Edinburgh

The photograph above is Edinburgh Castle. I took it a couple of weeks ago when we were there visiting youngest son. Yes, our youngest has flown the nest and moved 400 miles north to the Scottish capital.

He graduated last year and had found work locally until he found a "proper" job. Knowing how difficult it is for graduates to find work these days, he cast his net wide and applied for jobs all over the country. I think this was the furthest away that he went for and this was the one he got offered.

It is a good job in a lovely place but it is taking me some time to adjust to him being so far from home - and permanently now. While at university they come home for holidays and the occasional weekend but now he has really left home.

Once he had found a flatshare we took all his belongings up to him, the length of the journey bringing home to me how far away he is. We will visit, but the expense and time means it won't be that often. Thank goodness for Skype.

Edinburgh is a lovely place and he is beginning to settle in and explore the city. We liked it too, compact and walkable with coast and mountains really close. I shall look forward to as many visits as we can to see him.

Hopefully it won't be too long before I am back in this bookshop cafe, taking in the views and catching up with his news.

at home today

1  peeling almonds to make almond milk
2  lunch
3  spinning in the garden

for the August Break 2012

back home

I am back home after two weeks holiday. In those two weeks the seasons have shifted and it feels as if I left in mid-summer,

and returned as we move towards autumn.

Changes in the garden too and I returned to a plum tree laden with ripe fruit - time to get the Kilner jars out.

Photos of the holiday to follow.

Slow summer

Its been a slow summer here for me. Aches and pains from over-enthusiastic gardening both at home and at the allotment were ignored. Stiffness was ignored in the hope that I could finish all I wanted to do and then rest. After a few weeks my body responded to this mistreatment by increasing the level of pain and stiffness and forcing me to seek help.

Over the past month or so I have been having physiotherapy and acupuncture and just now after the latest session I am beginning to sense some improvement. It is taking so long I am told because I didn't listen to my body and slow down.

I have now been forced to slow down, walking only very slowly, very short distances and only on level ground. For someone who loves walking and gardening it has been hard but I have had no option. I've had to accept that when I feel pain, I have to stop.

As we move towards the end of the summer, I haven't done many of the things I'd planned but I have learned to slow down. Many of my usual household chores have been left undone (the lawn hasn't been cut for weeks - missing those chickens!) and its all looking a bit untidy, but its not the end of the world.

I'm hoping I've learnt a few lessons from my slow summer and when I am recovered I will perhaps fit less into my day and stop when things are getting too much.

For some good news, youngest son got his A2 results yesterday and has his place confirmed at university. Like his brother he will be working for a year before going to help with the finances. I am pleased and relieved that he now has both his university place and a job for his gap year. Its not easy for these young people in the current economic climate.

Lastly, I am off on holiday for a week. My husband didn't want a holiday this year so its just me and the boys off to Northumberland. It was supposed to be an exploring, walking, active sort of holiday but for me this year it will be a gentle strolling holiday with much reading and knitting - doesn't sound too bad though, does it?

The West Country

I've just spent a few days back "home" visiting my parents.

Lots of sea and very blue skies,

boats bobbing in the river,

Devon teas to be enjoyed,

space and peaceful surroundings,

and beautiful sunsets.

I have come back recharged, refreshed and with a rekindled longing to return to the area I grew up and/or to live nearer to the coast.

Allotment update

Its a busy time of year, growing plants for the allotment. Every year around this time it seems to take over my life for a few weeks and I start to think that its quite normal to have a tray of courgette plants on the bedroom window sill.  Several window sills look like this at the moment as seeds are sown and kept inside to germinate.

Once the seedlings are a bit bigger they move out to my mini-greenhouse which is in a very sheltered corner on our patio.

So far there are tomato plants and a few courgette plants but it gets crowded later while I wait for the chance of frost to pass before taking everything to the allotment.

This is my plot at the moment.

The blackcurrant and redcurrant bushes are coming into leaf and the earliest rhubarb is just ready to pick a few stems.  At the back I have onions and shallots and the first sowing of peas are under the black netting to protect them from the pigeons.

It has been very warm and dry for the last few weeks but this morning I woke up to rain which combined with the warmth will give a boost to the spring growth. Of course the weeds will grow well too!

If it keeps raining, today will be an inside day spent at home. I'll take a break from the gardening and instead some gentle tidying, cake making and knitting I think. Have a good Sunday.

Tidying my sewing box

Tidying my sewing box isn't something I do very often so when I do get round to it, I come across lots of things I've completely forgotten about. Like these pieces of paper. I was practising my stencilling ready to decorate our house when we moved here in the early nineties. Stencilled borders were very popular then along with sponged and rag-rolled walls.

The stencils and paints were from Laura Ashley and these two did end up our walls although they were painted over many years ago.

Then I came across this bundle of pieces of charcoal grey material, the spare patches and buttons supplied with so many pairs of school trousers. Each time I bought a new pair, the mending kit went in the sewing box and now nobody wears grey school trousers any more.

This needle case was belonged to my grandmother's sister, still full of needles all neatly labelled, more than enough for her lifetime

and more than I will ever need as well.

