Wrapping Up Rome

 although as this is all about a trip out to Tivoli it's not strictly Rome at all. 

Did I say we'd had a choice of Hadrian's Villa (what's left)  or the Villa d'Este? We opted for the Villa d'Este, partly because of the name, as I have a vague interest in the d'Este family and still harbour  hopes of a return to Ferrara one day with the OH in tow. Also because it has beautiful gardens. The few people who opted for Hadrian's Villa said it was fantastic, but then so were the gardens so I don't think we lost by our choice. 

As always in a lovely garden I go mad with the phone camera and I'll let the pictures largely speak for themselves. I have to say it was a very hot day and we spent some of the afternoon happily sitting on a terrace with a coffee, and enjoying what we could see of the gardens from there. They also go a long way down the hill, which would have been fine as a walk but the prospect of then having to walk back up put us off. That said we were still enticed rather further downwards than we had planned.  

Upper Courtyard

Tulips in a tub. I feel someone should make this into a cross stitch chart

Arch and wisteria ( there was lots of wisteria, flowering like a weed )

Lower courtyard

the OH improving the view. (That's the sort of comment he puts on photos of me that he uploads to Facebook) 

There are lots and lots of waterfalls, cascades, fountains and water dribbling down slopes all around the garden which is lovely; it cools the air and makes a gentle background noise, so obviously I had to put in at least one photo of a cascade

And here's a fountain with the hills in the background. The OH is always grumbling at me for doing so many photographs in portrait rather than landscape format, and checking back through this post he possibly has a point. That said,  when I look at things I tend to see strong vertical lines, so when I compose a photograph they look better in portrait view. I suppose I could start training my eye this summer  to see horizontal lines and see where that takes me. 

Giving Moral Support, or

grasping opportunities for stash enhancement? You Be The Judge, as the weekly Guardian column about domestic disputes has it.

Last Friday we went to Aberfeldy to visit Karelia House, somewhere I'm sure I must have posted about on here before. We've only been a couple of times, but it's well worth it; possibly more for sewers than knitters, but don't get me wrong it's a great place for knitters too. They were hosting what they call a Garden Fayre, which basically meant some gazebos in the grounds for craft people of all sorts to fill with their goods and sell them.  It's an annual event and I suspect that on a nice day the place is heaving. Last Friday however was not a nice day and there were  not a lot of people there when we arrived.

We had not gone on the off chance of finding something that we liked, although in passing I note it was a nice long run over varying sorts of road for the new car. No, we had gone because one of the gazebos was being used by Claire of Cookston Crafts and I have been wanting to buy some yarn from  her to knit a particular sweater  for a long time, but it wasn't until I seemed to be being successful with my So Faded sweater that I thought I was justified in spending the money because I had more confidence in my ability to end up with a garment  that fitted. The sweater concerned is the Lace and Fade Boxy which, in a slightly less voluminous form than pictured there, I thought would slip on nicely over a shirt when you need something with a bit of warmth but not too much weight to it. Also I have seen Claire's sample knit numerous times and it is gorgeous. 

We had a nice chat with Claire and it took me a while to decide on the yarn but I ended up with this

I'm hoping it will turn out well.  After buying that, we popped into the shop proper and had a good wander around; we would have had lunch but you'd had to pre-book a table and although there were a lot of empty tables we didn't want to risk the embarrassment of sitting down and then being told to 'clear orf' because we had no booking. Although I'm sure they would have been a lot more polite than that. I did make one small purchase in the shop; a new set of dpns in the size I use for socks. I'm currently using a mishmash of two sets, a metal one and a wood one; some of the wooden ones got lost along the way and a couple of the metal ones got bent, probably by me sitting on them. So I picked up a set in Lykke Driftwood which will also be prone to snapping if I sit on them so I hope very much I can avoid doing so! They're beautiful. If I were thirty years younger I might embark on a project to replace all my needles with Driftwood ones, but I'm not, so I won't. 

We didn't starve, despite not having booked a lunch table at Karelia House  as we knew there was a very nice place to eat called The Watermill in Aberfeldy, which has the advantage of being attached to a book shop. They had no inside tables, a common occurrence there, so we sat outside and crossed our fingers it wouldn't rain. It didn't. 

My sandwich was mild cheddar with apple chutney and poached pear plus a side salad and of course the ever present Elderflower and the OH treated himself to a vegetable curry with flatbread which he tells me was delicious. As was my sandwich. We had a quick browse around the bookshop, a brief foray into the normally excellent second hand bookshop that is just a short stroll away, but which this time threw up nothing I felt compelled to buy, and then came home. 

On Saturday we went up to a place called County Fabrics; where again a friend, coincidentally another Clare, was having a pop-up shop. There were a few others, including a coffee stall raising funds for CHAS  so we had a cup of coffee and a piece of very delicious millionaire's shortbread there. County Fabrics itself was having a sale and so I was interested to see what William Morris Fabrics they had as I am thinking of a bit of a Morris decoration in our bedroom when we get around to it. (Not imminent) In the event they didn't have the one I would want, and which I know you can get from John Lewis already made into curtains so we didn't succumb there but we did buy a couple of tings from Clare's pop up.

