Thursday 11th May - new skills, full to-do-list, chocolate o'clock,

The new skill I acquired today was how to unpick a whole line of my current cross stitching with scissors!!! I have avoided using scissors until now, but this time it was unavoidable. I did try to see if I could redo the chart for the remaining half - let me tell you it would have been far quicker to just accept the inevitable...

However, the various charts I tried did give me some more ideas so I am hoping that the result of exercising patience and self-control will result in a better finished piece. So far, so good, especially now I have removed the offending area!

Various things added themselves to the to-do list as the day went along; for example giving the back door mat a good clean. Why would one do that? Ah, therein lies a tale.

Personally, I always carry the entire compost caddy out to 'the worms' as we affectionately call the compost bin. We have switched to using brown paper bags for the kitchen waste as it decomposes better, and I don't trust them in the situation where the scraps and peelings are a bit soggy, just in case this

happens... which, as you can see, it DID happen. Those caddies hold a surprising amount of... gunk.

Another item added was the making of a cake; on Thursdays we now go to Waitrose armed with a shopping list provided by my father, and then take it round to his flat and sort through the fridge. This week there were two eggs left from the half dozen, but someone had put a plastic milk bottle on its side above the egg box which had almost disintegrated. We dealt the the puddle, and swapped the eggs over and took the two old ones home. Rather than have eggs which had been soaked in milk hanging around, we made a cake...

Air fryer sponge cake

Make an ordinary 2-egg victoria sponge type recipe (2 eggs, 4oz each sugar, butter, SR flour - maybe a little more flour, in which case add a little milk or coffee essence). Combine - I do 'all-in-one' method, and bake in a suitable container for 23mins at 160C - at least that's what our air fryer needs. Coffee cake for elevenses tomorrow.

Chocolate o'clock has got out of hand. It seems to be happening twice a day! But I have reduced the size of my potion from 4 squares back down to one. Mostly. Quite often. 

 

    

Friday 27th January - hello Friday!

For some reason this has been a cheerful day. I haven't done anything much that I should have been doing

• Writing up 2 sets of lesson notes
• Writing an email for the church homegroup I am in, which meets on zoom on Thursdays
• Writing a letter of condolence
• Working on the Cross Country grid for the next sewing swap project 

But I have been doing other things instead;

• Made a smoothie 
• Walked around the garden noticing the bulbs coming up, healthy wallflowers growing in a sunny spot, and a valiant hellebore doing its best
• Re-reading 'Whispers Underground', the third in the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaronovitch
• Playing Freecell

It's all very well having resolutions to get things done and stay on top of the admin, but sometimes it's good to declare a holiday from trying. Today has been one of those holidays!

Thursday 19th January - Do It Now

I have been muttering this to myself off and on since the beginning of the week. I find that my capacity for getting things done evaporates at an astonishing speed when there are too many loose ends, so finishing things off is an instant energy boost. 

For example - 

Putting a small pile of laundry away only took 5 mins

Doing the daily balletbasedmovement exercises, again just 5 mins

Filing a couple of pieces of paper which had been travelling from table to desk to piano stool to table etc

The amount of brain space these few odd jobs, and a few more like them, was occupying was ridiculous, all out of proportion to the time taken to just get them done. 

I think I  will carry on muttering 'do it now' to myself for a few more days.

When sock knitting seems too fiddly, like now I do a bit of a mitred squared patchwork blanket.

This is a sort of free form comfort knitting project I have embarked upon. I shall do a 'knitty-gritty' post on it soon. It's a low concentration knit, good for after longer harder days.

I've done a bit more on the Postcard Project- if you've missed what this is about, search for  postcard on this blog and also over at Tracing Rainbows. It is in the final stages now, so close to the finish that I am completely confused as to what the finish will be. Easily sorted with emails and WhatsApp messages. 

Someone has been murdered (at last) in Murder before Evensong, the whodunit by Richard Coles. Given the title of the book that's hardly a spoiler. Now to find out who did it. There is no butler in the cast of characters....

Friday 6th January - Light at the end of the tunnel

This morning I had four ENORMOUS tasks that were overdue. This evening I have just one left.

