Crazy hens

The hens all suddenly gave up laying in mid September. Then they were bedraggled, wet and moulting; they looked neglected and decidedly sorry for themselves. December comes; cold and wet, frosty and dark - and they look wonderful and start laying again! At least some of them are laying - one brown speckled egg almost daily, a few large white eggs and two blue ones with rather soft shells. Yesterday, as a treat, we let them roam around the garden. This year we have been plagued by urban foxes and the hens have been kept safe in their compound. A " day out" for them was a treat. They didn't stray far from their home, nor from human company and were keen to go back to safety when some corn appeared - no chasing hens  out of the undergrowth - for a change! We had reluctantly accepted the inevitable absence of eggs for the winter but our crazy hens have their own ideas - we are not complaining - having to buy eggs came as quite a shock to the system. I enjoy having the hens and do treat them rather as pets at times but their eggs are a joy.

Mother of the Bride

My eldest daughter and her delightful boyfriend have announced their engagment. What an exciting year lies ahead. I have been trying to remember the last close family wedding and I am sure that it was my cousin, Dawn who is now a grandmother herself. We are a small family; the weddings of the grandchildren of my Father's cousin were probably the last family weddings we were invited to  (hardly close family - and we were unable to go for various reasons) The most recent weddings we have attended have been those of a close friend of a daughter ( the Baking for a wedding blog) and my god daughter. Now there is to be a daughter as a bride and another daughter as a bridesmaid, a husband with a speech to make and me - the Mother of the Bride.
I have quite gone off my knitting! Concentration is difficult. I have a log cabin blanket to finish but it is the finishing off and I always put that off. On the needles by my side is a pretty cardigan for a toddler but it has a 4 row pattern which requires thought and my mind is not on 4 row patterns at the moment. I exhausted the number of scarves I could possibly knit whilst I was ill yet the only attractive prospect for knitting at the moment is something straightforward and requiring the minimum of effort. As I finish a row I feel the need to pick up the iPad or the laptop and look, yet again, at some wedding inspired site or another - venues, bridal gowns, bridesmaid dresses, menus, flowers, invitations, favours, music, bows for the back of chairs, shoes, veils, hair, make-up, outfits, seating plans, day and evening guests....My own wedding day was not the happiest and I hope that my daughter has a day that she will always remember with delight. To that end I am trying my utmost to keep all my ideas to myself!!

And so it lingers

With great reluctance and pains in my side from coughing so much I visited the GP. I think that we have concluded that this might have been flu and I will just have to wait until I get better. I am grateful that I do not need to get out of bed every morning and go to work. For some years I worked a distance from home and regularly got the 6.02 train - a 9am GP appointment was quite a feat today!

Needless to say, not a lot has been happening I the past few weeks. I have completed 3 scarves and started a fourth - all in the same ( more or less) pattern. I have also completed a baby cardigan that I started some weeks ago but put on hold whilst lacking in concentration. I am quite pleased with this and may alternate scarves with more examples of this pattern. Once I can figure out how to upload photos from the iPad I will do so.

Well, can't figure out how to upload from the iPad so here is one of the scarves.

15 days and counting

Quite unusual to be laid low for such a long time but this virus from hell is showing little sign of disappearance. Days are now merging into weeks and I am trying not to think of all things that have not been done - mostly related to cleaning around the house. It is surprising that tasks usually done on a daily basis don't seem to matter so much when you are feeling poorly. Non hoovered carpets do not seem to get any worse after a couple of days; washing left a little longer doesn't get any dirtier and there are still plenty of clothes to wear; eating ready prepared meals occasionally is not a hardship. The thing that I have really been missing, though, is my knitting. The first few days my hands were shaking and I could not hold the needles. Then I managed a little of a log cabin blanket but ran out of wool. Then I tried some of my works in progress - a little baby jacket in brown bamboo -  but I couldn't concentrate on the pattern. The television was not keeping my attention for very long - although I became fascinated by the US presidential election and even the iPad was a bore. I needed a knitting project to keep me busy and to take my mind off the cough and the subsequent pulled muscle in the back - from the cough. This came from an unexpected source. My eldest daughter asked me to make a scarf for her other half for Christmas. A perfect solution. Nothing too complex, something to knit in front of the TV, no pattern as such to follow. I don't usually like scarves. - a tendency to get bored and thus make them too short! This time, though, a good solution. So good, in fact, that he is going to get 2 scarves as I couldn't decide on the yarn - and it may be three as I like the pattern so much that I would like to see it I some yarn that has been in the stash for some time and I hadn't been able to think of anything to do with it.

The number three

Younger daughter is off to a fancy dress party where the theme is the number 3 or zero - obviously a 30th birthday celebration - and for 3 friends.
With nothing better to do as still home and waiting for the virus to run its course I set about thinking about things in my life in threes:

3 children
3 favourite films - Gigi, High Society, Star Wars Episode 4
3 current favourite living authors - Anne Tyler, Richard Russo, Margaret Atwood
3 books at the side of the bed - by Richard Ford, Alexander McCall Smith and Ceri Radford
3 lots of knitting on the go - all log cabin blankets
3 top drinks - decaffeinated tea, elderflower presse, badoit rouge
3 countries I visit most often - France, Canada, US
3 best boxed sets - The Wire, Treme, House
3 cheesy films I love - Love Actually, Batteries not included, Sweet Home Alabama
3 cities I have lived in - Manchester, Chester, Nottingham
3 best ways with smoked haddock - kedgeree, au gratin, poached with asparagus
3 of my desert island discs - God only knows - Beach Boys, Bohemian Rhapsody - Queen, Always on my mind - Pet shop boys
3 versions of Always on my mind on my iPod - by the Pet shop boys, Elvis and Willie Nelson
3 girls' names I didn't give my children but might have done - Harriet, Jemima, Rebecca
3 favourite bakes - Hummingbird bakery chocolate brownies and carrot cake, my own gingerbread
3 things I can see - a log burning in the fire, fairy lights on the mantlepiece, a photo of my children.

Life without broadband

A virus keeps me home and laid low for a few days. Some of my favourite things are just beyond me - drinking tea makes me feel sick and my hands are shaking too much to be able to knit. Dozing whilst watching daytime TV seems the only option as broadband is down!!

