Books, Books, Books...

 I picked up an email on Wednesday afternoon telling me that Book-Mark would not be coming on Thursday with the Mobile Van. Lots of the older folk in the village really enjoy his monthly visit. They don't have easy access into the town library. Mark is so good, finding and reserving their books. He's just received a certificate celebrating his 25 years as a library driver.

But I realised that many of these ladies [the customers are 90% female!] do not have access to the internet.So Rosie and I strolled round the corner and put notices on both sides of the road where he usually parks. It's far too hot to be hanging about hopefully, wondering why he is late!

Initially a little frustrating, as I had a stack of books to return, but then I received a second email, telling me a reserved book was in Dereham Library waiting for collection. So after lunch yesterday I zipped into town and was in and out of the library in 5 minutes!
The returned books were a little disappointing to be honest. Wortking down the pile

• Rosewater - Bob's science fiction book. Did not read
• The Art Of Repair - brilliant. Reviewed here
• OTK Extra Good Things - I borrowed this last year. I thought it looked good then, but did not try any of the recipes then. Re-reading it, I decided I was unlikely to do so now...
• Actually Delicious Air Fryer - rather similar to all the other A/F books. Nothing exciting
  
• Gino's Air Fryer - I am hoping to try the Signor D'Acampo's arancini sometime [recipe here]
• Sicily - recipes from husband and wife couple Katie and Giancarlo Caldesi. A very pretty book for your coffee table. Not sure I'd use it much in my kitchen
• Forage and Stitch; using natural materials in textile art  This was another inspirational gem

Carolyn Hyde-Brown, I discovered, lives a few miles from here! She gathers leaves, flowers, twigs, and other foraged materials, then uses a variety of techniques- hand and machine stitching, felting, solar dyeing, hapa-zome* and more to make interesting and diverse artworks. I'm rather busy with the family around at the minute, but I plan to borrow this one again in the autumn, and try some of her ideas.

*Hapa-zome is the Japanese word for extracting the dyes from leaves and petals by putting them on a sheet of fabric or paper, and walloping them with a hammer! 
Here's a quick explanation of HZ from another artist

I Spy With My Little Eye...

 ...Something Beginning With S

Wednesday morning was Superb 

It was The Swanton Shed Summer Mardle

The guys had really outdone themselves with their contribution to
the Sumptuous Spread - and so much seemed to beginning with S

For Starters, we had Smoked Salmon canapes

Sausages cooked on the Stove

Slices of cake, Sparkling Water

Sweet little plum tomatoes

Selection of sweets, Scones, freshly baked, Sausage rolls, Salads

The sunshine was beautiful, we were grateful for the shade of the big red gazebo.

The sky was so blue...

This marks the end of another year of 'shedding' in which we sadly lost one of our members, after a long illness - but gained some new friends in the group.

Lots of positive projects accomplished to benefit individuals and our community.

Now there's a break for a few weeks - and back in the autumn for more planing and polishing, sanding and sticking.
I am really proud of these guys, for all that they do together, building strong friendships as well as benches and notice boards.

Fancy Birds, Crazy Words

We have been having such a fabulous family time. I've had some issues with my photos, but I did get this one on Monday on my phone. This 'fancy bird', as one of the family described it, paraded across the picnic area at Roarr! . So lovely to see these real creatures, in among all the animatronic dinosaurs, strutting their stuff, and owning the place. 

The peacock reminded me of that 'trick poem' written nearly 400 years ago. You can read it as it is, or read it from the middle of one line to the middle of the next [use the red blocks # as line breaks.] I must show Rosie when she comes round later

    I Saw a Peacock # with a fiery tail

    I saw a Blazing Comet # drop down hail,

    I saw a Cloud # with Ivy circled round,

    I saw a sturdy Oak # creep on the ground,

    I saw a Pismire # swallow up a Whale,

    I saw a raging Sea  # brim full of Ale,

    I saw a Venice Glass # Sixteen foot deep,

    I saw a well  # full of men's tears that weep,

    I saw their eyes # all in a flame of fire,

    I saw a House # as big as the Moon and higher,

    I saw the Sun # even in the midst of night,

    I saw the man # that saw this wondrous sight.