(A round of applause at this point is appreciated, but not vital)

Task Number 1 was sorting out a delivery of supplies before I ran out in three weeks time. I had logged onto the website at the beginning of the week and had a chat with the chatbot... but heard nothing back. I rummaged through the email folders until I found an email address. The company emails seem to be headed CS which is not entirely helpful. 

(When I was working in about twelve different schools very week, emails from the various school offices all had just plain 'office' in the email address header - I don't know what its proper name is - and quite frequently were informing me of some change to the schedule, and signed 'Mary', so it was a bit of a gamble when it came to working out which school wanted me to cancel/rearrange/supply information. But I digress).

I had an automated reply from the website to let me know that they would deal with it in three working days. Whoah! That meant it might not get looked at until Tuesday next week! I reached for the phone and spoke to someone who sorted everything out, so I can sleep soundly again.

Task Number 2; Ang's postcard project landed on the front doormat yesterday. Which meant I really, REALLY needed to complete mine and post it, especially as we plan to finish on the 28th January, a year after we first started discussing it.

This will mine to keep. I need to design and stitch a project in the next three weeks. I can do that! I just have to choose quickly and stay focused. For some reason mine seems to have fewer pictures, but I think that is my fault for taking two months to do the address and the stamp, when Ang managed the address (under the notebook) and the stamp in the same month. 

What shall I do this time? Hmm. I have an idea slowly taking form.

I've done a photograph like this of Ang's piece, but won't post until tomorrow when she might have received hers. I hope it doesn't get delayed and give her problems meeting the 28th January due date.  

Task Number 3 was the January 'Print and Post' Newsletter. It is accomplished and up on the pages section. Christmas, can I blame it on Christmas? No, not really. But I did have problems clarifying some ideas, and sourcing pictures. It is very hard to find pictures of 'things in flower in January' when you are writing in December. In then end I did my own.

Which means that I have also done some stuff in my sketch book today. Now, if I mange to do a duolingo lesson, 1000 steps on the spot to hit my daily step target of 2023, the 5 minutes 'stretch and mobilise' balletbasedmovement session for Friday, the '5 mins deep breathing' for the Zoe app habit tracker, knit a few rounds of my sock, and also play the piano for a bit, all before bedtime (it is only a quarter past 5, after all) I will have hit every target today and only have one outstanding task for tomorrow, which is to write detailed notes on a student's Scarlatti piano sonata recording that she sent me before Christmas.

Did you keep a count? That's 6 possible things to do before bedtime.

 

          

Tuesday 3rd January 2023 - the Real Tuesday, all day

It is a properly dismal day out there. However I am warm, and have a mug of tea by my side, and I've already had a 2nd cup of coffee (we drink teeny tiny teeny cups of Nespresso coffee, and we DO recycle the pods) with the last of a Stollen. I cut out the marzipan and hand it over to Himself; it is rather wasted on me.

Christmas Goodies Sit-rep;

• Three boxes of chocolates consumed; two more and a bar of chocolate in waiting.
• One Stollen and half a Christmas cake consumed - another Stollen, the other half of the cake and a Panetonne stacked up ready.
• One packet of Lebkuchen finished; another packet, and two packets of Speculaas not started.
• One selection box of shortbread biscuits unopened.

I think we will be able to 'cope' with all these over the next few days, weeks, months!

We'll chomp our way through the Christmas cake next - we tend to have Christmas goodies with our 'second cups' of coffee. It's quite  routine-ish sort of ritual; a Nespresso with breakfast, another mid morning, and the third after lunch.

Very Occasionally we have what we term 'A Four Coffee Day' when we feel that it's all been a bit Too Much.

I'm overwintering my geraniums (I can't get used to the idea that they are now called pelargonuims) on a windowsill on the landing, with mixed results. I took cuttings from the couple that I had, and brought them indoors when the weather got colder. I was a bit saddened to see that three of them seem to be giving up the ghost;

which leaves me with seven, from the original four plants. Then I saw this;

One is going to have two red flowers, and it's friend has a couple of buds. 

Monday's to-do list is waiting for me... I've finished my tea... and I think I've finished today's blog post... so I am running out of reasons not to get on with it...  

 

        

Thursday 29th December - getting through the lists

There are so many half finished things on my list that I'm having difficulty doing anything...

So I am trying to get one thing done and dusted each day.