I had been lying on the sofa with the iPad - occasionally checking e mails and playing my turn on scrabble with my cousin, Debbie but otherwise just half watching whatever was on the TV and falling asleep at regular intervals when the mail just wouldn't load. I turned the iPad off and on and that didn't work so, an hour or so later, when I felt up to it, I went to turn the cable modem off and on - and that didn't work either. The trip into the other room exhausted me so I dozed a little more and tried the same things again - still nothing. Some six hours later I felt able to telephone the service provider and we concluded that the right lights were not flashing and an engineer would need to call - not the following day but the next. An immediate sense of panic sets in when I am offline and it took me a little while to remember that I had 3G on 2 devices and would be able to get my e mails and browse the web - only in miniature. Perhaps I could actually spend a day offline especially as getting out of bed had taken so much effort that I had had to lie down for an hour and just going into the kitchen to get a drink seemed to set my heart racing at an alarming rate. There was the radio and the TV for my news fix. My concentration span was woefully low and nothing was going to be achieved until I began to feel a little better so what was wrong with a day with no www.

The trouble is that it has become part of life. I started to watch the TV but then wanted to look something up - no broadband Google - so it had to be Google on the iPhone - I fell at the first hurdle. Then I just had to check the mail. Most of the day went by, slowly, until the evening and a new TV series to watch - which I really wanted to learn more about and so more Google research - but only up to a point, the screen being far too small for my eyesight late at night between coughs and moans about my aching limbs.

I survived the day and the engineer duly arrived. The repair turned into major replacement and broadband is now back and working well. The virus lingers and, although I have managed a couple of rows, knitting is still difficult. Daytime TV is now becoming monotonous so thank goodness for the return of the iPad and the laptop. I can, despair, again, as to the reason why, when I send a mail, it comes up with another name as sender; wonder why I never seem to be able to beat Debbie at scrabble; wonder why I am playing a silly children's game with a daughter; rekindle my addiction to Ravelry; try yet again to find that elusive pattern for socks that a) I can follow and b) I want to knit.

I realise that having access to a high speed link to the internet is an important part of my life. My list of potential new properties on Rightmove does include a number of country cottages which, to this point I had thought of as a compromise - not within walking distance of a shop nor on a bus route. Maybe I need to look again a my list of criteria and decide again on what compromises I am prepared to make. Perhaps this past couple of days has been a good thing after all - another learning experience which may help in the determination of future plans.

Connections!!

Friday night and Parade's End had come to an end. Flicking through the TV channels we decided that a programme about real servants looked the most likely to have on in the background whilst doing other things - knitting, looking at Facebook etc. Husband then casually mentions his grandmother who he knew to have been in service - just where was she?
The 1911 census gave her address in Cheltenham. Google maps provided an image of the actual house - not the grand estate that had been the inital thought but a substantial property where she had been housemaid to a woman and her companion.
This discovery prompted a search to find out more about the lady of the house and first port of call was the Forest of Dean genealogy site. Here I discovered that the founder of the site had sadly died and then I could find nothing about the mistress of the household. Whilst on the site, however, I decided to just add the names of a few elusive relatives - sisters of the said grandmother - elusive possibly as a result of the surname "Jones". Oh my goodness - there they were - both of them!
Putting together what I knew - names and location, on this particular site the transcriptions of the parish records are excellent - full details of marriages - including names of fathers and witnesses. I found both their marriages probably after over a decade of searching.
By this time I was totally hooked to the laptop and only half glancing at the TV - by now moved on to the news. I quickly found children from both marriages, in laws, then grandchildren. The tabs at the top of the browser increased - Ancestry, genesreunited, freeBMD, google maps, forest-of-dean, ravelry!! The family was growing - first cousins of my late mother in law, their children and grandchildren. Very distant relatives my husband commented until we calculated just how many children and grandchildren of my late parents' cousins we know and keep in touch with on a very regular basis - what about Julie and Debbie and Mary I said?
A little after midnight I reluctantly pulled the lid of the laptop done and went to bed.
Teeth brushed, shower, washing in, cup of tea and laptop opened. A clue from one website led to more names and another location from telephone directories on the 1960s. A road in Bristol that I had driven dowm countless times with the younger daughter when she had been at university - spooky. Another road in Lambeth ( lovely house - wonder what it was like all those years ago) and is this near to where younger daughter's dear friend lives?
So many connections and some wonderful new names - not a Jones in sight - a Smith but then you can't win them all.
I am so excited by all these new discoveries. I was one sleeve off finishing a lovely Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino cardigan but that is going to have to wait a while as is the denim blue cotton baby jacket that I had just been commissioned to knit - by the friend who had come to tea having recently lost Demi. How things change in a few hours. Yesterday I was in realms of negativity - no eggs, dead cats......but as the day progressed what excitement, what joy at new discoveries. I feel energised, full of optimism for the day. What wonderful things will I find out today? It is a while since I have felt so inspired by my family history research and so full of wonder at life's "coincidences". If Parade's End hadn't finished we would not have been flicking channels to find something to watch. If we hadn't watched the Servants programme husband wouldn't have mentioned his grandmother. It I hadn't looked at the Forest of Dean site for one thing I wouldn't have found the other thing that I had not been looking for at the time. There is a saying that there are no such things as coincidences, just god's way of performing a miracle and staying anonymous - I rather like that.

