Not well

The children have not been well. Not well at all and they keep waking me up and I can't get back to sleep.

Eden is the only one to have escaped so far. They have all coped with it like angels but I am so tired that I could cry!

It is getting closer to Christmas. You can feel it in the light, a still kind of iron grey light that speaks of snow and icy wind. Wrap up well

All Good Things

There is no doubt that my life has changed just lately. My dear V, who has a talent for this sort of thing, said at the start of this year that this would be a year of endings and beginnings .
And here I am at both.

I started this blog to keep a record of my spinning/ craft activities and gradually it evolved to be a record of all sorts of things. Which was great, but just lately it has felt rather more of an obligation than it should.

So, I am drawing this little adventure to a close. But I have made quite a few friendships that I would not ordinarily have made - crafters, artists and writers all - and I do not want to let you go. So I have made a new place, a place I can go without all the daft restrictions I have placed upon myself. There may be crafting, there maybe not - who knows? I am venturing off the beaten path once more. You are very welcome to come along for the ride...

Here be Dragons

What to Do?

So the kidlings have been back in school for almost a week, I have tidied my house back to its usual background level of clutter rather than the chaos the Summer holidays had turned it into. But here's the thing..I have no desire to do anything crafty what so ever.

Nothing.
Not beads, not silk painting, not dying, sewing, embroidery not even spinning. I have no idea why. And what is worse, I have no desire to try something new. Paper making, enamelling, pottery for instance. It is rather unnerving, this is just not me. Perhaps I need a day trip to a really good craft suppliers. Or attend a workshop somewhere. I am mystified.
So, all you crafters and artists out there - What do you do when the mojo has gone?

but wait - here is something to cheer me up

The Sheriff has awarded me this, which is just so cool and I get to pass it on too. Here are the rules...
The rules are
1: Post the award on your blog.
2: Add a link to the person who award you.
3: Nominate at least 4 others.
4: Leave a comment on their blog so they can pass it on.

• Kati at Dragonfly's Musings. Ever wondered what it must be like to live in the Arctic? And what is more, to grow your own veg in a place that has permafrost? Here's the girl to tell you.

• The Ginger Darlings, three cats over in Pembrokeshire take you into their world of magic and poetry

• Alice at The Magpie Files. Alice has had to take a break from blogging just lately but you can still go over and browse.
  

• Matt and John with their peculiar but amusing cow obsession at Life is Mootiful. Pop over and visit their shop. Everybody needs a mug with Cownan the Barbarian on it.

• Jasfoup at Diary of a Demon. This is a work of fiction in progress and I find the daily adventures of "a rising star in the underworld" thoroughly engrossing.

Hope you have fun investigating that little lot. I will probably be off line for a few days. See you soon m'dears.

Sarah Who?

Politics do not interest me, liars and worthless creatures to a ...creature is I think the politest way of putting it. A necessary evil however seeing as the alternative is anarchy. I vote because men and women died to give us the choice but otherwise I think voting for politicians just encourages the little blighters. With that in mind I have noticed a fair amount of chat on the blogs about a certain Sarah Palin. I had to google her but it turns out that she is the republican nod to the girl vote although she sounds alarming enough to make Thatcher* pee herself.

To say I am unmoved by the American presidential shennanigins would be understating the case (unless it was to say that it might be nice to not have Mr Obama's Blair-like grin in every supplement that the Times produces) but I can appreciate a creative insult as much as the next Brit. And this site Sarah Palin - Little known Facts is crammed full of the most well turned one liners I have heard since Saki. Do check it out, but if you don't then here are just a few of my favourites.

• As head of Alaska’s Nat’l Guard, Sarah Palin taught troops in a training exercise to scare a grenade into not exploding.

• Sarah Palin believes in change, too. She takes it from your pockets after striking you dead.

• Jesus has a bracelet that says, “WWSPD?”

• Sarah Palin’s finishing move in the VP debate will be pulling Biden’s still beating heart from his chest & taking a bite.

and my favourite of all

• Sarah Palin doesn’t need a gun to hunt. She has been known to throw a bullet through an adult bull elk.

Fun or wot? Perhaps they are a little heavy handed but there are more subtle ones there too.

While I am on the subject - If political pugilism is your cup of tea then I direct you to the exchanges between Winston Churchill and Aneurin Bevan. Alas Churchill always seemed to win these as Bevan's Welsh temper got frazzled far too easily and too many of his shots went wide. Neu did manage to get a few good punches in though but I suppose if Winnie was not scared of Hitler then not even a Valleys Man would have fazed him.

*Don't get me started on Thatcher. I can wax very lyrical on Thatcher - suffice to say she was a demon sent from Hell to destroy this country and you will have about the mildest thing I have to say about her.

Slipping Through My Fingers

It is funny, I am writing this just about smothered in sleeping daughters. We are all stuffed into my bed and there is hardly any room for me to move my arm so that I can tap the key board. I am missing V so badly I am starting to annoy myself. And now that that window of the mind is opened, I find I am missing all sorts of people that I have lost touch with. I am missing Steph, I miss Tom, I miss Jo, but the weirdest thing of all is that I find I am missing Rose. She is zonked out right beside me! She goes back to school in a few days, her sisters are going full time too for the first time. I may be an unnatural mother but I will be glad for the break, so why am I sad too? It seems that my life has been a succession of learning to love things and then letting them go. It stinks sometimes.

Anyway, that's just me being low. September always does me in like that, Autumn in general really. I just don't like to see the leaves dying. It makes me feel morbid.

So... I think I will go and pop Brief Encounter on the DVD and snag some chocolate. A good howl will probably do me the world of good and everything will be better in the morning.

