More notelets!

 It was back in March that I made a few notelets with some ribbon and some stickers, and as these have now all been used up I thought I would make some more.  There's a tiny but more to these ones than just a sticker and a ribbon, but not much. I was however very pleased with them. That's a dozen blank cards used up, ditto a set of flower stickers someone sent me in a letter recently, also some card and ribbon.

Some might call them plain, I prefer to say they demonstrate my 'spare aesthetic' (ROFL). I like some more than others, and the rabbit is really not me! but it was a relaxing way to spend some time. Sadly I also realised I need another paper trimmer and/or mini guillotine, but given the rate at which Hobbycraft send me vouchers that's not going to break the bank! 
 

July Wool stats and finshed stuff

 Getting this in early as we have another grandchild visitation day today; just one of them and he will be wanting to play Caesar IV on my computer.

I'm aware that it's almost time to review August and I have yet to do the July post. That's not just because it doesn't make pretty reading although there might be an element of that in it. The thing is that we're very busy now that we've moved and I just don't have the same amount of time for crafting as I did. Maybe things will change in the winter months when we spend more time indoors. 

Meanwhile - yarn in 450g, yarn out 224g. The yarn in was the Little Grey Cells club that I get every quarter plus the Irish Artisan Yarn mystery bag. The LGC is half used up so that's something. Still, net increase for the month was 226, making the overall decrease for the year 5606. It doesn't help that I'm working on some time consuming projects and I don't count the yarn I use in them until they're finished. Ah well, onwards and upwards. Or, |I suppose in this instance, preferably downwards! 

After the puny effort that was finished projects in June - 1 pair of socks if you remember, I managed to double that in July and make two pairs. 

This was all yarn I bought on my Lay Family yarn retreat. The top pair are for me and used a very small part of a 100g skein plus 3 minis from a five mini set that I bought. The lower pair are for the OH; I hadn't realised when I bought this that it was a 70g sock set so I ended up playing yarn chicken. I did have some other yarn I could have used to pop in an extra stripe at the end of the foot and which wouldn't have looked out of place had I had needed to, but I was glad I didn't. Note to self; always check weight of sock yarn sets! 

I did of course make the rag wreath and I've also been doing some scrapbooking and card making so I suppose my craft time is spread more thinly over more crafts. As for the cross stitch I didn't touch the little lavender thing, with which I have got totally bored. I'm almost sure I didn't do any work on the Earth Dancer in July either. I did however look out some fabrics and threads and make a start on one of the charts I bought while I was away in Shropshire - it's  sad at my age to still be always distracted by the new shiny thing! 

That was one busy week ....

 but first, here is the picture of the Kandinski yarn that somehow didn't appear on yesterday's post. I did put it in there but obviously missed a click at some important point. 

So, I mentioned our visit to Stirling castle and covered the film. Next up was the Scottish deer centre which sounded fabulous but in the event was expensively disappointing. I knew they no longer had wolves, although the word on the street is that they will have some again shortly - I won't be going back to see them. I love wolves, but honestly, it would take more than the promise of a possible wolf sighting to drag me back. Grandson no 2 was all excited at the prospect of the lynx, the otters and the brown bears, none of which deigned to put in an appearance, although we did catch sight of a few wildcats and he got to feed some deer. Also to use one of the play areas and get a ride on an electric go-kart. Both feeding the deer and the go-kart were extra. We'd given him the choice of this place or the Scottish owl centre and honestly I think we'd all have enjoyed the owls much more. That said he seemed pretty pleased with his day so who are we to complain? 

Another day was so hot that we just stayed inside, venturing out in the evening for a short local walk

We went to Doune Castle, also a very hot day. Doune Castle was featured in a Monty Python film, also Outlander. It  claims to have been used for filming of Game of Thrones too which surprised me, but it turns out that it was used in the never broadcast pilot, so I don't really think that counts. It was too hot for me to appreciate the place properly but I wouldn't mind going back another time for a proper look when it's cooler. It has a couple of spiral staircases and I discovered recently that they are  a long way from being my favourite thing; when I was younger and had better eyesight they were nothing but fun, but these days I just see them as   vertiginous opportunities for broken ankles. 

