Late on Parade

A lovely sunny day tempted me to potter in the garden for "five minutes", 3 hours later and the front and side borders had been trimmed up to look quite respectable. They were very blowsy and the recent wet weather had started to turn the bottom layers to silage. I just have the border in front of the house wall to tidy now, the central bed is still in time out until I decide what to do with it.

Apart from that I have been decidedly idle, not enough laundry to make a load of anything. I caught right up at the beginning of the week.
No sewing, even though I have a dress waiting and a patchwork project started, I just wasn't feeling it.

Some knitting, not my cardigan fronts I'm afraid, but on my shawl. I am impatient to see how the yarn pans out, not sure if I will be playing yarn chicken or if I will have loads left.

A couple of walks with Ben and quite a bit of gossiping socialising with the neighbours.

Now it is time to start dinner, the quiche is cooked (no pastry just filling) and there is salad to be made. I have to go and pick leaves from the garden and greenhouse.

I hope that you are having as good a day as I am.

                                   TTFN                                       Pam

Doing my bit

I heard on the news yesterday, that more trees need to be planted to help air quality.
A few weeks ago it was announced that the country needs more hedges planted, both for air quality and for wildlife.

Well I am happy to say that since moving into this house I have planted 8 fruiting trees that are all doing well. I have also planted a new hedge, albeit small, of blackthorn this has edible fruits known as Sloes.

There are 2 honeyberries which the birds are enjoying though they are too sour for my taste.

I leave all the dropped fruit for the creatures that want them and my  resident hedgehog dines well on some of the visitors. Nature is cruel but well balanced.

I am currently looking for a place to plant a crab apple, a John Downie, of course I will want some of the fruit but there will be enough to share.

There are some spindly hawthorns and an elder tree at the very back of the garden, these were festooned with Ivy, that has been removed to give the trees a boost. I do have some of the fruit but the birds have a good feast from the high branches.

I see gardens  around with manicured lawns and regimented flower borders, no wildlife welcome there. On the whole though most of the gardens have a wild area, some shrubs are left to grow up and out providing shelter and possibly food. 

The council have the verges cut but leave swathes to grow and allow wild plants to flower and set seed.

I am more than happy to be contributing, even though it is in a small way.

Now for the knitty pretty bit.

The beginning of my Reyna Shawl, a free pattern on Ravelry by Noora Laivola. I love the colours in the Sugar Loaf yarn from Stylecrafts Head over Heels collection and this pattern was written specifically for yarn dyed  in this way.

I have stretched this section out slightly to show the mesh section, once finished and blocked it will look amazing.

I am already planning to make another using 2 complimentary skeins and making it larger for cool weather wear.

I will knit on this tonight and then will go back to my cardigan over the weekend. The fronts should not take too long as it is a deep v neck and cropped to waist level. I want this to wear with dresses when it gets cooler and as I generally wear a scarf will not need a round neck, it would make me far too warm.

The new meal arrangement worked very well, eating that hour later meant that I did not feel peckish in the evening. 

The rice salad was glorious, just adding the garlic, ginger and spices lifted it to another level. I will be doing this again, possibly as a hot dish and maybe with pasta as well.

I sweated off the garlic and ginger with  finely sliced leek and red onion in a little coconut oil, then added 1 tsp each of ground cumin and turmeric, stirred them through and cooked for another few minutes. I added them to the rice when cold and then stirred in diced orange and red peppers, celery, cucumber and some baby plum tomatoes just quartered lengthwise. A grinding of salt and pepper and a rinsed and drained can of mixed bean salad and dinner was done. No cooking, minimal washing up and a very tasty dinner. Winner Winner no Chicken Dinner.

Now it is time for me to have a coffee and then get the days chores done.

Have a great weekend, whatever the weather brings.

                 TTFN                                                  Pam

Hop, Skip and Jump

I did that and landed on a new cast on. The Reyna Shawl by Noora Laivola, a free pattern on Ravelry. It has been on my list for ages and today it insisted on being started.
I finished the cardigan back and had the yarn out ready to cast on the fronts and my hands just sat there, empty and idle, refusing to obey my brain (possibly it was because I slept late and the brain was in a state of catatonic shock).

Anyhow, I found myself in the sewing/dining room with a skein of Stylecraft Head over Heels (Sugar Loaf) in one hand and the appropriate needle in the other.
I will post a picture in a couple of days so you can see the pattern developing.
It is a single skein project and the pattern is simple to follow and written to make it even easier. There is even a row tracker to cross off as you go, and a stitch count at the end of each section. How cool is that.

