31 July: Craster again

As DH had the day off, yesterday we went for a walk up the Northumberland coast, from Craster to Low Newton by the Sea. We did the same walk last September, and I decided not to take the same photos again, so see here for pictures.

As we arrived at the old quarry in Craster to park, there was already a scattering of wiry grey-heads with rucksacks and boots ferretting in car boots for maps and walking sticks. Many of them were wearing heavy boots and big rain jackets. Some even had woolly hats.

Now I know it hasn't been a brilliant summer (understatement of the year?), but it was bright sunshine, with a bit of a breeze. Well, a stiff breeze. From the north. But I was very comfortable in a T-shirt with a cotton shirt open over it jacket-wise.

Setting off northwards towards Dunstanburgh Castle, we were soon overtaking strollers. Once beyond the castle, there were fewer people (and hardly anybody on the golf course) till we came to the part of the beach near the cabins. Plenty of people sitting on the sand, most with stout windbreaks. Lots of dogs (with their people) enjoying the beach; a few games of beach cricket going on, and even some brave (or foolhardy) surfers, plus a sea kayaker, who presumably knew what he was doing.

As you walk up the beach, there are several little streams running down into the sea, just trickling across the sand. One of these is rather bigger, and the small jumps over the earlier ones were not going to get us over this. It was much too much effort to detour to the bridge behind the dunes, so we took a run at it...

At least I didn't do a victory roll on the sand when I reached the other side. DH had sand in his pullover, as well as a wet foot and leg that didn't quite get across. But discretion being the better part of getting wet and sandy, I had a very wet foot, and severe splashing on both trouser legs from having put my foot down in the middle of the stream.

It dried off by the time we got to the Ship Inn for lunch.

The wind was combining with an incoming tide to produce some pretty big waves. After our lunch and a little while sitting and watching the folk round the little bay at Low Newton, we walked back along the path behind the dunes. This gave us a bit of shelter - strangely the wind that had been in our faces was now not quite at our backs - and took us to the bridge over the stream we had not-quite-jumped going north. From the top of the dunes, the view of the succession of white waves sweeping into the bay was exhilarating.

We stood and watched the tide reaching a sand bank, which it quickly turned into an island. A father and son were still playing beach cricket on the sandbank, until the water reached the stumps, and then father had to carry son and stumps through the incoming tide to reach the dunes. Meanwhile, the waves were washing round the sandbank from both ends, and where they met there was a fascinating interaction of water flows. Some of the undercurrents produced must have been strong, as the sandbank was being re-shaped as we watched.

Rejoining the crowds between the castle and Craster, we got back to the car park to find so many vehicles parked there that it was difficult to manoeuvre out. As usual, I slept on the way home, then DH had a nap on the sofa. Good day.

27 July: String Bag Mk 2, plus a hat

First, here is the completed hat made from the Yarn Yard's organic merino roving, looking a little paler here than in reality -


It's an almost-tam, but the pattern I used for a starting point was a beanie hat in Sandi Rosner's book "Not just more socks". (You may read Harry Potter.....)

And I just had to try an improved string bag. This is crocheted, and I have great difficulty with following or writing crochet instructions, though it is easy to do. Here it is, hanging on the back of the door, and full of balls of wool -


And here it is empty and lying down -


It is all made very simply of chains of crochet, touching down to the row below, with a row of double crochet to reinforce the top, and the drawstrings are made from a long chain with single crochet into each chain, and joined into a circle, threaded through the top loops. The drawstrings had to be in a different colour, as I'd used up all the grey.

(For other string bags, click on the "string bag" label at the bottom of the post, or in the sidebar. Let me know about your string bags.)

I'm sure I wouldn't have been knitting all summer if the weather had been better. Everything in the garden has benefited from the rain, though, and several shrubs have grown hugely this year. There is scarcely room to walk round the path behind the borders, as the birch, rowan, and 2 buddleias all overhang.

