Happy Birthday - from me to me.

 I'm not five, so I'm not going to do a list of 'wot I got for my birfday' , but  since it was a milestone one  I did treat myself, and bought a one day weaving workshop from Radical Weavers in Stirling. They do several different ones, but this one promised me that I would bring home a three coloured scarf so that was the one I went for. Most of August was booked up when I looked, but they had one space left on 1st August, just before my birthday, so I booked it. 

It was an early start, I had to be in Stirling and ready to go by 9.30 which is  a bit of an ask, depending on how ready you are to take a risk on the train that gets you somewhere just in time not being cancelled - that's not a risk I'm particularly willing to take when I've shelled out a significant amount of money for an all day activity. 

I've wanted to try weaving for a long time - hence the purchase of the tiny weaving kit while on holiday and which excited me enough to spur me into looking for a local workshop. There was someone in Orkney who taught weaving, but it was in six week blocks and we were never in Orkney for six consecutive weeks when she was doing the lessons. And then, when I had decided I would make sure that we were there, by dint of not booking anything until the dates for the weaving classes went up, they stopped appearing and when I messaged to enquire I got ghosted. Turns out the teacher and her husband were all caught up in building themselves a new house and she had no time for teaching,  but I can't help feeling that she could have found two minutes to message me with that information. 

Leaving that aside, now I've had a grumpy rant about it, I did finish the Stirling workshop and I did come away with a three coloured scarf and I am more or less happy with  it.. Here's a photo. 

If you've been paying attention at the back you'll realise I used the same inspiration photo for this as I did for my dyeing at Lay Family Yarn in June. Same picture, totally different effect. I'm not happy with the edges which, despite my best efforts, are a bit iffy but I know that's mainly because it was my first go and therefore a learning experience and that if I were to continue weaving they would get better. 

However I am not going to continue weaving*. I had not appreciated quite how tiring it is physically. We worked from 9.30 to 5.30 with about 40 minutes for lunch and I was exhausted long before  finishing time. Also I was bored. I know lots of people find weaving meditative and mindful and that's fine, but I didn't. I found  it dull and repetitive and totally unstimulating. I'm obviously not wired to be a weaver. But at least now I know! 

*well except for finishing the kit coaster which I'm 2/3rds of the way through. 

A Very Big Birthday

is what I celebrated earlier this week. I'm not saying quite how big it was, but those who remember Project 60  can easily work it out.

To celebrate the OH and Son No 2 and I all went out for afternoon tea at a posh local hotel. 

The food was delicious , although they could possibly have made some of the sandwiches in brown bread,  and I would have liked the offer of a second pot of tea. But those are my only really tiny niggles. They had taken on board that we didn't want anything fishy and the carrot cake had little chocolate rectangles that said Happy Birthday on them. So full marks for that. 

And I am fairly reconciled to hitting this particular landmark by reflecting that I neither look nor feel my age. That said it's been a bit of a week. 

On Monday I went to the dentist with what I thought was a gum infection which could be cured by either time or antibiotics. One x-ray later and she's recommending that she refer me to an oral surgeon for  a possibly tricky extraction. So guess where I'm going tomorrow? all the way up to that there Embra to get a tooth out. Half the time I think, well it's only having a tooth out, it's not as though you haven't had it done several times before, and the other half of the time I think ' but that's been by a normal dentist, why do I need something different now?'  And then I sway back to 'but if the OS is the expert then that's the best place to go'. And then generally I just do a mental calculation of how in X hours it will all be behind me. In addition to all this I went to see a physiotherapist this morning in an attempt to get my back sorted before our big holiday in October. 

So all in all the Big Birthday was the least of my worries! 

Wool Stats and Finished Projects for June

 Stats are good for the first time in ages. Wool in in July was Nil. Nada. Nuffink. Hooray! Albeit this was partly down to the late arrival of the Madrigal Yarn Sock club, but you know, I'll take that. 

Wool out was 447g. There were three finished projects this month. 

A scarf knitted with some wool that arrived in a swap

The socks from the June club yarn, which are for son no 2

And Freddie the Fox, which was a kit I bought very recently and made more or less straight away. The balance of the wool out went into a long term project.

Net decrease for the year is now 1986g. It's slow work getting it down, but I suppose that's what happens when most of your wool stash is 4-ply! 

A day of Two Halves-ish

 So obviously not the account of the day we both really enjoyed in Wales - that's still to come in due course. Meanwhile  on Wednesday we went up to Birnam. 

Obviously we didn't go there for a woodland walk or we would have needed to go to Dunsinane. We went to see an exhibition by my favourite print make Abbie Lois,  in the Birnam Arts Centre. 

It had a cheerful bear by the door 

and I have to say it is a lovely large bright and airy space. The gallery where the exhibition was is upstirs and this is partly  why I say it was a day of two halves because I was just a wee bit disappointed in it. This was my fault, as I was expecting there to be more new work than there actually was. A lot of the prints I had seen before and although they are lovely I'd been expecting more new things. It's one thing to nip into Stirling to see less than you had expected; another to drive all the way to Birnam for the same experience. 