Unfinished projects linger in the box, like this cross stitch sampler which I have so nearly finished. I wonder why I stopped, maybe because I don't think I would display it in the house if I did finish it...I wonder why I started it?!

Then there are the little paper bags containing bits of ribbon and lace. Do they still make bags with the words "Thank you - Please call again!" printed on them?

So many memories inside the sewing box - no wonder it takes me so long to tidy it!

Wintry

Yes, it is definitely wintry here.  Although Autumn started early, it slowed down and seemed to be lasting for ages but the wet, windy, wild weather over the weekend has brought down many more of the leaves and everything is left looking greyer and bleaker.  We were lucky in the south to escape the terrible flooding and devastation in other parts of the country so although the ground is sodden I will not be grumbling about the amount of rain we received here.

It is indoor weather, nothing to entice me out to the allotment or garden so a good opportunity to catch up on some inside jobs,

like jam making!

November might not be associated with jam making but this year I cooked and strained both my red currants and crab apples and then froze the juice.  This week I defrosted the juices, mixed them together and made redcurrant and crab apple jelly.

If jam making was a little late in the year then I made up for it by getting ahead with writing my Christmas cards although I won't send them until December. I buy most of my cards from Oxfam but I have started getting a few cards made from my photographs this year. This is the picture I chose for my Christmas cards.

I also want to make some blank notecards. I took the photograph below in Lerwick, Shetland this summer and have turned it into a sepia print.  I  don't usually edit or change my photographs very much as I like to think they are an accurate record of what I saw at the time so this is a bit different for me. I think the effect suits the old traditional stone buildings but I'm not sure if I like changing the image this much and am still undecided whether to have it made into cards or not.

I seem to be suffering from indecision at the moment, at the weekend I couldn't even decide what cake to bake.  I ended up making one round of plain and one round of chocolate.

Then I cut each one in half and sandwiched with jam for the plain one and buttercream for the chocolate one and ended up with two half-cakes.

Of course ther was still a decision to be made, which one to eat......first?

Rainy days and a new book

Since I wrote my last post about how dry everything was, it has rained almost constantly! This has been my view of it, from inside looking out. A very wet garden and not a chicken in sight, they have spent a lot of time under their favourite bush just standing and looking.

Warm and dry inside the house I have been enjoying the opportunity to catch up on a few jobs. After getting the routine housework done, I tackled the mending pile, baked, did a little knitting and even found time for some reading.

At the moment I am reading The China Study which looks at the connection between diet and health particularly the "western" diseases such as heart disease, cancer, obesity and diabetes. The recommendation - a whole foods, plant based diet. I am only half way through the book at the moment but it seems a very well written and researched book and it is making me think about what we eat. We only eat meat two or three times a week but we do eat quite a bit of dairy so our diet does have a fair amount of animal based food. Has anyone read this book? and if so did it make you change your diet?

Conkers

I love collecting conkers. There are horse chestnut trees planted in our local station car park and this afternoon while waiting to meet the train I enjoyed rummaging in the undergrowth finding a few conkers.

I like prising open the shell and seeing a fresh shiny conker or two. I collected a couple of handfuls to admire for a few days. When they lose their sheen and start to dry out I will be using them as moth deterrents replacing last years conkers with these fresh new ones.

Opinions are divided as to whether they really work as a deterrent or if its just a nice tradition but has no real effect. I don't mind really, I've been putting conkers in amongst my woollen jumpers and cardigans for years now and even if it has no benefit at all, it can't do any harm can it.

A good rainy day

We've had a couple of weeks of lovely dry sunny spring weather.  I have been busy in the garden and at the allotment tidying up and sowing the first seeds.  The warm bright weather has tempted me out for a couple of walks.  In my eagerness to spend so much time outside, the house has been neglected.  The basic stuff has been done, cooking, washing and a quick tidy up but all rather rushed so I can spend time outside.  

 

                                                                                 

A few days ago I began wishing for a rainy day both to do the garden good and also to make me stay inside and catch up on the housework.  My wish came true yesterday and today - perfect rainy days.  Nice gentle rain to water small seedlings without flattening them into the earth, rain to dampen and to darken the colour of the bare earth and make the fresh green of the new leaves appear even more vibrant and rain to make me want to stay inside and do some housework.

Without the distraction of the sunshine, I have accomplished much more inside.  I've caught up with paperwork, I'm working my way down the mending pile and I've even started some spring cleaning, clearing everything out of the kitchen cupboards and giving it all a thorough clean.

I'm feeling very pleased with my efforts but two days seems long enough to work inside so I'd now like the rain to stop and the sun to shine so that I can go back outside, please!!

Have a Happy Easter, lets hope the sun shines.

Little boxes

This little box has sat on a shelf in our hallway for years. It is a carton from a Camembert Cheese. I always think it is a shame to just throw these away so I covered the top of one with a piece of felt. It contains spare keys, the key thing for the electricity and gas meters and a few one pound coins ( the coins because children only ever tell you that they need a pound for something at school when you are literally just going out the door and when you have no change other than a handful of pennies!).

Last week my older son decided he needed a box of his own for his loose change and keys so I made another one. This time I embroidered a random "doodle" pattern.


So now we have two boxes on the shelf but as things often look better in groups of three, I might just make another one.