More Silk Painting

Streamers

Horse on paper

Horse traced onto silk

Celtic knots

As promised, here are some pics of my attempts at silk painting. The streamers were very easy, just potched about and the colours were so glowingly beautiful that even I could not go wrong. But I also want to make a banner for myself when I am dancing in church. A large semi circle with a dowelling rod to wave with. They are very effective and especially useful when you have run out of breath with more energetic moves. Banner waving looks very kinetic with little effort!

Also I've said before that I am not an artist and the horse, (inspired by Rohan horse art - LOTR) lacks some of the fluidity I was after, the feet are rather shaky but not a bad stab in all.
The celtic knots are traced, taken from a fantastic book called the Crafter's Design LibrarySeries - Celtic by Chris Down. A really excellent resourse for all sorts of crafting stuff.

I'll post up some more shots when I've got the nerve to paint it up. I'm thinking green background, metallic gold horse and knots. Possibly marble it through with some red. I shall experiment but would welcome feedback if you are so inclined as I'm not that confident with colour myself (unless I'm wearing it). Thanks

Additional
According to my 101 in1001 I joined the Chocolate Tasting Club again. As Oscar said, I can resist everything except temptation.

Sunday scribblings

Country

City

Probably had way too much time on my hands this morning, but hey, fun with photoshop and it kept me quiet.
Look here for more Sunday Scribblings

This Week I am Mostly Reading...

Beloved Exile by Alexander Cordell. (Can't find an image sorry)

Thanks to Jethro, I have read this book in just over twenty four hours. Bad idea really as it is quite intense. It was written in the 90's, a long time after the Welsh Trilogy but it is centred on Iestyn, the storyteller in Rape of the Fair Country. It tells of the retreat from Afghanistan in1842 and every politician should be made to read it. I knew a little of the history as a great uncle of mine was shattered in Afghanistan just after WW1, but that's another story. Britain has crashed up against this rock time and again and we still haven't learned.

This book is not for the sensitive, it has all the casual brutality of some of the later Sharpe novels. The horrors are not described in lavish language, but the very starkness of the words allows the reader license to dwell where more florid images would deter. Anyway, it is a very fine book but I cared more about the characters in the Welsh Trilogy because they are my people: I know people like Hywel, Iolo, Morfydd and Mari. Durrani left me cold and the Royal messenger was a royal pain more like.

However the book had a different purpose for a different time. Our poor blood soaked little planet, mans inhumanity, luxury and poverty, perversion and beauty and against all odds and rather unexpectedly for Cordell, Iestyn ends up safe. He must have got fed up with bleak endings and lands our hero in safe haven in the end. At least one Mortymer ends happily. Thank goodness!

Painted Silk Banners

Lily and me (I'm tired by now) and the days labours behind us

Waiting to start the mayhem

Steph and Sara laying out the silk

Ness, the hero of the day

Today Vanessa earned herself a medal. Thirteen kids and their mums all congregated in the upper room and danced like lunatics. This is silk painting but not as we know it. Banners, dance and worship and children utterly unselfconscious in expression both in movement and colour. It was lovely to see.

Lovely too to see white habotai tissue fold into rainbow colours.

Colours galore

Inspired, I took some home myself. Will show you tomorrow with more pics

If You Go Down to the Woods Today

You'll meet singing bears, a scabby wolf with a penchant for food fights and a TV presenter Goldilocks obsessed with winning an award. Great fun.

Afan Forest Park Fun Day, there was all sorts of craft activities, carving, bird box making. There was a storyteller which I would have likes to go and see but we didn't get the chance. There was a live band and there was pouring rain. We stood in it patient as cattle, it felt very British. Thermos flasks, biscuits, raincoats, wet grass and jolly big umbrellas.



Goldilocks and the Three Bears as you have never seen it before. The domestic God daddy bear, the Welsh Mam, handbag wielding, mummy bear, the (teenage) baby that sings - I'm too sexy for my fur, so sexy I grrrr for the camera, the stroppy neighbour from hell wolf that breaks into the bears cottage, trashes it and has a Star Wars-esque mop fight with Goldilocks who is secretly filming the bears in their natural habitat. I think that sums it up really.



