I'm in awe of some of my arty friends, who are so productive and create such loveliness. Even some friends of mine who have been posting about what their naughty Christmas elves have been up to, complete with pictures.
Glancing through old posts, especially those from this time of year, I despair at myself; the same old aims pop up time and again. Lose weight, exercise more, earn some money, learn how to do all sorts of things, get everything sorted out, get a grip!
I spotted a post in which I talked about peyote stitch bezels around stones and the offending articles are still in the UFOs box, where I left them years ago when I couldn't decide how to create the bails. I had another look at them when a crafty friend came round for a cuppa and decided that I would not be able to get a pinch bail or even a jump ring into the beadwork, (because I didn't 'cheat' and use a strip of double-sided tape around the stone, so the beadwork is as tight as I could make it). Beaded bails it is, then.
With the turning of the year at Yule, and thinking about my recent creative impulse, I set a goal. I need to be more productive and to do a major de-stash, so I am going to make, create, renovate, repair, alter and complete 365 things.
I have an appalling record when it comes to personal goals, as they often dissolve and disappear within a month, displaced by important and urgent stuff or other interests. Given that I need to be smarter about the goal setting, I decided posting every day and having a photo of every object would be unfeasible and unsustainable, so I'll post periodically and keep a running total. Although 365 is one object a day, I probably won't complete one a day, but I shall have to try to produce more or less 30 things a month just to keep on track. If I run short of time I might start making lots of earrings (although that at least will help de-stash the beads and give me something to sell!).
I've a long list of crafty things I want to try, and have been saying for years that I should pick my art things up again.
Choreographies will count. Making/repairing elements of the garden will count. Making everyday meals will not count, nor will making a mess (something I can do with no effort at all!) I've also decided that blog posts won't count unless they are tutorials or patterns, but I do need to complete a lot of draft posts too.
So that's a major aim for the year, to bring things back into use and create lovely things. How do you think I'll do? Feel like joining me? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
A reflective journal of my Dancing, Gardening, Arts and Crafts, Working, Domesticated and Wild Life.
Thursday, 27 December 2018
Wednesday, 12 December 2018
A little pre-Christmas crafting
I'm having some sort of crafting hyperactive attention deficit, feeling compelled just to start something as the idea occurs to me. I've no idea why that is, but of course it's resulted in more WIPs than ever. The need to create some stock for a local Christmas Craft Market may be part of it; one of those opportunities which arise, to which I said 'Yes!' and then started to wonder whether I was up to doing it, when other stall holders seem so professional and focused (and don't just offer whatever has fallen out of their impulsive, compulsive crafting!).
Looking back over my books of design doodles and ideas, I realised there are so many which I haven't created. Why not? Lack of confidence, time, decision-making? Too much attachment to perfect outcomes? That needs to change.
For the past few years, I've been intending to experiment with some of the knit and crochet Christmas decorations so generously shared on Ravelry, and perhaps create one of my own. I made a couple of the 'pint-sized pines' and 'tiny trees' patterns and played with some little Fairisle pattern bags, which were unexpectedly time-consuming. Oh dear, my colourwork technique needs some work! I tinkered with making a mini-tree with purl-ridge swirls, but the decreases need some work to create an even shape. I also bought some tinsel yarn to try to make cork-bottle topper trees, and that seems to be working.
Clockwise from top left: Alpaca sweater, various little Christmassy things, including the swirly tree, Cup of Tea socks, Danube socks (still!) tinsel starting a bottle-topper tree, wavy Baktus scarf pending decisions about finishing the ends. There are other WIPs/UFOs elsewhere, too.
Another of the things in my ideas book was to make some gift tags out of old Christmas cards. I used to do this, but it was rather haphazard, just cutting around pictures so that they ended up all sizes and shapes, and using a standard hole-punch left a rather large hole. I thought I might offer packs of tags for sale, so they would need to look tidy. So I made a few cardboard templates and used a small hole punch with goldfingering as a tie. I think they look lovely and made 12 sets of a dozen tags for the craft fairs.
Looking back over my books of design doodles and ideas, I realised there are so many which I haven't created. Why not? Lack of confidence, time, decision-making? Too much attachment to perfect outcomes? That needs to change.
