Square Dance

Two teaching colleagues are going out to Africa soon to visit their ‘twinned school’. They have decided to take some blankets as gifts – so have appealed for 10cm knitted squares. Another friend has just given up knitting, and passed on some wool for others to use. So I have spent my odd moments in half term making squares.

Once I have made forty squares I shall stop, and deliver them to school [currently I have completed 32] The pattern is incredibly easy – and I can do it without thinking [even whilst watching subtitled ‘Montelbano’ on Saturday night!] It can be used with any yarn- you just need to find needles which work well with your yarn. I am using 3.75mm with DK wool.

1. Cast on 1 stitch
2. Row 1 - knit into front and back of stitch [2 sts]
3. Row 2 – knit into front and back of stitch, knit next stitch [3sts]
4. Row 3 – knit into front and back of stitch, knit to end of row [4sts]
5. Continue like this till sides of triangle measure 10cm [for me this is when I have 28 sts on needle]
6. Next row – knit 2 tog, knit to end of row [27sts]
7. Repeat this row until there are 2 sts left
8. Knit 2 tog, break yarn and thread through last stitch.
9. That’s it!

If you change colours in a square, particularly if you change halfway at the point where you stop increasing and start decreasing. Back in the 1960’s my grandmother made a blanket of such squares using her leftover yarn. This ongoing urge to use up the Great Stash is obviously genetic. I treasure this blanket, I think it is the only thing I have which she actually made, although she was a great crafter.

However, her placement of the squares appears to be totally random, with no attempt to have all the triangles aligned. As a child I used to spend hours finding matching squares!

Now I have learned to crochet and could therefore do the edging, perhaps I should make a blanket [in shades of greys and blues]  for Cornerstones. Bob is there at the moment, spending a few days in Quiet Retreat. [I am here- no chance of Quiet if I go with him!]

An Unexpected Gift

A parcel arrived at the weekend, quite out of the blue from Bob’s sister in Surrey. Such pretty wrapping, and a lovely postcard

Denise wrote to say that she’d purchased some of this yarn to make a scarf, then saw a bag of it reduced in the Blue X Sale- and thought I might like to knit myself something with it. So I have eleven balls of this wonderful Sirdar Crofter Chunky

A couple of years ago I made this sleeveless top in the Crofter DK Wool.

My SIL is so amazingly generous, and I am going to check out the patterns in the ‘Chunky’ range [here].

I quite like this cardi, pattern 9202. I certainly have enough yarn to complete it. What do you think?

I don’t think the Native American feathered head-band is obligatory

However, I have another project on the go at the minute [more on that later] and I am going to be A Bit Busier as of tomorrow.

On Tuesday I begin working at a village school** on a regular basis

I shall be working four mornings a week from now till Easter. I am extremely grateful for this opportunity, after the dearth of Supply Work in the Autumn Term – but I suspect that there may be less blogging and fewer craftwork projects for the next six weeks.

Thanks Denise, for such a lovely gift!

[** the one where they built the snowmen pictured here]

All You Need Is…

…Love!

This afternoon I was out preaching at the URC in a nearby village. They have a regular afternoon service for the pensioners.

I don’t normally get publicity like this though!

I had been given the Valentine Theme, so I spoke [not surprisingly] about God’s love, and quoted verses from Romans 8, Isaiah 49, and 1 John 4. I asked how many folk present had received a Valentine last Tuesday. Out of the 36 OAPs present, four put up their hands.

After the service we went through for the tea, and I stood at the door and gave everybody a Valentine to take home.

I happened to have [don’t ask – long story] a load of foamboard hearts, so on Saturday, I had made some ‘Valentines’. I printed out the Bible verses on labels, punched out some hearts [from a colourful old Boden catalogue] and produced about 50. They were red one side, white the other, and had a verse on each side and I strung them on gold cord.

The people were incredibly grateful – one gentleman said it was the first he had ever received [despite being married for 50 years] Another lady said she so missed Valentines since her husband died, and her sons didn’t send her any! Other people asked for spares to take to absent friends and neighbours. They hung them on their buttons, their bags, and their Zimmer frames!