Sleep well m'dears

Colours

I haven't done a quiz here for ages. Lets see - what colour are you?

you are blueviolet #8A2BE2

Your dominant hues are blue and magenta. You're the one who goes to all the parties but doesn't quite fit in at every one... you know what you want, but are afraid of what the world might think of it. You're a little different and that's okay with them, and if you're smart it's okay with you too. Your saturation level is higher than average - You know what you want, but sometimes know not to tell everyone. You value accomplishments and know you can get the job done, so don't be afraid to run out and make things happen. Your outlook on life is bright. You see good things in situations where others may not be able to, and it frustrates you to see them get down on everything.

the spacefem.com html color quiz

Weird - I would never have said that purple was my colour. I'm an orange kind of girl. Hmmnn... not today obviously. Perhaps I'll try it tomorrow and see if it is different.

Guy Stuff

I was never a tom boy, I don't understand the off side rule, power tools are a little bit scary and while I have no problem walking into a pub on my own, garages make me nervous. I like hardware stores because they remind me of my dad but they are not my natural environment - that is V's department, along with everything electronic up to and including tuning in the TV.*

So it is annoying that just as V has bogged off to Africa that the loo cistern has sprung a leak.
Now my first instinct would be to call a plumber but it took me less that a minute to envisage my beloveds face when he discovers a plumbers bill in all the paperwork that will be waiting for him when he gets home.
Plan number two involves silicon sealant, vitreous gloves (the suspiciously snappy kind that haematologists wear - I use them for dying wool) and yards and yards of loo roll.

There were hardly any instructions on the sealant, the manufacturers presuming that people are born with some kind of instinct for the stuff. But after snipping the top off and having a few trial runs on some cling film it seemed not too far removed from icing fairy cakes. If I took things slowly then all should be well. Ha!
I found out several things very quickly. The main one being that silicon sealant does not stick to anything that is wet such as a leaking cistern but give it a chance to smear itself on jeans, vitreous gloves, hair (that was a laugh) and ones nose and let me tell you a little of that stuff goes a very long way indeed. And man, it reeks! A nasty, burning, chemical smell. So that, plus the angle was flipping awkward and the stuff was sticking to anything but that which it was supposed to and you can bet I was a narked bunny when I'd finished. I took huge pleasure in throwing the whole sticky lot in the bin. Okay the chances are slim that I have fixed it but a girl can hope can't she?

In other news, I went to yet another funeral day before yesterday. I think I have been to more funerals this year than I have in the last five years put together. Is this an age thing? Will funerals start to become a yearly expectation? My grandmother always greeted each birthday with a cheery "This might be my last one"...until of course one year it turned out that she was right.
Oh and I hope that one day soon, people will be expected to hand their mobile phones over at the door of the church or crem or whatever so that they will not go off in the eulogy. This has happened at the last two funerals that I have been to and really, it was crummy.

I went to a pyjama party last night to reward myself for all my hard work. The kidlings and I decamped to Dizzys for an evening of daft films, popcorn, pink wine (for the grown ups) and chocolate (for everyone). It was a lot of fun but a terribly late night for the girls and I have been paying for that today in the coin of grumpy children. Early night tonight and a dedication service in church tomorrow.

I hope that once the girls go back to school I will get my crafting mojo back. I haven't spun all summer. But now the light is changing and the nights start drawing in I will remember again the lure of wool and the hum of the wheel.

Have a golden weekend all of you



*I want to emphasise here that I am not helpless - I can bleed a radiator, check the oil in the car, I can heave coal, I can even change a tyre if pushed and I once wired a plug - but I had to get a book out of the library to make sure that I was doing it right.

Favourite Things #3

Friends

Blogging friends are great. Oakmoon awarded me this a few days ago but I have been so busy what with V gallivanting off to Uganda and all that it has taken me this long to get my head together to write anything much. But I am chuffed to get this. Thanks Kim :o)

The Rules for those recieving an award are:-

1. The winner can put the logo on their blog
2. Link the person you received the award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs
4. Put links of those blogs on yours
5. Leave a message on the blogs nominated

I nominate in no particular order:

• Dizzy because she is a great friend on and off line. She is brave, good and beautiful and she has a mean eye for a shoe as well

• Bookwrym aka Nicole because her blog is fun to read, you never know what you are going to find next. Plus she knits, reads, beads, spins and she is into theatricals too. (A bit spooky really how similar we are.) It was through Nicole's blog that I found the Sheriff, another good blog buddy and she also pointed me in the way of Kresley Cole and the Immortals After Dark series, which is huge fun - so thanks an awful lot Nicole! :o)

• Patois - this girl has a terrific blog. Funny, poignant and wise and if I cannot share her love of Bruce Springsteen then at least we both agree that haiku are here to stay.

• Kate -of Kate Quilts because she has a truly uncanny eye for colour and design. Plus the fact that she is Australian and everyone knows that an Aussie means fun.

• Pippa - Pippa as well as being just as lovely in person as she is to look upon is immensely talented in all things crafty. She is inspirational in the way she bravely responds to a debilitating illness and she also happens to be a good friend

The above pics are of the lovely Pippa and myself at Craig y Nos for a dear friends 25th Wedding anniversary party. The invitation was handed over along with a challenge to dress as extravagantly as we could. Who could resist an opportunity like that? There were some splendid outfits there including V who worked the Lucius Malfoy look rather well. I did not manage to get a photo of my dear husband which is annoying. He will have to get togged up for a blog pic. That however will have to wait until he returns from Uganda though.