For the past few years, I've been intending to experiment with some of the knit and crochet Christmas decorations so generously shared on Ravelry, and perhaps create one of my own. I made a couple of the 'pint-sized pines' and 'tiny trees' patterns and played with some little Fairisle pattern bags, which were unexpectedly time-consuming. Oh dear, my colourwork technique needs some work! I tinkered with making a mini-tree with purl-ridge swirls, but the decreases need some work to create an even shape. I also bought some tinsel yarn to try to make cork-bottle topper trees, and that seems to be working.
Another of the things in my ideas book was to make some gift tags out of old Christmas cards. I used to do this, but it was rather haphazard, just cutting around pictures so that they ended up all sizes and shapes, and using a standard hole-punch left a rather large hole. I thought I might offer packs of tags for sale, so they would need to look tidy. So I made a few cardboard templates and used a small hole punch with goldfingering as a tie. I think they look lovely and made 12 sets of a dozen tags for the craft fairs.
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| Finished sets of gift tags |
I hope they'll sell; they may not, but it has given me some impetus to dive into my craft stash and be more productive. Tutorial (with a downloadable template, if I can work out how to do that) to come!
Tuesday, 30 October 2018
Officially Cold
The clocks have gone back to GMT and everything was covered in frost for the past few mornings. Halloween/Samhain is tomorrow, there has already been snow in the Scottish Highlands, and I'm wondering if the predictions that we're going to have a hard winter will be correct.
I've started to feel the cold (I normally run quite hot) so it's my cue to break out the wool socks, long sleeves, scarves, coats, jumpers and crochet blankets on the sofa. I'm not complaining; I love the changing seasons.
Autumn seemed to be a warm and gradual thing. We've had a lot of rain, but on the sunny days, I was distracted by spiders every time I went into the garden. Digging out compost bin #2 took a while, distracted as I was by the wildlife. So many fat, female Araneus diadematus hanging in their webs! I also found some other well-marked female spiders, but was confused about what they were until I had one in a magnifier pot and used an online resource. Even so, I couldn't get enough magnification to determine whether they were Metellina mengei or M segmentata. There were a few other spiders and harvestmen which I've not identified yet.
I don't know when the swallows slipped away this year. The local ones just disappeared at some point in September, and I saw some tail-enders fleeing westwards while I was driving over the Preselis, the weekend of the Autumn Equinox. The swifts seemed to disappear suddenly in mid-August. There were lots of blackberries this year (the best, as always, completely inaccessible) and lots of wasps. And yet again, I was completely useless with recording butterflies!
I saw potato plants flowering in the second of the free-standing compost heaps and a few weeks later dug out enough for a couple of meals. I really must get a grip on the vegetable and fruit growing next year. While I've been concentrating on the front garden this summer, the back garden has rewilded itself.
The new houses on the field behind me are still being built. During the summer, the work sometimes started at 7.30 am. No-one could accuse the builders of throwing these houses up! There is still ground-work going on (I don't know if they've finished laying the road) and the heap of subsoil nearest my back fence is taller than ever. Internal work has been going on for weeks now, and annoyingly, some of the lights get left on overnight. The buildings have been painted in candy colours which seem to glow in low light. In my opinion, it doesn't make them any less of an eyesore.
There's still a way to go with them. According to the planning, there will be some young trees planted, bird boxes put up and gaps left in the soffits for roosting bats, to improve biodiversity. I wonder how long it will be before they, and the houses themselves, are inhabited.
I've started to feel the cold (I normally run quite hot) so it's my cue to break out the wool socks, long sleeves, scarves, coats, jumpers and crochet blankets on the sofa. I'm not complaining; I love the changing seasons.
Autumn seemed to be a warm and gradual thing. We've had a lot of rain, but on the sunny days, I was distracted by spiders every time I went into the garden. Digging out compost bin #2 took a while, distracted as I was by the wildlife. So many fat, female Araneus diadematus hanging in their webs! I also found some other well-marked female spiders, but was confused about what they were until I had one in a magnifier pot and used an online resource. Even so, I couldn't get enough magnification to determine whether they were Metellina mengei or M segmentata. There were a few other spiders and harvestmen which I've not identified yet.