I laughed like a drain through most of it. "Baby bear, why is there a girl in your room?" and a food fight is always fun, especially when the victims are not expecting it. "Do you want some jelly" in broadest wolf Essex, hurling wobbling gobbets at the audience and generally trying to make the children cry. Even Lily shrank away from her own Daddy. And in grand theatre tradition ending on a song and dance with an impromptu pillow fight thrown in. I loved it.

One Deep Breath - Common Ground

For Barbara, my MIL - enough said I think.

Oil and water - we
find our common ground through the
sunrise in his smile

for more Haiku check out ODB here

Sunday scribblings

A Small Hymn of Praise

Thanks for warm doorsteps at sundown,
merlot wine,
hot buttered corn on the cob,
the flight of crows,
starlings pops and whistles,
ice cream and seafoam.
For these and all other blessings,
we thank you Lord.

For Sunday Scribblings prompt on Simple

A Delightful Weekend

Happy day on Saturday when Faith and Jonathan got married. Dyffryn Church is easily the prettiest church in the area and then onto the Glyn Clydach for a ceilidh and cold ham. Fantastic. I've never enjoyed a wedding more. I danced 'til my feet bruised and then I danced some more.

Today was Tom's eighteenth. Family get together, quiet as usual but very pleasant. Curry, chocolate birthday cake and champagne.
Off to church then and more dancing. Settled down now with V, the Matrix and some sweet popcorn. Might do a row or two of the shawl if I can.

Nos da my lovlies

Hiya, I'm home.

I'm back, early and there's a reason for that.
The long story makes for hard reading.
The short story is...don't go on holiday with kids and a husband who are all busy incubating a puke bug.
Yuk

Hols Ahoy

Away for a week to sunny Manorbier. Wow, no blogging for seven days. How will I live? And I'm not taking my spinning wheel. I'm gonna go nuts.
Off to pack
TTFN

Sunday scribblings

Masks

Been thinking a bit about parties a bit lately (thanks Nicole). How will I celebrate my fortieth. Yes, I know, I have plenty of time to plan, but it's as well to be prepared. And then this morning, making the coffee, I popped on Rose's request CD, Disney Princess and it hit me. Come as your favourite Disney villain.

Seconds later I thought, hang on...I'm a good girl I am, why villains? Because in acting/theatre at least, villains are more fun.
V is the most moral man I have ever met, and yet he would love to play Gaston (Beauty and the Beast). I love Ursula the sea witch in the Little Mermaid. Though I'm not quite up to her weight, or voice, but she is still fabulous. And then you get the A grade bad eggs: Jafar, The Wicked Stepmother(s) and the biggest of the lot, Malificent, who gets to turn into a dragon. Cool.

Sometimes wouldn't you love to unleash your inner baddie (not in a Psycho way of course) but just acknowledge that sometimes its a bit of fun to wear a scary mask.

What Disney villain would you come as?

See, this is why I Love Blogging

Check out this fairycon found through Laini found through Sunday Scribblings

Opening up whole new stratas of fab stuff to be mined.

Heck! What a Day!

I think I'm hallucinating.. is this a keyboard I see before me...come let me clutch at thee

Three, count them, one, two, three hours sleep last night. I am zombified and will probably delete this post tomorrow.

But for now, if throwing up ever becomes an olympic sport Lily will win gold.

I have had enough and I want to go home now. Scotty, one to beam up.

Lily is okay now, bright as a futon, crunching uncooked spagetti (kids huh) underneath the table. That's viruses for you

Icarus Update

And my Posh Yarn arrived this morning too. Off to the library tomorrow to enlarge the Icarus chart and then I'm off!

Huzzah!

Cobwebs Everywhere!

I will post a pic just as soon as I can. V has swanned off with the reader, I hate it when he does that.

Anyway, I have done - get this- 34 rows of a lace pattern. I saw a finished example of the Cobweb shawl from Victorian Lace Today over at the Daily Purl and as I could not be with the one I loved (Icarus) I thought that I could love the one I'm with and there we go.
[NB No, mine does not and will not look like the beauties you will see at Purl. But I don't expect them to - which is just as well really.]

