Bring on the light..

The first thing I do when I get in the door from work is to grab a lead, a poo bag and a small Toastie and head for the Great Outdoors.  At this time of year it is a pleasure as I know that I will be walking in the light and pretty much mostly in the dry.

It is pure pleasure to see everything regenerating, not just the plants but the birds and animals as well – everyone is out and about and fulfilling the three Fs, feeding, fighting and .. .well you know the last one.

A couple of photo highlights from our walk this afternoon..

 

Day light saving starts this weekend so it will be even lighter in the evenings and of course it is the Spring Equinox tomorrow, yay!

Here is my little table all ready  for a celebration with daffodils from our garden and the patchwork table runner that I put together a while back.

See you tomorrow

Happy Samhain all..

 

And happy Beltane to those on the other side of the world..

Our clocks changed at the weekend and this evening while out walking Toastie and admiring the neighbourhood pumpkins I realised that if I didn’t move my ass I would be walking in the dark.  Sure enough it was full dark shortly after we got home at 5.20.

Although we have been having some gloomy days we have been blessed by incredible autumn colours.  Everywhere there are fiery glowing trees.  I walk in wonder..

Tonight is All Hallows Eve/ Halloween/Samhain.  A night to remember the dead and to light fire.

Lighting our Samhain fire

 

Lighting candles for the dead - among them my Father, I miss you Dad..

 

 

 

And the wheel turns..

 

 

On my walks..

Berries - Holly and Yew

At the end of my street

Simon’s Shop…

Chandeliers baby..

 

My friend Simon owns a shop called Goosey Gander’s and if you are in Hay you just have to go along and check it out.  It is an experience for sure.

Simon knows all about glass and everything there is to know about chandeliers.  Including how to put them together, he buys wrecks and restores them into the most beautiful, magical things.

His shop is tiny, but crammed full of light.

 

 

And I do love them all – but they would look really crap in my house.

 

 

 

Simon’s house is filled with the ones that he just can’t part with – including a few of the rare, giant, man sized lava lamps in existence.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toastie, Simon and I sit on the front step of the shop and watch the world go by.  We discuss the appalling state of parking in Hay and genrally set the world to rights, then we visit Kilverts’s across the road for liquid sustenance and continue.

Such is life in a small town..

 

Simon and Toast

..you can have the spiders

The spiders are coming inside..  It’s a sure sign that  summer is on the wain.

I had noticed an extra few about the place a couple of weeks ago.  And then Mr T commented on a particularly large one he had seen run under the sofa – and the one he had seen in the bathroom running under the cabinet… and then that night, as I was getting ready for bed, I noticed Toastie staring intently at something on the floor by my bed side table.   I couldn’t find anything crawly on my search but then spent some time lying in bed in the dark feeling imaginary insects creeping on me..

I have been stewing plums, making plum jam, and caramelised red onion relish.  Very soon our apples will need picking and as our tree is over loaded we will be eating them for quite awhile to come.   I once had a recipe for spiced apple preserve which has disappeared so I will have to try and make it up.  I know the apples were cooked in orange juice and a little bag of spice but that is about all I can recall..except that it was heavenly.

I have been eating home made muesli, Rachel’s Full Fat Organic Yoghurt and my own stewed plums for breakfast and enjoying every last bite.  Mr T has taken up making sour dough bread so for a change I eat the most wonderful toast with my jam on it of course.

I am getting even fatter..

 

Stewing Plums

 

On the other hand I am getting way more exercise now we have Toastie and that is a very good thing both for my body and for my mental health.  There are a lot of walks to choose from in this area.  Cusop even has its own little packet of trail maps that we bought from the Information Centre in Hay .  One map points out Badger sets which I had walked past before and not noticed.

 

Cusop Walks

 

Although our weather is on the turn it is still warm and last night as the dog and I sauntered out for our evening constitutional we stopped to watch the wee bats stealth diving around the street light at the end of our terrace.  Although the light and warmth make the days seem lazy  and slow, with the Dingle sluggish in places, the animal life is in a mad rush to eat and/or store away as much food as possible.  Nut trees are stripped in days by ravening hoards of squirrels.  Flocks of birds are migrating as well, our most noticeable visitors from afar – the Swifts, have disappeared in the last couple of weeks.

We have been on several long walks lately but the longest would have to be to visit The Begwns – a lovely stretch of open access land owned by the National Trust.  We wanted to walk to The Roundabout, a small group of trees planted on a hill to mark Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.  Toastie is sporting her mohawk which is has got thinner as the summer has gone on.  So far we have resisted efforts to get us to dye it pink.

