Monday 18 August 2014

Harvest

On a recent walk, it was so lovely to see the fields in their golden glory awaiting the harvest...





and we were lucky to find a harvest of our own - blackberries!


I was surprised to see so many already ripe...



Couldn't resist eating some as we were harvesting, one to eat...


...one for the box!


Lovely blackberry shrub, full of autumn promise, blackberry and apple pies and crumbles, Blackberry and apple streusel cake, blackberry jam, lots of yummy ideas sprang to mind...


Have you been out picking blackberries yet?

Sunday 17 August 2014

Slip sliding away...

...towards my favourite season of all, Autumn. 

Over the past week or so, the evenings are starting to draw in. Lamps and candles are lit at around 8pm, I am loving the scented candles particularly.  I have a real thing for Yankee Candles, they are the best I have tried (and trust me, I have tried many!!)  Mornings are chilly and misty, with the sun low over the horizon until about 7am.

I am now back to work, although the students won't be back for another couple of weeks, so have had the chance to get a little ahead of the game so to speak.  But driving to and from work, I have started to notice little, tiny signs of autumn being just around the corner, not quite in view as yet - but the summer is slowly but surely "Slip Sliding Away".

Yesterday, DH and DD decided to go for a stroll in our local Outwoods, nothing too strenuous as I am still recovering from illness that started back in May (and that took a bit of a grim turn last week when I was sent for some urgent tests at hospital which to my great relief and gratitude, came back clear.  Still more tests to come, but these are for things that wouldn't have such a bad outcome).

And of course, a gentle stroll means lots of opportunities to stop, look around, reflect on the beauty evident all around us.  At first, the woods looked still pretty much in summer mode, but on closer investigation, there really are clear signs of autumn.

Fungi popping up after the recent rains...




leaf-strewn pathways...



autumnal colour starting to peep through...



mellow fruitfulness...



the berries of Lords and Ladies...


promise of things to come soon on one of the forest information signs...


beautiful birch bark...


so much beauty, if only we stop for a minute and look around us.

Have a lovely Sunday, Helenxx

Wednesday 6 August 2014

Moroccan Tile Crochet

Good afternoon everyone, hope the sun is shining wherever you are - it certainly is here!

I thought that I would share with you one of my crochet projects from this week, it is a square inspired by Moroccan tiles:




I decided upon choosing this pattern as I am visiting a very dear friend later on this week, and she loves everything Moroccan - good thing really as her husband is from there!  It was destined initially to be a pot holder (I had already gifted her one of my flower crochet potholders) but then another idea popped into my head - why not applique the square to a plain cushion?  So I jumped into the car and nipped over to our nearby Pondon Mill shop and got a nice plain cushion, slipped off the cover, and stitched the square to the front of it.  Popped the cushion back into the cover and this is what I ended up with:


What do you think?  I rather liked it and now I am thinking that potholder patterns can be very usefully employed for other things!  Potholders are such lovely things to make, doesn't take too long to arrive at a completed product and is also easily portable.  This pattern came from the recent edition of Simply Crochet - I don't buy this magazine every month, but the Moroccan patterns inside looked very interesting so treated myself to a copy...


There are 3 tiles in total to make, so watch this space - think I might have to make all three for a set of cushions for our sofas!


Before gift-wrapping it, I took a quick photo of the cushion lounging on my crafting chair...


I have to admit to being very pleased with it! I did have to alter the pattern slightly as some of it just didn't work, and I changed the border to include some picot edging.  But all in all, a nice little project for an afternoon.  Just hope she likes it!

Helenxx

Tuesday 5 August 2014

Charles Dickens' London

Good morning!

On my visit to London last week, we had a lovely walk around some of the oldest parts of the City - in my last post I shared some photos of the new, shiny, financial district skyscrapers.  Very impressive, and I find them quite beautiful.  Not everyone agrees, I know, and that is fair enough.  Of course London has found itself being re-figured on many occasions -  by fire (1666), Blitz (1940) and more recently terrorism (early 1990s, as well as the July 2005 bombings).  Of course this has had the most awful impact on people, whose lives have been shattered, but also the very fabric of the city bears witness to these historical events.  In that many of the old buildings are no longer there for us to see and ponder upon.  Certainly in the early 1970s the banks of the Thames bore clear witness to the multiple bombing raids of the 1940s, the river was lined with bombed-out warehouses.