And yes it is a very simple pattern so far ( I think it gets a little hairier as you go along) but the miles of purl and YO's are building my confidence that I might actually be able to accomplish this.

I am certain however, that any experienced knitter would weep in pain at seeing me knit. I am torturously slow and awkward. Can't hold the yarn properly, have difficulty getting a purled stich on the needle when I want to knit the darn thing. So I hope you understand what an achievement it is for me to get this far, let alone still be excited at the thought of continuing to work on it. It is the rubics cube all over again - I once gave myself open blisters trying to solve that thing, I worked on it all day and I still didn't do it. My mum eventually confiscated it but thats another story. She's not here now to rip the needles from my claw like grasp and I will get it done or die in the attempt *maniacal laugh*

Okay, back from the alternate reality now and I'm off to tackle the real thing (yes spider spun cobwebs) that are decorating the little room.

Have a successful day

Thursday - Love is all around

Zac is the most affectionate, relaxed cat in the 'verse.

Eight Random Facts

Wow, my first meme! Here goes

The Rules Are:

1. Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
3. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
4. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

1. I wanted to be a mermaid when I grew up. But I swim like a rock and am scared stupid of the sea.
   
2. Bright sunlight makes me sneeze.
3. I am terribly pedantic in arguments. Define your concepts or else!
   
4. The sound of Andrea Bocelli's voice (the blind opera singer) gives me goosebumps.
5. Ditto crunching up a square of 70 per cent dark chocolate.
6. My favourite flowers are tulips, red ones for preference but all are lovely.
7. I loathe inconsiderate behaviour to the point of incandescent rage.
   
8. I have no sense of direction whatsoever. I've lived in my town for over twenty years and it's not big, but I still get disorientated there.
   

There you are eight facts that would probably never crop up in a conversation but are quite central to my character nevertheless.

I don't know if I know eight people who blog. I read several very regularly but I would probably freak them right out if I treated them like I knew them. I have no concept of web/ Blog manners whatsoever. Of course I would tag Nicole, but she was the one who tagged me. Next time I'll shush.
So here goes

Val; Jethro; The Bunch of Nutters; Nell; Gardener Greg; Inland Empire Girl; Pilgrim; and ...Oh dear I've run out. If you are reading this and fancy a go, leave a comment and I will ask you nicely. Is that okay?

Thanks Iolo!

Iolo's cookies.

Two days late, sorry. But hope you enjoy the view from Bristol, Jethro. They are lovely. Stem ginger and dark chocolate chips. Eye wateringly sweet and buttery, you can feel your arteries going clang.

101 in 1001

(Number 52)

Just a Bit More Yarn

Rose Basket - plied on bobbin

Rosebasket singles - on skeiner

Rosebasket Tussah Silk Roving - from Wingham Wool

Rowan Kidsilk Haze in Liquer arrived this morning. This is destined for the cobweb shawl in Victorian Lace Today.

The Rosebasket tussah silk was hanging around in my stash for ages. I loved the colour, bought it and didn't know what to do with it. I blended a bit in felting and carded some up with white merino to spin but nothing really grabbed me (though I am proud of the cot blanket that I made with it). Then came Victorian lace today and I thought. I reckon I could spin up some silk fine enough for that. Now however, I have seen the Kidsilk haze and realise that the rosebasket is probably just a little shy of being DK. Far too hefty, but I will give a scarf a go from it, just on bigger needles. I have over 600 yards of it for goodness sake and I strained my foot spinning the lot and plying it, so it can't just sit there.

I will see how the Jewel Box silk compares for weight and colour and something might be contrived with that. Or not, it's going to be fabulous anyhow.

