Thursday 11th January

 Ang's cross stitch has collaboration arrived, except, it's, not cross-stitch! I'm sure I've read the word 'huck-a-back' before in a book, in relation to some kind of cotton cloth, but with not much idea of what it could be. I was probably too keen to get on with the plot to worry about details.

When I first looked at the design I thought it was longstitching of some kind (you can also see all the other goodies that were included in the box, a CD of piano music and a nail file tucked inside the cloth).

But just have a look at the reverse;

It5a case of 'now you see it, now you don't ' The stitches run under the weft threads of the aida fabric without breaking through to the back. Zoom in on the photographs to see what I mean. I shall study this new technique with interest.

I'm within sight of finishing stage 1 of my piece, and then need to create a final version of stage 2.

What have I done? I have just committed myself to producing an unknown quantity of book marks featuring olive leaves, in time for our World Day of Prayer services on the first Friday of March. Like in excess of 100. That means around six bookmarks a day through the whole of February if I make them individually. I'm giving it some thought. The service material we all use this year was prepared about 5 years ago by the Christian women of Gaza. It's odd, but not unusual, for the the services to somehow be very pertinent to the current world affairs. 

There's bound to be a World Day of Prayer service somewhere near you if you want to be part of this very special movement. 

Wednesday 10th January

I've discovered a whole load of comments for December waiting to be published - I apologise to you if you had commented and then I didn't publish it. (Although I need to check back to make sure I haven't published everything twice...)

We watch QI from time to time for half an hour before going to bed. Sometimes it is amusing, sometimes informative, sometimes both (and sometimes neither). A week or so ago they were discussing how to cut two slices from a cake in such a way that you can avoid the rest of the cake drying out. The answer was to cut the cake like this;

And then you can remove that piece and push the two cut edges together

Which is what I did. I divided the slice into 3 so I could have one-third and Himself two-thirds.

This is our Christmas cake, which I never got around to finishing with marzipan. I wasn't planning on adding icing. I'm not a fan of marzipan, but I cut some pieces off the block and used them to top his slices;

There. Morning coffee for both of us, to suit our preferences!

All three piano/music students had lessons today... there was a time when I could teach eight to ten lessons a day, five days a week, and think nothing of it. Three is my max these days. I also wrote detailed practice notes for yesterday's two, so I consider this to be a pretty full-on day. The last lesson was fun and I don’t have to provide notes; they used to be theory lessons but they have become music appreciation and background for her A-levels. It's changed from my day (a lot has changed in 50 years, thinking about it). We would never have studied film music, or musicals, for example. 

She's also studying a Haydn symphony, the 'London'. So, as background I introduced her to  

the 'Toy' symphony, where he included toy instruments, 

the 'Clock' symphony where there is a constant tick tock theme in the second or third movement, 

the 'Surprise' symphony where the soft slow movement has a sudden unexpected loud chord in the middle of the tune, and finally 

the 'Farewell' symphony where, in the last movement the players leave the stage one by on, switching off the lights on the music stands until at the end, there are just two violinists left.

There was time for a quick listen to the Swingle Singers and also Jacques Loussier and their take on Bach.

If you are at a loose end, have a listen.  All these pieces are great fun.

Tuesday 9th January

 Bits and pieces ...

One of the interesting things about buying second-hand books is pondering how they landed up in my hands. One book was stamped as discontinued from a library somewhere in the USA...

This one hasn't travelled so far;

I looked up where the Scoil Cholacrair Muire and the Convent N. S. Carrigtwohill might be; a tiny place bear Cork, right close to the South Coast of Ireland. Presumably a Gaellic speaking area.

These 'What to look for in ... ' Ladybird books are collected, but this was cheap, because of the library sticker on the cover, a '4' written neatly on a large red sticker on the cover, and a pocket for the school library card on the best page as well as the school stamps on page 1 and page 17.

Why have I never read these books before? This is the winter one, and I have ordered a fairly cheap Autumn, secondhand.  I suspect Spring and Summer might be harder to find, or more expensive.

This Winter copy was published in 1959, and might be describing almost the same scenes as Laura in Lark Rise to Candleford. The descriptive writing us just beautiful. 

But nobody goes heading in the fields still, surely. It's decades since I saw a Rick in a farmyard. Later on, the writer comments that the farm workers are wearing 'windcheaters' against the cold weather, and I had to look up the heating of 'haulm'.

I suspect those bare trees beside the farmhouse might be elms rather than oaks... all our elms round here are long since gone, and the ash trees may well have to follow.

I was far more attracted to the brighter coloured ladybird books. 'The Party' was a real favourite. 

Also in my secondhand book deliver was a copy of John Bigwood's How to Draw People for the Artistically Anxious' How could I resist! On the RH page is a coloured shape, and on the left some suggestions of how to complete it.