The church ladies had prepared a Valentine themed tea – with hearts and rose petals on the pink tablecloths, and amazing folded napkins.

I love the church china, it is Midwinter Siena [wonderfully retro!]

The refreshments were cupcakes, and little dishes of chocolate hearts.

Totally love themed.

All washed down with a good cup of Fairtrade Tea!

I hope the Senior Citizens enjoyed themselves as much as I did.

There’s More To Morality Than Being Nice

I was interested in the Chief Rabbi’s review of Jonathan Haidt’s forthcoming book, The Righteous Mind. [Haidt is an American psychologist] Dr Sacks says this

It is fascinating to see how recent research in neuroscience, evolutionary biology and game theory is making us think again about the great questions once dealt with by the prophets and philosophers. Haidt reminds us that morality isn’t simple at all. How bright were the hopes of the rationalists in the 18th and 19th centuries that the good life could be reduced to a simple formula. Treat persons as ends, not means, said Kant. Act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number, said Bentham. Forbid only the things that harm others, argued John Stuart Mill. These beautiful oversimplifications remind me of the snatch of dialogue from Woody Allen. “I’ve learned to speed-read. I read the whole of War and Peace in one hour.” “What’s it about?” “Russia!”

There’s more to Tolstoy’s masterpiece than one word, and there’s more to the moral life than one principle. There are many, they conflict, and the difficulty lies in knowing what to do when they conflict. Each captures part of the moral life but not the whole of it.

The real interest in Haidt’s book is that he shows compellingly that the moral life is not reducible to what “liberals” (his word) say it is, namely fairness and the avoidance of harm. Undoubtedly these are the universals. There is hardly a culture in the world that does not recognise the so-called Golden Rule… children learn to say “That’s not fair.” There are, however, other components of the moral life… One [is] loyalty and its opposite, betrayal. Another,… respect for authority and its opposite, subversion. A third is needed to ring-fence the values we consider non-negotiable... certain things, like innocent human life, are sacred, sacrosanct, not to be treated lightly or defiled.

Haidt argues that “conservatives” (again, his word) tend to capture people’s moral sense better than their opponents because they give space and attention to these other elements of morality. They are also core values in most religions, which is what makes them so powerful in creating and sustaining groups.

Try sustaining a national identity, or even a marriage, without loyalty. Try socialising the young into habits of responsibility and restraint, without respect for figures of authority. Try maintaining the Western sense of human dignity without a sense of the sacred. You will soon find that it can’t be done.

No wonder identity, marriage, self-restraint and the sanctity of life are in disarray today. We have tried constructing the moral life on two simple principles, fairness and the avoidance of harm, when life is just not that simple. If Haidt is right, psychology is about to rediscover what religious faith, thank Heaven, never forgot: loyalty, respect and sanctity, the values that inspire humans to live lives of moral beauty.

Much to think about here!

Come In …

…Number Seventeen

Well done, Mouse, [Fat Dormouse Getting Thinner] you are the winner of the 2000th-Blogpost-Giveaway!

Once I have your address, I’ll pop the parcel in the post to France.

Thank you to everyone else who entered – and congratulations to Floss and Carolyn, as I notice you have just won FDGT’s recent giveaway. Blogging is such fun!

Growing Frustrated!

Here is Holman Hunt’s painting “Isabella and the Pot of Basil”

It was his illustration for the poem by Keats [based on a tale in Bocaccio’s Decameron] which tells the tale of a young woman whose family intend to marry her to "some high noble and his olive trees", but who falls for Lorenzo, one of her brothers' employees.

When the brothers learn of this they murder Lorenzo and bury his body. His ghost informs Isabella in a dream.

She exhumes the body and buries the head in a pot of basil which she tends obsessively, while she is pining away.

It is an amazing painting. Look at the marquetry detailing on the column, the embroidery on the cloth, and the sheen on the majolica pot – and the way her clothing drapes so beautifully, and that fabulous lush crop of green leaves waiting to be harvested for pesto sauce…HH used his wife Fanny, as the model [she was pregnant at the time and gave birth to their son a few months later. Sadly she died soon after.