And now I have a large heap of Blue Faced Leicester fibre blended with Tencel, all dyed orange, just crying out to be spun into sock yarn.

25 July: Monster Mash

Happy birthdays to Grandchild 3 and Grandchild 4, yesterday and today respectively!

Remember we planted potatoes back on Good Friday? (7 April's posting mentioned them.) Well today we dug some of them up.

They are completely organic, having had no sprays or anything other than garden compost and grass cuttings on them. So naturally, they have attracted some of our garden wildlife. 2 of the 6 or 7 plants we dug up had been attacked by slugs, and I found a millipede and a woodlouse in the water when I washed a heap for our meal tonight. Yes, of course I rescued them and released them into the wild - threw them out of the kitchen window.

The ones with slug damage or that we'd speared with the fork got cooked tonight, and the rest, cleaned up and checked over, have been stowed away in bags in a dark cupboard. We ate great mounds of mash with a quiche, but there's a big bowl full of cold mash in the fridge. Looks like fried potato, mushrooms, courgettes, and eggs tomorrow.

Elsewhere, Le Tour now has the drug scandal that lots of journos have been looking for. If only other sports and games were tested like cycling, there would be a lots of "drug cheats" uncovered in other arenas. The bike racing is still fascinating - would have been better still with Marco Pantani in it.

And back with the knitting, or rather crochet - the New, Improved, Mark 2 String Bag is under construction!!

You will just have to contain your excitement for a little longer, though, till it's properly finished and photographed.

23 July: Would you believe - a string bag!

This blog was named for my parents' string bag - not a bag made from string, but a bag containing string.

In those austerity days after WW2, recycling was not a catch-phrase, but "waste not, want not" most certainly was. So there was a bag, made of black-out material (as was the rag bag - remember rag bags?), hanging on the back of the wash-house door. Any pieces of string were carefully unravelled and un-knotted, and popped into the string bag - bits and pieces carefully and tidily hoarded. See?

Anyway, most of the people who visit from G**gle, if they're not looking for Fred Knit*le, are looking for a pattern for making a string bag. So I thought it only my civic duty to make a string bag for them. Here it is -


It is based on a bag called Elisa's Nest Tote, seen at purlsoho.com or the purl bee (go there for the original). Naturally, I used different yarn, a slightly different stitch pattern, and then made up the edges and handles as I went along.

If you want to make one yourself (and this will only apply to the enthusiastic knitting section of my 3 readers), I'll tell you what I did.

Using some cotton thread I bought years ago from Texere, and which I dyed last week with procion dyes (and the colour probably isn't fast), and which is 15 w.p.i., I cast on 31 stitches, using a 6 mm. needle; I prefer to use one circular for knitting to and fro, but you can use a pair of straights if you wish, and if you'll pardon the expression.

Rows 1 and 3 are purl; row 2 is K1, *yo, k2 tog*, repeat from * to end; row 4 is *k2 tog tbl, yo*, repeat to last stitch, k1. N.B. you may do ssk instead of k2 tog tbl if you like - I don't.

Repeat these 4 rows until the piece is about 24 inches long, or your yarn runs out, or you are about to die of boredom. I warn you that I was knitting this while watching the Tour de France, and kept doing the wrong lace row, then having to unpick it - you need to concentrate.

When your knitted fabric is long enough, cast off loosely. Using the same thread (or indeed a different one if you've run out), join the sides with a crochet hook, a single crochet into one side, 2 chains, single crochet into the other side, etc to the bottom, and fasten off. Do the other side the same. A row of double crochet round the top, then without fastening off, chain 40 for the first handle, touch down with 3 double crochets into the opposite side of the bag top, chain another 40 for the second handle, and touch down near where you started the first handle, 3 double crochets, then a round of double crochets into the chains to make the handles (do more if you want thicker handles), then fasten off. I am aware that in the USA single and double crochet describe something other than my English version - sort out your own translation.