Dinner last night ended up as spinach and ricotta cannelloni in a tomato sauce with new potatoes and leeks and cabbage steamed together.
 I wouldn't normally have pasta and potatoes together but did just 1 pasta tube and a few potatoes each. The biggest part was the veg and very tasty it was too.

This 3 meals a day is proving a bit ott for me, I have to take my meds with food, hence breakfast toast. Then by 12 ish I want something else. After consulting the oracle I can change to late breakfast/early lunch and then dinner a bit later than usual.
As I have had 2 decent walks today "brunch" was a small roll with some crisp bacon and a splosh of HP sauce.
Dinner tonight will be a bean and rice salad, I will dice up peppers, celery and red onions to stir through and possible some jalapeno chilli to give it a boost. I may well sliver up some ginger root as well and sweat it off with a little lot of garlic before stirring it through. I will also sprinkle some turmeric and cumin in there as well, all of these spices are very good for general health and I like to add them where ever I can.

The weather is still a little on the damp side but not at all cold.

Lots of telly watching happened last night, there was a double bill of The Blacklist and it was the season finale. I had guessed the "secret" almost from the beginning but did not see the twist at the end coming. No spoiler alert needed here folks.

I had a little look around on Netflix and downloaded a selection of things to try, most of them were deleted within the first 20 minutes, but I have a few more to look at later.

I thought that Riviera was going to be a keeper but about 3/4 of the way through the first episode realised that I wasn't paying attention and didn't care if they all got blown up so that went as well.

I have The Kettering Incident, Mad Dogs and The Last Panthers to try, I did see the first episode of The Kettering Incident and am undecided, one more episode and it will be save or sink.
Likewise I have downloaded Broadchurch and will be looking at season 2 over the weekend.

I will be having a weigh in on Sunday and will share the good or bad news. I have kept up with the nail treatment so far but will not bother with photo's till after 2 weeks treatment.

Now I have a date with a cuppa and my shawl, I am excited to see it finished and am already planning another using 2 different skeins to make it bigger. There is a big gap in my wardrobe that needs a few shawls.

                   TTFN                                          Pam

Much Ado about Nothing.

Yesterday was gloriously sunny, none of the promised rain until late in the evening. 
I left early and scooped up Chrissie to go to knit and natter, lots of chatting, about very little really, but all the better for that.

Knit and natter was loud and lively, I think that was encouraged by a drop in visitor who first of all brought cakes and secondly made us an early cuppa. We voted him in as an honorary member, well wouldn't you have done the same.

I finished the rib on my cardigan back and did 2 rows of the pattern, it could have been more but as I said it was a lively session and I spent a fair amount of time joining in the general melee, I also had a good drool over some yarn that Kate brought in.

I am so impatient to finish the yarn diet but have a way to go yet. I want to finish this cardigan and make another and knit at least 4 more pairs of socks. If we get a cool spell I also have the Flax sweater to finish off.

I made a batch of ginger in syrup, not over impressed but haven't tried it yet, it took a very long time to soften. I found another recipe and method to try so for the next batch I will freeze the ginger first to help break the fibres down.
I will try some in a cookie recipe at the weekend and see how it turned out.

I made  rhubarb jam for the SO, just a couple of jars and will make more a bit later in the season.

Still picking strawberries but eating them fresh, I may make another batch of mixed berry jam as it does set well, and I love it.

I have new potatoes ready and will be cooking some this evening, not sure as to what will go with them yet. I will be cooking a generous amount of mint with them but will not drown them in butter.

The June drop has thinned my apples out, dramatically on one of the trees, so I will have very few to remove next month. The Honeyberries need to be renamed Vinegarberries they are so sharp. I am very put out by this as I tasted some when I bought the plants and they were sweet. Perhaps it is the soil here, they will have another year to prove themselves and if still sour they will be composted and something else put in.

Ben went out for his walk and was so not happy with the weather, he really is a fair weather walker in his old age.

I did well on the food front, my usual slice of wholemeal toast for breakfast, a tuna and red onion roll for lunch and a small doughnut at knit and natter. Then dinner last night was a sweet potato, baked in it's skin and topped with bacon, mushroom and red onion mix sauted in the juice from the mushrooms. It was very tasty, I did have a small scoop of coffee ice cream, but that was a one off.

I am having a lazy day today, knit and natter leaves me quite drained when it is very lively and I had to water the whole garden yesterday evening. Of course that is why the rain came, DUH.
It takes well over an hour and I do a fair amount of walking up and down. An early night and a lazy day was called for. Everything is up to date, I was intending to sew but will knit instead, I want this cardigan to wear. soon, very soon.

