ANOTHER VISITOR

This black cat has been around for four or five years and I still don't know whether it's a genuine stray or an opportunist who 'does the rounds', finding food where it can.

He's very, very wary and I can't get anywhere near him/her. He sits outside waiting to be fed and was dozing on the doorstep until he became aware I was just behind him - indoors.

I show him the tin of cat food, if that's what I'm going to put out, or extend my hand if I have dry food but as soon as I raise my arm towards the door handle, he's gone. The closed door seems to indicate safety.

He nips round the side of the house and is confident enough to wait out of my sight but because I went round to take this photo, he hopped through the cats' entrance to wait in safety the other side of the gate. There's just one eye showing beside the hosepipe.

Count to two after the door's been shut and he's there - this time just a small handful of Ashley's dry food - I think this was a complete surprise to him the first time I put it out. He eats anything, jacket potato skins, even bread and butter. With 'wet' food I think he'd eat the plate as well if he could. Then he mooches off until next time, then he'll be waiting nearby for the next handout.

He's not the first cat who's just turned up outside the door. My first cat, well, not my first cat, just the first of the present run which began in the early 80s, when Stuart, my son, came home after splitting up with his girl friend. He brought a scared tabby cat, which got renamed as Puss, and the girl took the Old English Sheepdog... then a friend said there was a pretty white and ginger kitten at the farm, one of a litter belonging to one of their farm cats. He became Sherry. The next was a hefty tabby, also a bag of nerves, and all I saw of him for weeks was one eye peering round the wall at the end of the garden. The two cats ignored him and eventually he plucked up the courage to come indoors and circle round the downstairs room before exploring upstairs and so he joined the gang. He was named Fraidy, cos he was a Fraidy cat. They've all gone now, all buried at the garden. But when I came here, I saw a black and white cat out in the wilderness which was the old overgrown sandpits. He, too, came to get scraps, was accepted by the resident three and now Ashley is the last one left. Perhaps the black one will eventually pluck up courage enough to stay nearby when the door is opened.

Time will tell...

COINCIDENCES

This is the monstrous Bucks County Council HQ where Local Studies and the Record Office are housed in the bottom of this horrible building. Sorry, The Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies...It looks like a Reception class lesson where small children stick egg box bottoms onto cardboard... Can you tell I don't like it? It 'won' a TV competition some years ago for the most disliked building in the TV area.

Anyway, yesterday my friend Chris and I went into Aylesbury to continue transcribing the Bucks County Pauper Lunatic Asylum Admissions Register for our Stone Parish Records which we've been working on for 10+ years, on and off.

It's a quiet atmosphere in the Record Office where everyone is busy researching local and personal history so we try to be quiet as Chris reads from the register, which measures almost a yard wide when it's opened, and I transcribe the selected information straight into the computer. Yesterday it was an all-women table, plus one man, so was quite relaxed.

I heard one researcher talking to the staff (who are very knowledgeable) asking about Prestwood. (You do tend to 'ear-'ole' to conversations). I lived there for 20 years and taught for 14 or 15 years in the First school so, never averse to talking to strangers, said this. We got talking and she asked my name.

When I told her she said, 'You taught my son.' Further conversation revealed that he's now the deputy head of a school 'up country', I can't remember where. We had an audience by now, as you may imagine.

When I came home I found my class photos and there he was, dressed just as she said he was, in blue shirt, short trousers and grey jersey on which was pinned an 'I am 6' badge.

If I hadn't spoken I would never have found out that bit of information, which I passed on to another class teacher who had taught him as he moved up the school.

Ain't being nosey/curious/interested/helpful wonderful!

(The photo comes from the Images on BCC site).

FAT BALLS FOR THE BIRDS

A few days ago I noticed that the fat balls I'd hung up for the birds had large holes. I wondered what had made them until one morning I saw a female great spotted woodpecker hammering away. It's been back since and it now attacks the cage of peanuts with gusto.

I don't have a long enough lens on my camera to be able to take a photo of this smart black and white bird which is about 9" in length. I know it's a female because the bird doesn't have a red patch on the top of its head as the males do; both sexes have red patches underneath their tail.

This drawing comes from the AA Book of British Birds.