The hens have stopped laying

Late September and  inexplicably all the hens have stopped laying. From 5 or 6 eggs a day we now have none. Nothing much has changed - we did go away for a few days but they were looked after by our new neighbour; the weather has been awful but then it has been dreadful all year; some of them are looking bedraggled and are obviously being bullied but then that has been happening for some time. Whenever production has reduced in the past we have altered their feed to include only layer pellets with neither corn nor treats and so this has become the new regime - we will just have to wait and see.
More bad news came with the demise of Demi - the cat belonging to some near friends, who was killed on our road - a busy noisy main route which I try to ignore if I can but which often causes me to remember that there are some things I can do something about and other things that I am completely powerless over.
As this seems to be a post with a rather negative tone then I will continue with the disappointment I have been experiencing with the yarn I recently purchased. I had thought that I wanted cotton yarn and that it would be fun to knit with and would look good. I was wrong. I dislike knitting with it, it shows every slight imperfection and I am not happy with it - especially as I bought in volume and now have an awful lot of unsatisfactory ( to me) yarn. The moderne baby blanket I started will probably not be finished; the log cabin probably will be finished but it will not be something I really want to keep or show to people; the baby cardigans are alright but not what I expected. I must try to think of some other things to use the yarn for.
Nowadays it is rare for me to have negative days and, if things do seem bad, I know what I have to do. To take my mind off things not going well today I decided to bake an apple cake, picking up a few windfalls and to make a ratatouille with some garden courgettes ( needless to say I forgot about that and it burnt! - it would do today) I have also been knitting using some beautiful yarn from the stash - but that is not turning out as well as I had hoped - oh dear!
I started to laugh to myself as I just wrote the last paragraph. There was a time when all the above would have been a disaster but there is usually a solution for everything and one will appear at the right time. I have lit a fire and a log is burning brightly, it is not raining and a friend is coming round for a cup of tea . Everything will be alright in the end and it it is not alright it is not the end.

Figs, eggs, potatoes, apples and courgettes

September brings the best of the garden produce for this year - nothing compared to the abundance of previous years but quality not quantity must be the mantra for this season.
My earlier dinner party menu of goat's cheese souffles ( with the eggs) followed by fish with new potatoes and courgettes fried in butter and garlic ( potatoes and courgettes from the garden) and fruit salad (with garden figs) seemed a good, simple way to use the produce, but a recent trip to France with attendant purchases opens up a whole new range of ideas.

Eggs for creme anglaise, creme brulee, creme caramel, omelette fine herbes, mayonnaise
Figs with goat's cheese, compote, baked with honey, in pastries - fig tarte tatin
Apple sauces with pear, rhubarb, raspberry
Frites - and frites

Shopping trips to France have been a feature in my life for more years than I care to remember and, although there are so many more things available here than there used to be, I still like to come back with stocks of some of my favourite must haves:

Rouille
Aioli
Calvados
Merguez
Neufchatel en bray
Galettes
Petit beurre

Military cemeteries

I am a frequent visitor to northern France and to memorials of, particularly, the Great War. Many years ago I started to trace my family history. Amongst papers belonging to my late grandmother was a photograph of a young first World War soldier with the word " Brother" writeen on it. A complicated family revealled a husband who married 3 times, had 4 children and 1 adopted child. His eldest son died in the Great War and his youngest daughter is still alive today. Visiting the memorial to Harry Stevens at Tyne Cot was an emotional journey. This week I have been to the military cemetery at Etaples  near to le Touquet. So far as I am aware I have no relatived remembered in this place but the feeling of yet another corner of a French field is little different. Tears well at the huge visible demonstration of loss of young life and the realisation that it still continues. A young soldier in the family died in Afghanistan not so long ago. Etaples was particularly significant to me with hospital deaths - my grandfather drove an ambulance in the Second World War - and remembrance of soldiers from both World wars of the 20th century. I like the solitude of the cemeteries even though there is always someone else there. I like the white gravestones, the simplicity, the dignity. Wreaths and notes left behind for family members unknown but remembered bring a lump to the throat. Visiting Auberchicourt some years ago to see the place of rest of my great great uncle Albert I realised that I may well have been the only person in the family to visit and it would have been nice to have left a mark of respect. So many graves appear neglected in this country and the CWGC make such an excellent job of maintaining sites in Europe that I have seen. Taking flowers to the grave of my late in laws in South Wales some years ago we took a few flowers from the bunch and laid them at the grave of grandparents and an aunt. There was no flower receptacle so they were laid across in front of the headstone. Remembrance.

A Noah interruption

A text from a daughter informs me of the birth of a new baby within her circle of friends. A great excuse to start baby knitting again - perhaps from the new cotton in the stash! I had forgotten how small baby items are; how fiddly to make up; the fact that they need buttons! I steered clear of my usual default baby jacket and found a pattern in the new book bought along with the new stash - suspiciously similar to the default jacket but no raglan sleeves and a bit of a pattern on the yoke. The denim blue cotton from the stash would work well and so the first Noah cardigan was born. Little mittens in the same yarn added to the gift but, on a roll with baby knitting, I then made the default jacket with some lovely cottonsoft yarn from the new stash - more flannelette sheet than Egyptian cotton.
2 jacket and 2 mittens down and I was feeling withdrawal symptons from log cabin knitting. The Cowichan was finished, a baby blanket on the needles was unbearably boring and not going anywhere so I made the inevitable decision to cast on another log cabin. This is going to be Flaming June mark 2. The yarn is cotton from the new stash and the colours orange, red and cream. It feels like coming home to be knitting squares again and not just squares but log cabin squares. There is another project on needles - a blanket of squares but not log cabin - it is just not the same and I cannot quite get into finishing it although the yarn - bamboo cotton and colours - greens and blues and purples - are both wonderful. Perhaps another frogging option or one of those things that, once started, should be finished - after the log cabin.

The second Cowichan

The beginning of September seemed an appropriate time to finish my second Cowichan inspired jacket. I loved the first one so much that I bought the wool for at least 2 or maybe 3 more. This one is a beautiful, if not traditional, green and I made a smaller size than before - again I have fallen in love. There is something so comforting about a chunky, warm jacket that feels comfortable and has no designs on current styles - in a manner of speaking! I have no wish to follow trends and clothes, nowadays, are for comfort not appearance, warmth not style and entirely individual. I don't think I will ever see someone else wearing an identical jacket. Even the fastenings are quirky - some old toggles found in my grandmother's button box - no doubt from some long forgotten duffle coat - perhaps this will be setting a new trend!
For some reason I am finding it impossible to upload a photo of the this new jacket - it is green and purple and cream and fawn and beautiful!

Finally able to upload a photo - shame you cannot feel a photograph.