V has also gone with friends and is at this moment very far from home indeed. Bizarrely, I have indulged in a whirlwind of housework and have also purchased paper to do the hall, if the little tunnel leading from the front door to the living room deserves such a grand title. I know what he will say two weeks from now, stepping into a pristine (and therefore unrecognisable) house
You have been busy...I really must visit Africa more often.

Sometimes Paper is Too Boring

Rose: I'm bored
Me: Do some drawing
R: Boring
M: Draw on me then
R: Really?
M: Yup, really

The things I will do for a quiet hour. It was quite pleasant really, like being massaged by fairies.

Kids and Cats Dont Mix

3 am and Rose wanders in. Zac is on my bed and he won't get off.
Me: Mmmfff?
R: And he's got fleas!
Me: Thwack him with a cushion, he'll soon shift

She wanders back out again. I try to get back to sleep but, tired as I am, there is now a voice in my head squawking Flea ridden cat on your baby's bed! He's not allowed upstairs anyway! You know how stubborn that cat is, he won't move just from a cushion!. etc etc
Sleep evaporates
I bumble groggily into Rose's room, pick up the cat who has suddenly gone as boneless as a tree hugging eco protester in the arms of a bailiff and evict him to his nice comfy shoebox on the sitting room windowsill.
And now I am still awake at 5am and I have a busy day ahead.
Rats

Heads Up!

Okay, most of you might have noticed that I have taken the comment moderation off.

Now here's the thing. You might now and again come across a comment written by someone called Cyril. Do not be alarmed - he is my darling nephew and is completely harmless. Okay? If he gets too bad, feel free to tell him off.
End of public safety awareness announcement
:o)

Favourite Things #2

Ticked off cats

This isn't Zac but imagine it black and you have a fair example of His Huffiness

V found two fleas on the sofa this morning. Cue biological warfare and Zac was the battleground. It was a struggle but due to my marginally superior strength and a far bigger mean streak the humans won. I find this kind of thing hilariously funny. He is a lovely cat, sweet natured as you like but he likes his dignity and there is only so much a feline can take. Zac declined to pose for a photo, hence stock pic above.

He probably won't speak to me for days.

An Award!

Kate of Kate Quilts nominated me for this!!

Thank you very much Kate :o)

It comes with rules and they are:

1. The winner can put the logo on his/her blog
2. Link to the person you received your award from
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs for an award
4. Put links to those blogs on yours
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated.

So I nominate the following fabulous blogs

Wayfaring Wanderer - because every single photograph this talented lady takes is a visual poem

Little Bird - for her unique and eclectic view on life, which despite her challenges, remain as clear and beautiful as stained glass

Oakmoon - because her blog is so very comfortable. There is a really peaceful feel in her attitude. Plus the fact that she too is a very talented artist.

Notes From the Cloud Messenger - for her astonishingly beautiful poetry and her ability to capture the essence of a moment in just a few words

Technodoll - because she is just fabulous, I wish she lived closer so we could go out for a few cocktails and laugh our heads off.

The Sheriff - not just because of her enviable skill with the needles but because she too has an outrageous sense of humour. Her blog has often made me laugh out loud.

and
Hedgewizard - because he is full of useful information about self sufficiency and he is also screamingly funny, really he is - check out Unexpected Showers for HW at his best

I found the camera

Guildford cathedral is the youngest in Britain at a mere 70 years of age (or thereabouts) I found it desperately stark but the height and soaring columns were still there, can't beat a classic can you?

This is the rear view, taken from the Children's garden where we had our picnic. You can just about see the bronze statues which fascinated my girls so.

This kept us quiet too - tucked away in the back of the children's garden. There is something deeply soothing about walking the labyrinth. No matter how many times I walk one or under what circumstances, it pulls me into stillness. I have never prayed a rosary but I imagine it is a similarly hypnotic occupation.

Here are two angels going spare, Eden is still working the Cistertian monk look, while Lily goes for the gargoyle angle.
The day previous we had gone to London on the train. It was very exciting. I am not a fan of cities in general but the lure of the finest museum in the country was too strong. I used to come here as a little girl and just loved everything about it - the huge space, the beautifully painted ceilings, the light, the quiet, the sheer amount of stuff. Awesome.

I thought I took pictures of us in the Natural History museum. Really pathetically it turns out that I did not, we were too busy looking at cool stuff like blue whales and diplodocus and funky gibbons/ Neolithic's etc. V heads towards the creationist point of view in his theology, so it was huge fun watching him mosey through the gallery dedicated to the evolution of man...

The above pic is a stock photo taken from ecite. It was rather more crowded when we visited but I was still thrilled to be there. The children behaved really well too which made things easier but there was no doubt about it that it was a tiring day. I want to visit again soon, hopefully before Christmas but to come on my own and go to the Victoria and Albert museum and wander round Hyde park too if I can. V was truly amused at the thought of me wandering around London on my own and really if I think about it I can see his point. I get lost in Neath, a small town I have lived in for well over twenty years, if I went to London: the crowds, the traffic, the underground...the mind boggles. However, unrealistic bordering on the laughable, I still want to go.

***

In other news, there has been crafting but it has mostly been disastrous. It is not often I get craft disasters but when I do, man, they annoy the hell out of me. It has sort of taken the wind out of my sails a bit I must say.
I started the icarus shawl with my gorgeous raven silk yarn and it brought home to me how truly appalling I am at knitting. So that is another half baked project staring at me from the craft cuboard. I've pushed it right to the back to but it is still hissing at me from the depths - what possessed me exactly?