The magpie and this bird have 'pie' in their name to denote the black and white plumage. I don't get green woodpeckers in my garden as I don't have enough grass to interest them but can sometimes watch them probing in the lawn in my neighbour's garden. Many years ago a Scottish friend, who hadn't ever seen a green woodpecker, or even known of their existence, saw one in her garden and thought it was an escaped parrot - not a bad guess.

TESCO

Went for a quick shop this morning and took my camera in with me. I'd noticed this some time ago and was determined to take a photo one day.

I'm not commenting or I'd be here all day. Suffice to say that's a professional signwriter...

NOVEMBER

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds! -
November!

'November' by Thomas Hood.

Typing that made me think how things have changed from the time the poem was written in the early 19th century. Since the Clean Air Acts in 1956 and 1968 we don't have the dense pea-souper fogs caused by open coal fires which were such killers, skies are clear and clean. Seasons are changing with flowers still in the gardens, including primroses, roses and Lychnis coronaria in mine. Still sunshine - I couldn't find a gloomy illustration for the poem - they're all lovely red and orange sunsets! No leaves - heavens! There are millions of them still on the trees in the lovely autumnal shades.And dozens of birds are in the garden.
But it's still November.
Never mind, there'll soon be snowdrops, crocuses, early daffs....

A QUILT TOP FINISHED

I finished the top this afternoon in 20 days - very quick time for me nowadays! There are 170 triangles and 20 half triangles at the ends of the rows.

There's material of all kinds - plaids, checks and stripes, abstracts, plenty of flowers and a few pictorial prints. They come from all sorts of sources; from jumbles and car boots, some I've had for so long I can't remember where it originated. The spotty material was collected so that I could make my then two small great granddaughters a Spotty Nighttime Quilt when they moved house. I like spotty material!

Other material was given to me by a friend who was downsizing and said to take what I wanted - all yardages, not scraps, another piece was given to me by an Art Group friend - it had belonged to her mother. One piece of green print came from Cuddington Fete this year and some I had bought from a lady at the last table top sale in the spring. We got talking and she turned up on my doorstep one afternoon with a bag of All Sorts, including this magic material.

This rhinoceros has friends, too...

A blue crocodile, but I like this one, being a 'catty' person. You can almost hear it purring...

Pictorial prints seem to be few and far between but I did have a small piece of lightweight curtaining in one donation, a strip of toys.

The cow parsley with the white rabbit came from a summer

skirt which was based on reeds, dragonflies and water birds (there's a bird's head balanced on the bottom border) but I have no idea why cow parsley was included! However, it has been a useful design.

Now comes the hard work, getting the batting cut and backing
pieces stitched together and pinned. I can't get down to do
this on the floor any longer and my working table is against the
wall so it has to be done in sections. I hope I shall be able to use this quilt as a practice piece for machine quilting as I intend to keep this one. It doesn't have to be perfect in that case.

TABLE TOP SALE

I went to a table top sale this morning at the Church of the Good Shepherd in Aylesbury, which didn't have many stalls at all, not like the last time I went in the spring. But I did get this Indian bag for my granddaughter, Sarah, who is at Uni doing Costume Design and Photography, the latter being her favourite part of the course. This is just the sort of thing she'll like; it has an orange cotton interior with a zip and washable in cold water, too. For 50p how could I leave it behind?

As I left I thought that, many years ago, the local council actually got something right when they planted these trees. This is effectively a gigantic roundabout in the middle of what used to be

called a 'council estate'. Bright golds and greens at present but in the summer the fresh green leaves are just as pretty. That's the church building in the background, not houses.

Time for lunch.

PRETTY BRIGHT GREEN CAULIFLOWER

I was in a local greengrocer's shop this morning and saw some of these vegetables so I asked if I could take a photo of them. The answer was Yes; I went back to the car to fetch the camera. It's a very pretty green with these little pimpled cones on them. (No, not the camera.)

I asked what it was but the lady in charge was only there for a few minutes to take the money while the owner was out so she couldn't help. However it was in a tray with 'proper' cauliflowers.

I've looked it up on Google Images where it's labelled as a Romanesco cauli, fractalish cauli and Italian cauli. It's said to have a mild, nutty taste somewhere between broccoli and cauliflower - a wonderful partner to pasta. (What does 'fractalish' mean? Something to do with 'broken'?)

