Garden visitors

The Christmas before last, I asked for a bird feeding station from Santa, who duly obliged.  We placed it centrally, for optimal viewing, and waited for visitors.  It took a while.  Was it too exposed? we wondered.  And, indeed, one day we were surprised by a swooping sparrow-hawk,  so we may have been right.

However, "If you build it, they will come," is one of my husband's favourite movie quotes.  And so it proves.  Especially if you invest heavily in sunflower hearts and niger seeds.

Long-tailed tits

 

We have regular resident birds: robin, wren, blackbird, bluetit.  Daily visitors include pigeon, collared dove, starling, magpie, chaffinch, sparrow, great tit.  And now, regularly, we have a flock of long-tailed tits, three goldfinches and a pair of siskins.  Occasionally, we see a pair of blackcaps.  None of these is particularly rare, of course, but they are a joy to watch, especially the goldfinches.  The one thing we miss is a thrush, although we used to have one feeding on the garden snails.

Goldfinch

 

Bedroom furniture - Our redecoration meant we became reacquainted with the items we take for granted in our room.  This first image shows the new mirror we have added, above the chaise longue.  I made the throw some years ago from fabric samples showing the colour range in tweedy upholstery.  I love these pale muted colours.  Also in this shot is a faux-bamboo bedroom chair hand-painted by my husband - and a row of his shoes!

Next, this is my dressing table.  It is an old treadle sewing machine table, from which the machine had already been removed. I stripped down its water damaged surface.   My husband showed me how to apply real veneer to the top - it came as iron-on strips.  Then he explained how to French Polish and left me to it.  After many coats, amazingly, it worked a treat.  However, I used regular varnish on the drawers and carcase, and I cannot see any difference.  The mirror, I have described before - made by my husdand with burr elm fronts to the drawers.

This week, to a fascinating event at Sutton Hoo.  Dr Sam Newton runs day-schools, sharing his encyclopedic knowledge of the ship burial, the stunning grave goods and the culture of the Wuffings.  My friend had booked this event and we sat enthralled as he strummed a replica lyre and chanted in Old English.  It took us both back to the first year of university, where Anglo-Saxon and the study of "Beowulf" was a compulsory course.  But the spectacular artistry of the garnet-inlaid buckles and clasps was inspiring.  Why is it that I am seeing Fairisle mittens?

 

Spring?

This lively item  - I hesitate to call it a scarf - is Spectra by Stephen West.  I'm using Noro Silk Garden Lite and Sirdar Click, istead of the sock yarns called for in the pattern.  I have a feeling that this will affect the drape, but my LYS had no Noro Sock.  It is certainly an entertaining knit so far, and the many renderings of the pattern on Ravelry suggest lovely alternative colour combinations.  I saw this first on Not Just about the Knitting, so thankyou.

The Cazalet chronicle continues its serialisation on Radio 4.  What I loved most about it was Elizabeth Jane Howard's ability to empathise with such a wide range of characters.  For example, Miss Millament, the elderly governess, lost her fiance in the Boer War but still cherishes his letters.  The writer gives this ancient affair as much attention as any of the many other relationships in the novel. Guilt is also done rather well.  Food is described in unusual detail, as are clothes.  "Somewhere between Tolstoi and Maeve Binchy" - was it Martin Amis who said that of her work?

This week's task has been redecorating our bedroom.  We moved into this house in 1991 - over twenty years ago.  The people before us had spent their four years taking the front of the house back to its timbers and renovating from the ground up, so every room was freshly decorated.  The only thing we really hated was the bathroom suite - a full-on rendering of "The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady," and a bath which somehow narrowed just at the point where I broaden.  "It will have to go," we both said, but it was eleven years before we got round to it.

So, now we have time to look around us, we notice that our room has not been redecorated in over twenty years.  One advantage of failing eyesight is that you simply don't notice the grime, but that does not mean it is not there.  We shifted a lot of dirt.