[pismire = ant, Venice glass = venetian glass goblet]

Tune The World Out

A few weeks ago, I treated myself to a pair of noise cancelling headphones. They have proved useful in lots of ways - helping me relax, enabling us both to sit in the same room, but listen to different music, 

they are brilliant for listening to radio plays when the sewing machine is humming, and also managing my tinnitus.

So much has been happening in the last month. Some good, some bad, some joy, some sadness. 

• Huge things, global issues - wars and wildfires. 
• Political turmoil, comings and goings, 
• Burnham and Binface, and more.
• The deaths of famous people, ordinary people, and friends and family I know and love. 
• Unexpected illnesses. 

And those lovely events which have made me smile - 

• The Tunnock and Tardis at the Commonwealth games, 
• Punch the Macaque [look him up] 
• Happy moments with the family, 
• Unstoppable, enthusiastic grandhildren

Sometimes these things can overwhelm us .The strapline on the ad for my headphones says "Tune the world out" and I confess there are days when I want to do just that. Singing this hymn to myself helps... 

What calms your soul? 

Oh Crumbs!

In the UK around 22 million slices of bread are wasted every day. This statistic horrifies me. Bread is 'the staff of life' - in the Jewish tradition, it is considered sinful to throw away bread. I often have an odd crust leftover - not enough to make a sandwich - so I will put it into the freezer in a bag. Last week I defrosted the freezer. 

I had a bag full - so I ripped up the crusts and dropped them in the air fryer. 35 minutes at 130°, then left them to cool. Blitzed them in the food processor, and now they are back in the freezer ready to be used in cooking. So quick and easy. And Zero-Waste. 

Thirty years ago, I would have dried them overnight in the oven [after cooking something else at a higher temperature]. And then put them in a large plastic bag and smashed them up with a rolling pin. Now I let the gadgets do the work, using the electricity from the solar panels. 

What's your favourite way of using dried bread crumbs? 

Follow The Right Role Models

It took me a while to get this morning's sermon prepared, but in the end it all came together. The apostle John is comparing two people in a church group - Gaius [all round good and generous guy] and Diotrephes [a domineering, dodgy deacon]  I think John is saying something like this - "Look at Gaius, a loyal friend, walking faithfully, being welcoming and accepting, even to strangers, giving thoughtfully and generously.  He truly imitates Christ in his behaviour. Now look at Diotrephes – he has somehow obtained a position of influence. He is ego-centric, domineering, power hungry, dismissive of anyone who gets in his way, slandering them, throwing them out."*  And John's whole letter basically hangs on this verse - good advice and the main point of what I shall be saying

[* He probably lived in a white house too]

Stitching Old Things To New Life

I grabbed this one in the library on the way to the
checkout machines, it was on the end of a shelf and I liked the cover. But I never looked inside till I got home. And found it to be a lovely read! How serendipitous is that? 

Molly Martin tells how her favourite socks wore out, and her Mum showed her how to mend them 

using a darning mushroom. And she loved the idea of reinforcing the thinning stitches, restoring the socks to a new life. She has been stitching and mending ever since. She became an artist and textile repairer, and now works with the company TOAST to teach others to mend. 

This book is a distillation of all she has learned about mending, told through the garments which have been restored. 

Mollie brings the global vocabulary of mending to us - Japanese wabi-sabi [beauty in imperfection] 

and boro [tattered] where patches of fabric are stitched, layer upon layer

to make stronger, padded garments. Mottainai [not to waste] Then there is the Sanskrit word kantha - layering old saris and dhotis to make quilts. The old English word hussif - a contraction of housewife meaning a portable sewing kit [first on print in 1749] These were  used by men as well as women, 

notably soldiers across the world - from the American Civil War, through the Crimea, WW1 trenches and the Vietnam War.  And back to Japan again for sashiko ['little stabs] a reinforcing technique - and to Levi Strauss, who realised that adding copper rivets to his jeans meant they would last longer and could be patched and mended over and over again.

