Springtime

This time of year I get the urge to visit Fountains Abbey to see the snowdrops to confirm to myself that Spring has arrived. Not quite the compulsion that some druids feel, that if they are not there to view the sun rise it won't, but getting to be quite the annual compulsion all the same.

On Sunday we went and it has. Drifts of snowdrops peeping out of the autumn leaves accompanied by wild garlic (ramsoms) that you could just begin to smell.

The Yew is just beginning to flower and there is a lot of Yew at Fountains. Who knew it could be so pretty?

We parked in the bottom car park (if you have been there you will understand) and did the walk through the ruined abbey and round the Studley Royal ponds.

A lot of work has been done since we were last there, lots of trees and shrubs removed, taking the landscape back to its original design. I can't help thinking its a bit too over manicured, I liked the overgrown bits.

Its a wonderful place. Full of textures and colours. I snapped these on my phone and it did really well - better than the camera I have.

These are the roots of a yew exposed down an embankment. The trees at Fountains still bear the signs of being forested, ancient coppice stools, and an Ash with two massive trunks looking like they were at one time part of a laid hedge. The ghosts of the lay brothers and the labourers that followed them, working the land.

Fountains is a curious mixture of the wild, the dilapidated and an 18th century landscaped garden that has been managed to extremes. But inbetween, the snowdrops still bloom amongst the garlic and the debris of an autumn just gone.

New Beginnings

One of my very loose resolutions for the new year was to blog more in 2013. To that end I invested my £350 20 years long service award plus a the majority of the money earned selling books and DVDs in a new laptop.

Its a lovely beast, not the latest model and certainly not Windows 8, but it is sleek and silver and it has a DVD drive - which was a difficult thing to get, not sure why. Its a Samsung.

The keyboard is taking a bit of getting used to and I keep pressing or brushing something on the mouspad that magnifies or shrinks the screen. Perhaps a little RTFing is in order.

If I am going to blog more I need to get better at taking pictures. My first thoughts were to buy a new camera but then the common sense part of my brain said 'use the one you have, get used to it and if you use it often consider a new one for the Estonia trip.' So that's what I am going to do.

D bought himself a new camera recently, a Nikon D3200, big beast with different lenses. I don't want something like that I takes me all my time to use the small Canon I have, in fact alongside the majority of the population I get more use out of the camera on my HTC smartphone. It may even take better pictures than the Canon and it has the added bonus of auto loading them to Dropbox.

So, new year new blogging. Perhaps I will even tell people I'm doing it so I'll also have an audience!

New Neighbour II

So what has been eating the fat balls at such a rate? Caitlin solved the mystery when she saw a woodpecker of the Lesser Spotted variety having a good old go at them. That was an adult complete with red cap, I have since seen what might have been a juvenile.

New Neighbour

My garden is separated from farmland by a neighbour's garden and a long disused railway embankment. It has a lot of 'owners' from a very vocal wren, to a beautiful robin and several blackbirds who are currently scrapping it out to impress the ladies.

Yesterday afternoon we heard a noise like a rusty metal door being wrenched open, C said, 'that sounds like a pheasant'. And there he was on the bank in all his glory. Today he was on my neighbour's fence. I think he has moved in.

Magic Bullet

So tempting, so very tempting. Weight Watchers has a brand new diet, a new points system that takes into account calories, saturated fat plus carbohydrate and protein. Its an updated way of counting intake, I would image it incorporates the low glycemic science as WW were already recommending food choices that fits into this.

The temptation is to give into the instant gratification that you get when you first decide and then subscribe (ie pay over the money) to the latest book/plan/programme. This is the Magic Bullet that is going to solve all problems, launch you into the weight loss you have sought for all these years.

Mum has joined the Swillington WW class again and is trying to get to grips with the new plan. I vowed never to go back to the class and I won't but the temptation is to either buy the plan (£60+) or subscribe to the online version and do it at home. Because, once I decide to do it I will feel great - its very tempting.

However I know  ...

• What I need to eat and do in order to lose weight
• That after two weeks of slavishly planning and setting up menus I will will flag and lose interest
• That once I flag I will go into the downward spiral that leads to a period of binging

So, this time, no Magic Bullet. Just planning good food in reasonable quantities and more walking.

No aims, not goals, no daydreaming with the calendar and calculator. Just getting on with it.

Kindle

I have a Kindle and it is wonderful!

Ruth called me to ask if I had thoought about getting one, which I had - who hasn't and she proposed buying me one for Christmas so that I could 'troubleshoot' for her!

I didn't know what to expect, it certainly wasn't what I got. Its small, light and really easy to use once its set up and you have it on the wi-fi network.

It is easy to make the text bigger, I have it bigger than the normal page. I will be able to use it for knitting patterns as documents can be emailed to to your Kindle account at Amazon and they appear on the device within minutes. Its a bit of a pain scrolling about the page but its doable.