Our last day we spent at Edinburgh Zoo. At the risk of sounding like a miserable old bat I have to say that Zoos are not favourite places either these days, but this was a special request. Grandson No 2 had done a school project on a thing called a Pallas's cat, and was disappointed that he couldn't be taken from Toronto to Boston Zoo, which was the nearest place that actually had one. So we were asked to take him to Edinburgh Zoo where they also have one. They are generally nocturnal and we were warned by Zoo staff that our chances of seeing one were low; 'just keep going past at regular intervals is your best bet' was the advice we got , but in the end  we were in luck, as the thing was out on our first pass, and stayed out and moved around a bit as well. This photo was taken by the OH - it's better than any of the many I took. 

The penguin photo of two little rockhoppers however is all mine! 

It was a long day because we went by public transport which meant a train and a bus in both directions. However it was worth it as it meant we got the grandsons into the Zoo free. And thanks to a current Scotrail promotion we got their return train tickets for £1.00 each. 

I am still not quite 100% recovered although definitely getting there. Managed a few chores and a trip out today. The trip out was registration day for the local U3A, but I was a bit disappointed that there was no-one there to give me any help with most of the groups I'd be interested in joining.  There was a man who organises the Wee Walks Group, but when I stopped to ask him if their wee walks were circular he said yes they were but the group was full.  He did add that they were looking to see if they had the numbers to start a second group so I suppose I might hear something about that over the next couple of weeks. The lady at the stall for Literature, Reading and  Writing, knew nothing about any of the groups the heading covered except her own thing, which was creative writing, so that wasn't much use.  I wasn't impressed with the overall  organisation of the event at all tbh, but I'm trying not to rush to judgement. 

I'd like to think that from next week we could start what I would think of as 'normal life' here, but September looks so busy that I suspect we won't. I want to find somewhere where I can swim regularly, I need to sort out an exercise class and possibly some Pilates as well, and get fixed days once a week for a walk and a trip out to a place of interest. Ah well, maybe October for that then! 

 

Happy Mail

The grandsons are gone;   more on that story later, as they used to say on Dead Ringers when it was still funny and therefore I still listened to it. The visit  was a lot less bad than we had feared and some of it was even fun but gosh! children are tiring. especially talkative ones who think they know everything. 

Anyway, we're still in recovery mode - and mine was not helped by getting bitten or stung this morning by some horrible little flying thing that sunk its teeth, or sting, into the back of my my neck and then flew away sharpish before I had a chance to identify it. We were on our way into Hobbycraft at the time; when we came out  we went off to find a pharmacy for some antihistamine ointment. This  turned out to be a case of Boots 0 - Tesco 1; a surprise result as the football commentators say. I cannot really get my head round the concept of a large Boots without a pharmacy counter but take it from me, there's one in Falkirk. The Hobbycraft trip was a score draw I think; they did have safety eyes, a Styrofoam wreath for Christmas and some fat quarters of very nice Christmas fabric. They didn't have self adhesive ribbon, or a pushy tool for rag wreath making or any 2mm dpns, but I can manage without the first two if needed and I'm sure I can find some of the latter if I look hard enough. And they weren't urgent. 

Once we came back I washed some towels, read a bit, knitted a bit, cross stitched a bit, and paper crafted a bit and I am slowly coming back to myself. Another couple of days and we'll be back to normal. 

And now for the happy mail. I got two months together of the Yarn Unique Artist of the Month club for reasons that are too long and too boring to go into. 

Here is June's 

I loved this, The artist is Hiroshi Yoshida. Beautiful yarn, and postcards and a cherry blossom bag. The bag is a bit small tbh, not sure what I could use it for, but I'll find something. 

And this was July - yarn and notecards based on the work of Kandinski. I really liked these too, just  not quite as much as June's.

To spur me on to have a proper go at the sewing machine I bought a small quilting kit from someone on Ravelry and that arrived on Monday

When I say small I mean teeny tiny, which I hadn't quite appreciated when I bought it, but I'm going to have a go at it next week. 

Should manage to get back here tomorrow with some photos of our adventures during the last week. 

Postcard from the Edge

 Our grandsons arrived on Tuesday evening for a week's stay. 

This gives me little opportunity to blog, since we're either busy doing stuff, or my laptop is commandeered by Young People who Need a Screen. 

Yesterday we went to Stirling Castle. It was very hot.  Also as we went round we coincided with a group of 4 young children (all, from the look of them under the age of seven) who were the most badly behaved kids  I've ever encountered.  And shame on their parents who looked complacently on while their offspring shrieked, yelled, swore and tried to destroy things. After the castle, we went out for  a meal which was both expensive and horrible.  