If I ever make another one, I shall do some shaping to make the bottom more curved - the corners are a bit pointy, and probably rather different handles. But I offer it as your starting point. If anyone actually uses this pattern, even as a jumping off point, I'd be interested to know.

(For other string bags, click on the "string bag" label at the bottom of the post, or in the sidebar. Let me know about your string bags.)

And back in the world of the non-knitter, if you haven't already glazed over and dropped away, at the weekend I bought myself a pair of Red Crocs. Not so much Ruby as Tomato, and probably not the colour I'd have chosen if there had been a choice, but there you are. They are Extremely Comfortable - I commend them to the House.

20 July: Outdoors and in

Change and impermanence - the garden is a constant reminder. The plants have been doing their best in difficult weather conditions. We have potatoes this year, but next year should it be maize, or rice?

The paler buddleia is fully out, though the darker one is only just starting. No butterflies when I took this photo, but lots of bees (too shy to be photographed).


Elsewhere I have seen rowan trees with ripe berries. Ours is not so precocious. There are several day lilies in the borders. This one has brown shades in the bud, then opens yellow -


The sweet williams sown last year, which looked so straggly and pathetic last autumn, have come good. They are the major splash of colour in several corners.


And the sole survivor of the packet of cornflower seeds now has several flowers. The other seeds fed pigeons or mice, this one, among the low branches of the little apple tree, is feeding a stripy insect -


And, in response to popular request (well, Granny J), here are a couple of poor pics of the new bathroom curtain. By the way, it's an English bathroom, and therefore actually has a bathtub in it, as well as a washbasin and WC. This one is with flash and washes the colour out -

The paler colour at the side is the chiffon, which makes a layer behind the fancy silk. The following picture is without flash, but with the halogen lights on, and has a yellow cast , but it shows the beads and embroidery quite well. The real colour is somewhere in between.


This has been a knitting-free posting. I thank you.

18 July: Not idle

I've got quite tired the last couple of days. Not with doing tons of housework, of course, but dyeing some fibre and I've got back into the family history again. And I'm still getting some exercise done.

An e-mail arrived from another "cousin" (her grandmother was my grandfather's older sister), who had been to visit our other cousin. She gave me lots of information I didn't have before, and set me off looking for further bits and pieces. Then the files had to be updated, print-outs replaced, and now I'm in the middle of sorting out computer files to copy and send her. Then there's photos to try to make good copies of.

The fibre dyeing has not been a raging success. I dyed some BFL fibre very successfully last week, but the Tencel that was dyed in acid dyes lost most of the dye in rinsing. As it's cellulose based (please bear in mind that I abandoned Physics and Chemistry at school in order to do Ancient Greek), it seemed that Procion dyes might be more suitable.

So yesterday I got out the Procion dyes that have been in the workroom cupboard since I stopped dyeing cotton fabric and threads for quilting. The notes had to be found, as I couldn't remember quite how to do it. While I was at it, I might as well try some thick cotton threads and a bit of cotton chenille from the cupboard (bought from Texere at a quilt show - I knew they'd be useful one day!).

But the results are not terribly exciting; the single colours (grey and orange) are not bad, but the mixtures (purple and brown) are frankly disappointing. And why does blue dye not stick to fibre, but stick awfully well to skin?

And it's about time to show you how the Yarn Yard fibre is knitting up. It's quite slow, as it's on a 2.75 mm needle, and, as you'll realise, I haven't been doing this exclusively. I pick it up when Le Tour highlights are on, then of course get too involved in the cycling to knit assiduously.


The colours are coming out beautifully, and the transitions between colours have those subtle and unexpected shades you never think of till you see them.

Recent new books - Knitting Colur by Brandon Mably, and Mason Dixon Knitting. Interesting ideas from both of them, but the long-term value remains to be seen.

15 July: YSP

That's the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. We'd been there once before, years ago, and enjoyed it, and thought it was about time to go and have another look.

There is an exhibition of Andy Goldsworthy stuff on at present, till the end of the year.