Today I will almost certainly finish The Second Sock. I'm whittling down the number of stitches as I get closer to the toe. Then i need to have a close look at The First Sock; I'm fairly sure I  need to redo it from the heel onwards. It's a good job that I'm more of a 'process' person than a 'product' person. 

Them, I really must finish the December Postcard Project.

And finish making and sending New Year cards. I was given a Hobby craft online course as a birthday present, and I chose 'Brush lettering for left-handers'. It was an excellent course, and writing the cards is giving me plenty of practice, I've had a few lapses of concentration from time to time;

I said I would send detailed notes on the recordings a pupil sent me before Chrismas. Each set of notes takes me heading for half an hour. I've done the Debussy Arabesque and the Chopin Nocturne, just a Schubert Impromptu and Scarlatti Sonata to go. I should get on with this.

I've nearly finished the January 'print and post' newsletter. One section to write, and pictures to source.

An hour's concentration would see off most of these tasks.... what's stopping me?

Ah, but it's still Christmas;

We are lighting the candles on this tree 3very day at lunchtime.

Thursday 24th November - averting catastophes; the slow cooker, the cat and the knitting

 Here's my Plan of Attack - I always include things that I can tick off straight away - doesn't everyone?

Although maybe I shouldn't have ticked off  'BLOG' yet as I am in the process of doing it.

This is an attempt to go paperless - I have used something - an 'app' maybe, called Bamboo, on my tablet as I  tablet to write up the plan. Although there isn't much point in going paperless for this as I have most of a pad of 'plan of attack' post-its left.

The beef goulash was supposed to be for today's lunch, but the pot is fuller than the 2/3rds recommendation so I want to cook it on low for 6-8 hours instead of high for 3-4 hours in the hope that it will not bubble up and over and everywhere. We shall see if this tactic is successful, and in the meantime eat tommorow's lunch (fish) today.

The Catastrophe - you may remember that McCavity (our nearly 20-year-old cat)went through a phase of falling off things a few months ago. She's not to steady on her legs these days. One of the first places she fell from was the back of the settee. This was a favourite perch all through last winter, as there is a radiator behind the settee. So it was a little alarming to discover this when I walked into the sitting room;

(that strange brown thing by her head is a small teddy bear with a magnet in its back.)

We fetched down this ancient rug - I know it is over 50 years old because I took it to boarding school when I started there back in 1971 - boarders all had to bring a travel rug from home to put on their beds. And an eiderdown. I was very glad of both, indeed I used to wear my PE sweater, socks and dressing gown in bed as well. No central heating back in them thar days.

The rug needed going over with the vacuum cleaner to remove a few layers of dust, during which process I discovered that the other side of the rug is mostly holes! However, one folded, it has made a fairly solid pad to fill the gap between the settee and the radiator.

I am engaged in some rather sweaty sweater surgery at the moment; It is  possible to remove the cast on edge of a knittted hem - say a cuff, but entails picking up stitches all around the knitting, and then - oh horrors - CUTTING through stitches between your picked up stitches and the ribbing. I have embarked upon this Awfully Big Adventure in order to reknit the ribbing in such a fashion that it won't curl up the whole time. Fear not, if you were planning to join the Advent Cowl Knit-Along - I am doing all of this so that you won't have to! 

The white blocks are pencil rubbers which I have stuck the ends of the needles into to prevent stitches disappearing while I am wrangling the rest it. I am unravelling the cut piece of yarn and should end up with all the main stitches happily on the needle, ready to be knitted into the new ribbing.

Tuesday 22nd November - Once more unto the - NO! STOP!

 Yesterday was an absolute whirlwind of getting things done and dealing with random and not so random events. Anyone who has played the 'Ankh Morpok' board game will know exactly what I mean

It even has an entry on wikipedia!

Oh No! Reading the rest of the wikipedia entry I discover that....