Freshly made Stitch Markers

Flourite chips with swarovski crystals (these are my favourite ones)

Green glass 4mm rondelles with size 11 clear seed beads

This little lot represent two hours work that went like two minutes

One of the reasons why I slacked off on the bead work was that it was so absorbing. I'd start playing after the kids went to bed (1 six year old and 3 year old twins don't really mix with beads and wire do they?). Anyway by 9 it was safe to drag out the bead box and then I would forget everything until V would yawn, stretch and suggest that as it was gone midnight perhaps we really ought to toddle off to bed. I was invariably like a corpse after a few late nights like that and so the beading just had to ... not go, but be put to one side for the sake of my health! (And everyone else's as I am such a collossal mare if I don't get my sleep.)

But there we are, beads got a breath of air again and they are still out, singing their siren song at me,

"They are better than stars or water
Better than voices of winds that sing
Better than any man's fair daughter
Your green glass beads on a silver ring".*

From Conversation Overheard on a Salt Marsh

Back to Beading

Another obsession but one not worked on lately. Beads. I love 'em. Spend far too much on them, make tons of stuff that my family won't wear cos its too outlandish and I don't sell them cos people aren't prepared to pay the price.

But now thanks to Nicole at the lair of the book wyrm I have found out about stitch markers and am off to make some. Tons of beads, wire, pins and rings. I feel an all nighter coming on

One Step Closer to Icarus!

Samba, cobweb weight, cashmere & silk blend

V downloaded Icarus for me from Mim Knits last night. Oh happy, happy girl. It doesn't take much see, just my own way most of the time. And I get the feeling that Samba will be on its way this week so there is a good chance that I will be able to take some knitting with me on holiday next week. This is a relief to V poor dear as I think that he is getting rather fed up of carting my louet around all the time. Knitting is at least a lot more portable.

V looked at the charts last night as he was downloading them and commented that he would never in a month of Sundays be able to understand them. I assured him that I probably wouldn't either considering that I knit like a bear as I have said before. However, this shawl just bit me and I had to have a go. I have known all my life how to be stubborn. So I am relying on pure bloody mindedness to see me through. And failing all else there is always Mum, the expert, to take over when I'm ready to collapse.

Then I went on line just now to have another gloat on Posh Yarn and saw that the silk yarn that Rose fell in love with when we were looking at the site together was still up for sale. How could I resist. So in the cart with it.

Rose pleaded with me last night for it,
Oh baby, it's very expensive.
I've got money, she wailed...teeter, wobble went the bottom lip, big sky eyes.
Baby, I just can't.
Okaay, she sighed.

Jewel Box, double knit, silk

Told V about it when he came in from church. Oh well he said, if she wants it. Picked myself up from the floor in shock, got distracted and didn't remember until just now. I love my husband, he is such a pushover for his daughters...and his wife.

Off now to make Iolo's cookies for him. Thanks V for understanding a yarn addicted wife ( and daughter)

Have a pretty, yarn filled (or what ever does it for you), colourful day.

PS Thanks Dee for permission to use images.

Given up on Seaweed, Got Cherries instead...

The Seaweed cashmere yarn, ordered on the 2nd April still has not been delivered despite a regretably sharp e-mail to the supplier who shall for the moment remain anonymous.
So, what now? MUST KNIT LACE...

Posh Yarn has a sale on Sunday evenings, which I normally miss as I am normally in church. Remembered that the sale started at 6, forgot, remembered at 6: 15. Alas I missed the marmalade colourway, I would have needed three skiens for Icarus and there was only one left. No good. But there was Samba - a bright cherry pink and it was in a half cashmere, half silk cobweb lace weight. Oh Glory Be! Huzzah!

Mine now my precious all mine....Dance Gollum jig (not so easy with a laptop on yer lap I can tell you)
Next step, down load pattern from American store of all places via Acrobat. Have to wait for V for this one, downloading is spooky stuff... baaad juju


Update
Just had an e mail from seaweed yarn supplier refunding money. No explanation as to the delay. But at least I have my money back and I have the Samba yarn instead.

Blueberry Conserve

Well, that was a nice tea.