I'd decided before we went to get the fox kit because I thought it would be fun knit and not too expensive. We then saw the pattern for the Orkney Hat. Regular readers may well have seen my previous Clare Hats; Stirling and Glasgow skylines and the Forth Bridges. I have lost the latter, I can't remember whether I've posted that sad news on the blog before. I really ought to knit it again because it was lovely to knit,  and my favourite , but not yet....meanwhile I knew Clare had been working on an Orkney hat pattern and I knew the OH would want one, so this seemed a good opportunity to buy the pattern and for him the choose the colours that he wanted, Obviously there was a bit of a green theme going on over the two days. 

So you be the judge; altruistic support for yarn-y friends, or just an excuse to buy more wool? 

Bloody Scotland Launch Event

 

This took place last Thursday and I don't know that I would normally have bothered to go, except that this year the speaker was J D Kirk, so that was a bit of a no-brainer. 

The OH was off to Glasgow to see the new Star Wars with Son No 2 so we parked the car in town and I caught the bus to Stirling (it would have been the train but as we were walking past the bus station the Stirling bus was in, and although my Senior Railcard gets me cheap rail travel, my age gets me free travel on the bus. Also it was still five minutes walk to the rail station and it was chucking it down with rain, so the decision to get on the bus was also a no-brainer. (Coming back something similar happened, I had to walk through the bus station to get to the train station in Stirling and the bus for Alloa was in and due to leave in five minutes as opposed to twenty five for the train, so again, not  a hard decision. Hooray for buses1) 

I spent several happy hours mooching about Stirling visiting the sort of shop where I like to browse and the OH stands stock still and gives off. why are you looking at that? vibes. He says this is unconscious and I daresay it is, but it doesn't make for comfortable browsing, so it was nice to be able to go into whatever shops I fancied and spend as long as I wanted in there without feeling guilty. Despite this I didn't make it into my all time favourite shop in the city which is Made in Stirling and is a delightful place, but I just didn't have the time. This was partly because it took an unconscionable amount of time trying to find somewhere with a spare table where I could have lunch. Stirling sees its fair share of tourists and so it isn't shore of cafes/restaurants/pubs but even by 11.45 they were mostly rammed. To be fair I can't speak to the pubs because I'm of a generation which brought girls up not to go in pubs on their own so I don't. 

I was fortunate enough to find someone from he U3A Crime Fiction reading group also at the event, and with a spare seat beside him so we had a good chat before proceedings began. Once it started JD was very good value; rather more so than his interviewer Nicola Meighen, previously encountered at the Rebus event at last year's Bloody Scotland, and who has an irritating habit of interjecting when her subject is in full flow, usually to try and show off how clever/thoughtful/well read she is. To be clear, I'm not saying she isn't all of those things and more; what I am saying is that if your interviewee is holding the audience all on his/her own you don't need to chirp up every few minutes for the sake of it. Despite this, I thoroughly enjoyed the event. 

We were given a physical copy of the brochure for this years festival which was great because previously, as in  before we moved, I struggled to make sense of the on-line one. So that was a good thing. All the more disappointing then that I struggled to find anything very much to get excited about. I marked up eight possibles, and reduced those down because of timing issues to three and I'll sort out some tickets at a later date. I have a couple of friends who might be keen to go to some of the other events and I'll happily tag along; I suppose part of thre fun of these events iss getting introduced to authors you don't already know and who might be great to listen to in person and whose books might become firm favourites. 

More to come on this, but probably not until September, which is festival time. 

Stashdown - The Jigsaw Edition (2)

 

I'm not sure whether I have ever managed to complete that Jack Vettriano puzzle above before but whether it was the first or second time,  I'm very proud of myself for finishing it a couple of weeks ago. There's not much  detail in it and a lot of the colours are very similar. 

Anyway it and six others went off to the charity shop this morning, This would have brought my total number of puzzles down to 52 had it not been for the fact that I bought one while I was in the shop. So the total is now 53. Given that my overall aim is to get down to 50 by the end of the year I think I'm well on track - there are several others in the cupboard marked down for a final 'do' before they too get given to the charity shop, although I have to admit the one I bought this morning will be a keeper. 

Another Garden Visit

 I suspect garden visits will be a recurring theme throughout the summer blog posts: considering we are definitely not gardeners we're very keen on visiting other people's. 

When we were wondering a couple of weeks ago where to go to see lots of flowering azaleas and rhododendrons ( hence the abortive visit I wrote about to Gargunnock!) I can't imagine why we didn't immediately think of Branklyn,  where we went last August and said 'we must come back in the spring to look at the azaleas'. Somehow we didn't. 

However we did go there towards the end of April and it was beautiful. Naturally I took lots of photographs, but I've confined myself to  five. They grow so many of our favourites plants there.

acer canopy

deutzia

rhododendron

their famous blue poppies

and of course a magnolia.

