Duvets, tea, gifts, fud and chrimbly cloth - anything else?

Jobs list lifted out of my note book this morning

Willow bedding

Willow is a rather 'wiffy' dog. She is definitely from working stock with her coat oiling up instantly to give her a decent (stinky) water proofing for running around on the hills rounding up sheep. So, she gets fairly regular showers (jokingly known as a 'shampoo and set' in our household) and her bedding hurled into the washing machine. Over the last eight months and with various holistic / homeopathic / dietary sensitive trials, regular flea treatments and baths, her coat is now a gorgeous deep red without patches of missing hair and chewed raw skin and paws. She does smell less 'doggy' but I can see that her skin, her nervous self chewing and scratching as well as her working collie genes will be a constant for the rest of her life.

Willow bedding on the line - smelling a whole lot sweeter

Move tea/coffee et al

We are having work done on the kitchen roof. We have two rather miss matched but friendly builders bumbling in and on the house. An odd dynamic - a young boss (his first company) with very little knowledge but keen to help and get on and 'do' and a middle aged builder with the knowledge and a very kind and genial nature guiding him along. Sounds good until you add in - both have ailments of one sort or another - the kinds you could sort out if you made the effort - they both sing or whistle, different tuneless tunes at the same time. Then complain to the other about their inability to be musical.  Then there is the nicknames they give each other. None rude or insulting - just rather ..... inappropriate? (Baby cakes any one??) and my list - re tea/coffee? well, if any one wants a brew, I'll be making it in the lounge.

Wrap pressies

We had two planned events for September - one, set in stone, is a birthday bash this weekend. The other is the aforementioned kitchen roof work. Initially the two events were a happy three weeks apart. Unfortunately due to some (many) issues with the roofers - they have slid into one and the pressure is on - the builders are very aware they need to be done and dusted and out of my kitchen and my hair so I can clean away the dust, tidy the house, cook and prep for Saturday. 

Dog-fud

In the back of the car is 25 kg of salmon and potato dog food - need to get it out. But I hear you ask why call it dog-fud. 

Years ago - pre kids - Himself and I were listening to a Scottish musician being interviewed one late night and he was asked a general 'what do you get up to when you are not doing music' and he liltingly chatted on about his dog then said 'aye I mus rememberrr to buy dog fud' and the English presenter asked what was fud? To which the singer replied - Och you English would call it foooooooood - extending the ooooo sound in the most deliciously Scottish way. So - dog fud it has been since then.

A rather over excited dog who things this WHOLE BAG is for the eating of NOW!

Chrimbly cloth

Whilst being 'house bound' with the roofers, I have made friends with my sewing machine. We go through phases of liking or hating each other - at the moment we are doing ok!

half way there, next half incoming!

The festive table cloth is now over half way - rather rustic and certainly keeping me entertained whilst preventing cabin fever. Once the patches are all together and ironed, I plan to top sew each one then stitch on to a backing cloth to give it strength (and to hide all scruffy bits at the back!) voila! at least that is the plan....

a deliberate attempt to look 'patchworky' and spontanious rather than meticulous and beautiful 

which I know I could never do - I am realistic as to my abilities and patience!

And yes - my hand writing is rather 'rustic' too - a combo of being left handed, feeling cold (the unfinished roof has dropped the temperature in the house) after deciding a while ago that I no longer need to impress anyone with my hand writing as well as 'leaving' behind the despised years and years of having to do the much hated lines and lines AND LINES all through my summer holidays ..... in order (and failing) to improve my hand writing. 

I no longer apologise. 

I have since worked through several items - and it gives me great pleasure to cross them off!

And just a few snippets not on the list - the dahlias catching this morning's early light, the spider web beneath the arch last night and a scared of-the-drilling-and-hammering dog from yesterday.

amazing how swaddling in a duvet whilst in your crate

makes the world almost right again

Finally the builders have landed, three of them today - the pressure is on and despite them very 'kindly' offering to come on Saturday to finish it off I have politely and firmly declined the offer reminding them that there is a birthday bash this weekend and I have a house full of guests - ah...... we better crack on was the response..... yup.

Guess what?

 STILL waiting for the same workmen - this time they have had the grace to text and confirm the day AND time they will be landing.... however -

Their timing is not good as today I have a lot to deal with and I am just not sure which way to turn first. It is, at the moment too early in the morning to make the essential phone calls and possible transporting of my folks to the bank - they are struggling with understanding online insurance, online banking, online booking of the internet/changing off address/etc etc and although I can help to a certain degree - but most of my help seems to be trying to catch up or fix what they have done before it gets too disastrous! 