Discworld: Ankh-Morpork was designed by Martin Wallace and Treefrog Games.^[8] It is published in North America by Mayfair Games,^[1] and Treefrog claims to have sold over 50,000 copies worldwide.^[9] Wallace's second Discworld-themed board game, The Witches, was released in September 2013.^[9] The artwork, by Peter Dennis, Ian Mitchell, Paul Kidby, and Bernard Pearson,^[4] was checked by Terry Pratchett and the Discworld Emporium to ensure that each character was faithfully represented.^[9]

The game was well received, winning the 2011 UK Games Expo Best New Boardgame.^[10] It has been described as an "absolute joy to play" and praised for being engaging for fans of Pratchett's Discworld and those who have no knowledge of the books.^[3][10] The artwork also impressed with the cards being described as "hilarious and beautifully illustrated".^[3]

On 9 June 2015, Wallace announced that the licence to produce Discworld games had been lost due to changes in the licensing scheme following Sir Terry Pratchett's death, meaning that Ankh-Morpork and The Witches were out of print permanently. He added that there was no chance that the licence would ever be renewed, or that the planned third Discworld game would be produced.^[11] The game has been released with a new Victorian/Holmsian theme as Nanty Narking. 

That would explain why our box is selling on-line for upwards of £100 these days, and our box of 'The Witches' is now worth £60! Well I never did! (And they are NOT for sale!)

Anyway, where was I... oh yes, random events. Like the one just above. An old-fashioned example would be like drawing a Community Chest or Chance card on Monopoly every ten minutes.

Anyway, by the end of the day I was feeling as breathless as if I had run a marathon, so today I am taking things steady. One can get into a pattern of breathing fast, even when there is no need, so spending some time being still seems like a good idea. After all, I have no more important deadlines left for today.

My 'Plan of Attack' is looking good. Just three music lesson write ups and I will be free to spend time on the notebook swap and postcard project.

 

Monday Afternoon, 21st November - Update to Positive Procrastination

 Sort of Success...

The challenge was to complete a subset of the 'Plan of Attack' by lunchtime which was going to be at 12 noon today.

I have sort of succeeded; it is a quarter past one and lunch is being prepared as I type (it will now be served nearer 2pm!)

So what happened? Three things in swift succession...

I noticed that the lights were flashing on the cat flap, so new batteries were required (Himself fixed that - he does the electrical stuff around here) but that entailed seizing hold of the unsuspecting sleeping cat and thrusting her through the cat flap (two-person job) to ensure it still worked.

We discovered a strange puddle of water under the kettle - investigation proved it was leaking. Himself got into the car, drove to John Lewis/Waitrose in town, masked up, and went to buy a replacement. Ah, none in stock, but one will be delivered tomorrow.

The friend who was coming round after lunch (that's why we were having it early) came at the time she said; I swapped ginger biscuits made yesterday (by Himself) for her excess Nespresso pods, and also handed over three sets of Advent Tea Lights for her to pass on to the clergy.

Now I have moved my laptop to the kitchen worktop so that I can type as my 'sit-upon' - the base of my spine - is making it abundantly clear that I need a Much Softer Cushion on my typing chair!

This is little more than a seat pad;

Ah, a cushion! (The little blanket is for my knees.)

  

Monday 21st November - Positive Procrastination

 

I'm hoping writing today's blog post can be considered as 'positive procrastination'. I have just invented this term (but maybe someone has got there first without telling me) to cover those situations when you have made your list, and then you go and make a cup of tea and rattle in a quick blog post before bringing yourself to the point of actually starting it. 

The first section on the 'plan of attack' is labelled 'Most Critical', and writing a blog post isn't written there. Everything else MUST be done today, especially as it wasn't done yesterday, or the day before, or the day before....

The second section is 'would be nice'. I have written 'Emma Bridgewater Christmas Decoration'. This refers to the wee little jug on my tea tray - it holds exactly enough milk for one mug/cup of tea plus a top-up, or the amount of water Himself likes to put in his single malt Scotch when he has one.

The matching mug is upstairs in the bathroom with Himself's electric toothbrush head inside. We have a Phillips electric toothbrush and they have stopped putting a colour coded ring on them, so we can't tell which is which any more. I'm using my favourite tiny coffee mug at the moment, but I would rather have it for coffee. So I'm considering getting another one 'Emma Bridgewater Christmas Decoration Tiny Mug' - now which pattern to choose, and personalised or not? 

I'm please to have found a use for the tiny mug - it was too small to hold an espresso coffee. or to be an egg cup.    

(His is on the left, because he is right handed, mine is on the right, because I am left handed. This may not make sense, until you realize that we pick u the toothbrush handle part with our dominant hand, so when the mugs were the other way round we kept choosing the wrong one.)