Today we went to the cinema at the behest of grandson No 2 who was keen to see a film called Legend of the Ochi. He enjoyed it which was one consolation for having to go and see it. The other was that my brother-in-law had given me a cinema voucher for my birthday so the amount of real money spent on seeing it  was negligible. If you were to ask me whether you should go and see it, my answer would be if you have an alternative, up to and including having a tooth out without anaesthetic, go for the alternative. I may vent about this in greater detail at a later date. Or I may not. 

I think it would be true to say that I am quite tense just now although making valiant efforts not to show it. Some efforts, despite the valiancy ( is that a word - probably not, but I'm sure it's understandable for all that ) are unsuccessful. It is hard, when you have been told that your visitors-to-be 'love snacks' to discover that everything you bought as snacks they turn up their noses at. Also I don't appreciate having a teenage visitor come and tell me that 'it was teatime half an hour ago'. The way I see it unless it's your house, or you've offered to make the tea yourself, tea time is when I say it is. It's not like I was making them wait until midnight. 

Tomorrow we are off to the Scottish Deer Centre, which has deer, lynx, wildcats, otters and all sorts of other wonderful things and I think it should be fun - although not as much fun as it would have been if they still had wolves. 

No idea when I'll be back here but anyone wanting to send 'thoughts and prayers hun' is very welcome to try. 

Well, that was a nice day....

We went into Stirling on Saturday; dove to the Park and Ride and then got the bus. We wanted to check out the new Sostrene Grone shop that opened in Stirling on Friday. I'd never heard of Sostrene Grone until last November when we wandered into their shop in Chambery and bought a couple of small things but we we very taken with it, so it was good news that they were planning one so local to us. 

It was very busy, which I suppose you would expect on Day 2. After shuffling round ( like IKEA it's a one way, go past everything we sell layout - although one doughty couple were en fact wandering around anticlockwise which was, you know, an achievement in the circumstances, but one which was very annoying to almost everyone  else in the shop.

After that we walked up to the Castle. We are having the grandsons to stay shortly, in fact they are arriving tomorrow evening, and Stirling Castle is one of the places we're planning to take them so we wanted to do a brief recce before then. The castle is strategically placed on top of a very large and steep hill and by the time we got to the castle gate we were both so exhausted we knew it would be a waste of time actually going in.  We  were too tired to walk around it. So we bought ourselves an ice cream instead, and sat on a defensive wall* and discussed the likelihood of getting the boys up the hill, the verdict being Not A Chance. Fortunately we had noticed a different park and ride bus which goes up the hill almost to the top, so come the day, we'll be catching that. 

*I want to say rampart, but I'm not 100% sure that I know exactly what a rampart is, so I'm gong with wall, rather than risk making an idiot of myself

Once we'd recovered we wandered back into town. I visited the library to see  if they had anything I might like to borrow before Bloody Scotland next month, and they did, and then we walked back to the bus station via another quick dip into Sostrene Grone, this time to buy something I'd been delighted to spot when we had our first look round. 

Photos.

The Wallace Monument from the castle walls. 

Three (hopefully) good reads and two packets of liquorice fudge, unfindable for many many months. Hooray! 

A Walk from a Book

I didn't mention our first trip to Dollar, which was long before the fund raising strawberry tea;   well -  I say long before, it was after the move, so long before is a relative term really. Anyway we went to check out the bookshop. I'd been told it was fantastic and it is indeed very good, and there's a cafe attached with nice cake and good coffee. They also had a small selection of Yoshi goods, so the OH got treated to a new keyring and some nice jigsaws and I treated myself to one of those. 

We also bought a Walk Book. because when you move somewhere new, that's what you do isn't it?  'Weekend walks in Stirling and Falkirk'  it was called and it seemed just the ticket. Alas I had not realised when it said weekend walks the vast majority of them would take me a whole weekend to do. 

I'm joking. but it's a long time since I did any regular walking of any length and when I looked through the book to mark walks of 2.5 kms or less as a starting point there were very very few. And most of them had the word 'steep'  somewhere in their description. And that's really quire off putting. 

But anyway last weekend, the weather being lovely, we decided to do one of the walks and the OH, who was given the choice went for one  that was rather longer then 2.5 km, but was at least basically on the flat and on a well marked footpath, it said. And it was. It was at a place we'd often passed signs to; the Gartmond Dam country park. The walk is basically a big circle around a reservoir created by a dam which a local bigwig built, not to create a reservoir and therefore a guaranteed water supply for the local villages, but to stop his mines from flooding. The water supply thing was an unlooked for, and happy, consequence. 