Since we were in their neck of the woods we'd arranged to see my friend S and her husband for lunch and I'd suggested the cafe at the Arts Centre as on paper it looked fine. On closer in-person inspection not quite as good as anticipated, especially since it was approaching lunchtime and all they had in a savoury line was two rather depressed looking ham and cheddar baps. Even if at least one of us hadn't been a vegetarian that wasn't going to feed four of us. Luckily, as the exhibition hadn't taken as long as anticipated we were able to have a quick stroll  around the village , bits of which are very picturesque,

and we found an alternative venue, which I think was called the Oak Tree cafe and it was just what we were looking for. We managed to intercept the others before they got as far as Birnam Arts and we had an excellent lunch and, just like my previous experience at Meze Meze, we were there for quite a long time after we had  finished eating! It was great to catch up. I know my stay at the Ilkley Hotel earlier this month gave rise to some funny moments but Sharon had just been staying in a hotel in the Highlands which obviously gave it a run for its money. Much laughter around the lunch table. Definitely no lack of enjoyment during this part of the day.

I am out all day tomorrow doing something exciting, of which more anon; next post though  should be wool stats and project news for July and for the first time in a while I'm not dreading totting up the numbers!

The Welsh Mountain Zoo

I have to say not our most successful zoo trip ever. This was partly because it was hot which meant that most of the animals very sensibly stayed in their little houses. In fact during the first half hour the most active animal we saw was a rat running through one of the bird enclosures, and for  a long time I thought that might be the only things we saw moving all day. In the end it wasn't quite that bad. 

Being fairly far up a mountain the place does at least have fabulous views. 

We did catch sight of a few things. 

The brown bear 

Ring tailed lemurs

and of course the ubiquitous meerkats

We did see various other things; some penguins, a red panda, gibbons and a variety of birds but I didn't get any good pictures of any of those. The catering was average, and the entrance fee was very  expensive. Not a value for money day in my opinion. In all fairness, possibly on cooler days when more animals are on show and not cowering in any shelter from the sun they can find, it would be a much more fun day out. 

On the way back we stopped at Bedd Gelert for an ice cream and a stroll by the river where we spent a few enjoyable minutes watching two middle aged walkers take off their boots and socks and gingerly step over some rocks into the river, then gingerly step out again only to realise they had nothing with which to dry their feet. Rather than wait for nature to do the job they put socks and boots back onto wet feet. Ugh! 

This was the coolest picture I took all day - the river at Bedd Gelert

Tomorrow, a day we both really enjoyed!

Wales Day 2 - Another Garden

 So on Day 2 we took ourselves off to another garden; this one on the Lleyn peninsula. It was called  Plas yn Rhiw. It was even hotter than the day before and it was a long drive ( at least the car has air con!) and the garden isn't anything like as nice as the one at Plas Brondanw 

Plas yn Rhiw belongs to the National Trust so at least we got in free although I have to say our National Trust for Scotland cards were initially treated with a blank expression; you would think NT employees would be taught to recognise the cards for similar organisations with  reciprocal agreements re entry but apparently not. Well either that or this guy had forgotten everything he ever knew about the NTS. 

The house is currently shut for some very necessary renovations ( bees nesting in the ceiling anyone?) so only the garden was on show. I'm sure it's lovely and very interesting but it didn't particularly float our boat. But as I said it was uncomfortably hot and that coloured our reactions to things almost every day for the whole week.

They had a very nice tearoom though; it was full to overflowing when we arrived but, once we'd looked at the gardens, the coachload of German visitors ( who we had seen the previous day at Plas Brandanw and who we decided must be on a tour of 'Little Known Gardens of Wales') had gone. I had the nicest piece of sponge cake there that I have had out in years; it was delicious. I'm not saying that it was worth the long drive there just for the cake but it possibly came close! 

The other thing the garden had going for it was fantastic views.

A few photos

Tomorrow - a disappointing visit to the Zoo!

Remember we went to Wales?

 So here are a few photos/memories of the first couple of days.

The OH had volunteered to find and book the accommodation for our week in Wales which accounts for the fact that we stayed somewhere that had a steam railway running across the top of the back garden. I was assured that there would not be many trains in a day, but this did not take account of the fact that both local heritage railways, Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland were having a festival the first weekend we were there and so ran lots more trains than normal. 

That said the inside of the cottage was charming although, despite the fact that it wasn't teeny tiny, it felt a bit cramped to me sometimes. 

And here's a 'gravity train' going past at one point of the weekend, seen from the garden, which was on a steep slope. It had several lovely places to sit out, but sadly the week was so hot that actually doing that would have been an invitation to heat stroke so we never got to do it. 

You'll need to click to enlarge the photo to see all the people properly. 

The OH's brother was with us but for the first three days he was partaking of the steam festival so we were on our own to begin with. First up was a return trip to Plas Brondanw which we had loved so much the last time we stayed in the area. Still loved it, although this time it was the wrong time of year for the hydrangeas sadly.

The welsh cakes in the cafe were as good as before

and the grounds as beautiful. Just a few photos as I know I have a lot of the place on here from last time ( somewhere!) 

So that was arrival and Day 1. More coming ....