Her book is filled with stories of special garments mended by herself, or by friends. It is beautifully illustrated, and she devotes lots of pages to describing tools and techniques, so others can do mindful mending. And this slim volume is peppered with great quotes about repairing and restoring. I have copied them all down in a pretty notebook Kirsten sent me, and will be sharing them with you sometime. 

This book is a joy - learn about Mindful Mending - the history, the vocabulary, the techniques, the pictures, the stories. Even if you do not sew yourself, reserve it from the library to enjoy the read! *****

Stars And Stripes [ And Squares]

In this hot weather, Kirsten went for a pattern that was simple, not too brain-stretching. Life is never simple though…

Her idea was to see what happens as a two colour-changing yarns interact with each other. Kirsten chose Sirdar Crofter dk, designed to knit into a faux fair-isle pattern, and a self striping yarn with gradual colour changes. In 2010, I knitted a v-neck top in this same yarn. I think K's is more 50 shades of grey, whereas mine was darker bluey purples. [synchronicity again, both going for random dye yarns this month]

Her second yarn, a self-striping yarn where the colour changes gradually. It was a simple stocking stitch/two row pattern, The downside of a small six inch square is that the colours don't change and blend fast enough, and the stripes do not show up as clearly as she had hoped. Plus she discovered she had miscounted the stitches on one square. Then mislaid the other, ended up knitting a third, and finally found them all. Poor Kirsten, we have all been there!

She said in her email that she has sent me the one which reminded her most of my beloved Breton tops and enclosed a shot of 3 squares! 

But look, she sent me two of them. How kind. The 'flat gift' in my package is a pack of post-it notes. The covers are impregnated with daisy and chamomile seeds. The pages inside made of sustainable grass paper.  Kirsten has certainly 'earned her stripes' this month. 

I award her *****

Time And Tide

My latest square is the one on the bottom of the front cover, that attracted me to the book in the first place. [this is Block # 82 Dash ] It turns out to be another slip stitch pattern, with 4 rows stocking stitch and two rows [both ‘knit’] with a pattern of 2 slipped stitches which gives this neat broken ridge effect. There are 13 ridge rows- 5 using two contrast colours and 8 in the main colour. It reminded me of waves breaking on the seashore! 

  

We have been up at the coast a lot in recent weeks, visiting my friend in the care home. From her window you can see the way the water appears to be different colours. 

I used white and navy blue as the two contrasts [as per the book] but my main colour was Hayfield Bonus dk yarn in a random dye shade called ’Breeze’. I liked the variations in blue – very sea-like!  

Because of the  randomness of the yarn, they have come out slightly different in appearance. And as they are unblocked, they have wavy edges. I couldn’t decide which one to send Kirsten, so I closed my eyes, and chose one at random  It seemed appropriate!

Family FITS*

,*That's Fun In The Sun

bikes, balls, beaches, brothers, books...

And sipping long cool drinks through a straw

 

It's The Silly Season!

This phrase was first coined in the UK in 1861, describing late July. August and September. It is a period during the summer months when the papers publish trivial news stories to fill space, primarily because major institutions are in recess. During this time, stories about massive vegetables, strange animal behaviour, or Loch Ness Monster sightings often take centre stage in the news.
Here in East Anglia, we have had some rather ambiguous headlines, alongside bizarre photographs in the last couple of weeks. Julian and I were reading the Eastern Daily Press online over the weekend. We honestly couldn't decide of some of these captions with the accompanying pictures were deliberately chosen, or whether the head had gone to their heads.
For instance 

Sandringham Estate in Norfolk
hit by "Vermin Infestation"

The report does explain...A tenant, who did not wish to be named, told a national newspaper: "There are always rodents in an agricultural area like this, but most people can keep the numbers under control by having a cat."…However, tenants on the estate are banned from keeping cats under a rule introduced by the late Queen Elizabeth II to protect wildlife in the area. Despite the complaints raised at the council meeting, it is understood that the estate has not received any direct reports of vermin from tenants, . …It comes after Andrew Mountbatten Windsor's new home on the estate, Marsh Farm in Wolferton, was invaded by moles earlier this year.