So while I wait for the rest of the world to wake up - I thought I'd share a walk we did yesterday.

We have a brooding lump of a hill which looms over the village and I suspect a good number of the villagers climb the hill at least once yearly, Himself included. I have not been up for a while and mindful that I have neglected to gasp my way up the soggy moorland sides of it, we went up on Sunday.

The approach from our house takes us up via the old cobbled track, down through the older part of the village past jumbles of tiny cottages and expensive new builds which are still wrapped in plastic and scaffolding looking quite out of context to the rest of the homes - the price of greed I suppose...

Eventually the houses become small holdings, chickens, horses and donkeys filling the fields, then they become farms where sheep and beef cattle then take over. 

Finally we reach the moor road, stop for a brew and a view before turning upward to the hill.

The ground underfoot immediately turns wet. The foot path glints with rain water puddles and boggy pools and Willow gets rather excited as she tries out as many watering holes as possible.

As we make our way over the marshy shoulders, you can just about hear the brook burbling down beneath the reeds and a mewing buzzard through the winds which are cold and cutting. The gradual slope suddenly goes upward, where the foot path almost takes on stair like steps caused by thousands of feet over the years, leaving you no choice but to follow the exact stride as you walk (gasp) up the flank.

Almost at the top of the steep section are a handsome collection of stones known as Lad's Law and I have photos over the years where Himself as a younger man and then the boys when they were various stages of little and not so little are seen climbing up and over the rocks. Today was no different although rather more precarious than usual as the buffeting winds were not making it easy.

We turned back on to the path, soon spotting the trig point where we thought we'd stop for our break but at this point we knew that it would just be a brief visit - far too windy to linger. 

We did have to however, is the 'obligatory' dog-on-a-trig photo - can't break with tradition can you!

As soon as we could, we dropped down off the top and hunkered into a grassy bowl out of the wind. Definitely time to open the flask and bag of dog biscuits!

After a short while and before we could cool down too much, we set off again, traversing the top of the hill from rock formation to rock formation, exploring their strange weather beaten shapes and secret pools of water.

Then, just as we reached the end of the path before turning back down, a large party of folk suddenly appeared, ragged breath and red faced, having just come up the path we were about to follow down. Several managed to gasp a greeting as we walked by. For the most part, the descent passed quietly and it was not until we reached farmlands again when we met a farmer moving his flock. 

He is one of the village 'icons' known for his foul temper and active dislike of general folk. As we reached the gate he was about to go through - he looked at me and said ... I know you..... you used to live in the village. I smiled and said that we still do and that somethings don't change. He grunted, then smiled broadly which both Himself and I know to be a rare treat and wished us a good walk.

Again we set off, through the farmlands, then the small holdings, returning to the main street through the village and down the cobbles to home where a much needed mug of tea or two restored three very wind blown but happy walkers.

PS - the roofers have arrived, only three weeks and one hour late..... 

What to do when waiting ...

...For workmen who are (it is now very obvious) not going to turn up. 

I am using this hurry up and wait time to crack on with ideas in my head. One or two I can not share here as they will ultimately be chrimbly gifts, however what I can share is this - and if you are a true sewist or quilt maker or patch work enthusiast - look away now!

During covid I sewed face masks for friends and family and when I make marmalade to gift, I top the jars with fabric 'hats', this has left me with various piles of scrap material. I also have several bags of scrap fabric gifted from other sewing friends and when I went through what I had - it seems I have piles of festive material - hence this hare brained idea. 

I know it is hare brained as I am now attempting said 'idea' and am wondering at my sanity.... cue cutting fairly square-ish/rectangular-ish/sort of patches to make sure my colours and patterns are spread about. I have taken up so much floor space with all my snippings that I am having to lay out half of the table cloth at a time. (shakes head) 

I am slowly sewing together all my festive scraps to make a table cloth - but instead of ensuring all pieces line up and are the same size, I am cobbling together All shapes and All sizes ....hmmmmm.

Wish me luck!

When it is done, stitched to its base cloth then ironed, I will show you (or, as I suspect - I'll get fed up and won't!!)

The evening light

edited to add - whoop whoop (hopefully not to pre-emptively - but it seems blogger just might be sort of working again!

