before and after

The bad news is that the boy child, in a cottage below, has been given a vuvuzela, unfortunately he is known to be persistent - he still bounces every day on his big garden trampoline usually kicking his beloved football at the same time, so I don't hold out much hope that he will lose interest in blowing his own trumpet for some time.
It sounds like a lost and weary elephant calling for his herd.

This is not the elephant, it is the hay binder that caught fire and set fire to several barley and potato fields plus some woods on Wednesday.



Driving back from stewarding I could smell the smoke two villages away and my eyes were smarting as I got near home. Visions of wet dog, cat and Retired Person dripping on the lawn while old homestead smoked in ruins.
However it was up aways and across the road and the firemen had doused the worst.
The poor old Millennium hedge has taken a bashing, which is a shame it took a lot of time and money sticking all those plastic tubes with twigs into the ground - so I am told.
We were hoping to live long enough to have the branches meet over our heads as we walked as they used to when G'dad was a boy

Hot work apparently, one doesn't think of these practicalities.
I remember being driven back to college and all the fields seem to be on fire to my urban eyes, I wondered if war had been declared [we were living under threat of the Bomb [not terrorism] but it in those days the farmers used to burn off the stubble. Not allowed now, naughty dirty smoke.
Naughtiness will always find a way it seems

smelling the daisies

Big white daisy time of year again. As with everything else growing in the garden all is flamboyantly flourishing. We had a couple of nights of heavy rain and lots of days of hotness, tho it has degenerated into muggy haze today.
The postman was complaining, tho his knees were nicely browned in his Royal Mail shorts. I have put the little fences down the front path again so the dew/rain doesn't dampen his enthusiasm for delivering bills.
I still expect letters, but apart from the occasional postcard there is nothing. Obviously i don't write by snail mail to anyone, but somehow I expect letters to still appear.

This deckchair by Jane is the highlight of our textile show, it sold as well for £190 which really was too little.
I am off to steward for the closing day tomorrow, always a test of patience. I am doing a bit of crazy patchwork as therapy so i guess I should take that with me to shut me up.

I liked this applique by Pat, so I have started one of white daisies but I don't know if my design is bold enough.
This is a felted version by someone else that I forget, tomorrow I will have time to remember each piece and it's maker several times over.
My bleak thoughts seem to have blossomed a bit, maybe because I am busier. Yesterday I went to my new Stitching group [I am in 3 now!] and the gentle enthusiam did raise my spirits, we hope to have a small exhibition in December, some of them have not exhibited before so I hope we do sell some things.
Liz has the confidence to charge £400 for her smallish stitched tapestries.
She is small herself with 2 small children, but she used to be in engineering and has a refreshingly literal approach to many things. Quiet but determined.
Ruth's trees and buildings I found pleasing
Nearly everyone did plants but these triads found a way in.

Went to the Guild last night in a desperate effort to kick start some positive thoughts in my poor soggy mind - which is dragging itself from day to day with no idea how to find the light.

Perhaps it was a mistake to even think that knitted brooches would do the trick.

Lots of jolly women enjoying the creative process pushed me even deeper into gloom.

The knitted brooches proved to be beaded flowers and were ghastly. I tried using more interesting beads which destroyed any shape they may have had. At least i have learnt to thread beads onto wool and knit them into a row, that must be good.......

It is extremely windy today but inside my head there is no breeze whatsoever.

and did these feet......

Walked Hattie the dog down at Felixstowe and had a lovely fish and chip lunch at my favourite caf - new table cloths!


The sea breeze was more welcome than usual as the sun was so hot.
They seem to be busy off the coast, surely they are not drilling for oil?


This huge black tanker was also hanging around on the horizon looking menacing.

Mind you I am reading The Passage which renders almost everything menacing after a while, and stayed up late Friday night listening to the wireless waiting for the bloke to shoot himself, almost more surreal than the novel. Why on earth did they tazer him? Why on earth did I lie there listening........I suppose in mitigation that unlike attending a public execution I was thinking that the police would talk him down, but the line between fiction and reality does blur at times.
We understand most things thru the words we use to describe it and it becomes a narrative, but sometimes wordless feelings can question the plot.
Yesterday we walked the sea wall again, some fresh air thru the brain helps I find.
I wondered if the geese were thinking "well who ever is nesting over the river must be pretty big"
Hatty got quite tired in the heat and came in a poor third for once.
Today we have topped and tailed a zillion gooseberries and noted Felting Needles recipe for making goosegog wine.
The bad news is that there are still a few bags left in the bottom of the freezer from last year but some recipes advise freezing the gogs first for wine making, so 12 months immersion should be very effective.
This afternoon I had a phone call from a posh woman named Leonora to say she had put a deposit on my Adam and Eve at the exhibition, so that makes up for the other gallery turning down my "Tracey Emin" - a bit anyway.