It is terrific for reading whilst I am knitting because it sits on the small bookstand on the small table that I keep in front of my knitting chair at the perfect reading angle. No fighting with books to get them to sit on the bookstand (usually requiring the spine to be cracked) and to turn pages on a thick paperback.

It is also terrific to read in bed. No back light but the same lighting needed to read a book suffices. It takes the strain out of holding the book as you can hold it at an angle if, like me, you read lying down on your side. You can also prop it up at an angle and read hands-free!

I used it the whole journey on the way back from Norfolk and its perfect on the train - one hand to hold it and press the turn page button.

The plan is to use it for the books I buy but do not keep - I have already read Kate Morton's latest and will read the last of the Larsson trilogy next.
This won't be one of those new fads that fades in the second week of January, it has boosted my flagging interest in reading, and solved the problem of text size v my new varifocals that was becoming a pain.

Hmmm

Found out the reason for the difficulty walking any distance, back ache when standing and possibly the problem with the arms: an additional 14 lbs since I last weighed myself. Not surprising, not distressing just inevitable given when I have been eating for the past 6 weeks or so, which means I am 22lbs heavier than I need to be to wear my jeans.

No resolutions, no goals, no despair. Just eating mindfully and making an effort to move more.

Done!

All done! Under the stairs, the pan cupboard, the flour cupboard and the tin cupboard all done. Stuff has gone to charity, some is in boxes in the garage, things have been moved around and every cupboard has space in it.  

Even pulled out the cooker and cleaned the sides and floor. I'm knackered, now need to work on winding down so I can sleep tonight. Norfolk tomorrow.

Decluttering



I am done prevaricating about decluttering. Tomorrow it starts. Cupboard under the stairs first - all out and sorted into piles: charity shop, to be stored in the garage (the baking tins I don't want to get rid of, the picnic stuff) and the stuff that needs to go to the tip.

Then the kitchen cupboards, another session to go though the the bedroom cupboards and the office. Tomorrow night the house will be clean and tidy so that when I come back from Norfolk on Saturday I will feel calm and happy when I walk through the door instead of cringing at the mess.

Being tidy makes me less anxious and anxiety is something I am working on beating. That nub of fear that lurks at the pit of my stomach has to go. I am tired of laying in bed, sleepless, as the nub germinates and puts out insidious tendrils that grip my innards and invade my brain, whispering, ' you told them that a hundred times before, they were just being polite, you are a bore,' 'he betrayed you,' 'they are laughing at you you pathetic, old, ugly...,' 'how are you going to sort that tomorrow, you can't do that, you are useless,' and on and on. Or the most dangerous voice of all, the Mummy voice - 'you've done really well, you deserve a treat,' 'there, there, never mind honey, eat this  and you will feel better.'

When I get the compulsion to binge I always follow it. If I defeat it once, it will appear later and I will follow it then. It is always a lot of food eaten quickly and mindlessly. When I finish I feel calm, the anxiety goes. Then later the guilt comes and the voices.  

I am sure that I need to have therapy to deal with this. I tried CBT once but I didn't follow it through, lots of reasons, one being that I didn't trust the therapist the other that keeping the diary of moods and causes that they ask you to do was seriously dragging me down and I don't want to deal with all of that on top of everything else.

I know that I have some seriously fucked up ideas about myself and the way I interact with the world. Recently I have tried to consciously slow down, to relax, to 'go with the flow' rather than jumping in first . Because of this I enjoyed Christmas enormously, time spent with friends and family has been sweet.

The picture is the Farne Isles from the beach between Bamburgh and Seahouses. This beach is my happy place, it is where my soul is free. It represents my aspirations, where I want to be, how I want to feel.  

Tomorrow I start the decluttering, the sweeping of the cobwebs, the clearing out, the creation of space.

Garden

Dear Kym

I don't have a big garden, its the width of my very small semi detatched house that is situated at the edge of farmland outside Leeds in West Yorkshire. The climate is cooler than London, a lot cooler than Cornwall but warmer than Scotland. We get mixed weather in the summer - last year it rained constantly but this year is looking promising.

The garden is sheltered by 8 foot fences over which there are other gardens which have donated quite a lot of the plants which seem to migrate over or through the fences, goodness knows what I've sent back. Next to my next door neighbour there is a disused railway embankment lined with silver birch and sycamore trees.

I love container gardening. These are pots of herbs, various mints, lemon verbena, bay, chives, tarragon, variagated sage. An owl made from a granite pebble.

The garden god. He has periodically to be rescued from the ivy (an ex house plant) that rampages over the back of the garage.

Another owl.

My hanging baskets - the middle one is made (not by me) from pine cones, they haven't got going properly yet. The bird box is not occupied by a nest but a very frazzled bluetit, obviously feeding babies elsewhere uses it to sleep in. He gets cross if I'm in the garden and he wants to get in!