But another post says it's not a cauliflower but a Romanesque broccoli...it's apparently linked to Fibonacci numbers but then, I'm not into numbers...

Seems as if yer pays yer money and takes yer choice.

ALL SORTS

Today is a real mixture. Yesterday I received the parcel of patchwork material which I bid for on eBay and won and these are just a few of the character pieces rather than the floral ones. . All patchwork material, rather than the recycled clothing I'm used to.These three are some of the more notable pieces - I wonder what the script on the left says? A nice piece of Christmas fabric - not that I like Christmas but I do like gold lines in material, and a closeup of the print on the piece at right, below. It isn't this grey colour, it's really an olive green with darker green writing.
It says things like 'Lovely Quilt', 'Needlework', 'Laugh Often', 'Live Well' and 'Home Sweet Home'. All nice sentiments...

I wonder if anyone can tell me what this was originally used for? I think it must have come to my family many years ago before the war when my Granny went charing for a local lady with money and who probably gave her this piece. I think it's cloisonne work and the little putti are some base metal. Any ideas? It's only about 3 1/2" high.

At the end of the day when I go up the wooden hill to Bedfordshire I look forward to making contact with this final item. Ah! The bliss of sliding down my permanently cold feet onto a very hot hot water bottle...
'And so to bed', as Pepys is supposed to have said.

A USEFUL IDEA

This isn't very elegant but it's s-o-o-o useful! Once upon a time I was always losing stubs of pencils in between the spuds in the supermarkets or dropping them somewhere in the car so that I couldn't cross off the items on my shopping list (recycled cardboard) or add any that I'd just thought of.
I saw a picture of Chaucer, that well-known medieval poet, who appeared to have something similar hanging round his neck so I adopted/adapted his idea.
It's just an ordinary pencil, as you can see, with a piece of window blind cord taped to it. That makes it very visible in the car where it can be just about anywhere - a length of wool is OK, too, but not so easily seen, and breaks in time. Nothing like recycling! I wear it as a 'necklace' and so far no-one has commented on it.
Talking about supermarkets, does anyone have any idea where I can get blocks of dates for cake making? Supermarkets don't keep them any more (even if the assistant knows what you are talking about, everyone is so young...) nor does the Julian Graves store. My daughter has sent some from Holland where she got them on a Turkish market stall but they are rather like a dense puree with no resemblance to separate dates at all...

A WALK IN THE SUNSHINE

Yesterday was the last day when it's supposed to be 'nice' so I went out for a walk across rough ground and downhill at that!

The pedestrian gate to the stables that Stuart and Helen own (son and dau-in-law) was plagued by people parking their cars outside it so, with the help and agreement of the people living opposite, have put up these posts and logs to stop it; so far none have been removed or knocked down! Touch wood...

They've got chickens there, too, and these are the nosy ones which came to look - they're several feet higher than the ground I was standing on. Having a happy scratch among the weeds and being looked after by the cockerel.

These are my bugbear, I just don't like cows, even though they're unlikely to cause any harm so I try and stay away from them. These were in another field but could get into the part I was walking on. And lots more out of sight behind the hedge.

While I was stumbling my way down the hill with the help of my thumbstick - and avoiding the cow pats as well as I could, this soundless plane passed high in the blue sky leaving a couple of perfect contrails. Wonder where that had been and was going?

I saw this lovely twisted old tree - what a subject to try and draw or paint with its interesting trunk and dead branch sticking out to the side.

Just beyond this was a field which had already been ploughed and a large tree has been left in the middle. Don't you feel grateful that the farmer has bothered to 'draw' round it rather than cut is down and make an open field? It gives some character to what could have been 'just a field'.

When I got home I washed all the muck off the thumbstick, made a cuppa and felt pleased that I'd made the effort to go out.

WALNUT THIEF

As Kath at Hill Cottage knows, there's a huge walnut tree three gardens away from me. A squirrel obviously has a favourite branch in my sycamore tree to perch on while he munches on his ill-gotten gains.

He must be the gardener who thinks I need dozens of walnut trees sprouting in the flower beds and plant pots every year. He adds a handful or ten of acorns from the oak tree I grew from an acorn many years ago and these pop up across the garden, too. I can't blame him for the sycamore sproutlings which appear; they, at least, are windborne.