I started a baby quilt for a friends new arrival and really it is bad. I mean baaaad. I can't bring myself to send it to her but the fabric is so nice ( and not cheap either) what a flippin' waste!

I carded up the macabre dog hair/ wool blend for my batty old biddy and now it is just sitting there in batts, glaring at me and making me feel guilty that I am not actually spinning it. There by hangs a tail - that dog killed my goldfish - its true I tell you! I carded the stuff up too close to the fish bowl, some of the fibres must have gotten into the water and the daft fish must have eaten them - 24 hours later she was dead. I was fond of that goldfish and I haven't had the same look at that wretched fibre since

The good news is that I finished a baby blanket for a girl in church. It is a pretty yarn and soft though lamentably squeaky, acrylic is though isn't it? But no new mum is going to hand wash a baby blanket so wool is just not feasible.
Okay, I am wittering now. It is late and I am off to bed. Good night my dears.

Of shopping

There I was, trawling through e bay this morning, sighing over red kitten heels. V peers over my shoulder
It's going to be a hell of a shock for you when you get to heaven and find that there's no shoe shops
I give him my most pitying glance and shake my head.

Everyone knows it won't be heaven without shoe shops...

Hellloooo!

I am back, but then, you didn't know I'd been gone. Flipping heck, turn your back and blogger goes and changes its look, I'm all confused now.

I have been to London, which is strange of me as I hate crowds, noise, traffic etc etc...but we had rather a nice time. I have also been nominated by Kate for a blog award - ta love. More details tomorrow as I have to go and get togged up for a girlie night out tonight (with cocktails hurrah!)

Pics of trip soon - it involved museums, castles and a cathedral and what is more - that strange big light in the sky showed up once or twice - I have forgotten what the sun looks like. Needless to say, now we are this side of the Severn it has bogged off again. I am feeling waterlogged and need lots and lots of martinis to dry me out as it were.

So I need to see whether Pippa has got her etsy shop going, whether Technodoll has recovered and how far Wayfaring Wanderer has got on with her haiku. Plus all the rest of my blog friends and see what the world from the Arctic to the Antipodes has been up to...See you soon my lovlies!

Six different things before breakfast

There is nothing more charming than a quiet morning spent in the company of an eight year old. The conversation ranged over why there were such things as flies, the merits of short hair cuts, nail polish and favourite dinosaurs.
This last kept us going for sometime. It is quite a good question - what dinosaur would you like to be?

Rose settled on a triceratops.
I rather fancied being an ankylosaurus...
...but decided in favour of a deinonychus because they are just so funky.

Just dropping in for a bite of lunch

V saw us all off by deciding upon the argentinosaurus, a creature which even the deinonychus would find too much of a project to undertake. At 35 metres long, a man would not even reach this monsters ankle!
We spent a fair bit of time tracking down info on these creatures. Have you ever heard of Gondwanaland? No? Me neither. It was a super continent including most of the land mass of the Southern hemisphere and that is where argentinosaurus was found. I love wikipedia don't you?

So, tell me - what dinosaur would you like to be?

Summer Holiday Survival Skills...

It is day 15 of the Summer holidays. Possibly four of those days have been sunny and the kids are going bat shit (frankly) for want of fresh air. There are after all only so many things one can do with glitter and paint...and computer games and DVDs and much though I love Charlie and Lola, it does not bear continuous repeat well.

Today the girls did cutting out - and the mayhem that they left behind made me exhausted just looking at it. How do teachers manage? Is that what school is? One enormous exercise in legal stimuli?

So I am starting to think the whole parenting idea is not my forte. This is on top of the realisation that V used the brush that I keep for the cat's dishes to clean the twin's breakfast milk mugs. I went from zero to fishwife at lightspeed
But how am I supposed to know? V reasoned
Because it is Zac's brush, because it is kept separately from all the other cleaning things, because you have lived here for eight years, because you are in fact supposed to know.
Hormones were blamed as the standard male defence and things took a real nose dive.

We lost the car keys. I am not joking, they disappeared into the ether, one might think that the hobgoblin had them. V got all stressed which is not his usual mindset and that really set me off. So he swiped the peugeot with the admonition that until we find the keys the MG is just a hunk of blue metal. The neighbours would have found my answer both shrill and educational had there been any around to hear, as it is my reputation received no further self inflicted blows.

And I was left with three stir crazy kids and impending PMT. Oh Joy.
Fortunately my latest purchases from amazon arrived shortly after V left. I am sure the postie could still catch the whiff of brimstone on the doorstep. And he left me a particularly absorbing book - Dita von Teese's collected thoughts on the Art of the Burlesque. This purely gorgeous confection of crystals and corsets did a lot to lift this girls spirits. If that is what cheers you up too then you might want to check it out.
The children were treated to two new collections of the tellytubbies. And then we played shops and painted our toenails. I love being a mother to girls.

Below is a pic of one of the roses that V brought home for me this evening and he is cooking me tea right now. I believe V finds roses an essential survival skill...

Oh, and he found the cars keys too.

Folly

I don't often write about spiritual stuff. Although the spiritual is more than important to me, it is not my focus on this blog. However, this place has turned slowly from being a purely spinning/craft blog to a journal of snippets, a patchwork quilt of my life perhaps. And a few patches here and there can, I think, be given over to my spirit journey with its ups and downs, beauty and disasters as the inspiration crops up.

I was mulling over the prompt for One Single Impression as I was strolling through my favourite blogs this morning and I found this over at Robin's and A Little Bird Told Me which somehow crystallised it all...
...if you get a chance, do pop over and say hello as it is a beautiful, thought provoking place she has and I hope she won't mind when I lift a portion of text from her latest post.