Hens

 A couple of weeks ago our neighbours moved. They had lived there for over 30 years and been our neighbours for over 20. Our hens had been a shared enterprise. The original hens  - rescued battery - had lived in their garden but, with expansion in mind, we had jointly built a much larger enclosure in our, larger, garden and, from that point, had shared the expense and the produce of a series of flocks.
The current 8 - one from an earlier adoption and 7 bought at point of lay last year are laying between 3 and 6 eggs a day - the usual number being 4 or 5. Up until a couple of weeks ago we had been sharing these eggs with the neighbours but now we have them all to ourselves - a surfeit of eggs. Our preferred option is to enlist our neighbours into hen sharers but in the meantime we can call upon the old neighbours, who have only moved 300 yards away, to help out when necessary and it is not far to take them some of the produce.
This year the hens have had little freedom due to the increase in number and boldness of the local urban foxes. Foxes are spied in the garden most mornings and neighbours report them on their lawns or sunning themselves on shed roofs. They are not deterred by human presence and saunter around the garden looking healthy and brave. They are fine creatures but, having come across one with a dead chicken last year and remembering the aftermath of the wholesale slaughter of our whole flock a couple of years ago, I am not keen on their presence in the garden. The hens must stay in their run and cannot run free - I find that I am telling myself that I hope that they understand!

Yikes the stash!

A lovely day out in Bury St Edmunds with dear friends. On the journey home it is mentioned that a little yarn shop in their village - nowhere near Bury St Edmunds - is having a closing down sale with 50% off everything. I just had to pay it a visit the following day. A fantastic little shop filled to the brim with yarns of all descriptions - bags of sock, 4 ply, DK, chunky, baby, Noro, cotton - the piles were floor to ceiling shelf and additional piles deep. Where to start? I had parked just outside the shop and knew that I had only 30 minutes to make some decisions. The cottons beckoned - some King Cole Cottonsoft in white, then a pale turqouise. More bamboo cotton but not my favourite shade so that was left behind. Then some glorious lilac bamboo - and, seeing that I was showing an interest in cotton some bags came flying into the shop - a deep orange that could not be resisted. Some Katia candy yarn - a whole bag full would just be perfect for baby knitting and, turning round, those few balls of Snuggly would knit up quickly. Time was ticking by and I had 5 minutes left on my parking. The patterns! So many books, so much to investigate - one pattern book alone and the decision about the stash of yarn that had built up around my feet. At  half price how much would that come to? Just below 3 figures - just being an accurate term. Shall I go back another day, this time with a better plan in mind? Could I resist the Noro? What about all that sock yarn that was just at the side of the counter so not really investigated? The bins of real bargains outside? All the patterns and then the buttons and other haberdashery not even contemplated? I have started knitting with the 4 ply cotton and it is delightful - a change from the other work on needles at the moment - a green chunky Cowichan, a mohair log cabin, a bamboo baby blanket, the Advent calendar socks that I was going to knit 2 of a month from January ( didn't go to plan).
The stash has grown but it is beautiful.

A log cabin addiction

An unusual baby blanket for a baby girl.

I have just been loving knitting log cabin blankets and have yet another one on the needles but this is beginning to look like a serious addiction. I don't want to start anything else - apart from the Cowichan and the baby cardigan also on needles and I keep looking at the wool in the stash and wondering what will go together as another log cabin. In an attempt to cure myself I bought a new book of patterns for knitted afghan squares - and imagine my delight when I saw a sort of mini log cabin - a justification!! No, enough is enough and I intend to attack the stash and desist from further log cabins - a resoultion for August 1st instead of January 1st and well aware of how long New Year resolutions usually last.

Bamboo cotton log cabin for a baby

This has been a lovely but a little frustrating project. I wanted to make a less orthodox baby blanket and had in mind bamboo cotton yarn and primary colours. I bought a huge selection of colours starting with the primaries - red, yellow and blue ( or shades of) but then decided that too many colours would look odd. I then decided to stick with the 3 plus green and orange thinking that I could maybe edge and join with purple. The original 5 balls made most of the 12 squares - except for a cast off in the blue, 3 rows in the orange and a little in the green. Thus 3 more balls. I then concluded on orange joins and started to edge in the blue and orange. The extra green would have made the 4th edge but then there would have been a double colour on the edge of one square. Hence the purchase of an extra ball of yellow. Coming to the end of the yellow edge and having cast off I discovered, to my horror, that I had missed 10 stitches from the corner and had to unravel the lot and start again. Having finished, finally, I think it looks great. A bit hefty for a baby blanket maybe but it could be a cot cover or a small play mat. It feels lovely and is so bright and cheerful and definitely a different kind of baby blanket.

Another finished log cabin

Perhaps this pattern is becoming an obsession!

Another completion

Bored with finishing off now - want to start something new rather than complete already started projects.

Next finished item

Finishing off

I have lots of items to finish off. A week away on holiday - supposedly walking, resulted in copious amounts of knitting done. The excuse of an arthiritic toe will only be meaningful to a certain group of people but they will know exactly why little walking but much knitting was achieved. The knitting done, unfortunately, seldom equates to a finished item; there is the dreaded finishing off to be completed. Baby items are sometimes the worst - lots of fiddly little bits to sew together but today's tasks are rather different - 2 log cabin squares blankets and one baby squares blanket to join together and edge.
The first one was a small pram sized blanket made in bamboo cotton. 12 interesting squares to join with a 3 needle cast off and then to edge. First attempt at the border failed - a garter stitch border curled and looked odd so the inevitable frogging and a new moss stitch border both looks and feels better. I am so pleased with this attempt. The blanket could have been throw sized but each square had a pattern which needed to be followed and that is not the sort of knitting I can do and watch tv at the same time so it was mimimised.
The next 2 items are log cabin blankets - one is a wedding present for a wedding already been and gone and so is a bit of a priority. The other is a planned present for Christmas so has never had any urgency surrounding it. All the squares are complete so the finishing off is another series of 3 needle cast offs and some garter stitch bordering. The only decisions needing to be taken concern colours.
The baby blanket is complete and stored away. The first log cabin is laid out on the sitting room floor and one row of 5 squares is joined. the second log cabin is still sitting is squares in the work in progress box and there is an added problem. During the walking holiday, beset with problems of toes and rain, I visited a local yarn shop - the stash has grown - again and on the needles is another log cabin - this time in a lovely yarn - a delight to work with and the actual knitting is so much more fun than the finishing off.