You are probably aware of the window daubed with cow dung; no photography inside, but this is it from the outside-

This gallery is on the opposite side of the valley from the main part of the Park. A pleasant walk across a bridge and up through fields takes you to the Longside Gallery. (There is access from a road on that side as well.) Then a path takes you back to the main Park along the top of Oxley Bank, which gives wonderful views over the surrounding countryside.

There are more Goldsworthy structures in the woods along Oxley Bank. This is one of three which go deep into the ground, called Hanging Trees -


From our long-ago visit, I remembered a water buffalo by Elisabeth Frink. None of her animals now, but several men on a terrace near the Underground Gallery; I liked the position of this one, under the cedar tree -


The Underground gallery has more Goldsworthys - a room plastered with mud, which is cracking as it dries out; a room with a hanging curtain of horse chestnut stalks pinned together with some sort of thorns; a room with several low stone igloo-type mounds, with holes in the top; a huge shape made from odd bits of oak branches (rather like a 12 foot tall pine cone); and a room which initially seemed totally black till you entered and found yourself in a structure of branches like an igloo, curving in till they make a complete shape - very satisfying.

Out in the Park, down near the lake was this granite piece, "Warts and All" -


Again, a very satisfying shape and texture.

One area has several pieces by Barbara Hepworth, which are all interesting shapes and textures, but most were undergoing repairs to the surrounding turf and had red and white plastic tape round them - keeps you off the new turf, but rather spoils the photos!

In one of the little copses is a bridge over a ditch. The ditch isn't quite a ha-ha, but that's the name of the bridge.


There is one of those Skyspace structures in the Park, called the Deer Shelter. Set in the hillside, you enter at the lowest level and the inner room, which is actually underground, is open to the sky in the middle. Supposed to be a place for quiet contemplation, when we went in, 2 toddlers were screaming round and round the built in stone seating. After they had gone out with their father, we remained with their mother, who was feeding a small baby, and enjoyed the clouds.

And in the open parkland, surrounded by sheep, are a number of Henry Moore sculptures. This one, a woman in a rumpled dress, has a wonderful view out over the valley.


A great day out, thoroughly recommended. There's lots more to see than I've mentioned, and of course there's a shop and a cafe, though we took a picnic (picnic areas are also available).

On the way back, there was a jam on the motorway because it was closed up ahead by an accident. But we have a map and we're not afraid to use it, so when we could leave the motorway, we travelled along some of the smaller side roads of that part of Yorkshire, seeing villages and countryside we would never otherwise go through.

It took a bit longer to get home, but we weren't in a hurry, and the little unplanned detour added to the pleasure of the day out.

13 July: Customer Service?

Phone bill from BT - it's actually very small, as most of our communication is done by computer or mobile phones.

Now they are charging us £4.50 a quarter to pay by cheque.

I always pay the bill promptly, usually by return of post, and they never have to send us a reminder. But we don't pay by Direct Debit, which they prefer, as they can take what they want when they want. It's our money - we prefer to control it ourselves. And if we pay bills individually, it makes sure we know exactly what we are paying. Old-fashioned, but then being clear of debt is. And do they get the Direct Debit payments anyway when people have no funds in the account?

But now they see a way to penalise us, good quiet customers that we are. So they whack on a charge that is over 10% of our actual bill.

And the argument that chasing bad payers is expensive for them won't wash either - that cost is already built into the charges.

Other utilities we deal with - gas and electricity - give us a small discount for prompt payment. Much better customer service than charging you extra for totally unjustifiable reasons .

If we didn't need the land line for the computer, we would stop dealing with BT straight away.

10 July: Restful retirement

Still haven't started to knit the Yarn Yard merino - but I have dyed 100 gms of Blue Faced Leicester, spun and finished 50 gms of it, and the second 50 gms is spun and waiting to be plyed.

Then I've also knitted a mitten for a project later in the year; the second one is up to nearly the end of the ribbing and the start of the pattern.