I don't know when the swallows slipped away this year. The local ones just disappeared at some point in September, and I saw some tail-enders fleeing westwards while I was driving over the Preselis, the weekend of the Autumn Equinox. The swifts seemed to disappear suddenly in mid-August. There were lots of blackberries this year (the best, as always, completely inaccessible) and lots of wasps. And yet again, I was completely useless with recording butterflies!
I saw potato plants flowering in the second of the free-standing compost heaps and a few weeks later dug out enough for a couple of meals. I really must get a grip on the vegetable and fruit growing next year. While I've been concentrating on the front garden this summer, the back garden has rewilded itself.
The new houses on the field behind me are still being built. During the summer, the work sometimes started at 7.30 am. No-one could accuse the builders of throwing these houses up! There is still ground-work going on (I don't know if they've finished laying the road) and the heap of subsoil nearest my back fence is taller than ever. Internal work has been going on for weeks now, and annoyingly, some of the lights get left on overnight. The buildings have been painted in candy colours which seem to glow in low light. In my opinion, it doesn't make them any less of an eyesore.
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| The view from my bedroom, 23 October 2018. |
Tuesday, 16 October 2018
Storm Callum and Dance Madness
My neck, arms, upper back and chest are all stiff and achy today, but not from the dance weekend we had planned. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks and had, I thought, put together a good running order for the show. In the event (ha!), it had to be cancelled due to extreme weather.
So I was a bit wary when I saw the storm warning for the weekend of the Lampeter Dance Festival, but hopeful that it wouldn't be so bad. We had Serena Ramzy, one of my teachers and a very lovely person, booked to do workshops and perform in the Saturday night show. I haven't seen her for years, so was looking forward to my weekend very much. The show was all planned and I thought I had put together quite a good running order.
When severe weather is forecast, do you cancel/postpone your event as soon as you know, and risk the weather warning coming to nothing? Or go ahead, with the possibility that by the time it's clear the event should have been cancelled/postponed, it's too late anyway? So many times recently, the severe weather warnings have been updated or disappeared entirely, or I have been out in it and the local weather didn't warrant the warning.
By the time we knew that it was going to be bad, it was a bit late to cancel, so I packed the car and some lunch and tea-time food and drink, checked the roads and flood alerts for road closures (none found), made sure I had my phone and charger, picked up my friend Rachel, and set off in the blustery wind and lashing rain.
It wasn't until we were half-way to Carmarthen that we could see water lying on the fields. In Carmarthen, the level of the River Towy was alarmingly high and the road running parallel to the old quay was already flooded and closed. As we drove north, it became clear that it was worse weather in Carmarthenshire than Pembrokeshire. Water was coming off the fields, bringing stones and other bits with it and forming ponds on the roads. There were a few people out in the vile weather, trying to clear drains of leaves.
I'd left a little early and we were still on time, despite having to navigate deep puddles and the road completely awash at New Inn. We got as far as a place called Cilblaidd, just outside Cwmann, when the traffic stopped. A monster of a 4x4 with good ground clearance was coming from the other direction. The driver wound down his window and said that there was no way that cars would be able to get through on the bridge ahead, and we should just turn round. I relayed this information on to the car next to us, who had pulled in to a little lay-by. They shrugged and went on ahead, so I used the lay-by to turn around. As I drove off, I could see them in my rear-view mirror, stopping, and then reversing and turning around themselves.
I was a bit dithery after that. What should I do about all the stuff for the show? Could we find another way around? With the worsening roads and weather, should we even try?
Even before we got back to Llanybydder, there was a place where the flooded road was deepening fast and the car coughed and almost stalled, which would have left us in the water. Rachel was a perfect passenger, letting me know how things were on the passenger side of the car, doubtless as stressed as I was, but no complaints or even a peep when I gunned the engine and shouted at the car 'no no no no NO!' and got us going out of the flood. I considered holing up in a pub that we passed but pressed on to a garage to use the toilet and see if there were any updates on other routes. One of the staff was on Facebook, picking up videos of raging water and updates about fallen trees and closed roads. Along the route, the heavy rain was playing havoc with the phone signal and I couldn't get live traffic updates, or call my friend Rose to let her know what we were doing. Rachel took care of the phone, looking for map and Facebook updates, messages and texts, whenever patchy signal allowed.
