Sunday 28 February 2016

The Sunday Prayer

Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Friday 26 February 2016

Just to let you know...


...my mother-in-law passed away yesterday

Feel-good Friday

Thursday 25 February 2016

The Thursday Poem

Potted Flowers with Books IV
Eric Barjot


My Heart Leaps Up

My heart leaps up when I behold
A rainbow in the sky:
So it was when my life began;
So it is now I am a man;
So be it when I shall grow old,
Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound to each by natural piety.

William Wordsworth
(7th April 1770 - 23rd April 1850)

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Words on Wednesday




That man is richest whose pleasures are the cheapest

Tuesday 23 February 2016

One of the greatest speeches ever made...


Such a powerful speech.....

Latest WIP


Very true, don't you think?  Just the simple repetitive action of a straightforward crochet pattern can be extremely soothing to one's soul :-)


This is a corner-to-corner blanket I am currently working on for my Mum.  She chose the colours she wanted and I'm hoping to finally have it finished for her birthday on 25th August ~ it seems to be taking me an awfully long while to get it done!  The trouble is that I keep getting distracted by other things LOL  I think one more set of the colour repeats will see it at the width Mum wants, then I shall turn the square into a rectangle for the length she would like it to be.  I sort of wish I had made the stripes wider, though, so that there would be fewer ends to sew in.  Oh well, perhaps I had better make the effort to sew them in along one edge at least before I crochet anymore, otherwise there are going to an awful lot to do if I leave it until the blanket is finished!

Monday 22 February 2016

Garden goings-on!


Gosh, it's been a long time since I posted anything about the progress in the garden ~ not since way back here, in fact!  There have been quite a few changes since those earlier posts.

We cleared out the far end of the garden ~ you can see how dismal and decrepit the area was.  


Adrian built this log-store when we first had the wood-burner installed, and we had to decide whether or not to keep it.  In the end, as we have a second log-store anyway, we thought it best to dismantle this one as it was rotting quite badly along the base.


This is all the stuff we cleared out from the end of the garden.  Well, actually it's not all of it as some things we had stored down there we didn't need anymore and other stuff was just simply rubbish!


What a difference, eh!  Steve (aka Crest Services, our go-to all round handyman extraordinaire) did an absolutely fantastic job building a made-to-fit-the-space garden shed.  He also built the double gates and has started replacing the old fence panels as well.  He used our pile of old slabs to pave the area in front of the shed ~ what a difference that has made!  It's so nice to have a decent paved area to walk on now.


The log-store is another one that Adrian made; since it was still in a decent condition we decided it was the one to keep.  The wooden platform between the log-store and the shed is the base of yet another log-store that we discarded!  That one was a readymade one, and wasn't a patch on the two that Adrian had made, although the base was still okay.  I am going to use it to stack bags of compost, wood chippings, etc.


There is still plenty of work to be done, as you can see.  I have lots of staining to do but the weather has been somewhat against me.  I have been out there on sunny days but it makes my arms, back and legs ache to do too much in one go.  Oh well, it will all get done eventually!

The pile of wood is waiting for Adrian to cut it up.  It looks like a lot but that's only about half of what was there originally!  We have lots of logs in bags and under cover all over the garden at the moment :-)


A different view of the pile of wood, plus the plant pots I have kept ~ for the time-being, at any rate.


My lovely raised beds need a good tidy-up but it's not easy to get to them at the moment *sigh*  I can't use the clothes-line either, as the pile of wood is too close and too high.  I've been using the tumble-dryer far more than usual, as well as drying things on the clothes-horse indoors ~ I dread to think what our electricity bill will be for this quarter!


Abigail and Babs have been moved further along the garden, where there used to be a small shed.  It made such a difference to the look of the garden when that shed was taken down (by Steve and his son), it really opened up the space.  It's so much better having the girls on a paved area; they have a nice deep layer of woodchips to rootle about in but no mud.  We stacked a layer of big fence posts along the back of their run to protect the new fence panel from a build-up of woodchips ~ the girls have a tendency to scatter it all over when they get started digging!


And this is little Martha, who lives all by herself as the big girls pick on her terribly.  She used to live with Prudence, who was also a Black Rock like Abigail and Babs, and they got on very well.  Prudence was also picked on by the other two, so in the end I took a chance and put her in with Martha.  Happily, the new living arrangements worked out just fine but sadly Prudence died last year.  Martha seems perfectly content with her own company; she can still see the other two but doesn't get harassed.  Once the last two old fence panels have been replaced, we will move Martha's home alongside that of Abigail and Babs, then we will have a nice paved area to actually sit out on!

Sunday 21 February 2016

The Sunday Prayer

Dove of Peace by Pablo Picasso


Father, Mother, God,

Thank you for your presence during the hard and mean days.
For then we have you to lean upon.

Thank you for your presence during the bright and sunny days.
For then we can share that which we have with those who have less.

And thank you for your presence during the Holy Days.
For then we are able to celebrate you and our families and our friends

For those who have no voice, we ask you to speak.

For those who feel unworthy, we ask you to pour your love out in waterfalls of tenderness.

For those who live in pain, we ask you to bathe them in the river of your healing.

For those who are lonely, we ask you to keep them company.

For those who are depressed, we ask you to shower upon them the light of hope.

Dear Creator, You, the borderless sea of substance, we ask you to give to all the world that which we need most.....PEACE.

Maya Angelou
(4th April 1928 - 28th May 2014)

Sunday 14 February 2016

Happy Valentine's Day



Saturday 13 February 2016

A Make-a-Month 2016: January


My January Make-a-Month offering is a wee bit of a cheat, I guess, in that it's the blanket I was making for mother-in-law ~ finally finished!  I wasn't feeling well enough to make anything else last month but I was very pleased to get the blanket done.  I haven't seen it on her bed yet but apparently she really likes it :-)

I used one of my favourite patterns, the ordinarily extraordinary blanket created by Tif (aka Dottie Angel), and yarn from my leftovers stash ~ which doesn't seem to have decreased all that much even after making this blanket!  It's such a simple pattern and grows in a very satisfactory manner.

On reflection, perhaps it isn't "cheating" to finish projects as well as making something from scratch.  After all, it's all part of the creative process, making and finishing ~ and it's good to get some of those infamous WIPs done :-)

Monday 8 February 2016

Just a quick post.....

.....to let you know that I'm not well at the moment with a nasty chest infection, but hopefully will be blogging again soon!  Healing thoughts/prayers would be much appreciated :-)