Oh, and I've hand sewn a curtain for the bathroom. From hideously expensive embroidered and beaded silk. Lined with polyester chiffon. All of which was extremely tricky to handle and sew. And when I put it up, thinking it was finished, I spotted a mistake, which meant taking it down and altering one side; that took most of this afternoon.

As well as cleaning, laundry, shopping, cooking, gardening, dabbing a bit of paint and a bit of Pol*filla where walls had got a bit knocked, and of course watching Le Tour.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to have a quiet half hour on the exercise machine.

7 July: Le Tour starts

So we're off again with Le Tour de France; after last year's debacle, we wondered if we would be interested this year. But we turned on the TV, and immediately got caught up in it again - all the predictions from the experts (mostly wrong!), the efforts, the disappointments, the crashes, the wonderful helicopter views.

That's every evening booked for the next 3 weeks, then - might get some more knitting done, too, while I watch. Not Le Tour challenge knitting, though.

It hardly rained at all today - only one sharp shower, I think. We have had some sunshine this week, and I've been out picking raspberries most days. One afternoon I sat in the sun, while Jazz explored the borders -


Just at the left hand edge of that photo is the hole where I dug out a rose bush. That did something nasty to my back, which was stiff and painful for 2 days. All the memories of my back problems returned, and I dredged out of the corners of my memory the exercises that I used to do to stretch my lower back. It seems to have done the trick, and there's a great improvement, so I am hoping to be fully back to normal in another day or two.

Meanwhile, in the conservatory -


These dull little cacti have these amazing flowers for just a couple of days, and they both came out together. This close-up shows the strange arrangement in the centre of the flower -

4 July: Since Woolfest

The peg loom has produced 2 samples - lots learnt there. More experimentation is required.

Also the 2 skeins of merino pencil roving from The Yarn Yard have been spun, plyed, finished, and one has been wound into a ball and a small knitted sample made. There was some difficulty with drafting the pencil roving, as I haven't worked with this before; the second skein was divided rather better, and was very much easier - the usual learning curve.
Here are the bobbins of singles from the first skein -


Plyed and finished, and twisted into a skein; see how the colours combine into yummy intermediate shades -


Then wound into a ball on the nostepin; it's about 18 wraps per inch -


And knitted up; the colour patches would, obviously, be different if knitted in a longer row. This sample is 30 stitches on a 2.5 mm. needle -


And, from last week, just a quick pair of Miser Mitts I devised in Shetland wool, after seeing the Endpaper Mitts on See Eunny Knit! - love this way of increasing for the thumb gusset (isn't "gusset" a lovely word) -

30 June: Woolfest

As DH and I sat in the marquee extension to the Woolfest cafe, eating our sandwiches and listening to the rain hammering on the canvas above us, we began to think it was a really good idea to have brought our raincoats, but not such a good idea to have left them in the car.

There was more to see than last year, perhaps fewer animals, but this year there were llamas and alpacas as well as sheep and at least one rabbit. It was also much more crowded with visitors, hence the lack of photos.

I did lots of browsing, a bit of chatting, and some buying.

At the back is a peg loom - a simple but effective tool. Five minutes to get the hang of, and then it's down to materials and colour choices. It could be the solution to the lifetime supply of rug wool in my workroom.

Then at the front, on the left is some of The Yarn Yard's hand-dyed organic merino roving; when spun it will make exciting knitting yarn. I shall probably start spinning it tomorrow. And probably start knitting it on Monday.

Next is a hank of undyed sock wool, wool and nylon mixed - for me to dye myself.

Then 2 balls of Socka sock wool (thinking ahead to the winter here, folks), the peg loom instruction booklet, and at the front a small bag of expensive, but very attractive buttons (really good buttons can be quite hard to find, and can make a lot of difference to a cardigan or waistcoat), and lastly another row counter, for those times when I have 2 projects in progress at the same time.

There were lots of spinning wheels about, of course, but the one that I really fancied was the Majacraft Suzie - but at rather over £400, no way I can justify buying one of those. Especially as I already have 2 wheels. But what if I disposed of one, and then upgraded.......