Next My Grandsons are particularly keen on this local theme park. But this picture certainly made Julian and me laugh

Dinosaur Park gets green light for new look

We presume the exclamation mark is to be illuminated in future !!

Thirdly

Owners of "hidden" sauna, built without planning permission, fight to save it.
The bizarre thing about this story is that the sauna never was 'hidden' - the EDP had a big feature on it back in April when it opened.

The establishment is called The Hidden Sauna Club because it is off the beaten track, looking out over the countryside. It has proved incredibly popular. Quite why the owner thought she could build this without first seeking planning permission is unclear. But she is now applying retrospectively, claiming "the sauna is small in both scale and impact"
It is proving very popular, operating seven days a week, daytime and evenings, with sessions for up to 8 people at a time.[£20 an hour, if you're interested] So it's clearly a nice little earner. But the first sentence really tickled me
"The owners... hope the council planners WILL NOT POUR COLD WATER on its bid to stay in business" 
I don't know about the silly season, but as they say round here, it is

One final thing, picked up, bizarrely, by the Manchester Evening News before the EDP or the BBC reported it - the World Snail Racing Championship at Grimston in West NorfolK, was won this year by Snailor Swift!! [here]

Temperature Spike

Julian was with us for three days over the weekend. We did fun stuff - the Bridewell Museum in Norwich, the Aviation Museum, Board Games, Lunch with family etc. In April 25, J gave me a Mr Potato Head plantholder. I filled it with an Aloe, and rechristened MrPH 'Spike' 

In 15 months, he has grown a lot more spikes. He lives on the end of the kitchen windowsill. In this extreme heat, I have kept the blinds right down all the time, so that the room doesn't get too hot. 
But I had a bit of a shock on Saturday - it was cooler, so I put the blind up a little more than it has been for the past three weeks. 
Just look at Spike now!
I do believe he is sprouting a flower,
for the first time ever.
I was ridiculously pleased that this has happened whilst Julian was with us. I wonder if the flower will get bigger or open up in anyway.? Do aloes have 'babies'?

Sermon Prep

Next week, I am out preaching. They have given me a passage to work from, so I have been reading it through as I prepare. Here is the second verse of the third letter of John. It seemed a very good greeting to share with you all this morning.  
God bless you, wherever you are, in whatever you are doing, today!

 

Spud-U-Like*

The potato plants were looking awfully sad - and it is the middle of July, so I felt I should harvest them. 

It is not difficult when they are in pots, and in two rows of the raised bed. But they were somewhat varied in size, and rather earthy. I washed and dried them very carefully, then decided to sort them.

I am sure that the commercial potato growers have some sort of mechanical process for grading spuds. 

I used my rubber egg [which was mysteriously laid on my front drive about 15 years ago!] The potatoes were put into 4 groups thus:

• Bigger than the egg
• Egg sized
• Smaller than the egg
• Marbles [just a cupful of these]

I normally keep the potatoes I buy from the veg place in their brown paper sack, on the bench in the old garage. But it is baking hot in there at the minute. So these are all stored away, in separate containers, in the fridge. I found a fun pic on the internet

What does I Papiassos mean? Sounds like a Greek potato pun

Does anyone have any suggestions for what to do with the marble sized ones? 

If I can't think of a good way to cook them, they'll go into the compost bin.

*Back in the 90s, the family always pronounced the name of this fast food outlet as Spudoulikae, having decided it was a small village on a Greek Island in the Aegean Sea, famed for its tubers!