Left over chicken (from dinner) chocolate muffins with cream and a spoonful or two of blueberry conserve. The chocolate, cream and blueberries was an inspired decision if I may say so. We normally do strawberries but I couldn't find any decent ones and there these blueberries lay, fat to popping with juice and I thought I reckon I could do something nice with that lot. So here it is, so simple it's barely a recipe

Two or three large handfuls of blueberries, rinsed but not dried.
Four handfuls of granulated sugar.

Throw the dampish berries in a pan and heat gently until burst, juicy and bubbling.
Add the sugar, turn up the heat and boil hard for a minute or two, stirring hell for leather so that the sugar doesn't stick and burn.
Take off the heat and leave to cool. It turns a bit jammy if its left to go cold, which is okay, but for muffins or croissants (Mmmm heaven) then I warm it up a little in the microwave on a very low setting in 5 second bursts until desired level of warmth is reached.

Today's leftovers will keep in the fridge for quite some time but they have never lasted beyond four days anyway. It is very good on Greek yogurt... if you can spare some from the croissants.

(Three posts in one day. You can tell Sunday is a slow one in our house if only V goes to church)

Sunday scribblings

Second Chance
They say that for every choice we make a part of our life breaks off and continues elsewhere - an alternative reality or something. It is an absorbing notion. There is a me still in Africa, there is a me on a Carmarthen farm, there are several, I am sure, where I am no longer even alive.

A few months ago I got to see one of my alternatives quite closely, a second chance to see a man I once knew when I was a very young woman, only just past the girl really.
Oh, years ago this man was something to see. He moved like water or a particularly well bred cat and courting some one else though I was, he made his interest in me clear. I thought about it, messy though it would have been, but soon thought the better of it.

I left his sphere and did not see him for the next fourteen years. In this time he married a girl who was far more beautiful than I. She was Irish with dark flashing eyes and she held herself like a queen. They were married for ten years, had two daughters and then they divorced. He could not help himself...married to a sweet natured beauty, he still wanted more, something else, someone else, his own second chance...

As I said, a few months ago I saw this chap once more, quite unexpectedly. His ex-wife was just picking up her children. We chatted, catching up, knowing that we would probably never have such another set of random circumstances to meet each other again. She is still as lovely as ever. He has aged, thickened at the waist, but still an eye catching way with him.

And it could have been me, picking up my daughters, seeing a man with whom I once shared life and do so no longer.
I went home to my own man, knowing that we will lose each other only to death, not to what might have been. Some second chances you can keep.

101 things in 1001 days

1. Make this list - 11/5/07
   
2. Learn to speak Welsh properly
   
3. Knit a lace shawl
4. Get a convertible, a triumph spitfire for preference
5. Start keeping chickens
6. Improve on the flute
7. Clear the attic - Sept 07
   
8. De-junk the kitchen
9. See America, some of it at least - August 07
   
10. Take a photography class
11. Grow my hair past shoulder length (again)
    
12. Sing in the worship band
13. Take Mustard Seeds to another fair
14. Start wine making
15. Attend a counselling class
16. Teach on prophetic/spirit dance- June 07? In Ffald y Brenin last time
    
17. Learn to ride a horse
18. Plant a willow tree in the back garden
19. Make a tree house
20. Get a writing den
21. Buy an ice cream maker and use it regularly
    
22. Write a will
23. Make a story sack every summer holiday
24. Make a family Christmas present every month
25. See the Aurora Borealis
    
26. Visit Italy again
    
27. Go on an anti war protest march
28. Put up more bookshelves
29. Fix the wardrobe
30. Draw a dragon
31. Customise my louet wheel
32. Finish spinning the Rosebasket tussah silk - 12/5/07
    
33. Take a massage and anatomy class
34. Send poetry off to the New Welsh Review
35. Write the first chapter of the Ruth book
36. Write the synopsis of the Ariannwen book
37. Write a good erotic fairytale - July 07 (cinderella)
    
38. Write two more folk songs
    
39. Paint the little room
40. Learn to play the harp
41. Make a gambo
42. Go to Woolfest - no go (maybe next year)
    
43. Take all the kids camping to Snowdonia
44. Read Paradise Lost
45. Read Beowulf - Seamus Heaney's translation
46. Get a dog
47. Get my garden under control - get rid of mess on the top half - half way done thanks to Matthew
    