I am posting the picture for two reasons – the first reason I will explain next week [but suffice it to say that Bob and I have been muttering smugly about this picture since last Monday night, and can’t understand why we’ve not seen it mentioned on Twitter yet]

The second reason is because I wish I could grow things.

But I just can’t!

I am trying so hard, I really am – but I struggle to grow the simplest things. Like cress on a flannel! I started off another batch on Monday, in the hopes of Marmite and cress sandwiches next week. But I returned from 24 hours away visiting the family down south to find this sad collection of mustard&cress seeds languishing on the windowsill.

Even three year olds in Playgroup can grow cress in the shape of their initials.

How hard can it be?

[and please don’t tell me that it was all down to Isabella’s choice of fertiliser – that is definitely not an option under consideration]

And I know you are all falling about laughing, because out in your gardens there are carrots growing away under the ground ready for hearty casseroles - and next summer, you will not know what to do with all those tomatoes which will spring from pots and grobags and ripen into luscious crimson orbs. You will write many blogposts sharing recipes for pasta sauces and tomato preservation methods.

And I’ll be astounded by your green fingers, as I am every year.

What am I doing wrong?

That Was The Party That Was

Jane, of the Maple Syrup Mob, invited us to her Virtual Birthday Party last weekend. We were required to take a guest and then tell of how our evening went. This guy was going to transport us to Canada, and Jane had a glorious outfit to wear

I’d sorted out a guest and a dress too…

…then at the last minute, Jamie rang and said he really needed to spend the weekend with Jools and the kids. Well, I had to agree with him, family responsibilities are important, and he does neglect the, rather. I asked my other half, but Bob was very apologetic, but it was way too late for him to find an alternative preacher for the Sunday services, so he couldn’t accompany me either. What’s a girl to do?  I decided that if Dr Who was able to fetch me anyone from anywhere at anytime, I would choose this guy

Alexis Soyer was the original celebrity chef. I have raved about him before [here]

Always up for an outing, and for free publicity, Alexis hopped into the Tardis without a moment’s hesitation.

He produced a fabulous buffet for Jane with a minimal supply of ingredients [but was quite suspicious of Maple Syrup, and didn’t like the taste of Caribou at all] He hadn’t encountered vegans before, but coped admirably.

All evening he entertained us with anecdotes of his exploits in the Crimea, and in Ireland after the Potato Famine, and told tales of the famous folk who fetched up at the Reform Club to sample his dinners. He was witty and amusing – and able to converse fluently with both English and French speaking guests.

I had hoped for a brief tutorial on ‘making better meringues’ but he was too busy flirting with the younger girls. I went to find other guests to chat to. At the end of the evening, he solemnly gave Jane his trademark beret as a birthday gift – and she bestowed on him one of her Canadian toques.

Great party Jane – thanks for the invitation.

Who will be hosting the next Significant Age Party?

Shakespeare’s Sister?

I’m probably the last one to discover this author- if so, I apologise for telling you what you already know, but this is a quick review of the ‘Shakespeare’ series by Charlaine Harris. Born [1951] and raised in Mississippi, Ms Harris is a prolific mystery writer.

I picked up the first of the series [Shakespeare’s Landlord] in our library two weeks ago.

When I returned it, and mentioned I’d enjoyed it, the Library Staff immediately directed my attention to the next two books – both of which were on the ‘best-sellers, one week loan only’ shelf. So Bob and I read them – and returned them very promptly.

Then I was in another library, just up the road, and found the final 2 books [again on the ‘short loan’ shelf] Not only is there a library in my own village, but there are 4 other small libraries within 5 miles of my house – and my ‘County’ ticket covers them all. I can borrow up to 24 books at a time. How fabulous is that?

The stories all centre on the small town of Shakespeare, and the main character is Lily Bard. After a very traumatic incident in her youth, she left home and started a new life- choosing this town simply because her surname was ‘Bard’.