On the way to the Roundabout on The Begwns

 

Showing off her mohawk

 

Mr T and The Toastalator on finally reaching the Millennium Circle wall that surrounds The Roundabout. Wonderful 360 degree views - but a bit hazy on this day.

 

View from The Begwns - spot the sheep

 

I do love late summer – except for the spider bit that is..

slightly bleeding squashiness..

Hey there..

I love red grapes don’t you?  Nom, nom..

Lovely to munch on after dinner if you feel like pud and have none in the house and are too damned lazy to do anything more energetic than swipe the grape bowl of the counter and squash back up on the sofa again with the dog.  Soooo..

How are you all out there then?  Hope you are all well and goodly.

Probably due to hypothyroidism I have been wrestling with the black slug again but think I am coming out victorious.  This time I had the help of a small dog in fighting the good fight.  She keeps me company, makes me walk the countryside with her and generally cheers me with her sheer cuteness and mild bonkersness i.e. the Assault of the Cherry where after throwing a cherry around and batting it back and forward with paws she then proceeded to snarl and growl at it when it had the temerity to menace her as it sat on the floor in its slightly smeared, slightly bleeding squashiness.

The Hay Book Festival and the How the Light Gets In Festival of Philosophy and Music have both been and gone in the same crowded ten days.  Both seem to have done extremely well and I have heard that tickets for the book fest well exceeded last year.  We have a population of around 1500 here in Hay and they sold about 220,000 tickets for the book festival alone – needless to say our town was just a tad rammed.  The poor buggers who were camping (and there were a lot of them) had to put up with rain and cold the first weekend and by the Tuesday when I went to do my shift at the charity shop we had sold out of all blankets and coats and people were still coming in and asking for them.  It amazes me that some do not understand that summer weather in this country may be a little uncertain.

T and I had the great good fortune to see film director John Waters speak on the first Saturday night – he was very, very, very good.  Interesting, funny and wise.  One of the bonuses of the evening was that he was interviewed by his friend Helena Kennedy who is also a pretty damn wonderful woman, you can read about her here.  I admire both of them immensely for their outspoken stance against prejudice and injustice.

My other visit to the festival grounds was to see the marvellous and incredibly prolific Alexander McCall Smith, he of the No1 Ladies Detective fame.  Once again a visit and battle with the crowds worth making. Interviewed by Ann Robinson ‘Sandy” as she called him proved fully capable of taking a simple question and turning it into a circuitous and engrossing tale – great fun with an infectious laugh.

There was a wonderful energy to the town while the festivals were on but I have to say that it is lovely now everything is back to normal.

I’m off now – don’t want to rabbit on too much now i’m back in the blogging mood again, I’ll just leave you with this..

Like her new i.d. tag?

i love my town..

I am a crocheting fool this evening and then later T and I  are off out to the Open Mic Night at Kilvert’s to meet our friend Leslie.  Hope it will be a good night – doesn’t really matter, it will just be nice to be out and have a lovely pint and great company.

I have been crocheting these..

It’s a African Flower/Granny pot holder – pattern taken from the Crochet With Raymond blog.  There is a great tutorial if you feel like trying your hand. I gave this blue beauty to my mother -in- law Coral and now am over half way through my second one (purple).  Lots of fun.

Just before I go I have to show you this lovely face cloth that my friend M gave me – she is very clever and I am a lucky girl

Cotton owl dish cloth - cable knit

By the way – I have just got hold of the programme for the philosophy and music festival called How The Light Gets In that runs during the Hay Book Festival but is based at The Globe on the other side of town – OhMyGod!!!!  It sounds amazing…  If you ever get the chance to come to Hay – come at this time of year, it’s going to be brilliant.  If you’ve got time click on my link and check it out.

No Specific Reason..

The last four days have been lovely – not for any specific reason, just lots of little reasons all piled up.

Friday, spending time with my friend Louise in her shop, and then with other friend Emanation at Booths Book Shop cafe eating spanking hot chips with garlic mayo and sipping to die for real hot chocolate.  M then came back to mine and we crocheted and talked until after 10pm when she departed and T finally got home from work.  Huge enjoyment to have company for the evening and to be treated to part of M’s life story.

Saturday was also a treat because T didn’t have to start work till 6pm so we had the whole day.  Utterly freezing out so we just had to go for a walk of course.  Took a new track that passes up the side of Hay Cemetery and then follows a stream up to common land finally returning via the path that leads to Hay car park.

I love being able to walk through the countryside like this.  The people here are really lucky to have all these right of ways and paths.