Osho writes
The Jains call the person arihanta who has attained to himself and is so drowned, so drunk in the beatitude of his realization that he has forgotten the whole world. The word arihanta literally means “one who has killed the enemy”—and the enemy is the ego. When you first enter into the world of no-mind it looks like madness—the “dark night of the soul,” the mad night of the soul. All the religions have noted the fact; hence all religions insist on finding a master before you start entering into the world of no-mind-because he will be there to help you, to support you.

And then Robin asks...What if your master, the person you learn things from, the person you admire - what if he or she is an arihanta?

See what I mean about thought provoking?
It has made me think that Osho is expressing here a tenet of the Christian way - the one of "death to self".
It made me think of the terrible hash Christians have made of the way their faith is perceived.
It made me think that the simple crystal beauty of the call of Christ has been drowned out in the horrendous blaring cacophony of hypocrisy that the Church is synonymous with.
It made me realise that Jesus is arihanta.

Why is it that a Osho can write like that and be understood and accepted while a phrase like "death to self" fills me with the shudders when it is the same thing, the same idea? Who does not wish to be free? And how many people think that Christianity is Freedom? Isn't it annoying when one's God is let down so often by the institution that crept up behind Him?

"Dance, sing, be free!" He said.
"You are free after all
And there is so much beauty here
Celebrate it!!

"We cannot," they replied.
"We have to be respectable.
Take our place
as pillars of the community
and pillars cannot dance"

Christ is a fool, a sacred fool. He takes the perceived wisdom of the world and turns it upside down. Everything that is important to us he tells us to hold lightly and who knows? It might come back. He tells us all kinds of stuff that we cannot understand: Lay down your life and you will live; if you mourn you are blessed; don't hit back at those who harm you.
...and yet some things are easy to understand. Love, do good, treat others as you would like to be treated yourself. Which many consider to be naive to the point of folly,but...

A fool loves
In the face of all darkness
and against all odds

See! I got to the prompt in the end!
for more folly check out One Single Impression here

Favourite Things #1

The best breakfast in the world: warm buttery croissants spread with thick honey. And the fresh coffee ain't bad either.

One Word

The Sheriff had this one word meme on her blog and I thought that I could swipe it as she did not tag anyone. The rule is to answer the questions with only one word and then tag four other people.

1. Where is your cell phone? Dunno

2. Your significant other? V

3. Your hair? Growing

4. Your mother? Fabulous

5. Your father? Eccentric

6. Your favourite thing? Cashmere

7. Your dream last night? Blurred

8 Your favourite drink? Tea

9. Your dream/goal? Learn stuff (and travel to see the Northern Lights)

10. The room you’re in? Bedroom

11. Your hobby? Spinning

12. Your fear? Heights

13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Wiser

14. What you’re not? Tall

15. Muffins? Apricot

6. One of your wish list items? Books

17. Where you grew up? Wales

18. The last thing you did? Disrobed

19. What are you wearing? Pyjamas

20. Favourite gadget? Corkscrew

21. Your pets? Cat

22. Your computer? Dell

23. Your mood? Sleepy

24. Missing someone? Sometimes

25. Your car? Dashing

26. Something you’re not wearing? Socks

27. Favourite store? Harrods

28. Like someone? Yes

29. Your favourite colour? Orange

30. When is the last time you laughed? Earlier

31. Last time you cried? Dunno



I won't tag anyone either, but it is quite fun to do and not so easy to restrict oneself to just the one word. Have a go!

A Visual Hug

That is what I thought when I blog hopped along to Noticing Project via A Little Bird Told Me. If you are into photography or pleasing images in any way then this is a good place to tarry for a while.

I may get to write some more later on but today is a busy day for me doing essential domestic maintenance which I must get right back to once I have finished my cup of tea.

Hope you have a pleasantly productive day too

Soup, beauuuuuutiful soup

After reading about Technodoll's fabulous sounding soup, I thought I'd have a go at making some of my own.

Fry up half a chopped onion, half a sliced leek, 4 halved new charlotte potatoes, 1 sliced carrot, a few chopped slices of chorizo, 1 can of green lentils, 1 can of butter beans, 1 sliced parsnip, a few splashes of tobasco, pepper, herbs de Provence and a little salt. Then add enough water to fill the pan.
Bring to the boil and then simmer for 20 minutes, pad out with rice if desperate for carbs.

This is perfect for a chilly British Summer afternoon. Eat in front of the fire staring out at the swallows on the telephone wires who are probably plotting an early migration this year...

Day 6 of the Summer holidays

How to keep the kids amused very cheaply and for quite some time:


Give them a hoofing great big car to clean.

Sunday Scribblings - Solace

This, of course, is not mine, but I have no words that convey solace as this poem has.

Walk Within You

If I be the first of us to die,

Let grief not blacken long your sky.

Be bold yet modest in your grieving.

There is a change but not a leaving.

For just as death is part of life,

The dead live on forever in the living.

And all the gathered riches of our journey,

The moments shared, the mysteries explored,

The steady layering of intimacy stored,

The things that made us laugh or weep or sing,

The joy of sunlit snow or first unfurling of the spring,

The wordless language of look and touch,

The knowing,

Each giving and each taking,

These are not flowers that fade,

Nor trees that fall and crumble,

Nor are they stone,

For even stone cannot the wind and rain withstand

And mighty mountain peaks in time reduce to sand.

What we were, we are.

What we had, we have.

A conjoined past imperishably present.

So when you walk the woods where once we walked together

And scan in vain the dappled bank beside you for my shadow,

Or pause where we always did upon the hill to gaze across the land,

And spotting something, reach by habit for my hand,

And finding none, feel sorrow start to steal upon you,

Be still.