48. Grow my own raspberries
49. Keep doves
50. Go sea fishing
51. Go parascending
52. Get Iolo's recipe for chewy cookies and make them - 15/5/07
    
53. Make my own ginger beer from scratch
54. Join a re-enactment society
55. Sort out under stairs cupboard
56. Visit Canterbury Cathedral
57. Visit Gavin
58. Learn to drive a horse and cart
59. Go on a gypsy caravan holiday in Ireland
60. Go on a walking tour of Provence with Lady Grace
61. Get my nose pierced
62. Take Tom for a driving lesson
63. Read Beloved Exile - 2/6/07
    
64. Go on a mission trip abroad - America August 07 comes under this I think
    
65. See Paul in India
66. Make the "Bark George" toy
67. Volunteer at Rose's school
68. Get away for a weekend with just my husband for company
    
69. Make a print of the kid's feet and hands
70. Do some open air service work
71. Get a banner workshop off the ground 1st June '07
    
72. Get the web codes for COTM off of Birdie and start the site again - early summer 07
    
73. Organise another Ladies weekend at Ffald y Brenin - all set for Jan 08
    
74. Enrole Rose in piano lessons
75. Ditto ballet lessons
76. Do the Cordell festival - April and September 07
    
77. Take "The Giant's Daughter" to Lulu and investigate further
78. Help a complete stranger
79. Make and decorate a Christmas cake
80. Have an open house on Christmas Eve
81. Throw a fancy dress party
82. Organise a barn dance and harvest supper in church
83. Ride in a hot air balloon
84. Start composting
85. Buy a house to rent
86. Organise a prayer and fasting session focused on the needs of the young people in our community
87. Tidy up the Upper Room
88. Have at least one go at archery
89. Have at least one go with a handgun - on a range of course and all supervised
90. Think of another 11 things to go on this list - 11/5/07
    
91. Go to a wedding - 26/5/07
    
92. Get a new throat plate for the fire and sweep the chimney (yes I'm scraping the barrel now)
93. Go out for cocktails with some of the girls
94. Join the Chocolate Tasting Club again - June 07
    
95. Get my waist back to 26 inches (30" at the moment - thanks twins) - 28" Oct 07
    
96. Sew an Elianor Mortymer skirt in a good sturdy material
97. Make that flippin' felt shawl
98. Go on two more spinning demonstrations
99. Visit a planetarium
100. Go to see a big musical production in London with Rose - Mary Poppins I think
     
101. Sleep undisturbed for as long as I want to

If I start this today then the finish day is the 5th February 2010 and fortunately I can cross one off straight away. Hurrah!

101 things in 1001 days - The Site

Check out here for the premise and a handy day calculator.
List to follow very soon indeed - I've been working on this for three days!

The Mission: Complete 101 preset tasks in a period of 1001 days.

The Criteria: Tasks must be specific (ie. no ambiguity in the wording) with a result that is either measurable or clearly defined. Tasks must also be realistic and stretching (ie. represent some amount of work on your part).

Cross them off as you do them, and add the dates. Include the date you started the list and the finishing date. (You can use this handy calculator to help figure out the finish date.)

The above italicised is directly lifted off the mission site

The Funniest Thing Just Happened

Just picked Eden and Lily up from Nursery, quick upstairs to change and there's a knock at the door. My neighbour, who is a good bit older than me, holding a ball of wool and a crochet hook. "Teach me how to crochet, there's a good girl, I'm off to hospital for a knee replacement and need something to keep me from going pen wan walics.*"
So in with her and everything is suspended while she learns how to crochet. Not even interested in a cup of tea - which is flat heresy in Wales. If you are not offered a cup of tea within the first few minutes then they don't want you there. Well I offered of course but she was so busy we neither of us had the time to take it up. Very unusual this.

She is back home now, the other side of the wall, hooking away - she picked it up very quickly indeed and I gave her one of my favourite crochet books to look at for a bit.
This is just one of the reasons why I love living up here, little things like that reminding us that there is still such a thing as community.