The Blue Bird Of Happiness

In 1908, the Belgian writer Maurice Maeterlinck wrote a story called The Blue Bird about two children, brother and sister, named Tyltyl and Mytyl. It is a fairy story [not specifically for children - synopsis here] but in the tale, the fairy gives them a magic diamond which will reveal truth to them. Mytyl wants to find happiness, and they seek everywhere for the mystical Blue Bird which will grant this. In the end, they go home, and there all along is a cage containing a blue bird. Tyltyl gives this to his sister. That's sort of where this happy blue bird idea started [why did he give the children such odd names though?] And in 1939 Judy sang about bluebirds over the rainbow, and soon after Vera added the bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover.
But what are these bluebirds? Here's the thing - in the USA a bluebird is one of three species of thrush [Easterm, Western, and Mountain Thrushes] with vibrant blue and reddish brown plumage. But we don't get them in Europe...

The writer of the 1941 song was from the US, and never even visited Dover till long after the war. He was unaware we didn't have bluebirds here! So people have made various suggestions

• that blue birds' represented the RAF pilots in their blue uniforms
• that they were the peregrine falcons with blue feathers in their backs - flying over the Channel, trained to intercept German carrier pigeons.
• that the swallows arriving each summer had a blue sheen to their plumage, and that return brought hope.
• they could be the Eurasian Jay which has a bright blue flash on its wing
• they could be blue tits... feeble claim, these are tiny garden birds, and unlikely to be seen soaring over Kent!

Sorry if that burst your bubble...

But do have a look at my bluebird which has just flown in to Cornerstones. A tiny little amigurami crochet blue tit. It was a gift on Monday when I delivered a pair of memory bears. My friend's mother died recently - she was a very colourful lady, 89 years old, and fond of brightly coloured dresses.

I made two identical bears, for my friend and her sister. They have blue bows at the neck and personalised backpacks. And the 'pads' are made from her Mum's fleecy dressing gown - which she wore all the time in the last few weeks of her life. I used the dg to make two bags for the bears to travel in
My friend was thrilled [I may have to include packs of tissues next time I deliver bears] and said she couldn't sew. I admired the crochet items in her lounge, saying that I struggle with crochet. She immediately gave me a tiny bluebird!
Currently he is sitting with the orchids - but I may add a hanging ribbon and put him in the Xmas Tree box.

Can you crochet?

 Have you ever made amigurami birds or animals?

What I've Been Watching...

If you like sport, then the last few weeks have provided some good TV. Tennis, Football, Grand Prix...and more.(sad that England lost last night) If you are like me, and don't really like watching sport on TV at all, the programme listings have been a little dull. 
However, I did manage to catch some of the Penelope Keith programmes, following her recent death. How I loved her wardrobe - both as Margot Leadbetter and Audrey Forbes-Hamilton! She was so tall and statuesque and could really pull off those fabulous silk kaftans, satin evening gowns and glorious millinery. At a diminutive 4'11" with a small budget, I was more at home in the old jumpers and dungarees favoured by Felicity Kendall. PK was a brilliant actor and I can watch re runs of The Good Life any time. 

At last Quizzy Mondays have returned. This week we had to deliver something to a friend, and we were delayed, so it was just after 8pm when we arrived "I thought you two would be the sort of people at home watching Only Connect right now" she said. Our friends know us too well! We watched it later, when we got home. Good to see Clive, Amol and VC-M quizzing away as before. 

We have been watching the 2010 reboot of Hawaii Five-O on Netflix. Quite enjoying it, altho it can get a bit violent.  But we are particularly grateful to Liz for alerting us to a policeman called Panda

NO not Peppa Pig's Policeman Panda, voiced by VCM's husband David Mitchell, but a French crime drama on Channel 4's Walter Presents

Panda [aka Victor Pandaloni] is an ex-cop, turned relaxed vegan pacifist, who is reluctantly dragged back to the force. But he insists on working on his own terms. So no early morning callouts, cycling rather than using a car, no weapons or violence.
It's so clever and so witty. Providing you can cope with subtitles , it is easy viewing for a warm summer evening. Set in the Camargue [yes there is a pony, sunshine, sandy beaches etc] It has all the usual tropes...

-longsuffering boss [permanently tired due to young family]
-attractive but highly-strung female partner, who is his polar opposite
-younger idiot cop who worships Panda 
-teenage son whom Panda 'accidentally' adopted

C'est Très Drôle

No Reds Under The Beds Here!

