Friday 6th October

 I thought that would happen; just 660 steps yesterday. I've hiked a quarter of a kill along the Yosemite trail, and arrived at 

a car park! But what a view! I've had a little peek at what lies ahead. A terrifyingly steep cliff to descend down to a lake.

I'm using a bit of one of Ang's cross stitch pieces as my avatar. I might not have been getting as many steps a day as I wanted, but I'm still slightly ahead of the plan I set myself, so I'm happy.

I the ballet exercises yesterday - not to strenuous, hands and wrists - and today - killer! glutes, whatever they are. And I'm on target for 1000 steps by bedtime. So I snail along with good days and not so good ones.

Here's me getting on with the admin pile; banking, emails, blah blah blah;

Okay. Not a laptop or official piece of paper in sight. From beginning the search for the compasses, to creating a card template, cutting seven paper hexagons and seven pieces of fabric and taking the two together was a longish hour.

Sewing them together took longer than it should; you know the saying 'measure twice, cut once'? Well there is also 'look twice, sew once'. The patches are whipped together with about 12 stitches to the inch which is surprisingly quick to do but a real pain to unpick. The other solution to stitching the wrong patches is not to have any kind of pattern and then it wouldn't matter.

Here's the finished admin, I mean patchwork, using hexagons with 2" sides, next to yesterday's done with 1" hexagons. It's roughly 10" across compared to around 5.5".

It's rather addictive, and fills the space left while waiting for the cross stitch project to restart, once the delayed parcel appears. (I refuse consider any other explanation for its on-arrival)

Thursday 5th October

 Thursday is the last day of my teaching week - at the moment I don't have any piano lessons on Fridays (and I'd like to keep it that way!)

So tonight I'm feeling a glow of satisfaction that I have taught all the lessons, and only have one left to write up and email practice notes for.

Sufficient unto the morrow.... (I don't enjoy writing up the notes - it was so much easier teaching face to face when everything got written down in the student's notebook during the lesson)

Now then...

just look at this evening's sky, at about 5.15 pm;

The cloud pattern is astonishing. (The telegraph pole and lamp post have been planted side by side on the verge outside out house. I've had to get dressed rather quicker than I had planned a couple of times last week when the top of a ladder suddenly appeared propped up against the telegraph pole, and a hi-viz hard-hat man followed.)

I know I said I was going to do strips, but I wanted to see a rosette; 

We're still waiting for Ang's cross stitch collaboration parcel to arrive here. She posted it 2nd class last Thursday, and they usually only take a couple of days. It's been a week... which is what 2nd class actually offers, so it's not time to get really, really worried. Maybe my fingers are crossed a little tighter than usual? My grandmother always prayed to st Anthony when things were lost; keys, glasses, books, whatever, and she was the daughter of a Rector. So I pray too, but perhaps don't mention it to our vicar? 

I clocked up 1500 steps yesterday, and have reached a road going through tall sequoia trees on the virtual Yosemite trail. I doubt I'll get as many as 1000 steps today; the past week has rather caught up with me.

I listened to some more of Hannah Fry's series, 'Uncharted' on BBC Sounds last night - absolutely fascinating! 

Wednesday 4th October - what do you do when

 you've got loads of projects on the go?

Start another one, of course.

I ordered precut paper hexagons last week and then spent several hours browsing precut fabric hexagons. On the whole, a lot of money for not much fabric. So I went a-hunting through the zillion boxes and bags of scraps scattered around the house and have made a smallish pile to be going on with.

The hexagons arrived this morning. An hour so of cutting, and I created a tidy little heap of twenty tacked hexagons ready to so and an untidy heap of even smaller scraps. How small does a scrap have to be to go into the rubbish pile?

The first two hexagons come from a bridesmaid's dress I wore 46 years ago.

The little gold spring clips worked well for holding the fabric firmly to the paper ready for tacking.

Later on, after about fifteen minutes sewing I had four joined together.

I  have found a smaller tin to keep the current patches, needles, thread and scissors together.  Although I'll have to join the patches in groups of 4 if I want them to fit in the tin, and then connect the 4s later! My plan is to set myself up with enough patches to last a month, and then maybe have change of colour or theme for the next month.

This bodes I'll for the sock, however! I had been doing about an inch a day, marking each day's knitting with a stitch marker. The top marker is yesterday's. 

I only managed 1100 steps yesterday, but still added it to my virtual Yosemite hike.

That's half a mile further along the trail, currently this path hugging the edge of the steep cliff high above the river below. 

