores. BB was very patient, said it helped to keep his skills driving skills sharp.

They didn't have any baps; to their consternation I picked up a packet of hamburger rolls, and asked 'if I buy these, will you put our sausages in them?' After some thought they said they could, so we sat outside with our sausages and dr8nks, soaking up the sun and lovely countryside. 

There were these two large carved wooden garden ornaments beside the apple tree trees, aren't they wonderful?

Today we did - nothing. 

No, that's not entirely true; I finished knitting that hat and it just needs sewing up. If I knit another I shall buy double pointed needles and knit it in the round; I do so dislike knitting rows of purl!

I'm also a good away along the first of the five strips which will make up the back of the next cardigan I'm hoping to make.

For supper we had sausage baps again. I cooked three sausages and some sliced onions in a dish in the airfryer (30 mins at 180, turn halfway through), and toasted the baps. Then, I put a smear of chutney, the sausages and onions and some spinach leaves in each one. They were delicious!

....

Aaron Copeland, from Appalachian Spring