So far today positive procrastination has included 

Knitting some more Advent cowl and weighing how much yarn is left, so that I can check if I need one or two 50g balls of main (one will be exactly enough, and I have thought of a work around in case some unforseen happening happens) 

Making another rice pudding to check quantities and timings (500ml milk, 32.5 g rice comes to just over the 1oz measure and 25g sugar to just over the 1/2 oz measure on my dinky mini-measure. I have used white sugar this time, and added 2 cardomum pods (I've had three goes at spelling cardoman and none of them look right) and one fresh bay leaf)
 
Ordering 2 balls of Adriafil Knitcol double knitting wool (it is glorious stuff!) to experiment with a Lent cowl project. Which is why I probably won't order the tiny mug as well.  

It is 11 am and shall race myself to complete the following by Lunchtime (about 12 noon) 

Piano email to S

Piano email to R

Text J

Work on the December 'Print and Post' Newsletter 

On my marks, get set, go!

 

Friday 6th May - Random things...

 I finished the Baby Surprise Jacket on Sunday. All except the buttons - I was not expecting to find that there would not be a matching set of buttons among the over-flowing contents of my mother's button tin. (I've put my own button jar in a safe place so that was no help either.)

Before;

And 'abracadabra'! But I still need to sew along the should seams to complete the jacket.

Ang, of 'Tracing Rainbows' has come to the rescue - one of these sets that she sent me is bound to fit. 

Then I shall have to search out a suitable baby to receive the surprise.

I spent the rest of Sunday doing loads of measuring and maths to try and work out how to knit an Adult Surprise Jacket;

But in the end I have fallen back on my roughly deciphered instructions and have cast on 189 stitches on 6.5 mm needles at a gauge of roughly 3 stitches and 8 rows per inch, and set to work. 

I started the double decreases at stitch 42 from either end. I need to decrease in this fashion until I am down to 103 stitches (or something close to that - I can't quite remember), which will be the under arm, and then double decrease until... I'm not quite sure without checking my notes. But that's a long time away. I'd be crossing my fingers for luck but that makes knitting much harder.

I'm still doing 'sketch a day'

 They are done from memory (in bed, before I get up!) rather than looking at the subject as I scribble with my pen. Yesterday I evicted two spaghetti squash plants from the cold frame into their own outside pots as they are growing at an alarming rate. That leaves two, which are destined for a friend next door (he doesn't know his luck yet, or should that be fate?) and a friend in the next street, so I shall be able to go and visit. I've grown quite fond of them already.

I haven't got many colours to play with, as I use this amazing (and rather expensive) multicolour colouring pencil

It is like those multicoloured biros we used to get in our Christmas Stockings, only with decent colouring pencils instead. I have discovered how to layer up different colours to vary the shades; the green is a bit harsh on its own, but turns into spring green when given some yellow; and the brown comes alive with the help of a bit of orange or red. Of all the extravagant 'I HAVE to have one of THOSE' purchases I have made over the years, this has been one of my favourites.

While I was pottering in the garden this morning I did that thing I haven't done since I was a child - filled a boot with water. Ho hum. 

I was rearranging the cats' drinking provision; their preference is for slightly stinky garden water, and as they are now so old a creaky (poor old Leo limps now - arthritis in her shoulder, we suspect, but the vet says giving her painkillers - loxicom or something - would finish her off) we are constantly looking for ways to make their life easier. So today I was finding and cleaning and filling a a shallower basin for their stinky water, and somehow managed to transfer some to my boot.

Mind you; those two cats are pretty neat at sorting through the mixed biscuits we put down for them to pick out the cheaper (and clearly tastier) go-cat and leave the nutritious and expensive dark brown 'Meowing Heads Senior Menu' nuggets on the plates. Guess what is no longer on the shopping list. At their age, they can live on junk food if they like. 

I can remember that my mother-in-law's main daily food intake was most of a freshly batch of a dozen fairy cakes - mid-morning, after lunch, tea-time and supper-time - for the last year of her life, in preference to anything else set before her.