More pots, a chimney pot a friend gave me (it has a hidden pot with flowers in the top) succulents growingin a low wall plus a very active, very established colony of black ants. We ignore each other which so far has worked well.The tall things are lillys that are about a week away from blooming but I can't remember what colour they are. Two more owls, a sandstone carving bought from Ebay and a plastic one that Caitlin couldn't resist one Mother's day.

The other side of the succulents, the sandstone bird bath is really old and weathered, another Ebay purchase, and the blackbirds love it. So does the wood pigeon who sits in it all fluffed up for ages. Somewhere else, buried by geraniums, I have a piece of Welsh slate with a magpie carved on it. I must dig it out.

This is a selection of geraniums and poppies, all self sewn. The poppy seeds came from the garden of a hospital where a dear friend had a long stay. I broadcast the seed from one pod and they have self seeded all over the garden ever since. There is a lot of long grass in it too. I make occasional attempts to weed it out.

Its long been Mum's ambition to have her own supply of rhubarb. Rejecting the specimens for sale at the Garden Centre as not worth the money, she - with all the innocence her 75 year old self could muster, asked an 'old' man in the village, how to look after rhubarb as she was thinking of buying some. He of course said don't buy it I'll give you a patch. My husband David had a massive job to dig it out  its roots go down over a foot and we all got a bit. Mine is looking a bit sad but as I live smack bang in the middle of the Yorkshire 'Rhubarb Triangle' I have hopes that it will rally.

This is a dwarf apple tree, its covered in apples this year but if its true to form, most of them will drop off. Behind me is a damson tree that had loads on last year but hardly any blossom this year. I also have a low growing Quince that is covered in blossom.  You can see the house at the bottom and the back off the garage.

One of four courgette plants. This one has mini courgettes on already. I aim to eat them small this year as hopefully I will have lots. I have put two in the front of the flower bed this year, they should spread and cover all the ground and then spill onto the gravel. I also grow salad leaves in pots and this year have perpetual spinach for the first time. Other pots have rosemary, more taragon, lots of thyme and lots and lots of parsley.

An unknown Clematis and Honeysuckle, both self sown from next door.

The view from my garden with early evening light. The big bushy thing on the patio on the right is a self sown lavender that is growing from between the bricks. Lavender is one of my favourite things. You can see the trees on the disused railway embankment along the top and my neighbour's pergola that has wisteria and several clematis'.

I get an immense amount of pleasure from my garden, pleasure in small things at times when the rest of the world seems to have gone crazy. The lives of the birds on my bird, and squirrels on my bird feeders always entertain.

Happy gardening,

Sue x

Walzing Along

I work from home and one of my guilty secrets is that I keep a knitting project at the side of my desk - for those 5 minute 'let's think this through', 'if I don't stop I will explode', 'bugger it I can't be arsed' moments and (the biggest secret of all) to occupy my fingers and the 50% of my brain not in use when I am on a conference call that I am not chairing.

The criteria is that it is must be tactile, mindless and soothing to do. At the minute it is this which is perfect http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/elizabeth-zimmermanns-green-sweater so its miles and miles of stocking stitch in the round on lovely, 4mm, metal tip, Knit Pro interchangeable needles.

I also have the radio tuned to BBC Radio 3 all day - classical music with no interference from adverts. Today I noticed, during a 'let's think this through' time out that I knit garter stitch (I throw) in 3/4 (three four) time at the speed of an average Mozart or Haydn minuet and trio.

Blue

I have spent the day knitting the edge on a Forest Canopy shoulder shawl, a Christmas present for my sister in a silver grey, 4 ply alpaca. I decided to bead every scallop on every pattern row, making parallel lines of beads using the crochet hook method, I’ve spent all of the afternoon and early evening on it.

When I had done 6 beaded rows it was clear that it was far too ‘bling’ so I have just pulled out the edge and put the beads back in the jar.

It sort of sums up the day.

For Kym

Who is doing a 'Light the Night' walk in aid of the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society with her family and friends. A small light to add to the light you shine on all who know you - even those you've never met.

Small Victory

This is me, knitting Continental style. Yes - Continental style and I can do it easily and without much thought.

I have been a serious knitter since my teens - a lot of years, I was taught by Mum who is also a serious knitter. However she left me to find my own way of 'throwing' she does it in a neat, looping way with the yarn wound round her fingers, I do it with a maximum of hand and arm movement, not elegant but I can get up a decent head of steam and what I lack in speed I make up for in hours spent.

To date I never managed to sort out Continental - it kind of made sense because I can also crochet. The breakthrough was the workshop with Alice Starmore on Fairisle knitting - she showed me how she holds yarn in the left hand when doing two colour work with a colour in each hand. She said to hold it close to the needle so the yarn is 'just there'.

