Pretty Parcel

I'm crocheting socks at the moment and that requires stitch markers, until now I'd been using safety pins; cheap and convenient. 

Until, that is, one got entangled in the wool and had to be cut free.  At that point I decided I should probably get some proper ones and so I sent off to Charmed Knitting for some lovely markers.....

and amazingly quickly, this is what arrived in the post....

 

 .....beautifully wrapped,

 

 with a lovely card

 

and in a lovely bag some equally lovely crochet stitch markers with lobster claw clasps to clip on and off the stitches.

Actually, the first parcel to arrive was some knitting stitch markers which slide on to the needles and can't be used for crochet; so I rang Sophie who runs this company and explained what had happened, she checked the order and realised she'd made a mistake at her end...

...and then she apologised, said she'd send me the crochet stitch markers and not to return the knitting stitch markers but to keep them or pass them on to a knitter if I wanted.

The crochet stitch markers arrived the NEXT DAY!

So thank you Sophie for:

1. lovely stitch markers
2. beautiful packaging
3. absolutely bloody brilliant customer service, which, frankly, many much larger companies could learn a huge amount from.

The other stitch markers will go to that fanatical knitter, my lovely sister.

 

This isn't a sponsored post, just giving some praise where it's due.



Fabulous jobs

These people have the best job titles EVER.... who wouldn't want to be a Contaminant Fate Scientist or a Biogeochemist.

Fabulous.

Thank you John Gray

 

Ok I admit it - I've nicked this link from John Gray over at Going Gently.

If you haven't visited John please do - he writes wonderfully.

 

This song is a beautiful rerendering of an old favourite.

Light the fire, switch off your lights, pour your favourite drink and just listen.

 

 

It sounds like the calm before the storm.

At Home

Today...

 

...the Nu and I admired the kale,

offered prayers of thanks to the God of Brassicas for this baby Romanescu,

and started crocheting a pair of socks in this lovely yarn.

 

Nothing too exciting but gently satisfying.



Bank Hall

A cold wet February Sunday.

 

Mournful, damp and unprepossessing, until we see this......

...it's snowdrop season at Bank Hall

 

 An old ruined Jacobean Hall that the Friends Group is trying to restore.

 

One of the ways they do this to have open days to go Snowdrop Viewing.

Drifts and drifts of lovely, elegant and delicate blooms.

It felt like walking through a cathedral.



Returning Home

Hi! Anybody still there.  Sorry I've been away so long. 

I didn't mean to be but it's been almost a year since I last wrote anything. 

 A lot has happened in that year. 

I took voluntary redundancy; I had my first ever sabbatical from paid work; I had my hair cut short (well above my shoulders short); I gardened; I sewed; I made cheese; I grew veggies; I preserved a lot of veggies; I crocheted; I taught a crochet class for the local WI (possibly the scariest thing I've ever done - scarier than speaking at a European conference}; I read - a lot; I made a courtyard area in the garden and then sat in it and drank coffee - a lot; I joined an art class; I got menopausal; I got depressed; I doubted my sanity; I got/ am getting better - whatever that means; I went to Crete and fell in love with the wild flowers and herbs; I watched my country Brexit whilst sitting in an airport preparing to fly to Europe (and my heart sank); I watched Donald Trump become President of the USA amidst concerns about foreign influence on the election race, email hacking, concerns about conflicts of interest between his businesses and office; his links to the KKK; his attitude to women, people of different races and people of different sexuality; his aggressive stance to international conflict; his behaviour on twitter - in fact concerns about everything; we bought a log burner and we paid off our mortgage - it took us just over 2 1/2 years and some strong budgeting and saving to get there. 
It was a weird year and not what I anticipated when it started.

Yesterday was my 53rd birthday and today was a new day.

 

The sky was blue.



 

The magnolia is in bud.

 

Spring was in evidence.

 



And the Nu and I got out into some sunshine to do some gardening or in her case enjoying some sunbathing and of course supervising works.  The lawn has finally dried out a bit and we didn't have to wade through a swamp to reach the veggie beds.

 

 

In the meantime Jean-Luc has been enjoying his new shed and has built this wonderful bookcase/ linen cupboard in our bedroom.

 





A Small Unillustrated* Vignette of Family Life

* for reasons that will become clear

Today I was doing some housework, not my favourite job but it has to be done.  

So there I was, sweeping the floor - tiles + longish hair + a cat = dust and detritus = sweeping.

While I'd been cleaning the Nu had been hanging around and staring at me, which normally means she needs to be either fed or walked out in the garden to show me where feline intruders have desecrated her territory.

Today however, she swept into the bathroom, sniffed the shower, stepped into it and........

.......had a wee!

Now I didn't mind this; it's logical for a cat; she knows what we do in there and the shower has a floor similar to her litter tray (it was outside being aired!)

No! What got me was when she stepped out of the shower looked at me and went 'pfffff' and walked downstairs, 30 seconds later I heard the cat flap clatter as she went outside.

Honestly, Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey couldn't have been more dismissive of domestic servants who weren't up to scratch.

We exist to serve.