When we got married, Bob's parents bought us a bed. The guy in the shop told us to turn/rotate the mattress every three months to ensure even wear. I diligently marked each corner, top and bottom. Thus in the corner under Bobs pillow, it would say Jan 1st/ Apr 1st/ July 1st/ Dec 1st depending on which season we were in. We kept the bed, but changed the mattress a few times. The bedframe had four built in underbed drawers. So useful when we lived in tiny flats.

Then Bob got sleep apnoea. We got a new bed and a new mattress. Now we had one with a definite top and bottom, so it's turned round, but not over - every six months. Last week we did the July turn. This is an IKEA Malm bed, and matches our bedroom cupboards [as does the one in the back bedroom] IKEA are about to phase out the Malm range. Look out for bargains on FB Marketplace!
A few years back, IKEA had an ad campaign for its beds "Where family starts" claiming that German researchers had discovered than 10% of European babies were conceived on IKEA beds. They had a photographic family tree including bed pictures. [The other Europeans were presumably conceived "out of bedlock"]

It is always slightly embarrassing to see how much dust collects under my bed despite my 'swiffering'. There are a few things which live there

• the extension cable for plugging in bedside light, phone charger etc
• A small zip underbed bag where I keep our summer sandals and beach shoes over the winter.
• The big pack of spare kitchen tiles, because when the boiler dies, probably soon, I will need to fill the gap. And these tiles are big and need to be stored flat
• A small box of emergency foodstuffs. A hangover from the days of my Brexit box, I check this and use/swap stuff that is going out of date every so often. Rosie recently asked me "Grandma, why do you keep snacks under the bed?" I pointed out that a can of red kidney beans doesn't really count as a midnight snack!

In the back room, the bed is a little higher, and I have two proper Malm storage drawers. One has all my craft paper and card [flat and accessible] The other holds spare bedlinens and tablecloths. The contents of both drawers are slowly being used up/donated to CS. 

There is something very satisfying about doing a thorough clean, washing the bedside rugs, putting fresh linen on the bed... 

At the moment I use the duvet cover as a loose top sheet. Even in hot weather, I like to have something over me when I sleep] My preferred heatwave pjs - an ancient "Friends" t-shirt, and M&S men's boxer shorts.[3-pack, for £10 in 2023] Confession; some of these hot mornings recently, I get to lunchtime and I'm still slumming around the house in these!

Years ago [having read the joke in one of her dad's books] my daughter asked her Sunday School teacher

"Is it true that we come from dust and go to dust?"

The somewhat surprised lady said "Well, that's what the bible tells us, dear"

My cheeky child responded "Well, there's a lot of people coming and going under my bed then

Seeing Double

On Sunday evening we went into Norwich for a classical music concert. The two performers were identical twins, Peter and Zoltan Katona, playing identical guitars. They were absolutely stunning. Although they are Hungarian, they are expert in Spanish guitar. They thrilled the audience with Scarlatti, Manuel de Falla, Bocherini and more

The two came to England to study at the Royal Academy of Music, and then settled in Liverpool. They love the Beatles, so their encore was a great rendition of "Come Together" 

It was a simply magical evening. Bob had booked the tickets months ago, not really what to expect. They are in York this week, Cheltenham next. There are tickets still available. Do check out their Website.

Have you ever heard them play? What did you think? 

Hanging Hockney

Never one to hang about, Bob got busy on Saturday morning withe the Hockney print. He trimmed it square to fit the frame, then prepared the hooks. Et voila! 

It works beautifully on the blue wall. Also in the room are two photos [Holkham Beach, and Liz, Steph and Ro in Dorset] plus Steph's painting of beach huts.

Bob thoughtfully used his Xtra Hand,the brilliant attachment for the vacuum cleaner,which sucks up all the dust when drilling. I've posted about this before . You can buy cheaper copies,  but reviews all say how flimsy and inefficient they are. This pukka gadget would be a good gift for any DIY-er.