August days

When not so small daughter finished school back in June, we said that we would make sure that we didn’t waste the extra-long summer holiday that she has this year.

The main mission was for not so small daughter, who can sleep for Britain should it ever become an Olympic sport, not to spend of all it under her duvet (or on top of it, as we have all been sleeping over the last very hot few days!) and to her credit, she’s not done that at all and we’ve packed in plenty during the last couple of weeks.  You can read more about that in this post.

Last week, we realised that a credit voucher from Adventure Parc Snowdonia where we went for our summer holiday last year was about to run out, so not so small daughter and I took a trip to Dolgarrog in North Wales to make sure that it got used!

The surfing lagoon is the first and only one of its type to built and uses the water from the nearby hydro electric station once it’s been through there, and later is drained into the River Conwy as there are no chemicals added to the water.  You can read more about how it works in this post from last summer.

I didn’t surf this time – if you read last year’s post you’ll have seen my family’s favourite photo of my surfing adventures and I was not about to add to the album!  Not so small daughter was delighted to get back on the giant wave, though.

It looks calm enough right now, doesn’t it?!  There’s not so small daughter on the left, paddling to the point where she’s going to catch the wave.

This is what the wave looks like when it comes in – it’s pretty big!  This is one of last year’s photos taken from a higher vantage point in the hotel across the lagoon.  The beginner surfers are over to the right; they get the wave once the power has started to go out of it so that they are not overwhelmed – but it still feels big enough at the time!  Not so small daughter as on the other side of the concrete pontoon but still waited in the same place for the wave.

She was really good!  This time, having already learnt the basics last year, she was able to stand up on her board and the smile on her face was something to see.

Not so small daughter has also been coming out with the dog and me in the mornings.  Not over the last couple of days as it’s been so very hot and I wanted the dog walked and home before she was ready to remove herself from her bed, but we’ve had her company more than usual and it’s been lovely!

I love this path through the fields, especially when the grass has grown high on both sides like this.  I think I like it most because the dog stays put on the path and doesn’t feel the need to be wandering – it must feel like a tunnel to him!

The fields have been harvested over the last couple of weeks and all of the wheat and barley has been cut down and safely stored away now.  We watched the combine harvester out until late at night for almost a week; the farmer’s wife is a friend and was sending regular “guess which field we’re in now” photos and was updating the Winwick village Facebook group with photos too.   I think it’s good to be reminded of the connection between village life and farming life.

There’s so much of farming that we don’t see when we drive past the fields in our cars, and there’s only so much that a farmer can do in terms of planting the seeds and waiting for them to grow, but you realise that they really do put the hours in at harvest time and I am grateful for that – that’s our food in those fields!

The field of blue flax that I showed you a couple of posts ago has mostly finished flowering and the field is starting to turn golden.

The flowers have turned into seed heads and I imagine that harvesting will have to be timed just right so that the seed heads don’t burst open and all the seeds lost – especially not if the farmer wants to plant something else in that field next year! 🙂

I’ve been doing a bit of my own planting in the garden.  I’ve been sowing seeds for perennials for next year – usually, I only remember to do this later in the Spring and often the seeds get forgotten or they dry out or I forget to pot them on … I thought that if I started them now then there’s a chance I might remember, especially if I know that I need to take extra care of them over the Winter when there’s not much else going on in the garden.  I’ve been thinking of the best ways to do that and my greenhouse might be seeing some over-Winter use for a change!

What have I planted?  Well, that’s a good question.  Actually, it’s a really good question because for most of them, I don’t know! My seed box had a bit of an accident in the garage when it got flooded during a heavy rain storm (and yes, there’s been a mouse in there too!) and this is what the seed packets look like …

I know that I’ve planted Stachys lanata (lamb’s ears) and a variety of Dierama (angels’ fishing rods) called “Autumn Sparkler” but other than that, it’s a bit of a mystery.  There are at least two other varieties of Dierama (I was obviously crushing on those plants when I bought the seeds!), what looks like a variety of grass and some cornflowers, but it will be interesting to see what grows!

I spotted this tiny Calendula in one of the planters which I thought was super-cute.  I have Calendula growing all over the place in a variety of colours because as soon as I spot seeds on the plants, I scatter them around the garden.  I can’t have enough of them!

It looks like a flower from a children’s book, doesn’t it?  I think it should probably have a face with a big smile!

I also saw these …

These are flower heads from my Hydrangea quercifolia (oak leaf hydrangea); they start off white then turn pale pink and finally deep pink, but I don’t usually see all of the stages of colours next to each other like this!

And what of the sock knitting in all of this, you might ask?  Well thank you for asking, there has been some sock knitting and to prove it … ta dah!

I have finished the first of my vegan yarn socks!  It has been an experience to knit these; they are a bamboo, cotton and elastic mix from veganyarn.co.uk and the yarn is the stretchiest yarn I have ever knitted with!  Because these are my Emergency Socks that I take out and about with me for when I need to wait somewhere, they get picked up and put down far more than most of my other socks so it’s taken me a while to get used to knitting with such a stretchy yarn, but I have discovered that the trick is to pull the yarn out of the ball so that it’s not stretched when you knit with it.  I’m very pleased with this sock, I’ll have to cast on number two!

Also on the needles is this sock …

This yarn is  Twilight Rainbow from Yarn Unique and if you’re wondering why there seem to be two working yarns, your eyes are not deceiving you and there are two working yarns!  I realised when I got to the gusset that the yarn was going to pool so I decided that I would use my method for avoiding colour pooling and flashing on sock gussets to see how it worked on this yarn.  It’s actually turning out pretty well and I’m pleased with it – I have taken it out a few times to get it to look how I wanted, but I’m on no deadline with this sock and I’m enjoying the process so it really doesn’t matter how long it takes to knit.  I’ll show you how it’s going when I’m a bit further down the foot so that it’s easier for you to see.

It was Granny Square Day on Monday 15 August, a visual feast on social media using the hashtag #GrannySquareDay which shows thousands of granny squares which all connect to make a giant virtual blanket.  It’s an annual event organised by Simply Crochet magazine so you should find the details quite easily if you want to join in next year.  I’ve never taken part before but my talented friend Emma Varnam very kindly made me a Winwick Mum granny square to post so that I could join in.  Isn’t that fabulous?  I love it!

Phew, that was quite a lot to catch up on, wasn’t it?  It’s been lovely to chat to you in the comments recently so thank you to everyone who posted.  I hope you enjoyed this one!

I’m going to love you and leave you now, but before I go, I want to share this photo with you that big daughter posted on her Instagram account.  Hattie, our kitten with the water obsession, has the right idea when she needs to keep cool! 🙂