Styles in wallpaper move on with the years, too.  The one we have used here has a ruched surface, with the effect of pleated moire silk.  It's in oystery tones, so the effect is quite delicate.  I was also drawn to the Farrow and Ball shade-card - just the names and descriptions: Elephant's Breath, Mouse's Back and so on. These are likely to put in an appearance on some painted furniture, although elephants are scared of mice, so perhaps not those two together.

More on our beams.  These are the beams in our bedroom wall, the upper part of the end-wall of a hall dating to about 1400 - about the time of Chaucer.  A hall was a large  room open to the roof, with a central fire but no chimney.  The experts who visited explained that the upper horizontal beam would have been installed in 1636, when the roof was raised and the first and attic floors put in. 

The thicker vertical timber has filled-in slots where timbers for the front of the hall would have been, some three feet back from the current front of the house.  A detail which I had never noticed before is that these timbers in our bedroom are smooth, whereas the ones in the dining-room have been hacked all over to take a rendering of plaster.

 

Turkey soup

In one of my favourite scenes in  "Cold Mountain," the pragmatic Ruby deals with a "flogging rooster" by wrenching off its head and making of it the yellow stew that Ada has been dreaming about. I always think of this when we have turkey soup.  Not sure that I would be up to killing my own bird, however.  Instead, we start with a turkey leg, eaten as a roast dinner.  Then the rest of the meat, diced and added to a regular vegetable soup, makes the most delicious meal in these bitterly cold wintery days.

This week's task has taken me back to my teenage years.  At the bottom of our garden is my husband's shed.  He had decided to insulate the walls by cladding them with polystyrene and lining them with hardboard. It certainly needed doing.  "Before" pictures would have looked like scenes from "The hoarder next door", as my husband tends to see possible future uses for all manner of unlikely items.  The "After" pictures would show the transformation to a clean and snug working space - like the inside of a cardboard box.

This last week I have been the gofer, locating the tool required and handing it up, bracing items being drilled and basically following instructions.  With only a hazy grasp of the big picture and none of the skills needed, it reminded me strongly of assisting my father with tasks on the farm - milking, calving, haymaking.   In my late teens I spent some time doing each of these, in a supporting role.


My latest weaving project: Last summer I bought a skein of yarn from Susan Heath.  I loved the freshness of the colour combination, although I would never choose these colours to wear myself.
I wanted to see what the effect would be to use this yarn for both warp and weft.  It turns out as a kind of plaid, with a distinctly spring-like mood to it.

Remember this image of the beams in our dining room?   There is a similar arrangement in our first-floor bedroom.   We have been revisited by the team surveying houses in the "Discovering Coggeshall" project.  They have a fascinating web-site.

 

Our house was shown to have been rebuilt in 1636, reconstructing an open hall, to put in a first and attic floor.  The current theory is that this end wall dates from about 1400, linking it to the house on one side with which it shares a passage-way.  All of these houses were used by merchants and clothiers in the wool-trade, spinning, weaving and marketing the woollen cloth for which the area was famous.  As I warp up my little loom, or as I sit at my spinning wheel, I can almost feel those earlier inhabitants looking on in amazement, that what was once sweat-shop labour is now a leisure activity.

Dusted Damson

What was it William Morris said?  "Have nothing in your houses which you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful"?  How he managed that, I have no idea.  What about items previously belonging to parents or in-laws which one cannot just throw away?  Anyway, the gas fire in this picture comes decidedly into the first category and the mantlepiece into the second.

 

 

This last week we have been up to Cumbria for a spot of renovation and decorating.  Like others of its vintage, our cottage has rising damp and the chimney breast was particularly afflicted.  My husband constructed this fire surround, using a rather lovely piece of oak  for the mantlepiece.  BandQ provided the large mirror, for the remarkable price of £25. 

I chose the colour for the hardboard backing: Dusted Damson  -  just love the name.  This picks up the colours in a vintage blanket which covers the sofa and manages to look surprisingly sophisticated.

We spent most of the week scraping off wallpaper, pasting and painting, enjoying the transformative effect of white gloss and clean, silvery paper.  However, the weather lifted twice.  At Allonby the tide was full in.  Criffel has never looked so distant or so lovely as it did with its snow-cap here.