However, dig deep enough and you can find some atmospheric remains of the past, just tucked away in the back streets behind the glitzy new buildings, just waiting for you to stumble upon them.

Since the age of 8 I have been fascinated by the works of Charles Dickens, all spurred on by taking part in a Christmas play at primary school "A Christmas Carol".  We didn't have a TV then, so reading was my main form of entertainment.  Oh, how I loved to read (and still do!!).  I particullary devoured the works of Dickens, with A Christmas Carol and Oliver Twist being particular favourites.  He is my favourite author of all time, his descriptive writing makes me feel as if I am actually there in the scenes he is writing about (I do have a lively imagination!).  As I love to walk the streets of London, and love Dickens I bought a little book from Amazon last year detailing walks around the old parts of the city that Dickens used for inspiration for settings in his work.

One day I will go to London on my own and take some of these walks - it probably sounds awful of me as a wife and mother, but I want to really be able to drink in the atmosphere without distraction or having to explain.  However, when returning from the museum visit en route to the Tower, I spotted this churchyard gate...


the churchyard beyond is the one that inspired this passage from
 A Christmas Carol:

Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.  A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place!  The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape. “Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?” Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood. “Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!” The Spirit was immovable as ever.  Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, especially when I looked up to see the sculpture above the gate


These skulls were there to remind the rich and poor alike of how they would eventually end up!  Dickens loved this churchyard and apparently nicknamed this church "St Ghastly Grim - with the attraction of repulsion".

Just for a few minutes I felt like I had been drawn back into those well-thumbed pages of Dickens I have loved since such a young age.  I couldn't hang around long as DH (who is an engineer so doesn't really understand such things) was keen to get to the Tower so that he could have a coffee, but I was so, so pleased to have happened upon this little treasure.

Since coming home I have been leafing through my book of Dickens Walks, daydreaming about the day when I can actually follow some of them. 

In the meantime, I am clearing the kitchen in readiness for the gas engineer to come and do the annual service for the boiler - back to reality!! 

Have a lovely day, Helenxx 

Sunday 3 August 2014

Ode to the London skyline

*London skyline, change unceasing

 
 



 Altitudes aspire, increasing

 
 

 Reaching scudding clouds suspended

 
 


Your city’s tale has not yet ended

 



London skyline, your heart’s still beating


 London skyline, change unceasing.


*By Freya

Saturday 2 August 2014

Step back in time...

Hello there, hope your weekend has got off to a great start!  A fairly slow start here it has to be said, not everyone is up and about as yet, so have managed to get the housework sorted and now for a bit of "me" time!!  But, before I pick up my hook and yarn, here are a few of the many fascinating things I came across at the Museum of London earlier this week...

Roman sculpture, found deep under modern London...


Beautiful design...some dating to before the Romans even arrived here...


The Great Fire of London... the wooden artefacts were saved from one of the fire-ravaged churches in the City...


Georgian fashions - doesn't look too comfy...


The Roaring Twenties...my grandmother  had a sewing machine just like this one...

 
The 1940's section included this Red Cross Nurse uniform, my darling Mum wore one just like this in the war.  She worked seven days a week in a munitions factory, then volunteered as a nurse in our local hospital each evening. 
 
 

The Swinging Sixties...


although it is a bit much when things that one remembers from childhood are now museum pieces...and then when they have things that one actually owns from ones teenage years, well, that does rather take the biscuit...


I can't resist showing you this...

Whoever thought this to be suitable for small children??!! Would have frightened the living daylights out of them!  Mind you, attitudes to children were so very different back in Victorian times. 

Hope to be back soon with some more photos of our trip to the "Smoke"!

Helenxx