Clear your eyes.

Breathe.

Listen for my footfall in your heart.

I am not gone but merely walk within you.

~ Nicholas Evans

A passage from The Smoke Jumper

To find out where other writers seek solace, check out Sunday Scribblings

Day 3 of the Summer holidays

Was a truly death defying day...

The amount of cholesterol that passed under my hands would make a dietician weep.

The fancy bread and butter pudding that we had for afters tea time. Made with croissants, apricot conserve and an awful lot of cream, it is not for the faint hearted. It doesn't look much here but I did not have time to take a picture of it cooked in all its golden bubbly glory. Deserts don't last long in our house

And the blackcurrant ice cream. Rose helped: beating the eggs, stirring the custard (more cream anyone?) sieving the stewed currants. However, the tasting did not go so well, blackcurrants are pretty tangy aren't they? And after her face puckered up for the second time she declined to taste any more.

I had a taste this morning and it's pretty good actually. Am I bad mum when I say that I am glad that I don't have to share this with my children?

Day 2 of the Summer Holidays

Day 2 (yesterday): I mostly caught up on the housework that I neglected over the weekend and V went to get his malaria tablets for his trip to Uganda. It was another beautiful day, too nice to ignore so after all the humdrum stuff was done we went for a walk to the falls in Melyn Court.

This is just a hop skip and a jump away from where we live and we come here quite often. The air was warm and green smelling but as we got closer to the falls, the occasional pleasantly cool breath of water wafted over us.

We saw dippers (small water birds) by the stream. Unfortunately, they were shy and refused to pose for me.

It is possible to walk behind these falls. I never have though, the path is slippery and uneven... bad news for smalls.

Even though the dippers declined, my family has no problem at all with posing :o)

It is quite grey today, cool with drifting soft rain but just sometimes the cloud thins a little and the sky takes on this strange silvery gold glow. It is very beautiful but the picture I took did not capture it at all.
Today we will make the ice cream that we did not have time to do yesterday.
Hope you have a gentle day today too.

Day 1 of the Summer Holidays

It was a truly beautiful day. The first sunny day in ages it seems. So we packed a picnic and headed out to the Vale of Glamorgan

and Hendrewellan Pick Your Own Fruit farm. We ate our sandwiches under a shady tree and in the company of two gentle old Labradors who were very polite and merely hinted that they would not be averse to a crust or two if we had a mind to it. We duly shared our lunch, they thanked us and pottered off to the next family to see if they minded feeding two gentlefolk landed on hard times etc etc.

It was very hot out in the field, hats and sunblock were in order. Eden and Lily did very well with finding the sneaky hidden raspberries that other people had missed. Being three foot high has its advantages sometimes. V did not find it so easy. Spotting red berries on thick green foliage cannot be easy when a bloke is colour blind.

The blackcurrants were much easier to pick. But the ground was uneven which led to more than one fall (and tipped punnets) Eden was fairly pragmatic about the first tip but was not a happy bunny the second time she did it.

On the way home we called in on Merthyr Mawr, a tiny village filled with houses like the above. It is one of my favourite places to visit. There is nothing to do here apart from stare at stranger's houses but the cottages are just so cute.
I would not want to live in one mind you, they are rather too much to live up to I think - I'll stick to my untidy little miners cottage on a scraggy mountain any day - but they are lovely to visit.

The fruits of our labours. Probably about 5lb in all.

Blackcurrants smell rather evil* to me even though I love the taste, but warm raspberries smell heavenly. There was pavlova for tea, naturally. I would have taken a picture but I was in too much of a hurry to scarf down the raspberries, meringue and cream to find the camera. It didn't look up to much, rather messy meringues tsk tsk but it tasted great. Believe me.

The second day of holidays will be taken up in the making of blackcurrant ripple ice cream. Hope you are having fun too.


*a bit like cat wee

Two Requests

Because POD asked for music. Now, I think music is one of the things that makes life worth living but I am not fussed on blogs that play it automatically - that's just me though. But if I did have a little blog widgit to play music then Come Away With Me would be first on the play list. The video is rather obscure but who cares when a girl has a voice like that?

And if you have a spare ten minutes then you might want to play this one too. It is rather long, but there are three songs in there written by Paddy McAloon aka "the Fred Astaire of words"

The Princess and the Dragon

This is a stand in dragon for the moment as the story sack dragon is still under construction. He will be done in classic red satin but for now Slither is doing a fine job I think. Slither is Rose's pet dragon (every girl should have one) and he was made by my mum. She very cleverly filled him with polystyrene beads so he makes a beautiful rustling noise when he moves.
I have to say I am very pleased with Princess. After all, what girl, at one time in her life or other, has not longed for waist length silky blonde hair? Eden has really taken to her though so I think I will shortly have to make another for her...and then two more because even though the other two are not really fussed on dolls, they will refuse to be left out of a toy fest.

It is the school fete today and this entails me doing a four hour face painting gig later on. So now I need some fortification... hot tea and plenty of it.

Hope you have a fun filled colourful day too.

One Single Impression - Rest

Not rest as in sleep, but the rest one gets for emphasis in often quite a turbulent piece of music. There is nothing like that perfect stillness one hits in dance when that rest is synchronised between musician and dancer and the subsequent movement has all the more freshness thanks to that controlled heartbeat.

A pause, presented,
deft as a well thrown ball -
The music resumes.

Check out other poets who are resting at One Single Impression...