Lots of birds, lots of trees and some wonderful views of the hills in the background. So even though the walk  made my back ache it was a very enjoyable afternoon. 

We saw this heron

there was an island, just ripe for the Famous Five, or possibly the Swallows and Amazons to have an adventure on

There were, as promised, beautiful views of the hills

tree trunks on which to practice my Dorling Kindersely photography addiction 

 and as we came away, many sleepy ducks!

More walk reports as we do them. 

Ah well, Happy Birthday to me

Today is my birthday and we had plans. Actually ages ago  we had a Plan A that we changed at someone else's request to  Plan B,  and then Plan B got changed on us a week ago, so we sorted out a Plan C,  and Plan C was put paid to by Storm Floris. Seems the universe isn't keen for me to celebrate my birthday this year. Perhaps it's telling me to save up the celebrations  for next year's Big One. Maybe. 

However there were beautiful flowers

I don't think we have been without flowers since we moved in for one reason or another which is lovely. 

There was Icelandic inspired Danish chocolate coated liquorice , in various flavours, which I love.

And there were cards and other presents and it's been an OK day, but really I just wish we had been able to carry out Plan C. I thought we had left wind compromised plans behind us when we left Orkney, but it seems not. 

So Much to Catch Up On....

 So there was always the blog paradox, which was that when you were doing things you were too busy to blog about them, and when you weren't busy there was nothing to blog about. And now there's another consideration in the mix which is that I don't have my computer on nearly as much as I used to. In Orkney I would tend to switch it on when I got up and it stayed on most of the day  ( I hate to think of all the time I 'wasted' but on the other hand there wasn't so very much to do instead ) whereas nowadays I tend to switch it on just when I want  to do something specific. So those moments when I thought 'what shall I do now, oh I know, I'll write  a blog post' just don't happen any more. 

So there's  a place we've been to twice recently and I'll conflate the two trips into one post. This is the Doune Art and Antiques Centre ( yes, as seen on Antiques Road Trip,  and also recommended to me lots of times by local friends). 

It's huge and it's stuffed full of stuff and it's great fun to walk around, although a bit like Art Galleries, after the first hour you're a bit overwhelmed by it all. We'd been told the cafe was excellent; we didn't have lunch there but we did have  a drink and a cake. It was a very hot day and this was my, very impressive,  elderflower presse

I've discovered that elderflower can range from delicious to practically tasteless so it's always a bit of a gamble when you order it, but this one was definitely at the delicious end of the spectrum. As was the honeycomb cheesecakes which I see has been edited out of the photograph except for a teeny tiny corner. The OH had a coffee and a piece of Bakewell tart and they were good too apparently. 

On the way we had seen signs to the David Stirling memorial and decided that we would have a look at it on the way back. We had absolutely no idea who David Stirling was but it turns out that he founded what became the SAS. While I'm not a fan of knee jerk, 'let's put up a statue' type memorials, this was rather more well thought out with pieces of stone representing some of the terrain the newly formed unit worked in,  and as they were largely operating in North Africa to begin with it was yet another link to good old George who fought there too, although not in anything as prestigious  as the SAS. 

The man himself. 

                    and a memorial for the Long Range Desert Group which was the SAS forerunner

There were beautiful views of the surrounding countryside too, it really is in a stunning location.  

A couple of things had caught my eye when we had been walking round - well, let's be honest, lots of lovely things had caught my eye, none of which we needed but one of them that I couldn't get out of my mind was this 

now doing duty as a bedside table for me. Not one for the non-fantasy fans obviously, but I loved it and I did actually need  a bedside table. 

We also need mirrors. This house had no mirrors of any description, not in the bathrooms, not on the front of bathroom cabinets (also conspicuous by their absence when we moved in  along with towel rails!) and not on the door of the otherwise excellent built in wardrobes. I'd seen a mirror that I thought would go nicely in the bedroom, a plain-ish one with a narrow gold frame and a little Greek key detail round the edge. I'd also seen one that I loved but doubted  would 'go'; a circular  Arts and Crafts one which could have come straight out of an illustration for Sleeping Beauty. Guess which one we came away with? 

Until about 18 months ago I'd have bought the plain gold framed square because it 'went' and 'would do', but in a change which I see as progress I bought the one I really loved instead. 

