Halfway through

I’m not quite sure how we’re nearly halfway through August when it feels like only a few minutes since I wrote July’s Monthly Musing!  This summer has raced past for me, and looking at my camera roll when I sat down to write this post, I wondered what I had to show for it.

Then I looked around me.  In June’s Monthly Musing, I wrote about the little room that is my “yarn room” and over the summer, the contents of that room have been in and out twice as I unloaded books and yarn from bookshelves and cupboards with the intention of decluttering and decorating – and then put it all back again as I realised it was a bigger job than I thought.  Oh my goodness, I was not wrong about that as the second time I unloaded the entire contents of the room so that I could get in with my paintbrushes, they filled the hall and the living room – honestly, if you could have seen the boxes of stuff then you too would have asked, just as my incredulous husband did, “How on earth did all of that come out of that little space?”

Anyway, this time – determined not to just put it all back again – I painted ceiling, walls and woodwork, moved a bookcase upstairs to not so small daughter’s old bedroom and made sure that what went back into the yarn room was just the stuff I needed or wanted to keep.  There’s still a way to go.  There are still piles of books that need to go onto the moved bookcase shelves and a number of boxes that contain things I don’t want to throw away (stationery, binders, bits and pieces of equipment) that didn’t need to be in that little room but currently don’t have another place to go, but at least I’m on the home straight now.  I’ve sold stuff, binned stuff and recycled stuff – and whilst I still might wonder how all of that took me weeks rather than the few days I’d imagined, it’s a job that needed doing and a job well done.  It’s just not a job that had photos to share on the blog!

My camera roll isn’t as dull as I thought, though, and there have been some highlights in between the sorting and the painting.

💜  Roses

I always said I wasn’t a rose person, but it turns that I absolutely am, and it’s been an absolute joy to see my roses flowering and then flowering again over the summer.   They must have really enjoyed the hot weather!  These ones are on a new branch of a climbing rose that has grown out over the path.  I can’t get over the speed of it – in a single season the new branch has grown and produced all these flowers!   It’s going to need tying in or cutting back, but later is fine.  I’m enjoying the roses for now!

 

💜  Olives

Olives are funny things – a bit like Marmite in that you often love them or hate them.  It took me years of trying one every now and again to suddenly realise that I did love them after all (if you’re the same, try the black ones first as that’s what did the trick for me) and now, we don’t think twice about ordering them to start a meal.  These beauties are Nocellara olives; they’re huge, glossy, tasty olives and there’s usually a fight for the last one in the dish.

 

💜  Student night

Well, only a student night in so much as I was out with my student!  Not so small daughter was home for a few days so we took ourselves into Liverpool for some shopping and pizza.  This is the pizza counter at Rudy’s Pizza on Bold Street in Liverpool, one of our favourite places to go for food, and our favourite place to sit.  There’s not as much room as when you sit at a table, but you can watch the pizzas being made and I guess for me, it’s the echo of a memory when I used to talk to my tiny girls about how things worked and we’d watch what people were doing.  You know, I hadn’t thought about that until just now when I wrote it, but that’s exactly what we did.  We talked about the dough being taken out of large trays, shaped on the counter and then passed to the next person who loaded the toppings, then we watched the dough being stretched onto a large paddle and go into the oven.  It was the sort of conversation we’ve had a thousand times over the years, but I never get tired of it.

 

💜  Harvest

The combine harvester was out last week and the wheat has gone.  A lot of farmers have been able to harvest early this year because of the good weather – and a lot will have been glad of that with the fire risk this year.

It’s easier to get along the footpath now the wheat has gone and I think the dog is glad of that – but the husks left behind are quite slippery to walk on and sometimes, as he beetles along in front of me, it looks like he’s skating!

 

💜  Clouds

I have spent more time indoors this summer than I would have liked to – not always a bad thing when it’s been ridiculously hot, but coming out later in the day when it’s cooler has reminded me what an amazing sky we have and how much nicer it is to look at that than the walls of your house!

 

💜  Fresh milk

I went out to meet some friends for breakfast yesterday and on the way, spotted a sign for fresh milk so decided to call in on the drive home.  The milk, along with ice cream and milk shakes, was delivered by a vending machine and because I hadn’t planned to buy any, I hadn’t thought to take my glass bottle from home.  I had to buy another one from the vending machine which made it an expensive litre of milk, but worth it to see the bottle being carefully dispensed into to tray where I could reach it, and then the milk being poured into the bottle by another part of the machine.  I guess that part of me that likes to see how things work never grows old!

 

💜  Solar eclipse

On the subject of how things work, the dog and I headed out to his favourite field last night to watch the eclipse and to be honest, we were a bit underwhelmed.  I though it was going to go dark – I’d seen a website page that said there was going to be 91% coverage in our area – but it was more like a bite out of a Jaffa cake-type eclipse.

Still, the dog was happy to be out in the field and in the absence of any other way to see the eclipse detail, I might have wrecked my camera by pointing it at the sun but doesn’t the lense flare look brilliant?  And we were there, under the sun, watching it all happen.  Magic.

 

💜  Cat in a box

Of course she is.  Mind you, Astrid was nearly the cat in the recycling bin as I didn’t see her in there!

I don’t think I’ve told you but Hattie has been diagnosed with feline hypertrophoic cardiomyalgia.  I had no idea what this was other than a long name, but it turns out that (in a nutshell) it’s a life-limiting condition where her heart muscles seize up and don’t do the work they are supposed to do.  It got worse pretty quickly but she’s now taking daily blood thinner medication to reduce the risk of clots and we’ve got the tablet-taking down to a fine art with a DIY pill-popper tube and one of those squidgy cat treat tubes.  We’re off to see the cardiologist again next month, but I think we’re at the point now where we just carry on as normal unless she becomes obviously unwell.

Hattie actually seems fine in herself – if anything, she’s more friendly and cuddly than ever and has been bringing a regular supply of mouse gifts to the house.  Yes, she’s still going out … I was tempted when I found out about her condition to make her stay indoors like Astrid, but she’s an outdoor cat and as our intention is to keep her happy for as long as we’ve got her, that involves me being brave enough to let her go out and do her own thing.

No photo of Hattie?  There never is these days – she’s too busy being out!

 

💜  New stitch markers

On a happier cat note, my Canadian cousin sent me a set of the most beautiful enamel cat stitch markers for my socks.  Aren’t the colours pretty?  The colours go very well with my sock which is my new pattern due to be released in September called, appropriately, September Socks.

Yes, you can see twisted stitches and yes, there are a lot of them, but they combine to make a pattern that I’m very proud of and am looking forward to sharing with you.  September is going to be a full month: there’s the new pattern launch but it’s also the month when lots of people feel a “new year” pull to try something new and it’s no coincidence that downloads of my Basic 4ply Socks pattern go up then.

This year, for the first time with a new pattern launch that’s not in January, I’m going to run a Knitalong for the new pattern and for the Basic 4ply Socks pattern, and this year, for the first time, there are going to be prizes!  Oh my goodness – there’s a lot going on behind the scenes here chez Winwick Mum and I’ll be able to tell you more about it over the coming weeks.  For now, though, download the Basic 4ply Socks pattern, gather your supplies and have a read through the Sockalong tutorials if you’re a sock newbie; free up some needles if you’re a seasoned sock knitter and working on summer projects, and get ready to go full throttle on your Christmas and holiday knitting if you are making gifts this year too!

It’s not long till September!