Sale time

I love the Sales and this morning, needing a new battery in my watch, went into town for a wander. The first bus to arrive dropped me near the shopping centre and so I walked through on my way to the wool shop. A number of purchases in Gap filled my bag by the time I arrived at one of my favourite little yarn shops - Knit Nottingham, and I bought some of the wool in their sale.

I had already decided what I wanted to purchase from the web site and went for the lot! It will make 2 log cabin blankets ( top and bottom colours) and a new Cowichan jacket ( colours in the middle) Part of the joy of a trip to this particular shop is the owner who is always welcoming and ready to chat. She is one of those remarkable people with a good memory for customers and their projects - makes one feel special and ready to spend! I know that I had intended not to add to the stash but sales are there to be taken advantage of and there is a good few weeks' knitting here - I couldn't help myself.

Baking for a wedding - the results

Joint first prize winner for taste

Lemon drizzle

A last minute carrot cake at the request of the bride - Humming Bird Bakery recipe but baked in a square tin for an hour with the cream cheese topping just on top instead of between layers - delicious.

All presented with Jessica's bridesmaid's bouquet.

A garden still life

Glorious weather means sitting outside for as much time as possible. The laptop is great until the sun is so bright that it is impossible to see the screen so other acrtivities are called for. Knitting is alright until the hands become sticky so small items are in order - my building blocks blanket in bamboo cotton. Reading is perfect - with prescription sunglasses - Richard Russo - The Risk Pool. Gardening is an inbetweeen activity - too hot to do anything too physical so a liitle light planting and pruning. Listening to music - the old wind up solar powered radio makes its annual appearance - Radio 2 for the easy listening and Popmaster in the morning.
My garden still life:

Pruning the dead branches above my head resulted in:

The odd bit of planting - some marigolds can only be evidenced from the handle of the spade left behind:

The strawberries are looking good:

Date and Walnut Bread

I like notebooks and journals and keep six or seven going at any one time. Sometimes I use them for family history research, sometimes for notes about knitting and recipes but quite often they are there just to jot down thoughts and things to do. Searching for something on the shelves in the kitchen I came across an old notebook with green pages. Looking at the notes - menus for the week, books to purchase - I would date this notebook at about 1989. Towards the back I came across a recipe for Date and Walnut Bread. I have no idea where it originally came from but I must have liked the recipe as this particular notebook contained only four others and they were for some of my favourite cakes. This is definitely a bread - not sweet nor rich, best kept for a day and then served thinly sliced with butter - though the husband is currently spreading a thin layer of Damson and sloe gin jam on his!

12oz self raising flour
half tsp mixed spice -sift into bole

3oz caster sugar
3oz chopped dates
3oz chopped walnuts - add to bowl and mix

2 eggs beaten
10 fl oz milk - mix together and add to bowl

2 oz butter melted -  stir into bowl and beat well for 2 mins

Turn into greaseproofed loaf tin and bake at gas mark 4 for 1 and a half hours. Mine was well done at this point so next time I will take a look a little earlier

My Cowichan

I am inordinately pleased with my Cowichan inspired cardigan which I completed tonight whilst attempting to watch the subtitles of the final episode of The Bridge. This multi-tasking did involve my sewing on the button band and collar the wrong way round but I managed in the end and the result is a delight. Surprisingly the colours are identical to the cat and milk cardigan I was wearing some 50 years ago.

Baking for a wedding

Dominique is getting married at the beginning of June. She has requested a "bakeathon" for the dessert course and today has been my wedding bakeathon day. I have known Dom  and her family since she was about 3 years old and, as one of my daughters is to be a bridesmaid, I decided to make a particular effort in my contributions to the feast. Contributions in plural as I am baking on behalf of said daughter too who will not have the opportunity to bake and transport a cake for herself.

The trial run of the celebration chocolate cake - the one that was well risen!! - was sampled by the parents and grandmother of the bride at the weekend and the decision taken to repeat the recipe as my entrant to the bakeathon. The recipe is from this June's Good Housekeeping magazine and, as it is described as capable of serving 40, the extravagance of the ingredients does not seem so great. This morning I had ordered a grocery delivery to contain the necessary blocks of dark chocolate, extra sugar and a new round baking tin. The earlier trial cake had been made in a square tin which had not been the recommeded size - but it was simply delicious anyway. Whilst awaiting the delivery I started my day of baking with a gingerbread cake which I have been making for years and which is a firm favourtie of the children. Inevitably, I discovered that I did not have golden syrup only black treacle so I played around with  the ingredients and substituted the syrup from a jar of stem ginger for part of the golden syrup and doubled the amount of black treacle. It looks wonderful but I will have to wait a while for it to mature to fully appreciate the deep ginger taste of this cake.

My second cake was my  - it never fails - lemon drizzle cake. It failed. I have never known this to happen before. The recipe is simple - 8oz of butter, sugar and flour and 4 eggs with the rind of one lemon to be drizzled with the juice of said lemon with additional sugar. It is usually predictably good but today,  I really don't know what happened, it just sank in the middle and left a huge hole. The edible parts have now been cut up into squares to be used in trifles and a second attempt has just come out of the oven - perfect.

The third cake was the celebration chocolate cake in its round tin. It rose again! However, the rise has now subsided and it is cooling in its tin. It is looking good.

The fourth - lemon drizzle mark 2 was followed by another Good Housekeeping recipe - an orange and apricot and walnut load. This is currently in the oven and due out in about 50 minutes.

The tempting aroma throughout the house today makes me want to eat cake but these have to be frozen in readiness for the wedding. Decoration can be done the day before and there will be no worries about disasters. What on earth could have happened to that first lemon drizzle? At least there is one saving grace, the bits around the edges seemed fine so I do have some cake to eat with the cup of tea just waiting for me in the  - still quite messy, ktichen.