A Crafty Thing

 

Many many years ago a friend in Canada gave me instructions for making a fabric wreath after I had admired one she had made herself. It was so long ago that I had no idea where in the UK I would get the fundamental item necessary to make it - a Styrofoam wreath base. I suspect at the time I wouldn't have been able to find one here for love nor money. 

Fast forward a couple of decades and I am somewhere with my sister and I see a Styrofoam wreath and I buy it, thinking, at last! I can make one of those fabric wreath things. And the wreath has stayed in my miscellaneous craft materials box ever since. because somehow I never got around to giving it  a go.  

Recently I saw the new Tilde fabric Christmas range and thought I'd like to make a Christmas wreath, with that but Tilde fabric is Not Cheap and I was put off buying it by the thought that I might make a mess of it which would be a waste of money. And then - a lightbulb moment. Somewhere in my small fabric stash I thought I might have a Tilde charm pack that had come free with a magazine a long time ago .... I went for a rootle. 

I found the wreath, I found the charm pack, I found the time and voilà! a fabric wreath. I'm so pleased with it. It is so very pretty. So now I can buy the fabric and embark on making a Christmas wreath without worry. There's just one small problem - I cannot find a Styrofoam wreath to buy in a sensible size! However I suspect Mr Amazon can be relied upon to have one if I have a look,  and possibly the local craft places will have more suitable sizes nearer to Christmas.  

Meanwhile this one needs a ribbon and a hook to hang it from. 

A Couple of Cheery Things for a Grey Day

 I had some happy mail last week. This was the 2nd 2025 quarter for the Little Grey Cells Club from Henny Penny Makes.

That's not at all true to the colour of the one on the left! Due to the nature of the long term project these are going into, half of these are now used up, which is pleasing.

We also had a visit from some friends who we now live much nearer to, which is a good thing, and they brought us a lovely bunch of sunflowers. 

It's a bit of a cool grey day here and I'm a tad under the weather so the cheerful colours are a nice bright spot! 

Doon the Watter

 

Last Christmas the OH's brother bought him a voucher for a cruise on the Waverley, the world's last remaining working paddle steamer. It was good for the whole year, but time was ticking on and it doesn't stay to cruise from Glasgow all year round, so we got ourselves focussed and booked a trip for Sunday just gone. We opted for a Full Day and not getting off at either of the two ports of call, and both of those are decisions which we would not make again, but then hindsight is a wonderful thing. 

It was an early start, too early for us to get there in time if  combined with a reasonable getting up time in Alloa, so we went over to Glasgow on Saturday, caught up with an academic friend in the afternoon and spent the night at the Glasgow flat. One of the good things about the move, amongst multifarious others, is that we get to see a lot more of son no. 2 who lives there. Even being so close, the next morning was an early-ish start to get to the Glasgow Science Centre from where Waverley departs. (I was going to say sails, but obviously that wouldn't be right, unless sails is an acceptable generic term for the movement of all boats, however powered, Which it may well be. ) Anyway, we got there, and there she was. 

And there also was a piper. To be fair he wasn't provided by the Waverley people to pipe us on board, he was just a young lad taking the chance to earn some pocket money and he didn't stay long. Although long enough to give us a quick swirl of Highland Cathedral, which, don't get me wrong, is a lovely tune, but it does tend to stay with you all day. To that extent it was much less embarrassing than when we boarded The Ghan all those years ago and were greeted as we arrived on the platform with a trumpet fanfare. So embarrassing. 

So the cruise went all along the Clyde, into the Clyde estuary and then turned right ( yes, I know) along the coast, past a couple of islands called the Cumbraes, along the east shore of Arran and through the Kyles of Bute into Loch Scriven. It was impossible to take good photographs of the wonderful scenery because the boat was super full, and there were just too many heads, and bodies, always in the way. Here however is a photo of the entry to Loch Scriven just as we turned around to leave it, with a few arms and bits of boat tubing cropped off. I risked life and limb, not to mention losing my phone, to take this picture, leaning out over the side of the boat as far as I dared so I hope it's appreciated! 

Overall, it was beautiful, a lot of the time it was relaxing, most of the time we had really good weather, warm but overcast so the sun didn't get too hot. It was fascinating to sail down the Clyde estuary and think of my PH D subject dong the same decades ago, first as a student when he used to charter yachts in his vacations and later as he stood on a troopship and glided down the Clyde at the start of the long journey to the North African coast. 