not cricket

Wow, as the Glorious Grandson says.
Finally free, I delivered the stuff to my stitching group today and have just finished the Minutes of our meeting, prior to the exhibition, so free............no more niggling demands to do some stitching,
Really I have hardly done any since the GG and daughter arrived, which means that instead of being tetchy because my stitching isn't going right I am tetchy because I am sitting here in the evenings realising just what rubbish is on the gog if I am not distracted.
The world cup football has added to my troubles as i have not got anything left in the recorded section. While the footie is on all they are showing are repeats, mostly of things I hate. presumably they don't want to waste any gems while most people are looking the other way.
The sport all piled up last week, with the footie, cricket and tennis, Sunday it will all be over. I think i was rooting for the loser in almost every case, rotten judgement which is a bit worrying.
Generally i seem to be alternating between somnambulant lethargy [with a side helping of whining] and speeding round at midnight chasing spiders with the vacuum cleaner. They don't seem interested in catching flies, just eating each other.
This afternoon i suddenly started cleaning windows, this is very unusual behaviour.Hattie is looking concerned.

keeping score

It is stupidly/seriously hot in this corner of the county and has been for days. Cups of tea are not the answer, but necessary.
The plants too are thirsty so have to spend ages dangling a hose or hefting watering cans.
At first it is peaceful listening to the evening bird song, but soon I gets sweaty and fractious. I start looking for mischief, mostly the evil white male cat [un-neutered] that has been terrorising Agamemnon and possibly Hattie the dog.
A good hoseful may make him change his visiting habits to steal Aggers meal and run round the curtains when I try to remonstrate.
Hurray Ghana have just scored, I do hope they win, sadly Mr Murray did not win, but at least he played well. How any of them can run around in heat I fail to comprehend, but it is nice to see manly thighs glistening with sweat.
We have been invited to a local hustings next week for Ed Balls but I doubt we will go, too boring him - and us.
It seems Ed Milliband sends his love too, I wonder if Diana will sweep thru the barley anytime soon. The fields are marvellously golden,
and one field is even pale blue - I think that must be potatoes.
The sun was so relentless we had to devise a Hatty the dog walk as much under the trees as possible, so we came upon the Boats graveyard, not seen for a while. Presumably there is a serial killer abroad as there are several extra hulks.

"They" are extending The Hard so that the Thames barges can come in for repair. This is a bit of a turn around as not many years ago the local residents were complaining about the noise and insisting the dry dock be moved up stream. I guess people have moved on, or been persuaded or taken hostage, whatever.

Ghana have lost on penalties.

going public

Stormed up the A14 to Art Gallery yesterday to take my "Tracey" for a whirl.
She is to be judged, and probably found wanting. This rural county is awash with artists, tho I rarely meet them, too intimidating, so i expect my angry stitching about women's eating habits won't get wall space.
However nothing ventured.....one day I will have my own exhibition of all my angry women.
It's like that old tree in the forest, if no-one hears it fall, did it happen? Yes yes i know that's pretentious rubbish,of course it did but it kind of explains the wish to show ones work. If no-one sees it, is it art?
It is much too hot today for thinking philosophical conundrums anyway.
Funnily enough I haven't actually shown it to anyone, anonymous showing is what I crave.

Had a lovely corn beef hash with Victoria on the way back.

stag at bay

very hot again today. Hattie and RP have tottered off bravely to bake in the sun while I irritably fiddle with the Gossiping Goddesses, just over a week to get everything finished for the exhibition.
I can't wait to get this stuff off my back, I really am in a ratty mood.
The Teepee has appeared on the green, it is 7 metres tall, and apparently the constructors are just trying it out before they attempt their 12 metre one. The poles have to be transported in segments.
Hippy folk used to live in these things in Wet Wales, once upon a time. I wonder if they still do. It is very enticing to pull out all plugs and just drift.........but i guess it is actually hard work keeping it all going, especially with little kidlets among the daisy chains.

I feel more like this beetle, stuck in a very hard shell and liable to get run over at any moment.........but not before I use my weapons of defense.

abandon hope

Here's some lovely red poppies to replace the memory of the scarlet clad English football team.
I had to go and sit with my book [Marshall Karp, very enjoyable] in my shed to escape the ignominy of the second half. I'm sure they tried but somehow it was so predictable,
We did manage not to lose the cricket to the Aussies today, but it was close. Andy Murray is still at Wimbledon, but doubtless not for long..........but maybe being Scots he will have the bottle to believe he can win.
I am English, I look at what I make and I feel very mediocre.