Later, we drove into Lorton for our regular walk across fields and through lanes.  Again, the snow still sat on the tops, and snowdrops were much in evidence.

 

These dull wintry days have been much enlivened by the brightness of this lively colourway.  These may well be going into my present drawer for later in the year.

 

Baking day

Each week, while I was growing up, my mother would have a baking day.  She was what was once called "a good plain cook", and in fact worked as a cook in her later years, at an approved school for boys, knocking up batches of stew and rice puddings.

Baking for Cumbrian farmers' wives was then, and is still, not a matter of making a few cupcakes.  The calorific demands of heavy manual labour are considerable, and cake was one way to meet this need. 

My mother would make traybakes: currant cake, German cake, nutty, which was a kind of flapjack, and gingerbread.  Sometimes the German cake would be jam buns - she never made rock buns.  Neither did she bake bread, although she remembered this from her own childhood with wonder - how did they bake once a week and still eat it at the week's end?  She always had a fruit loaf on the go - vinegar loaf or bran loaf.  When her memory began to fail, she still remembered how to make bean cake with Rice Krispies, marshmallows and toffee.

Strangely, I did not learn to cook from my mother; in fact, when I left home to go to university I was completely ignorant on the subject.  My mother always said that we could not risk wasting the ingredients.  This is strange, because she never once said that to me about fabric, and she spent lots of time showing me how to sew.  Now, I think it must have been that she did not want to relinquish what she saw as her central role, as the provider of the food. 

Today, inspired by Mary Berry's cookbook, I produced this chocolate cake, destined for the Spinners and Weavers AGM.  Producing the loaf of bread, in my trusty breadmaker, was a much simpler enterprise, so simple that I make one virtually every day now.  I use a mix of two cups of white flour to one cup wholemeal to make a firm textured loaf.

This second picture shows the cake iced with a chocolate ganache, made by melting dark chocolate into double cream.  How could that not be delicious?  I used apricot jam to sandwich the layers together.

 

Snow Flowers

Ah, the wonders of the Kindle!  I finished the Cazalet quartet of novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard and spotted her autobiography, "Slipstream".  No sooner spotted than downloaded, and within seconds I am reading it.  I will never get used to the magical way in which this revolutionises access to books.  The facility with which you can pursue a train of thought, or follow a whim!  And books on Kindle seem very reasonably priced.

"Slipstream" itself was a revelation.  Of course, one expects writers to draw on their own experience, but large sections of  the Cazalet novels are identical to Howard's own life - and what a life!  Did people really have serial affairs in this manner?  Or perhaps they still do... When asked to organise a literary festival, Howard was able to draw on an astonishing back-catalogue of lovers. 

I have to say that the parody of "Slipstream,"  published in "The Guardian," is also very entertaining.  She does focus on name-dropping, although she had the names to drop.

After the first fall of snow, we had a brilliantly sunny day, so we revisited the arboretum. It was bitterly cold.  Every trunk was outlined in white, giving a curiously dramatic effect.  There was an intermittent crackling as ice fell from the foliage of the thicker trees.

Approaching a fine stand of trees, we saw a flickering and realised that the branches were alive with a huge flock of siskins, a species which we last saw feeding on thistleheads in the Whinlatter Forest.

We were amazed by the Chinese witch hazel.  Every golden tuft now bore its crust of snow, dampening the strong perfume.

I added this little panel to my lace sampler.  It is Mrs Montague's pattern, which Barbara Walker says was used to knit stockings for Elizabeth 1.  Franklin reminded us that the actual stockings can be seen in Hatfield House.

 

Dead of Winter.

Winter: first we had weeks of rain, so that it was barely possible to venture out for walks.  Then it became strangely mild, but with waterlogging and quagmires everywhere.  Now, it is bitterly cold, with snow forecast for the next week.

I have been re-reading the Elizabeth Jane Howard quartet of novels on the Cazalet family, triggered by catching an extract from "The Light Years" read on Radio 4.  What a treasure these books are!  So many wise observations about the nuances of relationships - and such an enormous range of relationships covered.  Strangely, I remember some of the plot from my first reading, which must have been when they came out in the 90s, but I remember nothing of the tv series at all, yet I must have watched it.