It's not Voodoo

It is just a dolly - a princess no less and it is taking me an inordinately long time to do. I sew rather better than I knit but frankly that is not saying much. I am doing this freehand, no book, no pattern, no idea. My mum* would be horrified, however, she is far too busy to be bothered with my efforts right now as I have given her the task of making the dragon.
This is for a story sack, (more info here) a reading initiative for nursery school age. I like making these very much but it is not a small undertaking. I will post up a few more pics as soon as she has hair and a dress. I may be some time with this...feel free to talk amongst yourselves...

*My mum is an excellent toymaker, it is really her finest craft though she is pretty handy at most crafty things and really anything else she has a mind to do.
Among her more bizarre accomplishments is the ability to use handguns and (three decades ago) she taught my sixteen year old brother how to box by the simple expedient of getting a boxing instruction/manual from the library and giving it their best shot as it were. This backfired rather as shortly afterwards she flattened him with a beautifully placed uppercut. She was horrified but her children, including my brother, were inordinately proud of her for that. To meet this softly spoken, diminutive woman is to be completely deceived as to what a powerhouse of energy she really is.

Once more...

Insomnia has me in her gaunt and comfortless arms... I absolutely loathe not being able to sleep for all kinds of reasons but there are unexpected benefits too.

I am sitting here with the window open (despite relentlessly uninspiring weather it is quite stuffy at night.) I can hear the waterfall and the odd car swooshing up the valley but mostly I can smell wood smoke. One of the neighbours is obviously having a late night too and is burning apple wood by the scent of it...it is very pleasant, makes me want to go and toast marshmallows.
What am I saying? There is the rest of July and at least some of August to go before I should feel this autumnal.
Pray for good weather tomorrow...I have to tackle the garden soon - less gardening, more like disrupting the ecology of an environment*.



*no, I don't use any chemicals or other nasties but is more than one way to kill a snail...which reminds me - why don't snails eat Japanese knotweed?

Thank you Mr Dahl

Dishing out the ice cream after tea the other evening, Rose produced this little pearl...

Rose: Mummy. What does willy mean?
Me: Errrr....
Rose: Mummy?
Me: *having recovered my wits* What do you think it means? *I mentally pat myself on the back for that inspired deflection*
Rose: Is it short for William?
Me: *giddy with relief* That's right. *but now I know I have to bite the bullet* and it is also a word for a little boys privates.

Rose looks first shocked (remember, she has no brothers so it is not a word or idea that we have really needed to discuss) and then she looks slightly nauseated. She pauses and then with a faint air of trepidation about her she asks - What does Wonka mean then?

V naturally mishears and has to leave the table and I resolve to rethink the addition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to our bookshelf and DVD collection.

Sunday Scribblings - My Oldest Friend

I have deliberately interpreted the prompt in its most literal sense. I generally fail to hang onto friends for a whole smorgasbord of reasons so I have few friends of very longstanding. So it goes. But for what it is worth my oldest friend was one of the finest in my small collection...

My oldest friend was a lady called May Illingworth. She was ninety when I met her and ninety three when she died. She was a remarkable woman. She was born in 1902 into comfortable circumstances in a mid Glamorgan county town which was surrounded by a countryside untouched by the industrial grime and grinding poverty that marked the Welsh valleys only slightly further to the north. Her father had fought in the Boer war, a fact that brought history amazingly close to me. There I was sharing a cup of tea with a woman whose father had probably been born just after the Crimean War. I felt as though I was in the room with a living breath of the past - she was delighted with my reaction. We became firm friends after that.

She was widowed, as were so many, in the Second World War. Her husband, a major, developed leukemia whilst serving in Italy but before he could be sent home to die a stray shell meant that what was left of him had to be buried quickly just outside Naples. Many years later she travelled to see his grave and brought back a few blades of grass plucked from beside her husband's grave marker. She placed a few in the family bible and gave the other few blades to her son. May and I watched a Remembrance Day service from the Albert Hall one year and they dropped poppies from the cavernous ceiling onto the people congregated below, one for every soldier who died in WWII.
"One of those is for Richard" May said and patted my hand as I cried for her.

She had never wept for her husband, she had not shed a tear for anything since the day she opened the telegram.
"I just couldn't" she said." I just knew that if I started I would never stop and I had the children to look after."

She was a woman free from either sentiment or self pity but sometimes her very lack of these would enable her to do or say something so simply that it would make the most expressive mark on another persons heart.
Hers was a life of unflinching pragmatism spiced with mischief and a pungent sense for the absurdities of life.
She had watched the century unfold from a time where travel was by horse and cart to watching a man set foot on the moon. Not a decade of her life passed without there being war inflicted on some part of the world whether by Kaiser Bill or Pol Pot and though wise in the ways of people and their various motivations, her faith in the basic decency of humanity remained undiminished. I admired her tremendously, she was everything that I felt was good about a person.
When she died I meant to write to her son about what his mother had meant to me. I never did, I could never find the words. I have found them now, too late for him, but they are out there now - I am more than glad I knew her.

Of Hobbies...

Chatting to V over breakfast this morning, sorting out the day, as you do, covering the mundanities, which I will spare you, I asked him what his plans were for this evening when I was in work.
I am going to watch Stargate...while electrocuting myself.

Yes folks, he has taken to electrocuting himself, Bruce Lee did it too apparently. Every man needs a hobby I suppose and at least this does not require a shed.

Talking of hobbies, spinning is still on hold and beading has temporarily lost its pizazz, so I am toying with the idea of scrap booking. Pippa made such a lovely sort of mini-album of her wedding and it made me think that the small things are often the sweetest of all. But papery things and design are not my forte so I am still just thinking about it (and by that I mean I have bought card and glue and I am slowly gathering photos but they are sitting in the old crafting cupboard waiting for the necessary confidence to bounce on the scene).