I went to Cardiff the other day. I got on the train, half an hour there, went to the one shop that I had to go to as they didn't have what I wanted in Neath, and the train back home again. The whole trip took two and a half hours and that includes the interminable wait at the station. I think I was in the city for about 25 minutes and heaven knows that was long enough to get conned by a fruit and veg man on the way back to the station selling me gone off strawberries. (Which the chap in Neath market wouldn't have thought about doing.) The ones I picked up were beautiful but the ones he put in the bag for me were a different colour punnet and had obviously been taken from the last minute tray underneath the counter.

Not a happy bunny me on the train back home. Cities? You can keep them.

*Welsh - no idea what the direct translation is but it means "going crazy"

Please say a prayer

This is Eli, a friend and Sunday school class mate of my daughters. He is three years old and a bundle of fun. He is due for open heart surgery on the 14th May.
Please mention him and his family in your prayers soon
Thanks

Thursday - Love is all around

Another favourite photo - Lily and Eden, taken last year.

Quiet Day - How Lovely

Just what I needed. Lady Grace's for lunch had a good chin wag about Monday. The twins got worn out jumping along to C Beebies and are now zonked on the sofa. The rain is swooshing up the valley. Hot cup of tea and a good fire in.

Been surfing around and have seen some interesting ideas. Friday Fiver - five random questions to fill in every Friday. Not sure I want to participate, I've already got the Sunday Scribblings, the Haikus and Love Thursday going - you can have too much of a thing I guess. But I like to read other's blogs. Checked out The Lair of the Book Wyrm and The Parchment. Both beautiful blogs.

Also found 101 things in 1001 days and it's worth thinking about. I would need to put serious time into it though to come up with a hundred things to do. But it is brain fodder and that is good.

Aside from that I cannot get Cordell out of my head. It's been there for quite some time and I suppose it has made a nest and is reluctant to leave. We might carry this on. The group really is too good to let it go completely. Anyway it was inevitable that once I'd started writing again it would be hard to put down and now the singing which I've always loved even if I'm not very good at it. (I will be my own sternest critic tonight replaying the video of the performance. Oh I hope I did not make an absolute fool of myself.)

Anyway, it all boils down to this. Once more I really am a song spinner again. Dusted off the flute and wrote Mostyn and Mari's Song (Song of the Earth) this afternoon. Haven't written a song in many years. For a long time I laid this at V's door. He is a musician and an extremely talented singer and I never felt as if my little efforts were worth anything much next to his greater gift. Now...well we can't all be fantastic but with a few years under my belt than previously I can realise that it's better to make a small noise and have fun than make none at all and wish later that you had.

Have a sweet and gentle day

A Dilemma

I ordered some yarn from an on line store at the beginning of April, the 2nd I think. It was a custom order, the yarn to be dyed to my specification. They received my money via pay pal on the same day. It is now the eighth of May and despite several polite e mails I have received no response apart from an assurance two weeks ago that the yarn would be posted that week. I do not know what to do now. I am annoyed enough to cancel the order but I really want the yarn. I don't want to send a less than polite e-mail but I'm annoyed enough to do that too.
The thing is, is a month standard for a job like this? Am I asking too much to expect a delivery in a fortnight - as is stated in their website. I confess it has taken some of the joy out of the project for me. I guess I'm just fed up with hanging about waiting.

An update - 10th May
Sent a rather firm e mail requesting some kind of info soon or else no option but to take up with Pay Pal (thanks Iolo!). I loathe having to complain and that makes me more annoyed then, which makes my tone sharper, which leads to the other person getting defensive which leads to me getting aggressive - temper is never far away with me, sad but true - and before we know it a situation which could have been peascefully resolved with just a "Sorry, I'll get right on it" has blown out of all proportion. It is just yarn - cashmere its true but still. Not worth getting into a tizz over.