GARDEN ORNAMENTS or something

Some years ago I bought a very nice concrete garden ornament of a reclining gender-free person, head on arms and feet in the air. This cropped photo shows it in its prime.

And this is how it looks now, rather sad and sorry..... It's just split into slices, probably due to the very hard winter we had at the beginning of this year, and age.

This lamb was originally an impulse buy and it lived on my bookshelves as a bookend until I needed the space, when it was relegated to the garden. It's grown a handsome mossy coat in the time it's been outdoors.

My gardening lady, Gillian, made this for me two years ago, as a present. Nice lady! It's usually facing the other way up. It hasn't broken or acquired any mossy growth - well done, Gillian!

IT'S A YEAR AGO...

A year ago today I broke my shoulder after catching my foot on a heavy trolley in a local supermarket and falling on a very hard floor. It wasn't anyone's fault, just one of those things, but it did show me how much we rely on two hands for everyday tasks.

Just getting dressed was a long job - and going to the loo took ages! I couldn't drive, of course, so had to rely on other people to either shop for me or take me shopping. But pushing a trolley wasn't easy, either...

I found ways round things eventually, such as washing up, filling a hot water bottle, peeling a potato, getting in and out of sweaters and shirts, getting upright enough to be able to get out of bed. I sometimes felt like a beetle on its back wriggling its legs to right itself. It made me inventive...

I made sure I did the prescribed exercises every day and set goals for myself. I knew I had to be able to peg washing on the line, which meant raising both arms above shoulder level, as did closing the car boot; driving needed me to be able to reach indicators and windscreen wipers, not just hold the wheel, and I was very pleased that my car is an automatic, so no gears to worry about.

I slept sitting up for a couple of months or more, firstly in the armchair with a quilt over me and then with a backrest borrowed from St. John Ambulance (for free) which made sleeping in bed much more comfortable. All this was going on during the very snowy weather last winter.

I bought a shoulder pulley and watched my progress as I could pull past more marks on the cord which runs over the wheel. The hardest thing I had to relearn was putting my arm behind my back at waist level to tie on my peg apron, it took a long time to get that flexibility back but I can do it now!

The bruise was quite dramatic and very colourful. It was interesting to watch people's reactions when I showed them and it took months to disappear completely.

Nowadays I can do everything I could do previously, the only legacy being my shoulder aches just a little if I carry anything heavy in my left hand for too long, otherwise it's fine.

Since I know homeopathic medicine works, I also took Symphytum, old fashioned KnitBone, and I'm sure that, and using a massage oil with arnica, also helped.

Just goes to prove, do your exercises!!!!

(And I managed to get to the theatre two weeks after I'd fallen to see The Sound of Music at Milton Keynes, I wasn't going to miss that after booking the ticket months in advance!!)

ANOTHER WHEEL COVER

Another car boot today and another pictorial wheel cover.
Looking on line to see if I could find this picture I managed to find plenty of others and other items, too, but couldn't see this particular one.

EXTENSION TABLE FOR TOYOTA

A few days ago I mentioned I had phoned Toyota about an extension table. Well, it arrived yesterday.

This shows the machine I've used for the last 10 years or so and the area I've worked on - it measures about 9 1/2" x 7". For years I'd used a cone of thread with a cotton reel stuffed in the underside so that it would fit onto the 'spike' then discovered I could get a cone holder (I think it is called)- what bliss! My daughter-in-Holland's partner also bought me one so now I have one for bobbin cotton, too. You can just see them like twin masts behind the centre of the machine. I've used magnetic pincushions for years and the little tin is an idea I got from Kath in which I collect threads and small offcutty bits which then all go into the bin rather than on the (carpeted) floor.

And here's the machine with the extension table attached. What luxury!! This sewing space measures about 20" x 11 1/2" so I should be able to improve my machine quilting non-skills...

When I moved here the room had been a baby's nursery and I was in such a rush to get everything sorted that I didn't bother with decorating, hence the frieze. I did find time to glue sheets of polystyrene to one wall and then staple an old flannelette sheet to it for my design wall and it's served me very well.