28 June: While it's not raining...

After yesterday evening's hail, which sent the cat scooting to hide in his favourite cardboard box, this morning the sun was shining. It was an ideal opportunity to do some gardening.

The hydrangea that was becoming stunted in a tub by the front door is now starting to stretch its roots out next to a buddleia in the back garden. One of the roses, which had grown very tall and had extremely disappointing flowers has been hacked down. The roots appear to be as extensive as the top growth was, and after struggling with the stump for an hour, I came over all feak and weeble (or indeed weak and feeble) and decided it was a job for two people, and that I needed a restorative cup of coffee.

All the time the powerful scent of the philadelphus was filling the garden. A dismissive comment in a gardening article recently remarked that this shrub very often takes up a lot of space in small gardens, where it is very dull for most of the year. But that dullness for 11 months is quite forgotten when it flowers!


At the other end of that border is a nice pink - named not for the colour but for the ragged (pinked) edge to the petals. This one might be a Cheddar pink, but there are lots of little pinks tucked into the border edges. The dark leaf behind it belongs to another plant with disappointing flowers (ligularia), but the leaves make up for it - when the snails don't eat them all.


And this clematis is really doing well on the pergola. Called Etoile Violette, I think.


Purple again!

27 June: Nearly ...... finished

The bathroom is now painted, but still lacks a blind; and perhaps the towels should all kinda match. After the purchase of a number of small tester pots of paint and much deliberation, we decided on purple.


It probably needs a picture on the wall too, but we'll have to see something we like.

Here is the latest knitted hat posing on the shelf -


And the same colour theme recurs in the latest pair of socks -

Most of the people who knit socks seem to delight in fancy lace or complicated cables, often knitted in merino; I suspect that they don't actually wear these socks regularly, as fancy stitches are not always as kind to the feet as plain knitting. And merino is famous for the ease with which it felts, so is not the best choice for an item that gets worn and washed time and time again.

We won't be able to go shopping for bathroom stuff on Saturday, as we are going to the Woolfest at Cockermouth. Lots of fibre, wool, sheep, and similar stuff. Last year I bought a spinning wheel and several kilos of fibre. Will I find lots to buy there this year?

23 June: Not only bathrooms, but also water

The main bathroom is now refitted, but not yet painted and finished. I haven't yet been able to take a good photo, as the mirrors have this person with a camera in them. It's also difficult to photograph a small room with fittings all round.

The past couple of days have been spent cleaning the film of dust from everywhere; the bathroom fitting is not entirely to blame for that, but it's been a good opportunity to have a good clean up. There is no longer a skip on the drive, and our cars are no longer parked in awkward places in the street.

Today I went to a meeting in Durham. Two or three lime trees grow below one end of Milburngate Bridge, and their flowers are wonderfully sweet, and full of bees.

The river was boiling over the weirs, murky and full of branches.

After the meeting, I walked down Saddler Street in a monsoon . It was quite spectacular - water was spurting from downpipes unable to accommodate the downpour and bubbling up from the drains. Not wishing to get my camera wet, I took only one snap, of the stream at the bottom of Saddler Street, gushing down the steps to the left. Then I dashed on to meet DH, who was picking me up at a pre-arranged place and time.

21 June: The End is in Sight

Tomorrow the bathroom is due to be finished. The skip is to be collected at lunch-time, and by tea-time we shall have the house, with 2 sparkling new bathrooms, to ourselves again.

Mind, the whole place is totally filthy - a fine film of plaster dust (or similar) all over everything. A spring cleaning event beckons. And there's a certain amount of decorating to do, along with tracking down towels and bathmats in the right shade, and deciding where to store the various toiletries and medicines.

No more cheerful chats with the bathroom fitter - but then I can also be radio-free if I choose. And I needn't be up, washed and dressed by 8.30 if I don't want to.