Cordell - Done and Dusted

Hurrah! It went off splendidly. So pleased and proud of my friends. It was funny, tragic, scary and even powerful in places. In one way I was sorry I was in it because I would have liked very much to have seen it. Still, all off to Carol's tomorrow to watch the vid and prowl over the performance. Oh I so enjoyed it, even though at the time...waiting in the wings to go on etc, I could not believe that I had agreed to do the darned thing. Was I nervous! And then I remembered...ah yes, this was why I gave up theatre.

But indeed, it was a success and I am so glad that it was.

And now - wow, I'm wrecked...absolutely wrecked and there's only one solution. Hot milky coffee mopped up with warm croissants and nutella. All the major food groups - caffeine, dairy, carbs and chocolate.Mmmmmm.

I'm off now to surf and order cicular knitting needles...funny the things we do to reward ourselves, I think some lace angora yarn might be on the horizon too ( I can't spin angora - it makes me sneeze so badly).

Have a pretty day.

Sleep - ODB

Hedd, fy annywl, hedd
Siarad i fi yfory
Beth ti'n gweledig

Peace, my dearest, peace
Speak to me tomorrow
Of what you have seen

I do not speak Welsh at all well (so there are probably terrible and laughable errors in the above) but it is a language shaped for poetry. I have never seen a haiku written inWelsh, this is my first ever.

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Sunday scribblings

Oceans are far from me
Lonely and tranquil as the moon

Oceans are indeed foriegn to me - my island is surrounded by seas and channels with small familiar names - Bristol channel, Irish Sea, North Sea, The Wash, who can get romantic about a body of water called The Wash?!

I don't like the sea anyway as I have said before. It always seems as though it is lying in wait, biding its time.

Oceans however are so large that they are beyond malice ( or anthropormophology - there's a word!) And what is more, oceans are found far away, on the way to America, Polynesia, Japan or India. Far, far away, sights I'll probably never see... then again...

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Today's Walk

Towards Clyne

Back of an old row of miner's cottages

It looks green but the pasture is not that good. These Welsh sheep are tough old things, they can survive on nothing

Mum's Painting Place

View back towards Resolven

The Calm Before the Storm

Last quiet day before the festival. V and Rose (sounds like a song, doesn't it?) are off to Llanelli to see a godson play under twelves rugby. Call me an unnatural godmother but I prefer to stay at home and card up the shetland. I only get scared when children play full contact rugby so I'd be hiding my eyes most of the time anyway. Rugby is for men...but I suppose they must learn sometime.

Anyway, today I am up my mother's house as usual, letting the twins run my father ragged while I enjoy the sunshine and learn the harmony to Did you not see my lady which keeps eluding me and which will make an utter ass of me in Blaenavon if I don't get it right.
Tomorrow is one long rehersal and the day after... Arrrrrgh! My nerves are on the twitch just thinking about it. I'll think about it another day, I've got singing to be getting on with.

Have a happy, peaceful day.

Gollum/Smeagol Conversation

Gollum: Icarus kit and yarn still has not showed and we is feeling a bit grumpy about that precious
Smeagol: We's got the Victorian Lace Today haven't we? Let's take a look at using it instead of only drooling

Gollum: No yarn fine enough or good enough. Shame really - that spiders web shawl on page 44 looks so beautiful, we reckon we could have had a hacks at that
Smeagol: We is a spinner ain't we precious, we spins tons of stuff, we's got loads of yarn - why not use up the shetland lace weight that we has been sweating blood over for the last few spinning evenings?


Gollum: We don't really wants an ecru shawl, do we precious?
Smeagol: So we dyes the stuff! Don't get hung up on what if it goes wrong and felts into a claggy lump. So what?!

No more reasonable objections really.
So here it is from natural to pink using acid dyes that I got for silk but thought I might as well give it a whirl as I really don't want to lay out any more cash right now. It's hanging up bleeding dye all over the weeds in my garden right now

Thursday - Love is all around

This is my absolute favourite photo of my husband and myself.

This was taken as part of the Rape of the Fair Country shots for Blaenavon Festival by an extraordinarily talented photographer named Catherine who alas has no website yet but does all kinds of photography for all kinds of events.
E mail: affirmationphotography@googlemail.com

or check out Catherine's website which is as yet under construction



Love is all around