Let sleeping cats lie

Hello.The weather looked so promising this morning, I even jumped in my car at 7 o clock and drove two miles to get a picture of the spectacular sunrise. Alas it didn't last, half an hour later it clouded over and we have spent the whole day being rained on. 

I went to the craft and chat, only seven of us this morning. I really enjoy Monday mornings with the ladies, a nice start to the week. I wanted to return some library books but then I remembered that the mobile van isn't there this week, it is off the road for a couple of days for it's MOT test. Think maybe I'll have to renew them on line, or take them back to the big library in town. 

After lunch, the last portion of veg curry and pasta, I got into arty crafty mode. My dining room table at the moment is covered in materials for the weaving, Oh dear, Heidi seems to think it is a bed made specially for her. I've just turned round to see if she is still there, she is, ha ha. 

Still more to do on the weaving, but I had a change today and made a tree. I need to make three of these. My first idea was to use ordinary chicken type wire and mould it into shape then cover it in fabric. I searched everywhere for the right sort of wire, found some but then went off the idea. Then I remembered I have a reel of electric cable, one of my skip diving finds, so this is what I did. Although quite stiff it bends into shape quite easily.

Join the branches on the main stem with pieces of tape.

Then bind it once with strips of fabric cut from a beige teeshirt also found in a skip. It is too big for me so I might as well use it. Then bind it again in a more colourful fabric. My own teeshirt which is past it's sell by date, I have far too many teeshirts anyway. The three trees will be different colours. I'm thinking about making leaves for them. Watch this space. I want plain trees that show up against the multicoloured background. Could be good.

Dinner tonight was an omelette, two eggs, I never cook just one egg, always two. It's got a chopped onion, chopped courgette, and half a tin of chickpeas in it. It's massive, had to cut it in half to get it on the plate, would have easily done for two people. Served with lettuce, two tomatoes, and grated carrot. It was very filling and loverly. A tip when making an omelette, don't try and turn it over or flip it in the pan, put it under the grill to cook the top. 

Two bills came through the door today from my newish energy supplier, Ebico, I changed in January. It's looking like the change from British Gas was a good move. My gas bill is �6.04, electricity bill is �21.04. They used estimated readings, the gas is almost spot on, and the electric is slightly under estimated. I expect the electric bill to rise throughout the winter as we put lights on earlier. I email my meter readings once a month, so for the first year they will be building up a picture of my usage. Ebico is the only supplier that has nil standing charges, and doesn't penalise customers for paying quarterly. If you are thinking of changing to them you need to check how much energy you use, because it might not work out cheaper if you are a high usage customer. It works fine for me because I can monitor my usage and keep it low.

I found a pressie in my front porch today. My nice neighbour across the road left me a carrier bag filled to the top with apples. Every year their tree is heavily laden, and every year she gives me some. They are cooking apples but so sweet I don't need to put any sugar on them. I have been giving her runner beans and courgettes, so a good swap I would say.

That's all for now, nighty night and toodle pip.

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Enjoying village life

I was expecting to have another day in today, after the miserable weather yesterday, but this morning it was back to fine and sunny again. I had a morning on artwork, with a break for elevenses and a fruity smoothie. One nectarine, one banana, a few peach slices from a tin with a drop of juice, a dash of Ribena, and two tablespoons of plain yogurt, topped with ground almonds. It was scrumshus. Deliberate spelling mistake, I make my own words up. 

Lunch was veg curry and pasta, I made extra portions yesterday to save cooking today. Dinner was the same and still some left for tomorrow.

I had a short trip out this afternoon to take a look at Winteringham Music and Arts Festival. My friend Helen is on the Parish Council and helped organize it. There has been a lot going on over the weekend, something of interest to all age groups. There are photo's on the web site of events that took place yesterday. I must say they are very quick to post updates on the site.

It was a lovely sunny afternoon, which brought a lot of people out. The art exhibition was busy, I forgot to take photographs, oops. I sat for a while on the bench outside the church. People were arriving for a classical choir concert. Here is Helen manning the pay desk.

Me in my summer pink.

The concert is just about to start. I decided not to stay as the sun was beckoning me to go for a walk. The ladies were getting tea and cake ready to serve in the interval, I wanted to buy some cake but they weren't getting it out until the interval.

I bimbled around the village and called into the Village Hall where there was a photographic exhibition going on, There weren't many photo's but those that were there were interesting and good quality. I had a nice chat with a man who told me all about the camera club and said I would be welcome to come as a guest to a meeting. I might just do that, I'll look at my calendar.

Tonight I am making a tree for the new weaving. I needed some wire to make a skeleton tree, and as luck would have it I have a massive reel of electrical wire which I recovered from....you've guessed it, a skip, ha ha. I'm quite excited by this, now I have to decide what colour to make my tree. Best to get on with it. Enjoy tour Sunday evening. 7 o clock and it's dark outside, oh dear, the days are getting shorter.
Toodle pip.