Afternoon naps lie in wait, spur-of-the-moment outings, Blondie records at top volume, wearing shorts round the house. Total giddiness. After 4 weeks, I'll be able to please myself again.

17 June: Time passes

A Happy Birthday to Number One Grandchild!

The bathroom progresses; the skip fills.


The shower room is getting finished. Walls are painted, blind is up, new bits and pieces have been found and added. We spotted this hare, a copy of one by Rodin, in Bainbridges yesterday - actually it might have been Fenwicks, as I am permanently confused about which shop I am in. Anyway, the hare goes rather well with this jug that's been lurking in the back of a cupboard for the best part of 40 years; I knew it would come in handy one day, and it's fun to have a culinary theme rather than a sea one.

And here is an almost-finished sock, knitted from the bamboo and Shetland mixture that I carded, spun, and dyed in the past 3 weeks. As there is limited yarn, the other sock may have to be green with lilac "points".

15 June: Suspended

The bathroom re-fitting goes on. And on.

The house is in such chaos that I feel quite stopped - can't get on with anything, can't concentrate, can't even think straight.

Just hanging onto the thought that it will only be another (working) week, perhaps a day or two longer, then I will have the place to myself again, and I'll be able to walk about without having to climb over a pile of stuff moved from somewhere else, I'll be able to get on with a task without having to stop and make a decision about the exact position of something, and I'll be able to have quiet. Not that it's Radio 1, it's actually much the sort of thing I choose when I choose to have the radio on - which is not usually more than 2 part-afternoons a week.

--------------------------------------------------

I've been spending a lot of time trawling blogs, following links, then other links, and finding some wonderful new stuff.

But there's another thing. Interesting blogs that promptly stop as soon as you discover them. So many seem to be running along quite well, with fairly frequent postings, then, just as you're getting into the swing of it, and liking the stuff that's there, it stops. No explanation or anything, just no more postings. Particularly frustrating on a knitting blog when you've just asked a technical question, and would actually like to know the answer.

Has the blogger been struck down by some dreadful disease or accident? Lying paralysed in hospital? Wandering in another town with no memory of who they are or where they belong? Or simply got fed up and stopped? Or, even worse, started a blog in a different format, under a different name?

How many bloggers have a split blogging personality, with no advertised connection between different blogs? Are 2 of your favourite blogs in fact written by the same person? Makes you wonder.

11 June: Sounds of Summer

The blackbirds must have chosen a nest site that is easily spotted by the local cats. And now they are exhausting themselves jumping up and down on the fence or in a tree, shouting "There's a cat! There's a cat!" in blackbird-speak. They spend so long doing that, I begin to wonder if they have enough time and energy left to gather food for the nestlings (their second batch this year).

And the black cat from across the street strolls casually along the path, glancing up at the birds just out of reach in the little trees, and then stops to drink from the ground level bird bath, before sauntering off to check out another garden.

Meanwhile, the bathroom fitter is hammering, bashing and crashing as he removes the fittings, tiles, carpet, the lot, from the bathroom. From time to time he calls me to make a decision about the exact place one of the new items is going to go.

Then another call - can I find a couple of old towels - quick!

While he is cutting a hole in the floor for new pipework, the cutting machine has caught a (plastic) pipe to the existing radiator, and water is spurting out under the floor, onto the ceiling of the kitchen below.

Frantic scrabbling to shove a thick towel underneath, then I take over pressing my thumbs onto the ends of the pipes, while he swiftly grabs some valves and seals the cut pipe ends. And what looked like gallons of water gushing out turns out to be just a couple of damp towels.

10 June: More boring stuff

The shower room is now fitted out, apart from a mirror. Here is a picture of it before I started to paint the walls this morning -

When the walls are done, we shall need a new blind, then a different colour bathmat might be good, and a smart new lavvy brush and waste bin. Sounds like a trip to John Lewis next weekend.

Meanwhile, the bamboo fibre blended with Shetland wool has been dyed, and is waiting to be knitted into socks -