I wonder if you can guess what they will become?

Now for unpopular opinion no 1 (actually I only have 1 unpopular opinion today)

I've have been wearing masks in public spaces since covid became a thing, especially as any kind of chest infection would seriously impact my lungs, and probably permanently. I do understand how restrictive and uncomfortable they are; I literally struggle to breathe in them, but I persist. 

But if even the Daily Mail is now encouraging it after all these years, perhaps it is time to give it some consideration. Here's the link to the article - please read it.

Monday 8th January

Snow!

We don't often see snow here in the part of Sussex where I live. 

During the day we had slow, sleet, drizzle, rain, even brief moments of sun or near blizzard (I mean a Sussex-style blizzard, not a proper one)

When we closed the curtains it had stopped, and the temperature was dropping. I think that's it regarding snow for now.

I've decided to be far more conscious about picking up my mobile phone and tablet and aimlessly scrolling or and reacting to every text/email/notification as it comes in. Instant responses are not always necessary or useful. 

(When I was a teenager at school and then university, my parents lived on the other side of the world. Letters took a week to get from here to there, and from there to here, so getting an answer to a problem could take a fortnight or more by which time the misunderstanding with the history teacher, or other crisis, was all over...)

As a first step I'm going to try and read mostly real, paper books this month. There are a few Kindle books I read regularly, but I shall use a kindle reader rather than my tablet which will hopefully remove the temptation to 'quickly scroll through the news' or whatever. 

So, the photograph shows my current book (second hand from wob) and my elderly and underpowered kindle fire which I really don't enjoy using for browsing the Internet and isn't set up for emails. That should help me!

Also in the photograph is the 'second pink patterned sock'. I've got through the ribbing (phew) joined it in the round and am now making decent progress. With a self patterning yarn it's easy to decide 'I'll keep going until the colour changes.' Except when the colour change is yards and yards away.

Turning the pages of an old Commonplace Book of mine today I tripped across this entry;

Marjie is remonstratingwith Homer who is once again avoiding an unpleasant task and reaching for a beer instead; 'you know, Homer you are going to regret not getting this done.'

Homer's reply? 'That's a problem for future Homer! Man, I don't envy that guy!'

Yes. Well. Indeed.

Sunday 7th January - One Book to Rule Them All

This is the end of the first week of using my giant and rather hefty A4, 2 pages to a day diary. It is a chunky volume as I created it from a sketchbook with added pages. I called it the'One Book To Rule Them All' in the faint hope it might replace the piano teaching note book/register, appointments diary, prayer journal, art sketch book, gardening notebook, Commonplace Book... heigh ho, I can but dream...

I've spent quite a lot of time these past few days telling myself brightly that 'Future-me' will be so pleased if 'Now-me' gets up and goes and does so-and-so...

Childish, maybe, but it is working at the moment. And 'Now-me', with a bit of bribery in the form of a stroopwafel (we received a hamper of goodies from my brother which included a packet of mini stropwafels which I NEVER buy because they are pure sugar and fatally moreish), I tick off another task and let myself feel wonderful. 

Some of the things I am trying to do more of include drawing and painting, cross stitching, writing and playing the piano. I am rather appalled at how far backwards my piano playing has slithered over the course of 2023.

This, another childish trick, is helping somewhat to keep me motivated;

The actual grid above is miniscule; I've made a much larger grid on next week's page already!

Today I filled up the blank spaces in the double spread with some drawings of trees and bushes (copied, to get a idea of how to go about drawing 'real' trees), 

did some more writing, and then, encouraged by 'Future-me' an hour's cross stitch (reward, a pot of tea) and went on to play the piano for half an hour. 'Now-me' is very pleased with herself! 

I'm ending the week with a clean sweep of achievements for today, the complete opposite of yesterday.

I have been drawing in another small notebook as well, working through a series of 'how to draw landscapes' tutorials. I'm hoping to get out and about more once the weather is warmer, it's far too cold and damp to sit around drawing things outside at the moment!

It's going to be a little tricky to try and fit everything from now on as my term starts tomorrow. I've only seven regular piano students this year, and two occasional ones,  but that's plenty these days.

Sunday 7th January

This week I have been using prayer 390 from Angela Ashwin's 'Book of a 1000 prayers'

If you are not someone who prays, then just skip the last two lines from each petition. Either way, having thought about these people, or prayed for them, the next step has to be to do something for them, even if it is a just friendly smile for a neighbour or a can of beans in the food bank collection. As the old saying goes, 'many a mickle makes a muckle'. 

Eventually all our mickles should make up to something... so don't be discouraged, just add your mickles to the growing pile.