Right. I've off to buy a new iron - this morning got off to a slightly shocking start when I got the iron out to improve the appearance of the dress I am wearing today. The iron much be over 20 years old; all the plastic around the steam nozzle is crumbling away (and it doesn't steam or spray anymore, only hiss in a menacing fashion).  

I shall have a cup of tea first, with one of the teabags that accompanied the buttons.

 

  

  

Thursday March 10 - Getting EVERYTHING done?

 No, not quite everything. 

I still have a couple of hours left before bed time at about ten o'clock, but I have just about reached The End.

I sat in bed this morning, doom-scrolling through the news and twitter and finally managed to put down the phone and think about the day.

I've started writing 'morning pages' again this month; just one page in a small notebook to get myself started.

Today it turned into a 'to do' list.

I need to

• do my exercises
• send letters to two friends
• do yesterday's writing course ( a short 5-day course from Writers HQ)
• write up three piano lessons from yesterday's teaching
• tech two piano lessons today
• Host a zoom starting at 8.30pm
• read a couple emails 
• Bible study time

I ought to

• hoover some part of the house (it all needs doing!)
• Practise the Bach piece
• Finalise my design for this month's postcard project embroidery  

I'd like to

• order some variegated embroidery threads and buy a small block of beeswax
• sew a line of the 'Try a stitch Tuesday' series
• Write a blog post

Fourteen items to get done between 9:30 am and 10pm- do-able

But then I got on and

• watered the seedlings
• filled the bird feeders
• wrote feedback to a student on a video recording they sent me
• responded to several other emails
• remembered to phone a member of the family 
• checked my bank statement for missing lesson payments

and fourteen items became twenty, just like that!

Well, it is half past six, I am typing a blog with the fingers on one hand while eating pieces of pizza with the other hand - both hands when I can. I have completed

EVERYTHING in green.

The last item; 'host a zoom', will happen in two hours, and up until then I am Clocking Off!

It hasn't been all busy busy;

I have been in the garden a couple of times to admire the crocuses and spring patio tubs

I have opened the window on my Lent calendar; Owls (these would make a good embroidery!)

with the scripture 'I am an owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places' from Psalm 102, 6-7.

 

They look utterly doleful; I think they are not happy about being stuck in the ark, when they would rather be in the wilderness.

Here is my (possibly) final sketch for the embroidery. I will probably redraw it a couple of times and choose the one I like best.

It is based on a mix of 'Cat Amongst the Tulips' by Angela Harding, from her book 'A year Unfolding' 

And this birthday card, sadly with no artist name on it so I am unable to add a credit.

Thursday 2nd September - New Enthusiasms

 It's been quite a good week, all in all.

I've just got one loose end left after the flurry of activity relating to my hospital appointment in London next week - arranging a local PCR test. It seems you can't book these more than a day or two in advance (why?) so that has to stay on my HOT to-do list for a few more days.

(Knock knock do a great range of sticky note pads, planning pads and downright silly pads...) 

The most recent useless financial expenditure I have indulged in is signing up for a virtual trek through the Dutch bulb fields. This is in lieu of one of a number of holidays that are on another to do list that I daren't look at too often in case I jinx it.

The idea is that you fork out your dosh, download the app and choose your trek. Mine is 41 miles through fields of tulips in Spring time. - I update the app with how far I have walked that day, and it moves my avatar along the route. Today I received a virtual postcard and an interesting potted history of the town I am passing through. When I have finished I will get a medal!

 I have set a target of 7 weeks to complete my walk so I'm not in any great hurry.

One of the features is that you can 'see' your route using the little yellow man on google maps. So it looks as though I have been ambling along a pavement/cycle land in a quiet street with houses along one side and woodland along the other. 

Another great thing is that it will always be the right time of year - and the walk 'feels' completely flat - well, it would, being the Netherlands. But supposing I had picked Hadrian's Wall? Or Mount Kilimanjaro? Neither of these are a realistic possibility for me, but now... If you are inspired by this, have a look at www.theconqueror.com

Other news -  the cuttings I took yesterday of the lavender, and the the day before of the salvia armistead plants haven't died yet. The little green 'toy' watering can is proving to be one of my 'best buys' this year.

The passion flower is making a brave attempt, nothing like as rampant as last year, (that's one of the salvias beside it)

The fuscia is having a second go at flowering, and, hello, a nasturtium, self seeded from last year.