Ah, the joys of living on your own when you can do what you like to your house, though it would be useful to have a man to, say, put up shelves or shift heavy furniture. It takes a lot of reminding to get my son to come and do something I can't manage, but to be fair, he has an awful lot on his plate.

I went into a charity shop yesterday and bought two mens' shirts to recycle, one purple with tiny white lines in both directions and a black one with lines slightly wider apart plus a boy's shirt in blue plaid. They're flapping on the line at the moment, then a cutting up session...

SNAPSHOTS OF AUTUMN

A few pictures I took recently when I walked down a local lane - all hedgerow plants.

Are these ash keys??? It looks likely from an illustration in a wild plants book.

These are ivy flowers which had small bees and a butterfly or two on this quite large expanse of ivy. Unfortunately there was a ditch by the hedge which I didn't fancy getting caught in so couldn't get any closer.

This is known as Old Man's Beard or Traveller's Joy and is the seed pods of Clematis vitalba, smothering the hedgerow underneath it.

I don't know what plant these berries are from - is it White Briony???

Must have another look in a few weeks time to see what else has turned up. Other photos I took this time weren't worth downloading so they've been deleted.

EXPERIMENTING WITH ASHLEY

Last evening I watched a programme on Taking Photos of Animals, one of a series on Channel 5 which has included Portraits and Landscapes so far.

Ashley was on my lap, as usual, so I put the camera on macro and took a few shots (with one eye on England's dismal showing against Montenegro...). The expert on taking animal photos suggested getting texture into your shots and this is what I tried to do.

Pictures of a sleepy disinterested cat!

TRIAL RUN AT MACHINE QUILTING

A couple of weeks ago I thought I'd have a go at machine quilting and this was the result of a very short time's work. The scribble on the right is me drawing out a route using a scribble stencil which I've used for hand quilting previously and realised that when I did the top left section I tried to make the turns too close so must learn to expand the 'wriggles'. Underneath was a try at a heart - OK on one half, not exactly a match on the other side (!) and I'd watched a video of someone making bubbles/pebbles but that's not as easy as it looks.

I must have another try soon as I have treated myself to a pair of Machingers and can't wait too long before I use them, can I? One thing I'm not looking forward to is having to fiddle about getting the tiny screw which holds on the different feet into the locating hole, a real trial. Any hints to make life easier?

I was talking to - someone - about there not being much room on an ordinary sewing machine to support a 'large' piece of material so emailed Toyota and found they do an extension table for my model, cost £22 plus p & p. Phoned to place an order and - their Spares dept is open from 10-12.30 and 1.30-2.30..... At least their Help Line was available to tell me as it wasn't mentioned in the email I received from them.!

Tomorrow, then.

GUARDIAN OF THE GATEWAY

This spider is living in the passageway leading from the back to the front of the house - Hurricane Alley - just before I reach the gate. I almost walked through its web but spotted it just in time. It must get dizzy because it vibrates in the wind that gusts through here...

R101 AIRSHIP CRASH 5 October 1930.

Eighty years ago yesterday....

Airships would be the air transport of the future it was thought in the 1920s and 30s. The R100 was built privately and made successful voyages. The Government subsidised the building of the R101 which was intended to make long distance travel to the outposts of Empire and bring prestige to Britain. An extra central bay of 35' complete with a gas bag was inserted into the airship to give additional lift and after a short test flight in calm weather a long distance flight went ahead without further trials. The Air Minister had to be on the maiden flight to India and be back in Britain by the 20th October.

The R101 left Cardington in Bedfordshire in darkness. Over France the deteriorating weather caused major problems and the airship impacted with the ground near Beauvais where it burst into flames. Forty eight people died with 8 survivors.

The photo at the top shows the gigantic airship sheds at Cardington, Beds, which dominate the flat landscape, the photo taken by Tony Margiocchi in 2009; the one below, of the skeleton of the R101 at Beauvais, comes from a site www.prairieghosts.com/garrett.

If you're interested in a very good account of the tragedy try the site www.bedford.gov.uk/leisure. And if you're interested in the possibility of an afterlife you could read 'The Airmen who would not die' by John G. Fuller pub. 1979.

Within a few years the Hindenburg catastrophe put paid to airship travel...