moths in the sun

We saw this fabulous butterfly when out walking Hatty the dog this morning, between down pours.
Blasted weather is dreadful, some strong sunshine - till everyone relaxes and then torrential rain and wind.
This is not our photo, of which RP surprisingly snapped a few [usually the butterflies flutter by when just in focus. But I was so excited {I couldn't wait to down [up?]load} by the design and undoubted rarity I had to look it up and see if it could be named after ......Me
..however it turns out it is not a butterfly but a Cinnabar day flying moth and quite common. Shame. Still beautiful tho in Mary Quant style.
Otherwise not too much happening, working on my Tracey Emin, stretching Adam and Eve and promising the Gossiping Goddesses I will stand them up soon.
Good debate on the Review Show last night about how we should perceive the challenges of the economic mayhem,
Germaine Greer [a furry grey moth these days]pontificating at volume and Tristram Hunt, new Labour MP [so a rare species] and friend of Lord Mandelson, very much a Peacock butterfly sprawling on the couch and drawling over other chubbier little members of the group.
Kirsty Wark was chairing - a screech owl? wise but so squawky, but presumably so powerful in the media these days she could gobble up the rest as a snack.
Some of the discussion was as usual on civil liberties and how much they should be curtailed.
Philip Blond who looked [he hopes} like a young Napoleanbut more a caterpillar with a wig, has written a book titled Red Tory advising us to save ourselves by returning to the certainties of the 1950s,drop individualism and become a community again- someone said it was the government's job to save us "by".........but the other chubber said who was to save us "from" was just as important.
"Under the auspices of both the state and the market, a vast body of disenfranchised and disengaged citizens has been constituted. They have been stripped of their culture by the Left and their capital by the Right, and in such nakedness they enter the trading floor of life with only their labour to sell. Proletarianised and segregated, the individuals created by the market-state settlement can never really form a genuine society: they lack the social capital to create such an association and the economic basis to sustain it.”
Thought provoking but rather middle class orientated - but then it as the Review Show on the BBC.

space to let

It feels odd to have space and peace back in the house, even tho it was knackering I do miss their bustle.

One afternoon I drove us to the rare breeds farm, fortunately no longer suffering blue tongue, as one of its rarities was last year.

It was often a case of beauty and the beast.

It took GG two tries to work out the significance of the electric fence.

So far the World Football Cup is not filling the space, roll on Wimbledon.

sand, sea and rain

We are back from a week in Pakefield, this is nicely meaningless information as I doubt many have heard of it, so it could be exotic. But if I said Lowestoft, [the obvious address just a couple of miles up the coast from Pakers] some may wonder - just what is the fascination with run down fishing towns..... Dunno. My father was in the navy so mother followed him from coastal town to coastal town [Eastbourne; Margate] awaiting his long delayed demob. No doubt having known him all her life she was well aware of what he would get up to without a wifely weather eye out. Thus the sound of the cold waves is probably soothing to my brow and I still hate brass bands on pompous little band stands. The Sally Army band wandering the streets would be very welcome but they don't proliferate in the South. I rented a very nice 3 bedroomed end of terrace within spitting distance of the sea and set the Glorious Grandson free........it rained. But we are a proud island breed even if daughter and GG are now dual nationality and boldly we set forth. but the sun came out eventually there is always hope .....altho daughter thinks that the hope found in the bottom of Pandora's box was the final evil, not a last positive gift; but then she is trying to work up the decision to go for a divorce. As we weren't expecting the rain we had to buy His Nibs a new jacket, well as new as the charity shop could provide. We did go out for a lot of walks, whatever the weather, grandma turns into the Wicked Witch of the East incarcerated with a busy toddler. Hatty the dog was in full agreement as she is not used to having to share her toys, same can be said of g'ma I suppose. I haven't actually stitched a stitch since GG arrived for obvious reasons. I sent a description of my Tracey Emin rip off "women are the sin eaters" to a local gallery for a forthcoming exhibition, but I suspect it won't be quite what they are used to. I would like to have done some sketching of GG, but the paints never got wet, as opposed to GG
Today daughter and offspring have been "taxied" off to town to meet up with school friends, thus here there is the mind and physical space to check mails and water the flowers. The Reunion for her year is on Saturday, fortunately we will the taxying her to the airport on Sunday.................

hasting home and away again

The seagulls in Hastings were large and vociferous, this one marches up and down the road when we walk by with Hattie, shouting very rudely. But when they are gliding thru the thermals at the cliff edge they are so elegant and beautiful.

We had S&D visiting for the last couple of days, it was a pleasure to show them why I love this area so much, the morning hike was great but in the afternoon the sea mist came rolling in and everything went cold and grey.
This happened the day before as well, so I persuaded RP it would be an excellent opportunity to f*** off to the flics, so we went to see Robin Hood, it was quite enjoyable - Russell Crowe was as solid as ever, tho his Nottingham accent lent more to blarney, Cate Blanchettte as Maid Marian is more of a woman than a maid, so was encouraging to identify with.

Too many battle scenes however, most of which never happened, even in myth. King John was a hoot and the Sheriff of Nottingham looks as if he may amuse in the sequel. There were at least 10 other people in the cinema who seemed to all have fun.

We are home again now, got lost 3 times leaving Hastings which I swear wasn't because I didn't want to go. RP just assumed that having done the trip 6 times before he could remember the way to the A21. No.
Tonight we chug off again to Heathrow to meet daughter and the Glorious Grandson who will be with us for the next 3 weeks.
This is great, but also frightening as my room/house is in no way toddler proof. For the first 5 days they will base themselves at my mother's house as she is gadding away down in the West country, inspecting gardens.
I went over today to her bungalow to make sure I knew where everything is, and was somewhat un-nerved by the number of knickknacks she has on show. Otherwise the house is a bit like an hotel as she is avidly modifying her life and environs.
When daughter and GG are decanted for what I hope will be a long refreshing jet lagged sleep I will have to trawl round and place all the china and flora up high. Ma presumably thinks that GG is still very small and helpless..............