T did his good deed for the day by removing the huge sheets of ice in the sheep’s water trough.  They were so thirsty they ran up straight after and started drinking.   It was so cold that not even all the exercise over heated me and my face was going numb.  Then we had a walk up to the Co-op for supplies and home for soup and toasted sandwiches – bliss.

Sunday again very restful, ending the weekend with wine and nibbles at our friends house and a brisk walk home.

Now today – Monday, I have talked to my friend Kate in NZ, posted parcels, got a job application and done some packing.  It is so good being well.. such a novelty.  I keep thinking something really good must have happened but there is nothing specific – just being well, good-humored, not over-anxious, not tired for no reason, no crying, no dwelling on all of lives manky bits, it’s simply bloody wonderful.

Some photos:

 

 

 

Plaque on fallen angel grave

 

 

 

 

Hide out

 

 

 

 

Thirsty sheep

 

 

A Fine Start to a Year..

Question

What has three bedrooms, one of which is the entire attic area with velux window, which will make a mighty fine studio.  A large bathroom (well large compared to the closet which we have at the moment).  And A BATH!  And a wood burner. And a dog door. And a garden, with a glass house and an apple tree and a walnut tree. And it backs on to fields and Mouse Castle woods.  And it has its own car park. And it is furnished so we will have proper  double beds in all the rooms, And has walls so thick you can’t hear the neighbours hoick.  And costs exactly the same as the one we are in now ???

Answer – Our new house, of course!

Yes we are moving yet again, only this time it is just about as close as can be to where we are now -  five minutes walk away in Cusop Dingle.

This is the New Years Good Things post, and about time too.

I feel bullet points coming on

• I am really loving our Stitch and Bitch group.  Just getting together with a lovely bunch of people purely for the sake of sitting and crocheting and talking and laughing.

• A British winter – well, what a winter!  It’s still grey and manky outside BUT the signs of spring are already here, snowdrops, lambs, budding plants.  And I can smell it in the air.  Our town has got ridiculously quiet, almost empty pubs and streets.  It is amazing to think that this is the same town that just six months ago you had to walk off the pavement to get around all the people.  And soon it will be like that again – perhaps I will just enjoy the quiet for the moment.

• A week after we move we are to be visited by our friends Julian and Kath.  This will be their first visit to us in Hay and I am just so happy that it will be at our new house.  Not only will we have a spare bedroom to put them up in BUT also we will have a proper bed for them to sleep in.  Hurrah!

• Books – oh the books.  I try not to go into the book shops here to often, just because it is torturous to the financially embarrassed person but – sometimes you just have to.  On one of my trips I came across Paper Cutting Techniques by Sharyn Sowell which I just had to have as I have been wanting to have a go at the craft for some time now.   Then I found Shoot the Damn Dog by Sally Brampton, an account of the writers journey through and out of severe depression.  This book is well up there on my list of best depression books and reading it has helped me hugely.

Paper cut by Julene Harrison. Just imagine cutting this! There are some amazing people out there

• Carol Shields’s Unless, is another book I just had to own.  I think Shields was one of the best novelists in THE ENTIRE WORLD – sorry about yelling but golly.  If you haven’t read this or the sublime The Stone Diaries, well then – you should

• After she threw the baby in, nobody believed me for the longest time. But I kept hearing that splash...     These sentences  come from my best read of the new year so far -  The Well and The Mine by Gin Phillips.  This doozy flew across the sea to me at the behest of an American friend Robin who I met last year at my local pub Kilvert’s, just up the road.  She was on her first solo trip around the UK and being a book seller, had to pay a visit to Hay-on-Wye.  The lovely Robin along with my friend Jenny and I spent a fabulous evening bonding over real ale and in the process I found out that not only was she from the southern states where I would just love to visit, but she was also a huge fan of Fanny Flagg, author of Fried Green Tomatoes as well as some of my other favourite books.  Robin, sadly, had to leave the next day but we have been in email contact since she got home and just after Christmas a package arrived from her.  Not only did it contain the latest Fanny Flagg hardback I Still Dream About You but a copy of The Well and the Mine which is the authors first novel – I can’t wait till the next.

• Just before Christmas I had received another package in the post – this time from Amazon.  I hadn’t ordered anything and so I gave it to T who promptly put it away.  It turned out to be a rather wonderful, and strange book entitled The Complete Book of Retro Crafts which I suspect was sent to me by blog buddie Katyboo.   Full of the most wonderful, crazy stuff that humans can make it includes how tos on every kitsch craft you can think of – including glitter encrusted pine cone elves, Bottlecap man, Pantyhose Poodle and festive Reinbeer.