I've overdone the knitting recently - I blame a new box set of 'The West Wing' and my right arm and shoulder have started aching a bit too much so today I have concentrated on the Continental and - bingo - its fallen into place.

I'm doing it with chunky on size 6.5mm but the tension is the same as when I throw which is great because I had read that some people get a looser gauge with Continental. One of the drawbacks for me is the awkwardness of purling - even Meg Swansen says her purl isn't the best, but these days I do the majority of my knitting in the round so not so much of a problem.

In case you can't tell, I'm a bit chuffed (as they say in Yorkshire).

UK Knit Camp

How cool is this? Not only is it six days in Stirling which is a lovely Scottish city it is five days of working with my knitting heroes and other wonderful knitters plus a final day of the best selection of knitting shopping ever!

I have bed and breakfast booked in University accommodation, workshops to be booked in January.

So far the British knitting events I have attended have been awesome. At theCoventry Ravelry day earlier this year I took a workshop with Jared Flood (aka Brooklyn Tweed), sat entranced listening to Meg Swansen and Debbie Bliss.

At the  I-Knit day in London last month not only did I hear her wonderful presentation about what inspires her but I did a workshop with Alice Starmore, ALICE STARMORE! She showed me how to hold the yarn for doing fairisle with a strand in each hand, and she passed around a WIP for us to examine. Separate post on this to come.

So expecting big things from Stirling in August.

WIP

Sorted the uploading of pictures (after a fashion) IE still closes itself now and then. Opened a Flickr account for Ravelry projects which makes it much much easier once the photos are uploaded.

Here is Granny Smith WIP - you can't see from the pic but I am using the new Knit Pro Spectre tips. The lightness of the needles plus the gossamer of the Kidsilk Haze makes it a slow but satisfying knit.

Not quite decided about the Spectres yet - its a bit disconcerting to see your stitches through the needle but the slight stickyness makes them perfect for this yarn.

Aunty Ps

Whilst contemplating the sorry state of the tomato plants in my garden last week it occurred to me, with tremendous delight, that I had the perfect tomatoes for green tomato chutney.

The basic recipe I use was passed to me from dear friend and is called Aunty Ps, after her husband's Aunty Pat who passed it to her . Its a very simple recipe - "2lbs of green tomatoes, 2lbs of apples, 2lbs of sugar, 2 pints of vinegar and pickling spices, boil until done".

What I do is chop the tomatoes and apples in the Magimix first because I don't like big lumps. This year I also chopped in half a courgette that had grown, unobserved, to marrow proportions hidden behind a big leaf. I make up my own pickling spices in a muslin square - peppercorns, cinnamon, juniper berries, coriander seeds, dried chillies.

This year I made two batches - one for Mum and Dad with only a little chilli and one for me with more spice and heat. Perfect with cheese and my homemade, wholemeal bread rolls.

(I will blog/rant about bread another time).

New Beginnngs

When I started this blog a year ago it was mostly out of curiosity - I have kept paper journals for years, mostly pages and pages of stream of consciousness outpourings, but could I also write in a way that would interest and entertain others?

Daughter C has recently started her first year at University so I have my evenings to myself so now is the perfect time to start.

So here it is, open to all. I can't post photos at the moment because something in my IE/Vista/Blogger settings is making IE crash when I browse for a pic, but I will sort it.

No promises, no aims, no objectives. Random jottings and musings and a lot of cooking and knitting.

Mummy's Guilty Secret

Fairtrade has always made sense to me, as has buying local and, where possible, organic. But in my house we always have something that is called 'Mummy's Guilty Secret'. No, not a secret stash of gin or chocolate - it is Granny Smith apples, the lovely green shiny ones that usually come with thousands and thousands of air miles. I buy them all year round with only the slightest pang of guilt (and then only in winter when they often come from Peru). I love them as they are but my favorite way of eating them is chopped into a salad, especially accompanied by homemade pizza and blue cheese dressing!

So it seemed synchronous recently when I was trawling through the cardigan patterns on Ravelry for a pretty cardigan for C to wear over a white and green floral cotton dress, to find Neoknits' Granny Smith Cardigan. Ebay yielded Rowan Kidsilk Haze in the Jelly colourway which was dispatched in superquick time for me to start it tonight.

Sock Hound

My four-footed nephew Bailey is a sock hound. Given the run of my house his main aim in life is to get into my bedroom and root around until he finds a sock. He then nonchalantly trots back with the sock in his mouth like butter wouldn't melt.

If you try to get the sock from him he bounds off, sock still in mouth, delighted that the trick has worked and you are chasing him. The only way to retrieve the sock is to wait until he drops it, usually a bit grubbier but not damaged.

The thing that amazes me, given the usual state of my bedroom and the many more noxious things he could pick up - why socks?