When you want a cake to rise....

it doesn't and when you don't want it to -  this is what happens:

April showers - a typical day

One of the wettest Aprils in many years seems to have moved on to a very wet first day of May. A day to stay home and get on with indoor pursuits ( after a quick coffee with dear friends!)
Knitting:

Updates:
Charlie's cardigan was finally completed a few days ago and is awaiting a visit from the said son and his approval - or not.
A baby blanket for Lucy's baby was also started and finished - this involved the purchase of more yarn in an appropriate colour and thus 2 balls of cream dk left over has joined the stash.
A little baby girl cardigan was completed - this also entailed an addition to the stash as I bought some additional Bamboo which appeared to be going cheap
A baby boy cardigan in the said Bamboo

Items on needles currently include:
Chicken teapot for Dawn - not sure if I am happy with this improvised project
Bright baby jacket
Building blocks blanket in beautiful Bamboo
The green log cabin which is now amongst the sorely neglected
The second pair of socks for Jessica which have been on needles for some considerable time now and seem to keep looking at me for movement
A green child's jumper which may be unravelled - yet more wool which was added to the stash - reduced in the new wool shop which I had to pass on my way back home from the hairdresser....

Baking:
I want to try a recipe in the latest Good Housekeeping for a special chocolate cake. The recipe calls for soured cream and I bought a tub on my way back from the coffee earlier. If it works then this will be a contribution to a wedding supper in a few weeks time.

Hens:
Sadly Kevin was taken ill a couple of weeks ago and is no longer with us. We never knew her age or provenance but she had never laid and had been looking miserable for some time. The other hens are producing some 5 or 6 eggs a day and baking would be a good idea to use up some of the supply.

Family History:
Baking and knitting are taking a back seat to the latest family history research. An e mail out of the blue put me back on the track of a Welsh family who, obligingly, left detailed wills when they died. The e mail correspondent was himself descended from two branches of my family tree who joined together in his. Enticingly he has photos of siblings of ancestors. It is one of my regrets that I have so few photographs. What I have I treasure.

Reading:
Richard Russo -The Risk Pool
Music:
The Lighthouse Trio - who I went to see on Friday - but more of them later

Flaming June finalised

Quite what to do?

A new wool shop has opened today and I just had to pay a visit. I actually do need some wool. I am coming to the end of  the Flaming June log cabin and have run out of the dark brown. The original wool was bought in a shop some 3 hours' drive from where I am today so I thought I'd take a look around the local wool shops here to see if I could find a ball of the require yarn. Sadly not but I did buy some beautiful new baby alpaca:

I didn't actually need the baby alpaca in the same way that I needed a ball of the brown acrylic, in fact I didn't need it in any way at all. I did, today, finish a baby bamboo cardigan

and there is nothing I can do with the Flaming June until I get the ball of brown but it is not as if I have nothing to knit. I decided to just take a little look at the current works in progress or about to be cast on or " that will be good for" projects and, well, I will admit to a bit of a current addiction.

The Flaming June

The green log cabin which has somehow lost its momentum

The box in the sitting room which contains half finished:
Baby jacket
socks
mini christmas stockings for advent calendar
dolls clothes
baby hats
scarf
Regia wool for socks
Bamboo cotton for 3 baby cardigans
oddments for odd projects

Some Debbie Bliss, Rowan, Phildar etc for non specifc, possibly baby type projects.

Hand was shaking by now - the Knig cole riot, lots of Sirdar Snuggly and yet more baby yarn......

Quite specific Marriner for, yet another, log cabin, some dishcloth yarn and lots of baby 3 ply; a bag of oddments

The bag containing all the yarn, new needles and pattern for my Cowichan.

Of course I didn't need the baby alpaca but it is lovely and a great colour. Quite what to do now though? To finish one of the started projects? I had intended to make a few mini Christmas stockings each month so that, come December, I am not saying - well it will do for next year. I have  had Jessica's socks on the needles for some time and - the photograph I somehow forgot to take - Charlie's cardigan. Now I have so little of that to do - half a front and a front band. What is it that makes me forget about that delightful piece of work? The Cowichan will free up  the biggest space - it is one large bag full of chunky wool but it is a major project and another baby cardigan will only take me today. There is not a lot left to do on the green log cabin and the socks would be a nice thing to do. Decisions. A cup of tea.

The chickens go to a wedding

Some months ago I was asked to knit 100 raspberry pink chickens for an Easter wedding. Yesterday was the wedding and the chicks made their appearance. I understand that they left with individual guests.

Some old knitting - what we used to wear!!

Clearing out lofts brings memories and some fine examples of what we used to wear!!

I remember this jacket so well. My grandmother, May, knitted it for me. I must have been quite young at the time so the pattern must date from the late 1950s or early 60s.  May had a sister, Em, in Canada and I think the pattern may well have been sent from Em to May. I have vague memories that maybe the wool came too in a pack but that may be a false memory. Research, with the help of June at Knit Nottingham, pointed me in the direction of Cowichan patterns and from there I found the patterns of Mary Maxim. I feel pretty sure that this is the source of this pattern. The jacket is surviving pretty well for its age and for the amount of wear it had. The next ones not so well - there are 2 of them - Paul and I had one each:

Someone must have washed them on a hottish wash but, again, not in bad condition for 50 year olds.
I really want to knit something like these now. Searching the internet I have found similar patterns but not the exact ones. How wonderful, though, that they have survived for so long - someone must not have wanted to let go of them.

Moving on to the 1980s I loved the next two but doubt my children would be too delighted to see me wearing either of them in the near future.

Flaming June

Younger daughter has finally agreed to let me knit a blanket for her living room. Actually, that is not quite accurate as, during our last discussion, she did wonder if it might just go on the bed  in the spare bedroom. Regardless, I have been out searching for wool in the correct colours. Her living room is dominated by a piece of artwork she had as a 21st birthday present - deep reds and golds and orangey browns and this is complemented by a print of Flaming June - that Frederick Lord Leighton iconic pre-Raphaelite gem that everyone seems to know. The dominant colour in the throw then needs to be an orange. There are many beautiful oranges around in the more upmarket ranges of yarns but the yarn I have left over to knit 80% of this blanket is acrylic and so I need an acrilyc orange. What there seems to be in the 100g balls is something so neon that it looks as if it needs to be on the back of someone working in the road at night. Searching online is not easy as colours can be deceptive so a trip to a small yarn shop was called for. To my delight, I love coincidences, the person I spoke to in the shop was June and, having dismissed the ubiquitous neon ball she delved into a basket of 25g balls and came up with two shades of orange - both of which were ideal. I do also like decisions being made for me in an unexpected way. I was planning another log cabin ( I will inevitably get bored of the pattern before too long) and I had been debating in my head as to where the key colour - the orange would be. With 2 shades and only 2 25g ball of each that decision was taken out of my hands and the oranges go in the centre of the squares. I quickly completed my first square, learning from experience weaving in each colour as it appears, sent a photo to the daughter who approved and now have another lovely project sitting at my feet. I wonder what I will make of the juxtaposition of a hearty log cabin and Flaming June?