I know my reach has dropped tremendously since blogger has been playing silly bloggers but I'll keep typing away like I know all of you are too. Keep in touch - don't disappear! 

Having had a glorious walk earlier in the afternoon, we set off back towards Lancaster. There are so few places where you can park wild in the lakes, understandably, as it would be soon over run by all sorts (I am including us too) so we use a tried and tested and accepted park up with one of the best views ever looking over Sunderland Point.

We parked up at that point when the light of the day begins to morph into smooth golden and purple shades. And despite our nearly 7 miles earlier, we just had to get out and fill our eyes and stretch our legs on a favourite 'dog loop'.

The reflections on the inky black waters of the canal were sublime and due to the time, there were so few other walkers about - again we felt to have the place to ourselves. We stopped at the marina to take a few photos as the sun slid behind the horizon. It was rather magical watching lights flicker on in the canal boats or yachts as their occupants prepared for the evening.

The reflections on the water turned to beaten copper and bronze while black silhouetted ducks paddled past searching for last minute morsels before heading to roost.

Back at the van we too set up for our evening, cooking and then eating whilst watching the sky soften into pinks and greys followed by the richest of blue black filled with stars.

The sounds of the day -  cheerful bird trilling and chirps, the occasional farm vehicle or car heading down to the marina changed to wistful whistles of evening song and the distant cronk of a skein of geese heading to their evening rest.

We knew that Saturday would be wet so we made the most of every moment of Friday, sitting up late, listening to the gentle sighs of a retreating tide and snores of a tired dog.

And yes Saturday was very wet - however there is something quite lovely about being tucked up in a very cosy nest, cuddling a mug of tea as you peer through a rain misted window..... time to go home.

I am now going to physically tap on everyone's blog I follow and see what you are up to! Sod blogger!

edited to add: I have managed to find a contact/forum page on the blogger site and left a query as to why and what can be done - see what happens ....

......and if you feel fed up enough to comment here is the LINK to that page

Friday afternoon

As with everyone else it seems - blogger is being dreadful - according to their page there is nothing untoward, but there is definitely a problem - hopefully it will get sorted and if not, I might start looking for another platform. Something I don't really want to do.

We managed a magical 24 hour escape in the van - with both of us having to deal more and more with aging parents who seem to be struggling with the speed of the real world - these microadventures help clear our heads and make us more able to cope.

We packed Zeb (van) with just the necessities and with an overexcited Wills, we drove up to the South Lakes, parked in a favourite lane, strapped on our boots and set off. Wills was horrendous on the lead for about the first 20 minutes then I out of desperation, discovered a slight change in her lead and harness made all the difference. She pulls and pulls and is completely unresponsive when I try to rein her in - but (fingers crossed) with this new lead/harness arrangement - I might just still have a left hand after a walk..... sigh.

But on to more enjoyable things - our walk was utterly delicious and just what we needed. I find being nearer the sea restorative. Our route took us through meadows and woodlands, gently dipping in and out of villages then back through fields and trees.

We chose to stop at the 'Pepper Pot', a Victorian folly on the crest of Eaves Woods looking over Silverdale and Morecombe Bay. The folly's official name is the Queen Victoria Golden Jubilee Monument which is quite a grandiose mouthful for a six metre tall rough stone tower with a wonky conical roof. But the view is utterly sublime.

We sat on the edge of the limestone slab for our lunch - and for the most part of our stop, it was just us, the folly and the view. As we started to pack away, other visitors started to appear from all sides and we smiled quietly at how lucky we'd been to have had the place to ourselves.

We dropped down to the cove and followed the coastal path all around the headland to Jenny Brown's Point. Like all these places given a name, its history is ambiguous. However, Jenny Brown just might have been a local living in one of the 17th - 18th century cottages along the coast near the remains of the old quay.

We love meandering through the National Trust's open access land called Jack Scout. There are a number of lovely nooks where you can just plonk yourself down and crack open the flask and watch the world go by. Or if you are a dog - have a nap....

The trees have been hammered by the onshore winds sculpting them to sinuous coastal hugging topiary.

We turned inland at the smelting chimney but not without replicating a photo we had taken with Moss some years before. Willow obliged quite happily as we snapped away.

We then walked inland through the woodland back to the van where we sat, sans boots and listened to the birds trilling while we drank freshly made mugs of tea. Willow scoffed her biscuits in record time then threw herself into bed. A good sign, a very good sign indeed.