Tuesday 3rd October - technical problems....

 Last night, around midnight, I couldn't sleep, and thought I'd read my kindle paperwhite for a while. I like using it as it is so light compared to a book or a tablet and has its own light so I don't disturb BB when he's sleeping peacefully beside me.

That would have worked, except that I had previously been reading it outside, so had turned the brightness right up, so much so that now, in the dark, at midnight, it was too bright to look at. I fumbled my way through the menus and frantically reduced the brightness. But in my haste I moved the slider too far, and the screen became a uniform dark grey. Sigh.

Luckily I was able to get BBCsounds on another device, and eventually went to sleep lulled by Hannah Fry's latest programmes about statistics. 

Downstairs after breakfast, we were settling with our second coffees. BB asked if I would like him to bring anything over before he sat diwn. 'Yes, please, could your bring over my blue tablet?'

This is what I got

a glass of water and one of my small blue tablets!

This is what I was expecting

my big blue tablet,  in fact the very one I am using to tap out this post! 

At some point this morning I did some painting 

The group of trees on the right remind me more of a family of Green giants going on a bear hunt than trees. Now that I've seen it I can't change the way the seem.

I've managed to go another mile along the Yosemite trail;

Here's where I am now.

I doubt if I'll add a whole 2000 steps by the end of today. I taught two students, siblings, back to back, again fairly intensive lessons, and that on top of last night has brought it home that I'm 'recovering ' rather than 'recovered!'. I'll take it easy this evening; at least I've notched up just over 1000 steps. 

Sitting, knitting, and TV looks like the plan for the rest of this evening. 

Monday 2nd October

I do like a new month, a new week, a new day.

I've joined another virtual 'conqueror event' challenge - hiking along the Yosemite trail. I'm aiming to add a mile a day, which is approximately 2000 steps recorded on my fitness thing. This is the starting point. Glorious scenery.  

And here's where I got to yesterday, one mile along the trail;

 

I've also restarted the 'Five minutes of mobilisation' ballet-based exercises. Feet and ankles today - they start the week gently, but I know that later in the week it will be 'abs and glutes'! Good job the videos really are only five minutes long!   

Otherwise not much to report....

More watercolour paint was sploshed onto paper

More sock got knitted

More patio pots were dug up by the squirrels  

More bits of plastic-coated mesh were deployed to try and protect what's left in my patio pots - it's a shame one can't go out squirrel-hunting in the evenings with a torch, and anyway what would I do if I caught them?

I was sock-knitting in the garden in a brief spell of warm sun shine. It was pleasant, but not peaceful; two squirrels were chasing around in the big oak tree. I could track their progress by the shaking leaves and showers of acorns, and by the protests of some pigeons which were engaged in an unfriendly discussion regarding which one would get to pair off with the female pigeon. 

Then a piano lesson - a bit treacle-ish as piano lessons go, but we survived, both of us, I think.

Now it's evening. I'm up to 1000 steps, though I suspect that piano teaching and wool-winding may have contributed to the tally. I'll allow these steps though, as piano-teaching consumes a surprising amount of energy for just sitting still. I usually end up removing a cardigan or jumper halfway through the lesson. I'll 'walk' the remaining 1000 steps while watching 'Only Connect' and 'University Challenge' later tonight.   

Sunday 1st October

 Hello!

Did you all say 'rabbits', or something similar to each other on the first of the month when you were little?  I have a faint memory...

Then it was all 'pinch, punch, first of the month, no returns for ever', to which you replied 'a pinch and a kick, for being so quick, ho returns for ever'. That came later, at my posh convent prep school...

Back in the not so olden days there would be a hymn board up at the front in church, with the hymn numbers listed. Many also gave the 'name' of the Sunday. We have been in 'Ordinary Time' for months and months, in between all the major Christian festivals. Altar cloths and vestments were green, week after week, until Advent. Today is Trinity 17; the seventeenth sunday after Trinity Sunday. Here's the collect, or special prayer, for today;

LORD, we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually to be given to all good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

The word 'prevent' is used in the early sense of 'go before' like 'prevenir' in French. Once this was explained to me, it made perfect sense that I would want God's grace to prepare my way, and also deal with the fhaos I might inadvertently leave in my wake!

I was thinking about this, and then happened across this Bishop Desmond Tutu quote

There's perhaps a bit of a theme developing here...

Hope you all have a good week.

PS. We've a few more Sundays to go before Advent; not sure if we get to Trinity 24 or 25 first!