My favourtie author

I have just read the first interview given by Anne Tyler in 35 years. Her new book is due to be released soon and has been on my pre order list on Amazon ever since I first heard about it. I cam across Anne Tyler many years ago when my husband bought Morgan's Crossing home and suggested that I might like it. Since then I have read all her works and bought the last half a dozen or so in hardback on the day of publication - that is devotion to an author for me. My impressions of Baltimore first came from Anne Tyler and have only been, slightly, amended by The Wire. I still want to visit and can still somehow see myself as a resident of one of the shabbier yet genteel neighbourhoods - but then I am a romantic at heart.
Today I have worried, a little, that my knitting passion is waning. From finishing the log cabin for E and M I have just finished some doll's clothes and done a couple more of the green log cabin squares. My heart has not been in it. I have been busy, however, sorting out the dining room and a couple of bedrooms and taking a dozen bin liners of clothes to the charity shop and piling up another dozen of pure rubbish and I have been reading. Since probably last September I have been trying to read my latest Richard Russo. I must have read the prologue six times - again my heart was not in it but this week I have picked it up again and now am two thirds of the way through and enjoying it immensely. Does this bout of spring cleaning and reading mean that I am losing the knitting passion or that I have just been otherwise occupied? I don't really know what is going on in my world at the moment. I sometimes have times when I feel unsettled and perhaps this is one of them. I try to make the most of the extra bursts of energy and the periods of feeling unsettled I know will pass. In the meantime the house is looking tidier and leaner and cleaner, the stash has been moved and sorted, the reading bug has been revitalised and there is a new Anne Tyler to look forward to - and there is not so much knitting littering the sitting room.

Knitting in the March sunshine

The log cabin for E and M has taken most of this month of March to complete and now it is done, sitting proudly on the sofa awaiting an excuse to take it down to them and I am debating what to do next. There are many options - Charlie's cardigan being at the top of the list yet somewhere near the bottom too and various other works in progress. However, today, with the sun shining, I decided to dress Chickabiddy. A simple dress and bonnet pattern would not take very long and was small enough to sit outside to complete. The green log cabin work in progress would have been too big - too many balls of wool to contend with and Charlie's cardigan, being so dark, would have been difficult to see whilst wearing sunglasses as it was, surprisingly, the kind of March weather when the wearing of sunglasses was essential. So today's project has been completed. Chickabiddy is dressed and sitting on the top of my knitting box. I cannot decided if this is a seriously weird thing to be doing. Knitting doll's clothes for a doll who was lost but now found, having a dressed doll sitting in our living room, actually admitting that this is how I have been spending my day! I imagine that I will now move her upstairs and she can be hidden away again. The husband is obviously rather disturbed by her presence and I have to accept that she is not the most attractive specimen.

Finished log cabin

Three needle cast off

I am thrilled to have discovered a new knitting technique - the three needle cast off. Completing the final square of another log cabin blanket, this time for the eldest and her boyfriend, I was pondering the possible ways of joining the squares and finishing the blanket. The neapolitan one was finished by a mixture of blanket and slip stitch joining the squares with a plain knitted border. This one I wanted to have a neater finish so I decided to try the 3 needle cast off to join the squares and it really works. The join is neat and provides a little ridge in between each square. I have chosen to use the red wool to provide the joins and, if there is suffcient wool left, then I am thinking of a couple of rows of red around the edge before finishing the border in the deeper of the two browns.
I seriously over estimated the amount of wool for this blanket and probably have enough for a second one. The ideas going around my head at the moment are for another log cabin but this time with a uniform pattern, a contrasting colour for the 3 needle cast off and another contrast for the border. I may start on this new blanket as soon as this one is complete or I may finish the green one in progress or I may revert to Charlie's cardigan, the bamboo cardigan or the baby clothes for Chickabiddy. Whatever I decide to move on to I am delighted to have extended my knitting knowledge especially one which works so well.

Chickabiddy

Yesterday Chickabiddy was found. She had been missing, presumed lost, for over 20 years but yesterday, whilst cleaning out part of the loft, there she was. She was discovered in a bag containing one old sewing pattern, three knitting patterns and a stash of Phildar and Winfield wool. The contents of the bag confirm the date of her disappearance. The local wool shop sold Phildar wool when my eldest was a baby - she is now 30, and Winfield, as I recall, was the brand name of Woolworths where I may have bought wool in the late 1970s.
I had convinced myself that Chickabiddy had been left behind when we moved house in 1989. I even recall where she had been in the old house - in the cupboard at the top of the stairs. As I had never seen her in this house then this dated her demise and my delight in finding her again after all this time was immense.
Chickabiddy was my first doll. I don't recall exactly when she appeared in my life but I do know that she has been around for over 50 years. I remember finding her again when my first daughter was born but her limbs have a tendency to fall off and so she was consigned to the cupboard at the top of the stairs in the old house many years ago and there she stayed, and, I believed, there she had been left - until yesterday.
I am so delighted that she has been found. I know that she could well do with a trip to a dolls' hospital - if such places still exist but I have managed to reattach her limbs on a temporary basis with the aid of a number of rubber bands. She is old and quite brittle and not really a "playable" item but I feel the need to clothe her and take care of her again. I know that I used to have patterns for dolls' clothes but I cannot find any suitable ones. I do have a book of patterns for premature babies so I may see if the smallest size will fit.
My husband commented on the name - Chickabiddy. We wondered where that had come from. He said that it sounded like a name my mother would have given the doll. I decided to google the name and was quite surprised to find so much use for a name that I had thought was sort of unique.I know wonder what happened to Betty and Susan but nothing will quite take away the delight of finding Chickabiddy again.