I just had notice that the lovely Mandy, stitching for sanity, has uploaded another video on You Tube so I am off to enjoy that with a cuppa.

Why don't you join me?

                    TTFN                                                 Pam

Keeping up Appearances

No buckets or bouquets here though.

Now that I have settled in to my eating plan I want to see some other issues resolved. 10 of them to be exact.
I have whinged about my shocking nails on several occasions. I have tried sweet almond oil, nail treatments that cost £!**! and cheap and cheerful stuff from Poundland.
None of it has worked, probably definitely because I just let it slide after the first few days and then 3 weeks later have another whine about the state of them.

I have resurrected this desire for neat nails and made it number 2 on my list of priorities, number 1 will be my eating plan.
I have unearthed a bottle of clear nail treatment and cleaned up the ragged edges, as best I could,without chopping the ends of my fingers off.

Left hand.

Right hand.

Not the best of photos, but you can see the state of them. I will be applying this stuff daily for 7 days and then cleaning it all off and repeating once more. I do not expect a miracle and am convinced that it will take at least a month. We will see and I will keep you posted.

Yesterday was a good drying day and all the laundry was done and line dried, ironed and put away. Lovely, it seems so much easier to get it all done on the one day.

I had to make myself eat a slice of toast at 9:30 so that I could take my meds. 

I did quite a bit of walking during the morning, not just back and forth from washing machine to whirlygig.

After Ben had his walk and the washing was all out I got the bed made and didn't feel like doing anything constructive.

So I opted for a solo walk, I had planned on going as far as the turn to the library but met up with a friend walking her dogs. Of course I joined up with her and around halfway through the village she turned left and I turned right and popped in to see Jess and Ivy. Ivy is walking now and played happily with her toys. A cuppa, a chat and a tour of the garden later I left for home with an invitation to Ivy's first birthday party.

After all the walking I decided that a little lunch was needed. A roll was out of the freezer and in to defrost and a little bacon on to griddle, very tasty and it hit the spot without making me feel stuffed.

The SO had 2 filled to overflowing and dripping with brown sauce.

We had a rice salad for dinner with a selection of  salady things from the fridge and a drizzle of the flavoured vinegar from the food festival. Lovely.

My loud salad dinner, not the whole bowl, that was for two.

I love beetroot and with all the green edamame beans and peas decided that a loud salad was the way to go. There are some red jalapeno peppers in there for the bite of heat and green and black olives.

I did polish off a little dish of cultivated and wild strawberries from the garden with just a spoonful of low fat greek yogurt, no sugar the berries are very sweet.

The SO had more chocolate, his diet is a little different to mine.

I have just about caught up with The Loch on TV. I am certain that teenagers in a village with a serial killer on the loose would not behave as some of the characters are. I am not sure whether I will watch it all. I need to believe that it could happen to watch this type of fiction and some of these characters are becoming slightly bizarre.

I have watched the first 2 seasons of Hinterland and am eagerly waiting for season 3 to be free on Netflix. I have no intention of paying for it.

That is about the sum of my telly watching, I have caught a few Counting Cars episodes though. I watch Doctor Who but for how much longer...I am looking forward to the new version.

The sleeves are finished and I want to get the back cast on ready for knit and natter. I like to knit the fronts first but can not cope with the shaping and nattering.

That's me up to date, so I will see you tomorrow.

                          TTFN                                         Pam

PS. How long before we have another general election then?

O wad some Power the giftie gie us

With thanks to Mr Burns.
I see myself in the mirror every day, I walk past it regularly. I thought that I knew what I looked like. Then I put these photos on to the laptop. Oh My Word. Those once upon a time muscular arms have turned to flab. I am not impressed with myself.

My posture is doing absolutely nothing to help and hands in pockets are puffing the skirt out making me look elephantine.

I went to the afternoon tea party and over indulged as I said that I would. 

BUT

I did not eat till I couldn't move and it was all that I ate for the day.

The sandwiches were absolutely delicious, I had 5 small ones in wholemeal bread. 

There were home made sausage rolls, I had one but could quite easily have eaten more.

There were warm from the oven quiches and the one that I tried was very good, lovey crisp pastry and melting soft filling. No soggy bottoms here.

I am afraid that I shocked everyone when I persuaded the SO to cut into the tall as a mountain and light as a cloud sponge cake. It was filled and topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit, along with that I managed a slice of lush cheesecake AND half a scone with cream and strawberries.