On the downside we were 10 hours on the boat which is a long time to be on a smallish boat with a lot  of other people especially when there are slightly too few seats to accommodate everyone. The seats, except in the eating places, are hard and you really felt them after the first 90 minutes. Rather than the whole day we could have bought a ticket that would have allowed us to get off and then back on at either Rothesay or Largs and in retrospect a few hours in Rothesay might have been fun. But we didn't know that when we booked and I don't think either of us had actually got our heads round quite how small the boat is so that the reality of of ten hours on it wasn't something we had properly internalised. 

Overall though, although I wouldn't do it again, I'm glad we've done it once. 

A Nice Thing to do on a Wednesday ...

 is to go to a fundraising strawberry tea. Which is what we did this week. 

I'd had a flyer about it from someone at the knitting group last Friday, and it was only in Dollar which is a large village not very far away, so we thought we would go. Show support, browse the stalls, buy a raffle ticket, enjoy the strawberries. 

Dollar is lovely, lots of beautiful old stone houses and there's a river running through it - (not something you can say about any village in Orkney). It is also an absolute pain for parking so we walked quite a long way up the river to get to the venue. Not a hardship as it was a warm afternoon and it's very scenic. it also has a very picturesque bridge. 

The venue was absolutely packed; it's obviously a very popular (annual) event, raising money for the local museum. There were nice flower arrangements on the tables - this was ours

and the tea was very nice too. well actually, the tea was a bit weak, but the scone was very good! And you can;t go wrong with strawberries.

On the way out I said hello to the person who gave me the flier and it was patently obvious she hadn't a clue who I was which was  a bit of a downer actually, but there you go. It will be that 'seeing people out of context thing' which to be fair was quite a feature of Orkney life. We missed the raffle table as it was on the other side of the hall to the way we entered and exited, and the ravening hordes had hit the cake stall before we got to it, so we didn't buy anything extra. It was fun, but I don't know whether we'll go again next year, if only because  of the parking thing. 

Exhibition in Edinburgh

 The trip to Shropshire rather knocked off accounts of other things we had done in Alloa before we went away so here's the first of two catch ups, a trip to the Dovecote Studio in Edinburgh for an exhibition. 

We went up on the train using our new senior railcards and here's a bit of the famous Edinburgh skyline seen from the road bridge by the station and yes, we did have to walk all the way up. 

The exhibition  was the Scottish Colourists in their European Context, and I'd wanted to see it as soon as it was announced.  As our moving day got pushed further and further back I had become reconciled to not seeing it, which was a bit of a downer, as I'm a big fan of the Colourists, but in the event we managed to see it in its final days. Hoorah! 

To be honest there was rather too much 'context' and not enough Colourists for me, plus we had to keep hanging back as we had arrived at about the same time as a guided tour was starting, and it was very distracting trying to look at the pictures and not be half hearing the tour leader who spoke with a distractingly heavy french accent. 

Having got the grumbles out of the way, I have to say  it was a fantastic exhibition. As always none of the pictures I really liked had associated postcards on sale except for one, and that was this one. And it's even by one of the Colourists ( S J Peploe)  and not one of the context painters. 

Luckily I had taken a couple of photos of others that really appealed 

and this was my favourite of them all, which was by the English painter Duncan Grant

not my usual sort of style, but it fascinated me. 

ION, it is still very hot but we are promised rain tomorrow. Also, after a huge push my study and craft room are both now organised enough for me to relax and actually use them which is a massive leap forward in the settling down stakes. 

Well I've never done this before...

 

That there is a Mystery Yarn Bag. I've never bought one before because you don't know what you're getting ( yup, the clue is right there in the name!) and I've watched lots of people on YouTube unboxing/unbagging mystery stuff and too often seen them try very hard to not look disappointed when the fourth ball of unsaleable dull yellow cotton comes out of the box and they say brightly 'well, I don't know what to do with this, maybe a baby garment ....' and you just feel so sorry for any baby in their vicinity. 

So why have I bought one now? well because it was from a dyer whose yarn I have often wanted to try, so it seemed like  a good opportunity,  and because I knew from the list of bases that were on offer that I wouldn't be wasting my money and because I thought 'I'm x years old, why not take  a punt for once in your life?' So I did. 

and when I opened the parcel I was certainly not disappointed. No gritted teeth or forced smiles here. 

The one on the right is a standard sock yarn, the other two are a baby alpaca /silk blend. And while I will have to look for patterns to use them on I don't think it will be a hardship. 