Lily is a feisty, exercise-obsessed, quite private woman. She reminds me of Kinsey Millhone in Sue Grafton’s A,B,C series. Most comfortable in exercise gear, or shirt and jeans, she finds it hard to ‘dress up’ for funerals and weddings [and there are many deaths, so quite a few funerals!]

Shakespeare is a neighbourhood with frequent murders. A bit like the Barnabys’ Midsomer, Wexford's Kingsmarkham, and Frost’s Denton. One wonders how the property prices are affected by all these violent deaths!

Ms Harris has written a number of other series [featuring women with the bizarre names of Aurora Teagarden and Sookie Stackhouse!] I will report on those as and when they appear on our library shelves.

These are not great works of literature. But if you want a quick, lightweight read, and you are fond of murder mysteries they are enjoyable. I think you could read them in any order without any plot spoilers, although they are clearly consecutive and written within a fairly short time frame.

Giveaway Update

There’s still time to enter the 2000th post Giveaway. Please comment on last week’s post [click here]  not this one!

I have put together a small parcel of goodies which are all flat and postable, so that the giveaway can include international friends as well as UK ones. Some cookery booklets, a book of poems, a coffee coaster, some pretty postcards and a handmade beaded ‘book-thong’ to mark your place.

Last week I read a rather sniffy comment on another blog deriding people who ‘have so-called giveaways which are things they already have, and not new stuff’ If you think she is right, please don’t bother entering my giveaway! I would love to be able to go out and buy a basket of expensive goodies to share with my friends. But I can’t afford to do that.

My ‘celebration package’ contains books which I have previously  read and enjoyed, a couple of new handmade items, and some stationery which isn’t new, but still perfectly usable, and a few other bits beside.

I am not into sponsorship or advertising on this blog, so publishers and manufacturers do not give me freebies to pass on to readers. You can find plenty of them elsewhere if you want them.

I’m just a simple soul who gets a genuine thrill out of receiving a tiny parcel of treats from someone I love – they don’t have to be expensive things – just a package saying ‘I care about you, this is to brighten your day’. From the comments I have had on these past 2000+ posts, I think most of my regular readers feel the same way. Let us not apologise for sharing the blessings we have!

So do not forget to make your comment [like I said, here] before Friday night.

btw, if anyone from Royal Mail is reading this, what’s happened to the little package that STEPH posted to ME from London last week??!!

Home Economics

ElizabethD asked how I kept my food budget so low. Admission – I have already gone over the £30 I allowed myself for this month – although many of my purchases in the past week have been ‘pantry’ items which will last more than a few weeks. I will see how things work out and report again in March.

I am not an economics teacher- I trained as a maths teacher. My tips for economical food purchasing are based on these verbs

add, subtract, multiply, divide, integrate, differentiate, and square.

+  -  x ÷      p²

Not necessarily in that order though!

p²square [meals, that is!] plan your meals with the foods you already have in store – and be creative. Make intelligent substitutions in order to use that random tin at the back of the shelf!

÷ divide – portion control is really important. Not so difficult with discrete items like sausages- but harder with things like casseroles. Either I ‘plate up’ the meals in the kitchen, or I make it quite clear in the dining room “this stew is planned for two meals” so we make sure to leave half of it in the dish.

integrate – you’d be amazed how much ‘free’ food is around, and you can integrate that into your menus. Obvious things like  -windfall apples, hedgerow blackcurrants - but you can also- use up freebie sachets of ketchup by squeezing them into a stew or pie filling; keep that little ‘Lotus’ biscuit in a packet which came with your coffee – and serve it with ice cream for dessert; do Jamie’s trick of adding a spoonful of the Christmas chutney into a casserole; if you didn’t eat the jam in the little jar, which came with the scone at the cream tea, it will liven a dish of plain yogurt. We don’t drink instant coffee- but if I am sent sample sachets, I put them in a jar, for those cake recipes that need ‘1tsp coffee granules’

differentiate – another important one. Make it quite clear to the family if food is ‘OK for snacks’ or ‘ear-marked as an ingredient’ There is nothing worse than getting to the kitchen at 5pm to prepare a meal, and finding that someone used those rashers of bacon for a sandwich at lunchtime, or ate the last banana. My family are used to labels saying “Do Not Eat This!” on the lock’n’locks in the fridge. [Practise writing on bananas with a ballpoint pen – go on, do it! - - it is one of my secret pleasures]