It sounds shocking and it was very greedy, BUT I only had a slice of wholemeal toast for breakfast and as I have said it was lunch and dinner and nothing else passed my lips all day. 

Well there were a few cups of tea.

I would not go to a party where the hostess had cooked her socks off and announce that I would not be eating as I was on a diet. That would be plain rude, I would just not go.

I should also add that this was over a 4 hour period, I didn't just stuff it all in in 10 minutes.

It was lovely to sit in the garden with all the knitters, and the odd plus one, the close neighbours were there helping and were just as lovely as Debs had painted them.

The dogs, Oh boy, the dogs are drop dead gorgeous, Willow a large golden retriever and Mabel a gold and white Pyrenean Mountain dog. 

They are so gentle and friendly and know that they have to sit down for a fuss and a cuddle.

Sophie was there and fell in love with them, she squirmed to get as close as possible. She was so tired and determined not to go to sleep but finally had to give in for a little nap.

The weather was not wonderful but the rain held off and the sun popped out to brighten things up for a while. A tour of the garden happened and much oohing and ahhing took place.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world.

The lovely Chrissie, from the wool shop, has  had an accident so I will be on tea making duty this Tuesday. I dare say that there will be help on tap though.

This morning I do not feel at all hungry, once Ben has had his walk I will see if I need a slice of toast. I know all about breakfast being the most important meal of the day, but if I am not hungry I will not eat.

Now for something completely different.

I am nearly up to the shaping on my sleeves and as these are round topped not raglan it will be a quick finish.

I have decided to go for the deep V neck with 3 buttons as I do not have that style in my hand knits. I know that means miles of button band to be picked up and knitted but I can cope with that.

I still have the cream with black spots dress to sew up, that will be on the agenda for Wednesday. Today is for house work and some gentle gardening, there is a fresh flush of weeds and a few things need trimming up.

There is one job that I am looking forward to later though, I will be making some ginger in syrup. I, and many of my friends love the stuff, a few jars of that will be in some festive stockings this year.

I did take my camera yesterday and forgot all about it, never mind the light wasn't wonderful. There may be other days to share photo's of debs glorious garden and gorgeous dogs.

And now, my friends it is time for tea, my first of the day.

                          TTFN                                   Pam.

PS. My one, not so lovely, memory of the day are the 3 drivers who were careering along the elongated roller coaster that serves as a road as if they were at Le Mans.

I have christened them, the

                                Braindead Mindless Wallys.

Guess what brand of car they were all driving.

A Dress is Born

Yup, she's finished and the fit is almost spot on, bad me I didn't make a toile. I used this as a wearable toile and am happy with it.
The next one will have half an inch off the strap length and a little smaller (woo hoo) waist.
I didn't follow Tilly's method of construction at all, but on the next one I will, I just jumped in and used my own method. 
I am happy with the result but it is good to learn new things so the next one will be "by the book".
I suppose that the main difference was that I used the old way of zip insertion. You sew the complete back seam but use a basting stitch in the zip area. Then place the zip face down, centred over the basted seam.  Rather than tack I used wonder tape to hold it in place while I stitched it in, in hindsight I could have left a wider allowance but it is fine.
I do like a lapped zip but only for side zips and I didn't have an invisible zip in the right colour. I still haven't found the foot for that either, I must have a concerted search.

Front view, you will notice that I am considerably larger than my dummy. Mind you this dress is a loose fit so it is not as bad as it seems.

Back view, the waist seems to dip when I wear it, purely down to the extra length in the straps, but I will be measuring very carefully on the next one.

The centred zip insertion, back in the day all zips were put in like this, very straightforward and simple. It doesn't even require a zipper foot and no faffing about opening and closing the zip.

I could put a hook and eye on the very top but will not as I find that they dig in. 

It is a bit damp here this morning, that fine drizzle that soaks you before it registers. No matter I will still be out to tea later.

Ben has ventured out into the garden and shot back in record time, he doesn't want to walk today. 

My breakfast was a slice of wholemeal toast with some me made peanut butter, with 2 cups of Assam tea. Black and strong mmmmm.

Lunch will be ......a big fat nothing. I will be enjoying my afternoon tea with no guilt that way. Dinner may well be a simple salad with fig balsamic vinegar, love that stuff. I do believe that I could drink it.

I have coffee to drink, my one cup of the day, before I insist that Ben does go out for a walk, like me he will not dissolve.

Happy Sunday.

                   TTFN                                                    Pam