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It's a slow process

Hiya. Miserable day outside, until about 5pm when it brightened up a bit. I've spent most of my time indoors, with half an hour filling the brown wheelie bin with garden rubbish. Tidied the raised beds, and covered them over for the winter. I'm going to re think my veg growing for next year, there may be some changes. Sick of doing battle with the slugs. 

I've been alternating between the weaving, and sewing the smaller picture today. More fabric strips added, still more needed. A long way to go on this so don't expect things to happen quickly. 

If you remember, this was part of four small pictures sewn together to make one big one. I decided it would be better to unpick the stitching and separate them, and decorate each one individually. Maybe frame them individually also. I don't know what I'm going to do with them yet, not sure if even like them. Thought it was a good idea at the time, but now I don't know.

I'm sitting here sipping home made wine. My friend gave me a bottle of raspberry wine he made a couple of years ago. It's delicious, just like the strawberry one he gave, me. He suggested I could do some wine making, he would give me the demijohns. I haven't got the patience to do that, I would be itching to drink it before it was ready. A glass of wine now and again is nice, I can take it or leave it.

I'm starting to yawn. I'll get off up the apples and pears. Goodnight.

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Where are Hockney's trees?

Good morning, Saturday, raining outside, and I am listening to Sounds of the Sixties on Radio 2. A day in I think, sewing and stuff. Just popping in to say thanks to Liz for the link about Hockney's trees. I thought one of my readers would come up with more information, I supply the skeleton, you put the flesh on it. Have a look at this article in the Daily Mail, 28th March, 2009, aren't archives wonderful. Hockney's horror after trees are massacred.

I've found more about Hockney's art, take a look at these in the Guardian.

Here is an article about Bigger Trees near Warter. The Guardian has a lot of info about Hockney.

Hope that has whetted your appetite.
Catch you later, Ilona

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Pensioners day out

The day started bright and sunny so I thought it would be a good day to go out, as the forecast is rain for the weekend. Another trip to the seaside, this time over the bridge into East Yorkshire. I didn't go straight there, instead made a diversion through Market Weighton heading north to the small village of Warter. David Hockney did a huge painting called Bigger Trees near Warter, it was made up of  fifty canvases, and when I saw it at Hull it took up the whole of one wall. I wanted to find the actual spot where he took the photographs and did some of the painting. I parked in the car park next to the school and asked a woman where I might find the trees. She said they had been chopped down. Oh no, how terrible. 

I had a look around the village while I was there, went in the small shop and was served by a young woman who looked like she was about to burst, baby due next week. She had heard that the trees were chopped down also. 

Warter is an estate village, where most of the houses and land have belonged to a single landowner. These cottages were altered and thatched in 1930. 

The church of St James was declared redundant in 1990 and threatened with demolition. It was saved by the Yorkshire Wolds Buildings Preservation Trust which now owns the church and the greater part of the churchyard. Substantial grants were obtained and it was restored in 2006 and adapted for use as  cultural. educational, and heritage centre for the Yorkshire Wolds.

Ludhill House is an 18th century farmhouse recently enlarged and altered.

A view of the memorial taken from the church.

I have tried to find out about the bigger trees, and according to Wikipedia they weren't chopped down, so I don't know what to believe. I didn't look for them as I wanted to get off to Bridlington. 

I headed for South Beach and parked in the Park and Ride car park next to the holiday village. There are hundreds of static caravans all packed onto the site with not much space between them. It's very close to the beach and Rocky was so excited when we went down onto the sand. Oooh look, there's the sea, can I go for a swim?

 No, best to paddle in this pool, those waves are too big for you.

There are quite a lot of wooden beach huts along the promenade. These are very modern.

We walked all along the front to the town, Or rather I walked, Rocky rode, ha ha. We had a look around the harbour.

Oooh look, he has found a new friend, don't they look dandy together. I stopped to chat for a few minutes. I thought our buggy was cheap at �6, but they found this one free, it was dumped next to a rubbish bin. Now that's frugal, ha ha. 

More views of the harbour. I sat and ate my late lunch, cheese and lettuce sandwiches and boiled eggs. It was a glorious day, lovely to sit and watch the world go by.

Wow, look at those big wheels, I want one of these.

Hey, what's this, another buggy pooch. Say hello Rocky. No, he's got a hood on his buggy and I haven't got one, it's not fair. Don't sulk, I took it off, we don't need it in the sunshine.

It was a long walk back to the car, good exercise for me. I like Bridlington, it's a nice place. The beaches are lovely and clean, and a lot of the sea front has been modernized. I didn't see any evidence of run down properties. I didn't go into the town so I don't know what that's like, but there are plenty of eateries and lots of seats everywhere. Nice for a stroll on a sunny afternoon.