So instead I am getting into Pilate's. I have a DVD to prove it. Thanks to a combination of protein powder and iron tonic I have my life back to normal energy levels now, but better than that without the caffeine and sugar kicks that kept me in such a vicious tempered circle. So now I have all this energy I am going to use it to trim up a bit and in the spirit of public accountability I will say that I want to get my waist back. It is now 27" - okay, that is not bad, but it is not what it should be considering my general build. It was carrying the twins wot did it but I want to see if I can get it back to what I consider normal for me. If I get there, I will let you know.

To conclude today's jabber I will give you my second favourite muppet, Beaker in a very short demonstration of what fun caffeine really is...

One Single Impression - Through the Window

This is what I have outside my window. July in Wales, being what it is of course, means that right now my lovely view has been obliterated by rain clouds... So the 'ku below is what I see through my window today...

Rain, mist, mountain, green.
Starlings huddle muttering -
Where has Summer gone?

Check out what others are seeing through theirs at One Single Impression

Worth saying...

Today is the first day that I have ever missed anything daughter related because of work. It is Rose's show tonight and I am here at work feeling quite...low. I should be there watching her sing "Daddy wouldn't buy me a bow bow" and I am not. Silly really, I get to be with her most of the time and most of that time we spend driving each other nuts! But I am missing her right now and I think that that is worth saying.

Wordles

This here's a wordle of this blog, using the most frequently used words on the current page



Click on it to see better and then go get your own...go on...you know you want to.

It's quiet...too quiet

Hands up everyone who knows that when the kids go to silent running there is trouble afoot. I have been a mum for eight years, you'd have thought I'd have twigged by now...but no, I was just grateful for a bit of peace after the havoc of cooking and dishing up Sunday lunch (which was a treat by the way, the first taste of chicken in months.*) So I was just letting that and the chocolate pudding settle down with a cup of tea and I did not notice that the girls disappeared until a powerful scent of violets caught my attention and Eden sidled into the room smelling like... well, like violets and a hell of a lot of them.

What have you done?
*innocently* Nothing
Have you made a mess? (stupid question, of course they have)
*even more innocently* No...

and then she smiles at me.
Helen had the face that launched a thousand ships, but they would have all turned round and gone home for the chance to see Eden smile. I am going to finish my cuppa and then go to see what fresh nightmare they have created upstairs. But, at least, it is a sweet smelling nightmare - see, there are silver linings everywhere.

more cat pictures

it says
Well, would you look at that
the paper towels are fighting again


*Either you eat the ones that have been raised in avian hell or you take out a second mortgage. Eight quid for a chicken! I am starting to wonder if I might not keep our hens-to-be for more than just eggs...

I Love Teachers because...

So, I have managed to get Rose's Victorian music hall costume done and it was something of a rush but it looks pretty good I think. Alas I cannot show you a photo yet as they needed it in by yesterday and The Dreaded Mrs Jenkins lifted her eyebrows at me for bringing it late.

She peered inside the bag: black lace top (mine, rather large but still okay) black satin skirt, two petticoats - one soft cotton, the other layers and layers of tulle to make the skirt stick out (I didn't have time to make a hooped petti) a feather boa and a pretty flowered headress. Once more the eyebrows went up...
No corset Mrs Hill?
Sarky mare...

In other news I have picked up a fairy name thanks to Kim whose entertaining and inspirational blog can be found here... Oakmoon.

Your fairy is called Feather Icefrost

She is a bone chilling bringer of justice for the vulnerable.

She lives in high places where the clouds meet the earth.

She is only seen during the first snow of winter.

She wears pale blue like the sky. She has icy blue butterfly wings.

Get your free fairy name here!

Anthropomorphism 101

My husband is a laid back kind of guy - not much upsets him ever, but trashing the MG really ticked him off. Since then I have hardly been able to get near the computer because he has been scouring e bay for replacements.
Well, he has come up trumps again and this one is even more of a beauty. It is funny how sometimes you just take to some people isn't it? You hardly know them but there is something about them that charms. I am that way with cars too. Some have no personality and some do and there is something about this pretty little blue thing just pleases me no end. I have even named her. So jolly days out are just round the corner...if it ever stops raining that is. We have had an evil amount of rain this last week and it is flipping cold too. This country, I love it but it needs a roof in the worst way.

In other news, Rose had her first swimming lesson on Monday. She is having an intensive block
of half hour lessons every day for a fortnight. Within twenty minutes she had paddled her first unsupported backstroke and I narrowly stopped myself from leaping from my seat crowing with pride. I am so delighted I think because I am such a poor swimmer myself. Have you ever seen a cat swim? Their eyes are screwed up, they puff and struggle and it is clear that they cannot wait to get the hell out of this wet stuff. I swim that way too. While V just cuts his way effortlessly through the water, fifty lengths without thinking about it. Swimming is the best exercise they say. I'm going to give Pilates a go.

Crafting has ground to a halt at the moment. It is not the blahs but right now I am preferring reading to anything else and I can't find the moorit shetland so no dog spinning as yet. I'll let you know. Anyway, I have to make a Victorian costume for Rose today. School gave us 48 hours to find a bonnet, shawl, skirt and pinny. The working mothers must be tearing their hair out, I had a funeral to go to yesterday so I have promised Rose that I will deliver costume to the Dreaded Mrs Jenkins by home time today. I love a challenge. Right, I have to go and get my brood ready for school now.
Hope you have a pleasantly busy day to day too.