• On Saturday afternoon I was in my kitchen making a Spiced Apple cake, the first baking I have done since we came to this country, and listening to Graham Norton and then Tony Blackburn on Radio Two, grooving away to 70′s funkiness when I suddenly realised just how happy I was feeling, one of life’s golden moments had just enveloped me and given me a big kiss.  I believe you must have had depression or been through some other terrible stress to understand how incredible it felt.  I am getting better…

The best cake I have ever made

We are moving on the 11th Feb and I have packing to do.  You have no idea how much I am looking forward to having a garden again.  I have to try to not get too over excited about it all otherwise I will have to go and sit in the corner, cover my head with a towel (remember you should always carry a towel – check your Douglas Adams)  and squeak.

Looking back – 2010 Bumper Post

The trouble is the longer you leave it the more the words in your head build up until it all becomes overwhelming and it’s a lot easier not to bother – a lot.

So biting the bullet and getting it started again is a good thing.

First off – I hope everybody had a great holiday period.  We had a interesting time of it, with both of us having a really nasty flu which took ages to disappear.  Lots of people we know have had it too – in fact our neighbours have both suffered badly and have had to cancel their two month long holiday in India because they were so sick.

Yule afternoon I spent with my good friend Emanation and her family.  Emanation and I swapped pressies and I received my first proper crochet how-to book from her, as well as a really cool crocheted flower motif wall hanging.  We ate lovely food and drank lovely drink and she dosed me with some head blowing herbal concoction to try to alleviate my flu.  It didn’t work totally but was an experience for sure.  It was amazing to have found someone here who celebrates the solstice and to know that she and her husband Smithy are bringing up their son to celebrate it as well.

Thinking back on it, I should never have gone around to Emanation’s that day as I really was feeling rough and risked them catching it as well.  But fortunately they are made from hardier stock and remained well.

Emanation and me - Yule 2010

 

Smithy and I and Puss

Thanks to said flu I really did not mind that Mr T worked late Christmas eve and I was home alone.  Just felt like curling up on sofa and blobbing in the warm.  We were both well enough to make it to the Baskerville Arms on Christmas Day to have our (already paid for) feast.    Although not well enough to walk all the way there and back as was the plan.

I got some lovely presents on the day – I have the best friends.  One of them, Louise,  had surprised me with a gift bag of goodies from her shop which contained six or seven little wrapped presents that I had great fun opening – lip balm,  candle holders, colourful machine embroidery threads, cool stuff like that.

Me and Presents - Terrys Chocolate Orange, fingerless gloves, crochet book and one of my most fave pressies - A HEAD TORCH!!

Later in the day after Christmas lunch - full up with good cheer and the flu

Mr T - Christmas day

New Years Eve found us in Swansea celebrating at our favorite Queens Hotel with our besties Jules and Kath.  I love being back in Swansea for a visit – it is sooo different from being in Hay.  Having lived there for about four years on and off I am fully aware of some of the down sides of the place but.. I have a huge soft spot for the city where Mr T was born, I love people watching and listening to the accents.  And of course walking the spectacular beach, which we did horribly hungover on New Years day.

It was very, very good being with Jules and Kath, just great people and great fun.  A huge blessing..  And Jules makes a mighty fine New Years day fry up.

The Gang - New Years Eve 2010

 

I made no New Years resolutions, I just the hope that I will be able to handle this year better than last.

2010 was a doozey in some ways – some of the negatives

• Most probably making the decision to return to the UK bought about a return of the Black Slug Depression, perhaps not the brightest idea for a person who apparently does not deal well with stress.

• Leaving my Mum and all my friends.

• The collapse of our plans to rehome our lovely Polly, two weeks before we were due to leave the country.  Then having to leave her in a safe but unfortunately temporary home.

• The stress of moving to another country, finding a place to live, jobs, furnishing said house, finding an affordable car, feeling alien and not wanting to open my antipodean gob while out shopping to stop the millionth person from asking  where I come from (because then I would have to kill them)

• Relationship problems in the first couple of months of being in this country – really needed that.

• Failure to cope with pub job, getting another really quite enjoyable job that I could cope with and then having it taken away.

• All of this whilst the depression ran rampant and did it’s best to sabotage any good at all

BUT  I have survived and our marriage has survived and at this particular point I am extremely thankful for all the amazing, wonderful, simply fucking beautiful things that have happened as well.  All of those negative things have turned out ok.  We have coped with all the problems that moving to a different country brings and some of the stuff we needed to set up life here just dropped into our lives as if by magic.  I have to say that a lot of our good fortune has had to do with people – good hearted, friendly, helpful people – some of whom were pretty much strangers but they made starting  our lives here so much easier than it could have been.

Next post – the positives