Comfort baking

There are few things more appealling than the smell of a cake baking in the oven and, as I am writing this, the  house is full of the aroma of 2 date and walnut loaves which will be ready to take out in about 20 minutes. I have been attempting to watch my weight recently and have not been baking much. Today, however, a trip to a local farm shop produced some rather lovely looking dates ( amongst other things) and the hens are laying well at the moment so I succumbed.
Thinking back to appealling smells I noticed a posting on Facebook recently by a cousin's wife who commented on how she loved the smell of freshly laundered sheets that had been drying outside. When the children were small and spent so much time outside in the garden I used to love burying my head in their hair to breathe in that freshness. I have a very sensitive sense of smell and can pick up perfumes at quite a distance. Familiar scents on the "wrong" person often cause me to stop and frown. A friend once picked up on the frown and I had to explain that she was wearing my elder daughter's distinctive perfume and it had rather thrown me to smell it on her. My grandmother was an Estee Lauder fan and my mother liked Chanel. My younger daughter is currently wearing the same Chanel and it follows her around the flat.
Some of my favourties:
wood burning
strawberries
Chanel no 19
baking bread
fresh coffee
coal tar soap
bacon
freesias

Surprising elders

A delightful day spent in the company of family. Colin is approaching 80 and had baked a cake in readiness of my visit. It is an old recipe, he told me, given to him by a farmer's wife he had met when he had been conducting inquiries during a murder investigation ( he is a former police officer - perhaps an obvious comment). Did I want my fruit loaf buttered, he asked - it was moist but he liked it buttered so I had mine the same way. Such an easy recipe, he said, boiled, and he had printed out a copy of the recipe to give to me.
Conversation wandered to his impending holiday to Greece, on his own, and just a few months from open heart surgery. Did he have any photos of where he was going back to, I asked. Of course and the laptop was produced and a slide show was quickly run on the latest television screen. I don't know how to do that and really want to be able to.
I could not help but be surprised by him, though slightly ashamed to be so predictable in my thoughts about the abilities of an older generation. I suppose that my views have been shadowed by my own father who would rarely have made a cup of tea let alone bake a cake but, thinking about it, even he really enjoyed using his computer and, before his stroke, would often be found sitting in front of the screen playing card games and looking at photographs of his grandchildren, leaving e mail, however, to my mother. He was also quite keen on his mobile phone, usually only to call my mother to say that he was on his way home and to put the kettle on but the idea appealled to him and he was keen to embrace the new technology.
Spending years caring for the elderly and sick does tend to polarise expectations and today it was a delight to see, once again, that age does not necessarily mean infirmity. We spoke of Beryl's 85th birthday celebrations in Las Vegas and such an event would not seem improbable for Colin. I thoroughly enjoyed his company, the conversation was stimulating and the cake was lovely.

Oh no - how did the stash grow?

A birthday is an excuse for many things. Calories consumed on the day don't actually count - but then nor do they on the days around the birthday, and any wool purchased on the special day, and the days around that day don't really count towards the stash. The reasoning being that any new yarns are a treat  (as are the calories) or they must be for a specific project. So the extension of my stash over the past few days has included:
4 balls Debbie Bliss baby cashmerino in green - fall into category of treat
3 balls of the same in a pale green - same category
2 balls Adriafil Azzura - green - had to buy something in a new wool shop I found so justified
A considerable number of balls of browns and creams and reds to make a log cabin square blanket - specific project - and balls left over can be used for something!
Perhaps it is not so bad as it looks. Having just written down the truth, the whole truth it was not such an extravagant week after all. The fact that the bag containing the "considerable number of balls" is so huge just  makes it seems like an inordinate growth of the stash.
I can feel quite smug that I did not buy any patterns and the two new books in my knitting library were presents. The only small problem is that I really need patterns now to go with the new wool and there are a couple of patterns in the new books that need wool specifically for them and, naturally, nothing in the stash matches. Perhaps I can finish the existing projects? It will be 12 months before I can use the same excuse again.

St David's Day

March 1st - St David's Day and my birthday so, as these things should be, I am spending the day in Wales. I feel the need to buy daffodils in celebration or just because I actually like them and they are the most inexpensive flowers. Perhaps someone will buy some for me?

Opera and fims

A splendid evening at the Wales Millenium Centre enjoying a production of The Marriage of Figaro with the Welsh National Opera. It is almost with shame that I have to admit that this was my first visit to the "armadillo" but it had just happened that time spent here never coincided with something that I really wanted to see and, over the years, I have developed almost a rule that I will only see productions that I really want to see rather than think that might just be ok. There is so much more enjoyment then. I cried with joy at the beginning of the Lion King a few years ago and there were tears of joy as Figaro concluded last night. Looking at the surtitles, in English and Welsh, we were reminded of a delightful production, in Russian, many years ago at Nottingham Playhouse. My recollection was that it was called Guadeamos but now I think not and will no doubt spend a lot of time today trying to find the name of that particular play. The husband recalled pantomines with the older children when I was left at home with Charlie and we remembered taking the eldest to her first Shakespeare. Walking back after the performance last night we were both high on an evening well spent and gratitude for those supposrters who make such lavish performances accessible. An evening at the theatre in the widest sense of that term is such a special occassion. The trip to the cinema earlier in the week to see The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel was just something to slot in inbetween other planned evernts. We enjoyed the film but didn't select the best seats, as we did for the opera and we didn't make a bit of an effort with the way we dressed. Back in the 1960s going to"the pictures" was a special event. I recall a family trip to see My Fair Lady with family including grandmothers and great aunts and a journey of some miles to a nearby town - and boxes of chocolates instead of bags.

Finished - sort of

Just need to make the decision whether or not to put a border around the whole thing.
Then the colour
Crochet or knit?
Width?

The log cabin blanket

Today I am finishing the last log cabin square with the currently available wool. There will be enough squares for a small blanket and, if I want it to be any bigger, I will need to go out and buy some more wool. That would rather defeat the objective of "stash- busting". There are now decisons to be made. Do I simply sew up the squares as they stand and make the blanket? Do I make a contrasting border around all the squares to make the blanket slightly larger? If I do make a border then what colour? Do I knit the border or crochet? Decisions, decisions. The other option, of course, is to go out and buy more balls of wool and make more squares - the decision of the procrastinator.