-subtract – when you are making a quantity of things, subtract

a little tiny amount from each one, to make an extra cake/cookie/ dumpling. Example, the instructions on my big bag of suet mix from Approved Foods tells me that 1lb of mix will make 11 portions. By reducing each portion in size, I got 12 portions, and halved them to make 24 dumplings. I used 8 straightaway for our 2-day weekend casserole, and froze the rest, ready to pop on top of future meals.

xmultiply – every meal can be multiplied to serve another day by intelligent use of leftovers. But  I have found that it is really crucial to plan their future use immediately. If I put a single leftover portion of casserole in the fridge and I condemn it to a slow lingering death - even if I label it hopefully ‘You could microwave this for lunch, on Thursday, Bob’. It is far better to chop the veg and meat a little more finely, and add some liquid [gravy, stock, boiling water] to make it up to 600ml. That will be a two portion soup for tomorrow. The small amount of stewed fruit should go straightaway into a labelled lock’n’lock. ‘stewed apple-date- enough to top 2 portions of ice-cream or yogurt’ Make that last slice of bread into croutons before it goes dry or mouldy,  and store in a screwtop jar in the fridge]

+add- or more accurately, s-t-r-e-t-c-h dishes with additions.

Bulk out casseroles [yeah, we eat lots of them round here]with a handful of oats, or rice, or lentils, or macaroni. Sling a can of baked beans into a cottage pie. Add some stock or water to the soup to make it serve 3 not 2, and top with those croutons. Please be sensible – over-adding oats will turn the stew into porridge, and don’t dilute your chunky chowder to bouillon! Some of the worst custard I ever tasted was made by someone who took 1 can of custard and added an equal amount of boiling water in an attempt to make it go further!

So there you are, Elizabeth and friends – some of my ‘mathematical’ top tips for saving money from my food budget. Those involved in Primary Schools will have observed that I did not mention the dreaded verb ‘chunking’!!

Anyone else got any good ideas to share?

Ha!

I know that love keeps no score of wrongs, and that I shouldn’t be smug when other people stumble. But yesterday’s discussion between Christian Giles Fraser and Atheist Richard Dawkins has left me grinning all over my face.

You can listen to the full interview, from Radio 4’s Today Programme here but there was a good article in the Telegraph by Stephen Pollard [editor of the Jewish Chronicle]

The article is here, and I quote just part of it…

“If you were trying to come up with a definition of misplaced intellectual arrogance, you could not do better than having the planet’s most famous atheist issuing diktats on who does and doesn’t count as a proper Christian. Prof Dawkins then announced, triumphantly, that an “astonishing number [of Christians] couldn’t identify the first book in the New Testament”.

The transcript of the next minute or so only hints at how cringingly, embarrassingly bad it was for Dawkins.

Fraser: Richard, if I said to you what is the full title of The Origin Of Species, I’m sure you could tell me that.

Dawkins: Yes I could.

Fraser: Go on then.

Dawkins: On the Origin of Species…Uh…With, oh, God, On the Origin of Species. There is a sub-title with respect to the preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life.

It was a golden minute of radio. But as well as being hilarious, it was hugely symbolic. In The Daily Telegraph yesterday, Baroness Warsi highlighted the militant secularism on the march in Britain. But as Dr Fraser revealed, the atheist army is led by an embarrassingly feeble general. The arrogance and intolerance of the atheists, exemplified by Prof Dawkins, is their Achilles’ heel.”

Ruth Gledhill in the Times began her article with…

Britain’s leading atheist was forced to invoke God yesterday as he was put on the spot during a public debate about Christianity.