Looking at online reviews of the tv series, it appears to have been a bit of a turkey, although  how it could be worse than the plotlines and characterisation of "Downton Abbey" I don't know.

Not much knitting going on, once I had completed two pairs of socks.  The yarn was not one I had used before, and I was struck by the lovely variations in the greener of the colourways, so much that I began a Multnomah scarf with it.  However, on longer rows the variatons became less interesting - less like landcapes - so I ravelled it out.  Designers of sock yarn must be thinking of a certain diameter.

Today, we wrapped up warm and took a turn about the arboretum just north of here.  We had heard that there were siskins to be seen near the Honywood Oak, an 800 year old tree in the park.  We did not see them.  Instead, we were pleased to see a heron in flight over the lake.

Last week, when we walked around the perimeter, we had caught a whiff of a really cloying scent.  At a different time of year this could have been beans, or rape.  But we could see no sign of anything in flower.  Seeeing a minibus of infants from the Montessori nursery, we concluded that it must have been the perfume of one of the staff. 

Today, however, we were walking up the side of the lake, planted with the deep red stems of dogwood and the slender white trunks of Betula utilis, when we came across the source of the heavy scent.  Groups of shrubs were in full yellow bloom, a real treat on a day too grey to prompt us to bring cameras.  It was Chinese Witch hazel.  I hope it survives the snow.

 

Spam

Together with more visitors to the blog, I seem to have gathered some rather odd spam.  One of these sounded like a comment, warning me of the dangers of becoming too personal in my posts - to the point that another kind soul reassured me that she enjoyed hearing my opinions.  Quite why I am a target audience for on-line supplies of valium and viagra I do not know.

My last FO - a cowl and hat for me, using a different colourway of the James C Brett Marble chunky.  This was a very satisfying knit, the cowl on a long circular in bands of moss stitch and stocking stitch and the hat in K2P2 rib, which makes for a snug fit.  The colour variations are more subtle than shown here.

We had the sort of quiet Christmas a deux that those with extended families to entertain dream of - pheasant for lunch, smoked salmon for supper, game of Scrabble, glass of wine....  But, as usual, be careful what you wish for.  With rain almost every day we reached the point where a trip to the supermarket became a treat rather than a chore.

 

New Year's Day saw us driving up to Felixstowe to lunch with old friends who were staying there.  We lunched at the Ferry Boat Inn which was doing roaring trade serving the hundreds of walkers making the most of the sunlight.  Outside, the air was bracing to say the least.

This rather unusual structure is Martello tower U, now a private residence.  How wonderful to live so close to the lapping of the waves in a structure which has endured since Napoleon was a threat.



Finally, a wonderful sunrise, promising better things weather wise?

 

Spoiler alert

This is the little Trellis cardigan in Jeanie by Peter Pan ( pattern from Knitty)  This is a lofty cotton yarn of a chain construction, and it gives very crisp stitch definition, and a warm handle.  However, cotton does not stitch up easily, which may be why the pattern designer suggested grafting the shoulders.  The collar certainly sits very tidily.  I bought the spotted buttons at a boot fair at 60p for the card - they seemed appropriate for the toddler who will be wearing this.

Lynne commented on my tableware post.  One of my colleagues had a daughter who studied design.  For her dissertation she looked at trends indicated by wedding lists.  At first glance this seems rather trivial, but over time these lists must be revealing.  Do people have dinner services or casserole dishes nowadays?

In the early 70's I began to collect the Denby pattern, Romany.  This was because it was offered as breakfast sets on the pack of Alpen muesli.  Muesli and this design have a lot in common.  I have added pieces over the years and almost all of them are different, which I like but don't really understand, given that it is mass-produced.  I really like the rounded shapes, although it is very much of its time.

In the 80's my husband, a bachelor, was being gifted these very splendid table-mats by  his aunt, one per birthday.  These built into a grand set - they show prints of London scenes.

While browsing around a china shop, one of my oldest friends pointed out a set called Holyrood - even the name does it for me.  It was the exact complement to my husband's mats, so I began to collect it.  He often remarks on how lucky it is that my china just happened to match the mats.