We topped off our visit by having a light lunch in their excellent cafe and a quick visit to the small shop. The staff in both places were fabulous, which was true the last time we visited as well. Definitely a Good Day Out. 

Socks, Stripes and Stats

So I made  a pair of socks for the OH in the first instalment of the madrigal yarns self striping sock club. The colour was 'The Colours of Spring'. 

This was sadly the only project I finished in May as I spent most of my knitting time on my So Faded sweater which isn't finished. I'm hopeful that it will be finished in June; the body is done, one sleeve is about 2/3rd done and I've finished the first colour on the other one. So basically two sleeves to finish and then the neckband to do. I've tried it on a couple of times as best as I could and I'm happy to say that the fit is looking good and the neckline is not looking too low or wide. So fingers crossed. 

A few days before I finished these socks the second instalment of the club arrived. It's called Darling Buds and here it is

I'm itching to cast this on but forcing myself not to, as I have the sweater and another pair of just over half done socks to complete first. 

And so to the stats. Not as good as they would have been had I managed to finish my seater, obvs! but it was still an overall decrease. Wool in was 150g, out was 305g, net decrease for the month therefore  155,  and the running decrease total for the year is 2308. For a couple of reasons which will become clear as the month goes on, the numbers for June will not look nearly as good. Hey-ho!

Reading Round Up April

 

There's still lots to catch up on here and I'm very aware that come Wednesday life gets very busy indeed for a while so I need to get some subjects ticked off the list! That said, a reading round up wouldn't have been my number one choice today, but as it's almost time to draw the line under the books I read in May I thought I should really get April's done. 

I only managed nine books that month, probably because we were away. J D Kirk makes only one appearance with The Big Man Upstairs ( this one was very good). I listened to two more books by J M Dalglish and I still didn't like the passive aggressive girlfriend or the voice of the narrator who incidentally cannot pronounce Hunstanton correctly. This seems to upset some (presumably Norfolk dwelling ) Audible reviewers very much indeed - and I don't blame them. Anyway the two I listened to in April were Kill Our Sins and Tell No Tales. As before competent, but somehow very very dull. 

No Friend to This House wasn't exactly a re-read but I had already listened to it on Audible. I'm finding it quite interesting to compare the two experiences of listening and reading. I think I marginally preferred reading this one, but that's no reflection on Natalie's ability to read her own work. It just felt more cohesive to me reading it. Anyway it's very good. Up there with Stone Blind and a little way behind A Thousand Ships.

I listened to a couple of novellas while we were away, again re listens; Standing by the Wall by Mick Herron and When did you last see your father? by Jodi Taylor; short pieces adjacent to Slough House and St Mary's respectively. 

Next up is a bit of a curiosity. Becoming Mrs Darcy Volume 1 by Julie B Grantham. This was a gift, as it's not the sort of thing I would buy for myself, being a Pride and Prejudice sequel. It was an easy read although I am yet to get around to Vol 2 which came with it. Basically I think Julie B just wanted to write a book about being presented at court and Elizabeth Darcy was a hook to hang it on. Although it looms large, I note that at the end of Vol 1 said presentation is yet to take place, although I've learned a lot about the rules for presentation dresses. 

Also while I was away I re-read on my Kindle a book called Absolution by Caro Ramsay. It was the first in a detective series set in Glasgow and I had bought it because it was  a Saturday Slaughters pick back in Orkney ages ago and there weren't enough physical copies in the library to go around.   I have to  say I enjoyed it much more the second time around, and had a lot more sympathy with the main character - as in, I wasn't quite so devastatingly disappointed when he failed to kill himself by swimming out to sea or when he missed being killed in a car crash a bit later on. I think the change is a reflection of the fact that deep down I'm a lot happier these days and have a correspondingly larger capacity for empathy. 

Finally there was Madame Matisse by Sophie Haydock. I've no idea why I downloaded this on Borrowbox but I'm very glad I did. I loved it. It's the intertwined stories of three women who could be all be addressed at different times as Madame Matisse; the artist's wife, his  daughter and Lydia Delectorskaya, a Russian emigree ( well refugee really) who became his muse, assistant and eventually caregiver. Showing how  the lives of these three women unfolded was a great way to tell a story about some of the huge changes in Europe in the first half of the C20. Lydia's story really resonated with me as she originally came from Siberia and when she fled the Soviets she went initially  to Harbin in China. I had a lecturer at University who had followed this exact same path so it gave me an insight into what part of her early life had been like. No Fun, would sum it up ( accurate if a little glib). I already knew that Matisse's daughter had been arrested imprisoned and tortured by the Gestapo for her involvement in the Resistance, but hadn't known that his estranged wife was also active in the movement. Well researched, readable and, although a book like this must always be partly speculation, it read as credible  and was very well written. Definitely recommended. 

It looks like May's reads will only total eight, winch is good news or bad news depending on how much you like book posts I suppose!