It's the weekend, I hope you have a good one whatever you are doing. Thank you for all your comments on yesterdays post, it's interesting to read about what you use your computer for. I'll let you off a question for today, but comment if you feel like it.
Toodle pip.

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Food for the brain

Hello, Getting on with things a bit earlier this morning. It was a big ask yesterday to point you in the direction of a video that takes an hour and a half to watch. Not everyone has the time to sit through something that long. There is a natural break at the point where the first story appears to finish, and a second story emerges. You could split it that way and still enjoy the whole thing, because the two stories run parallel, drawing it to a very emotional conclusion at the end.

You know I am a nosy person, I have said it many times, but I am not nosy for the sake of it, it's not that I want to know everybody's business. It's just that my little brain keeps asking me, what's that all about, I want to know how things work, how they fit together, why things happen, and what makes them happen. The internet is an ideal tool to satisfy my curiosity. I wasn't interested in learning at school, the only lessons I liked were practical subjects like cookery, sewing, art, and cross country running, and writing stories. I hated being forced to sit for a couple of hours my head jammed up with a mass of numbers that made no sense at all, or listen to the teacher drone on about some battle or other that happened a million years ago.I didn't need to know that stuff. I wanted to know about life, how and why things happen, right now while I am a part of it.

I walk around my village in the evening, and now it is getting dark early I see people watching the tele. The screens are that big these days, it's easy to see what they are watching, and the same tele's in the same houses are on, night after night. There seems to be a lot of run of the mill stuff, which is neither taxing to the brain, or even remotely interesting. I suppose they call that entertainment. I ask myself if I am perhaps missing out, should I get a tele. But what would I learn from Strictly Come Dancing, or the X Factor, or the many quiz programmes it seems to be awash with. And don't tell me I can learn a lot from cookery programmes, my mum was there to show me how to knock up a meal.

No, tele on the whole does not add to my learning experiences at all. I have an appetite and I need to feed it. Just like my body needing food, my brain also needs sustenance in the form of stimulating information which I can dissect and consume.

I do pick out a few programmes for their entertainment value, to watch on the computer, but I am paring that down now in favour of  something that will give me food for thought. Even Coronation Street has been given the boot, where do they get those barmy stories from, and so repetitive as well. Same old same old is not what I want. I need fresh, new ideas to feed the old grey matter.

I've been checking out a few crafty web sites which I am happy to share. You never know, there might be some new ideas here to give you inspiration.
Contemporary Quilt is all about erm,... quilting. There are lovely pictures of amazing quilts and details of events which you can visit.
Effie Galletly is a landscape artist and quilt maker, her works are inspired by the landscapes and structures of the Western Islands and the West Highlands of Scotland. She runs workshops on the Isle of Lewis, which were very successful in 2013.
Gillian Travis is an award winning textile artist living in the north of England. Her web site is choc a bloc full of interesting stuff, I will have to bookmark this one. Her work is colourful and contemporary, inspired by her extensive travels, all are documented on her blog.
Anne Kelly is a textile artist who lives in Sussex. She collects recycled fabric and paper to create a range of work which is mostly framed. She has a blog, and teaches at her workshops.

There's a few to be going on with, Now here's the question....what do you read up about on the internet, what subjects feed your desires for more knowledge?  What are you studying, what subjects  are you keen to learn more about? Are you feeding your brain with the right fodder, or are you slumped in front of the box, content with chillin after a hard day with your nose to the grindstone? Hey, that's more than one question, never mind, I'm being nosy again, ha ha.
Toodle pip.

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Inspiring

Hello, I'm a bit late with this, I've been watching yoootooob again, someone on a forum posted a link to a video which was 1 hour 30 mins long, I stuck with it as it was so interesting. If you are into healthy eating and food nutrition and losing weight, you might like to watch. It's a documentary about an Australian guy called Joe Cross who described himself  as fat, sick, and nearly dead. He decided he must do something about it because he didn't want his life to be dependent on the tablets he had to take every day. 

His plan was to take himself away from his usual environment and travel around America for 60 days while living entirely on juices. As time went on you could see the changes in him. He lost a whole lot of weight, he looked and felt better, and it looked like he was reversing the aging process. 

As well as the benefits to his slimmer frame he was also able to stop taking his medication. This was all done with the support of a medical doctor, who monitored his blood throughout the experiment. 

As well as it being a story of one man's determination to change his unhealthy lifestyle, there is a twist to it about three quarters of the way through. I won't tell you what it is in case you want to watch it, but it is so emotional it brought tears to my eyes. As well as being a heartwarming story, it is also educational, describing exactly what happens to your body if you choose to eat all the wrong kind of foods. It is well worth watching if you have the time.Switch the tele off when there is nowt on and watch this instead.

This is my dinner tonight, no cooking required. Lettuce, carrot, pickled onions, tomato, chickpeas, portion of quiche, cottage cheese, and dips. Lovely jubbly.  

Can't write any more, Heidi has her head on the keyboard. Toodle pip

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