Recently, we have felt the need for something less formal, lighter in style.  Doubtless, this follows a trend in the design world.  This is Azure, purportedly by Royal Worcester.

I have not succumbed to square plates or slate mats, but I think you could map some interesting social changes from these three sets.

Knitting:  I have finally sent off the collection of cowls.  The first two were knitted on a long circular needle, while the third was knitted as a scarf and then seamed, as the yarn was pooling over longer stretches.  Then there is a red scarf in an Aran yarn, and finally a neck warmer, knitted on a short circular, from Rowan Aran.  I think that the red scarf is the most successful of the lot.

 

Shiny Things

On the sideboard in our dining room there are two canteens of cutlery. Like many objects, these carry many symbolic meanings.  The one on the right is mine, bought in the mid-80s when it was still the style to entertain with good china.  I thought that this silver plated set of cutlery would be just the ticket.  Not that I gave many dinner parties, you understand, but if the occasion arose I would be ready.  There is no doubt that it is showing its age now, even with minimal usage.

The one on the left, however, belongs to my husband.  He inherited it from his maternal grandfather.  Amazingly, this very canteen of cutlery was given to my husband's grandfather, George Johnson, for his twenty-first, in - we think - 1926.

This picture shows him on that occasion, along with the canteen, bottom right, and his other presents: a walking-stick, a suitcase, and what is almost certainly a box of fish-knives.  Perhaps only the suitcase would qualify as present for a young man these days. 

It has to be said that neither of these two sets is really suitable for day-to-day use, and we have been using an assortment of stainless steel which will go in the dishwasher.  However, since we have retired we have taken to actually dining in our dining room, as opposed to eating on trays in front of the television.  So it seemed time to upgrade.

In Chipping Campden there is the specialist cutlery shop, Robert Welch.  He was a designer who started out in 1955 in the Guild of Handicraft building just around the corner from the present shop.  We have bought a carving set and some serving items from there before, but now we bought a whole set, in the Radford pattern which seems to be their standard line.  It is very shiny, and has a lovely handle.  We added some round-bowled soup spoons - these are no longer in vogue apparently.  And I just had to have this spoon - especially when told that this is the "Gourmet spoon".  Gourmand, more like, I'd have thought.  We'll be dining in style now.

 

Knitted Lace

Knitting has been absent from my posts recently, probably because I have been engaged on "Stealth projects", like many others.  I am still amazed to hear people announce on their blogs that they have fourteen gifts still to knit as December starts.  I don't even know that many people who would welcome a hand-knitted item.  Knitting for me is a stress-reliever, and this sounds like the exact opposite.

I have been knitting steadily on this little commission, for the daughter of a colleague.  It is the back of an Aran cardigan, knitted in Jeanie, an Aran weight cotton, as the recipient is allergic to wool.  The pattern, Trellis, is from Knitty, and is therefore free, for which I am grateful.  Just one or two points:  After the seed stitch border, no stitches are increased and the needle size stays the same.  Although the side "Cables" are in fact travelling twisted stitches, the diamond cables do pull in, so the hem is likely to frill in an unintended manner.  Just saying.

At the Loop lace knitting event, Franklin showed us a doiley knitted to a Niebling pattern.  The discussion touched on how such items might be displayed without covering every surface in a Victorian style.  Some years ago I bought this thing of beauty from a flea market in the Auvergne.  It was stitched to a round of backing paper which had become silvery-grey with age.  It cost me three Euros.  I have mounted it on blue card and used the simplest of clip frames to display it in our spare room.  I feel it has a graphic quality to it, which I love. 

On the opposite wall hangs a piece of bobbin lace made by my husband's aunt, Hilda Tye, from a paper chart which we bought in the lace centre in Puy en Velay on the same trip to France. 

Jean wrote on her blog of wanting to create something to remember the lace knitting class with Franklin.  I was very taken with his knitted samples, including a white strip sampler of lace patterns.  I am minded to make one of these, continuing the block knitted in the class and using the same cream yarn.  We'll see.