Time and Patience

“The strongest of all warriors are these two: Time and Patience” Leo Tolstoy

 Well, I have been struggling with these two warriors for a while now. However, not all is bad, so I must sometimes remind myself to count my blessings for the friends, family and creatures I have supporting me.

DH has been in France working on our place since June. Patience waiting for him to come home - he still doesn't know when that will be :(

Patience in trying to find work, struggling on this front: interviews (multiple sometimes for the same job at various stages) but no success (yet). I have another interview this afternoon which I would really love, not only because I need and want work but also because it is just up my street experience-wise, as well as with what the company does. A good match!  If I am successful I will of course tell more.

Time and Patience in waiting for Carter to heal and repair. I know that he won't be back to his old self as he's getting older and I try to look on every day now as a blessing. But it's hard. I wish he was a youngster again so that we would have all this time together again - but that won't happen either. I just try and focus on his wonderful character and nature and all of the love he has given us - and we in return - and the lovely memories we have together. And he's still here, happily mooching along, but I worry.

I also sometimes need to give myself a slap around the face and a boot up the backside to stop feeling sorry for  myself and get on with it!  That I will do right now and get my chores done so that I can prepare for the interview and know I have a meal in the slow cooker to come home to, along with a neat and tidy home to bring a smile to my face - well, Carter will do that as I walk in, but it's always nice to have good surroundings to collapse into and pick up my knitting :)

These last 6 months I have been mainly...

Warning - picture heavy post (and very few words) well, don't they say a picture says a thousand words?!?

Since early February I have....



Survived the heavy snow we had... the picture with Carter shows the main lane at the top of our track, totally impassable.



I have learnt to weave on my mother's old Weavemaster 2 shaft loom.

Tried to learn to spin using a scrummy drop spindle I bought (made from walnut and wild olive, mmm the smell!).



Bought an old Ashford Scholar spinning wheel from a woman at my weaving class. They're all enablers, I tell you :)



Knit my first ever shawl - this is Ishbel knit in Cariad Flimstone Bay (aka Posh Yarns Emily) 4ply.


Been over on a solo trip to Normandie to check on the barn...



It was hip high in nettles and thistles - all three quarters of an acre!!!




Taught sock knitting classes at my LYS, Fiddlesticks in Honiton (there's the lovely Barbara in the far right opposite where I'd be seated).



Met Isla, my new great-niece-in-law!


Spent a week with my fossils out in Spain...



... and I cooked too! See, evidence above :)



Whilst in Spain I went to a little museum dedicated to Miro, not very far from my parent's place. It was lovely, and very inspirational seeing his earlier work before he went totally surreal.



I've been growing potatoes...



... and tomatoes in the new little greenhouse (Freecycle is a wonderful thing!)...



... and all sorts of other veg in our raised bed.




I've spun my very first little ball of yarn, this is it all bright an green after I plied it.



Knitting more socks, of course.



Taking this lovely roving (from Wildcraft) and turning it into a couple of bobbins of this...


which I will eventually ply together.



Using my little Scholar (named Maria which I thought apt as it was the name my maternal grandmother was known by - mainly because her first name was very old Polish and chosen so that it wasn't easily pronounced by the occupying Germans in the late 19th century! I also thought Maria was a good solid name with historical roots that just felt right for my first wheel) to spin some lovely BFL/silk roving into a hank of singles which I will use for weaving.


More soon!

New Start :: 2009

Well, the start of a new year brings with it many new ideas, hopes and thoughts.

Being inspired by Project365, where a photo is taken every day and posted online (either Flickr or a blog), I didn't want to be tied down by this and will take the concept and rework it into something that suits me. Perhaps that should be my aim for the coming year: don't try and change myself to fit into other people's expectations but allow me to come to terms with my own character and let it shine.

I plan to use my blog far more this coming year, not by giving myself the challenge of daily blogging, but you never know how it will turn out!

My hopes for the coming year...

... develop my writing outlets and have more work published in magazines...
... enjoy my many skills: cooking, sewing, knitting, painting, languages, animals...
... see our project in France develop into something resembling something more than a barn...
... try to maintain (and better) my health, both physical and mental, and not wallow in self pity that I haven't achieved unachievable goals (have you spotted that none of these are stated as resolutions for 2009?)...

Let's see how these outlines shape themselves in the coming months.


First finished project for 2009: Winter Cottage Mittens, my very first pair, from a kit purchased from Posh Yarn, hand-dyed scrummy yarn and pattern developed by the lovely Dee from Posh. The pics are of the just finished mittens, not blocked so a little lumpy until I pull them off my hands to wash and block them!

I love mittens. I recall a bright red pair, with a cable down the front and a crocheted string to hold them in lace attached to my coat, from my childhood. I loved them and, in a recent conversation with Mamo, found that I was very young when I had these (knitted by her fair hand) so they must have struck a cord to stick in my memory like this.

I feel these won't be my last mittens this year - any pattern suggestions?

One Track Mind

This must be my favourite shop in delightful Honfleur... an homage to chickens!

I once laughed dreadfully at a close friend's interest in chickens - and now I am the sufferer and she has moved on. Oh how she must be laughing back at me.

The obsession has turned to wanting real live chickens at home, which we will have one day soon. My fear is that if you have livestock, you must get used to dead-stock and living in the middle of fields we have not only foxes, but badgers and rats too....
I'm the sort of person that hasn't watched Black Beauty all the way through, nor Bambi - I just cry at the very thought of animals dying.

However, back to the chicken shop. It is a wonderful collection of ceramics, metalwork, postcards, paintings, and I'm determined to spend some of my Euros there this summer!