Just to say I am happy to ‘self-identify as a Christian’, even though I think that is an ugly phrase. And I know that the first book of the NT is Matthew. I’m with John Newton, who not only wrote ‘Amazing Grace’ but also penned these words…

Saviour, since of Zion's city,
I through grace a member am,
let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in thy Name.
Fading is the worldling's pleasure,
all his boasted pomp and show;
solid joys and lasting treasure
none but Zion's children know.

Happy Birthday To My Uncle

When I was a child, I had nine uncles and nine aunts. Now I have just two aunts [Mum’s sister, and Dad’s sister in law] and one uncle [Mum’s brother] left.

Uncle Les is 90 today.

It is nine years since his wife, Auntie Edie, died. He has coped incredibly well, living by himself, since then. I can’t find a recent photo of him – or the lovely one of their wedding day in April 1945 – Uncle Les was in uniform.

This family photo was taken in 1966,  it shows six of the seven Spooner Siblings [Uncle Wally had died about 2 years before]

One the back row; Uncle Les, Auntie Peggy, Uncle Eddie, and on the front row; Mum, Auntie Grace, Auntie May. [May is oldest, Peg the youngest] This was my cousin Hazel’s wedding, hence all the carnation buttonholes. Why didn’t the photographer ask the aunts to move a little? It does look like Peggy’s flower is in Grace’s hair!

Here’s the bride and her bridesmaids. That’s me on the right!

 

Uncle Les is a fund of stories – particularly about the war.

He spent most of it here in Leicester! Here he met Edie, and they fell in love and got engaged. My Aunt was in the ATS, and posted to the big RAOC Depot, receiving each day German and Italian PoWs. Edie had qualified as a driver on trucks, similar to Jeeps, sometimes pulling 6 trailers through swing doors – and she was very good at it! Les spent a lot of time in heavyweight ‘winter’ uniform, practising climbing up a mock cliff face constructed in the De Montfort Hall.

He’d been told he was going to be posted to Norway. He never was!The most exotic wartime destination they got to was ‘New Zealand Lane’ – on the way out of Leicester towards Melton Mowbray. Here lived a kind lady who kept chickens used to give the young couple boiled eggs for tea [a real treat in wartime] NZ Lane, Queniborough is still there- but full of newer postwar housing now.

I don’t think there are any chickens left there now!

The war ended, and the newlyweds returned to Romford – and Les has been in the same house ever since 1946. He has two grown up daughters, 6 grandchildren – and great grandchildren too.

I hope he has a wonderful day of celebration down in Essex.

Happy birthday Uncle Les

Less Waist, Less Waste!

When Steph and Liz made their splendid Gingerbread House at Christmas, there was some dough left over. Steph intelligently wrapped it and put it in the freezer, for me to make biscuits at a future date.

But Bob and I are trying to avoid snacks and biscuits right now, as the weight loss thing has stalled. Bob actually went for a run round the village this morning at 7am. How disciplined was that?

Today being Valentine’s Day, and the prospect of a romantic dinner is non-existent [due to Bob leading Session 4 of the ‘In His Name’ Course at church this evening] So I decided to bake the biscuits anyway and serve them to the course members with their coffee this evening [after all, they will not be ‘dining à deux’ either]

Here are my dishes of gingerbread hearts – along with the Valentine card I made for Bob at the EcoHouse Craft afternoon on Sunday.

Will you be preparing a Romantic Meal for anyone?

Did you get a card?

In case you are wondering, I did get a card – sort of – only it was actually more of a sermon illustration for Sunday than anything else.

And I was preaching elsewhere, so I am sorry, I am not altogether sure what Bob said about it! I sincerely hope that none of you received a card like this [on the back it says Multipack, not to be sold separately]

My first Valentine cost one-and-threepence from Woolworths [price label still on] and the chap concerned sent cards to at least four other girls in the Church Youth Group. Two of their cards were padded satin ones!

Happy Valentine’s Day

I am so fond of this poem – Bob gave the TFL print to me for a wedding anniversary gift some time ago, and now it is framed and hangs at Cornerstones.

Young love is wonderful and exciting – but after more than thirty years of sharing life together, I am still overwhelmed daily by the fact that our love keeps on getting better and growing stronger.

Thank you darling!