ION it is very hot. We are not used to it being hot but we're sort of coping by doing stuff in the mornings and evenings. That said the OH is currently putting up shelves for his lego. Rather him than me, although to be fair that wold apply whatever the temperature. 

A Protective Tree

 

It's a Scottish tradition to plant a rowan tree by your house as a protection against witches. We had loads in Orkney, there were one or two on the  property when we bought it, and when we planted our wood we planted lots more. We didn't really think we could uproot one and bring it south, so we decided we would need to buy one pretty smartly after we arrived. That was in part what our trips to local garden centres were all about. Unfortunately we couldn't  find a healthy looking rowan in any of the three we tried so the OH got on the web and ordered one.  Apparently the foliage turns red - possibly in the autumn? I don't know . It's certainly green at the moment. I'd have been perfectly happy with a bog standard one, but there you go ....

It was supposed to be delivered last Thursday. We had a text to say it would be arriving between 2 and 4  We'd had   plans but changed them so that we could take delivery. Much excitement when we got the text to say we were next in the schedule. Less excitement when a little while later we had a text , accompanied by a picture of the sign with our road name on it, saying they couldn't find our house and delivery would be rescheduled. . Honestly all they needed to do was drive up the road a bit further examining the quite large number plates on the houses. They could even have called and we could have talked them through it! but obviously the driver had decided he would rather go home for the day. 

They rescheduled delivery for the next morning, between 10 and 12. That mean I couldn't go to knitting group and again we stayed in. The OH kept a keen look out at the front window whenever he heard an engine louder than a motor scooter, and it's just as well he did as just before midday he caught sight of the delivery van doing a three point turn just outside the house and  and then driving away from it. He hared down the road after it and returned about 10 minutes later carrying the tree! We were not impressed with the delivery service whose name escapes me, so I can't name and shame. I would if I could. Anyway there is the tree, we repotted it, but it has still blown over at least twice so it needs a much bigger heavier pot to go in, at which point we should be able to transfer it to somewhere near the front gate. To scare away the witches. 

The Falkirk Tunnel

When we went to the Falkirk Wheel to see the pop-up opera I invested in a book called '111Things to see in Falkirk and the Lothians'. I didn't realise when I bought it that it's  a bit of an international series, but it makes no matter, it does what it says on the can - brief descriptions of and directions to some of the interesting places and sights that might otherwise get overlooked. It will take us a long time to get round all 111, I think before we bought the book we had visited all of four under our own steam. Luckily they tend to be grouped together a bit, so that we won't be driving all the way over to, say,  East Lothian for one solitary thing, but it's going to take a bit of getting our heads round and a bit of planning. 

Anyway we were over the holiday and I hadn't been out of the house for a couple of days so yesterday we had a quick look at where we might like to go and alighted on the Falkirk Tunnel. 

This is a half mile long tunnel built for a stretch of the Clyde canal, basically because the family in the local big house couldn't cope with the thought that the canal and the boats on it could be seen from their windows, or possibly just from one small corner of their extensive grounds into which no-one but the fourth undergardener ever ventured, but whichever of those it was, they launched a massive lobbying campaign with the result that this tunnel was built so that the gentry didn't have to watch the low lifes carrying stuff about on barges. 

It was built largely by Irish immigrant labour, ( that applies to the whole project, not just the tunnel, and amongst the many men who worked on it were two called Burke and Hare, truly a couple of names to conjure with. This would be before they removed to Edinburgh and started plying a more grisly trade ....

The tunnel was wet and the towpath uneven and dark because some of the lighting ( well quite  a lot of the lighting ) wasn't working. I'm not going to pretend that walking through it was a highlight experience of my life to date, but I am rather proud of myself for making it all the way through.* I did however refuse to countenance going back the same way so we walked along the towpath until we could rejoin the road. Sadly it was absolutely tipping it down with rain by then, and we got soaked. Going back through the tunnel would have kept us drier, but I suspect would have given me the temporary heebie-jeebies. 

At the far end there's a bridge with two contrasting faces on it; the unhappy one looks towards the town of Falkirk and the happy one out over the hills. Photos below, they are quite high up and I was just using the phone camera so not as brilliant as I might like but you can definitely see the contrasting expressions. 

* This makes me a total wuss. Some people were running through it on what was obviously a normal running toute for them. 

entrance

inside - it really was not that light!

the roof

yay! the exit

sad face

happy face