We decided the best thing to do would be to go home, back to my place, where we could hang out with the cats, eat our packed food, watch the telly and generally vegetate for a few hours. We got back down the Carmarthen, where Pensarn trading estate, which was just heavily puddled on the outward journey, was flooded (a few hours later, the river overtopped the 8-foot high flood walls at Llangunnor).
Once home, we could get updates. It seemed that the Bridge and Co-op on the way into Lampeter were already flooding at 9.30 am, after I'd set off. Llechryd bridge, which is usually a problem, wasn't just flooded but the water was running over the top of it, just the tops of road signs visible. The amount of water coming down the rivers was incredible, and many places were flooded up to at least a metre. And there was a sad fatality when a bus stopped because of a fallen tree, and a young man got out to see what was going on and was caught by a landslip.
And the dance studio where the workshops were based in Lampeter had also flooded. The whole event was cancelled. Even though the weather on the Sunday was due to be fine, with no dance studio and many of the roads still impassable, it was impossible.
It must have been a moment's madness to think this would be okay; things could have gone so badly wrong! The tension from driving for three hours in lashing rain, blustery winds and negotiating flooded roads means that I'm still aching, a few days later. Next time I shall listen to my instincts.
I am risk-averse to the point of being cowardly. I cancel classes when a yellow severe weather warning is forecast. I know from experience that it doesn't take much to block some of the local, rural roads with flooding or a fallen tree and have attempted to go out to events anyway, exhausting myself trying to find a way round or creeping along in the fog and heavy rain. Very few are as dance-obsessed as I am, so would not go out anyway, so it's just not worth trying to run the class.
When severe weather is forecast, do you cancel/postpone your event as soon as you know, and risk the weather warning coming to nothing? Or go ahead, with the possibility that by the time it's clear the event should have been cancelled/postponed, it's too late anyway? So many times recently, the severe weather warnings have been updated or disappeared entirely, or I have been out in it and the local weather didn't warrant the warning.
By the time we knew that it was going to be bad, it was a bit late to cancel, so I packed the car and some lunch and tea-time food and drink, checked the roads and flood alerts for road closures (none found), made sure I had my phone and charger, picked up my friend Rachel, and set off in the blustery wind and lashing rain.
It wasn't until we were half-way to Carmarthen that we could see water lying on the fields. In Carmarthen, the level of the River Towy was alarmingly high and the road running parallel to the old quay was already flooded and closed. As we drove north, it became clear that it was worse weather in Carmarthenshire than Pembrokeshire. Water was coming off the fields, bringing stones and other bits with it and forming ponds on the roads. There were a few people out in the vile weather, trying to clear drains of leaves.
I'd left a little early and we were still on time, despite having to navigate deep puddles and the road completely awash at New Inn. We got as far as a place called Cilblaidd, just outside Cwmann, when the traffic stopped. A monster of a 4x4 with good ground clearance was coming from the other direction. The driver wound down his window and said that there was no way that cars would be able to get through on the bridge ahead, and we should just turn round. I relayed this information on to the car next to us, who had pulled in to a little lay-by. They shrugged and went on ahead, so I used the lay-by to turn around. As I drove off, I could see them in my rear-view mirror, stopping, and then reversing and turning around themselves.
I was a bit dithery after that. What should I do about all the stuff for the show? Could we find another way around? With the worsening roads and weather, should we even try?
Even before we got back to Llanybydder, there was a place where the flooded road was deepening fast and the car coughed and almost stalled, which would have left us in the water. Rachel was a perfect passenger, letting me know how things were on the passenger side of the car, doubtless as stressed as I was, but no complaints or even a peep when I gunned the engine and shouted at the car 'no no no no NO!' and got us going out of the flood. I considered holing up in a pub that we passed but pressed on to a garage to use the toilet and see if there were any updates on other routes. One of the staff was on Facebook, picking up videos of raging water and updates about fallen trees and closed roads. Along the route, the heavy rain was playing havoc with the phone signal and I couldn't get live traffic updates, or call my friend Rose to let her know what we were doing. Rachel took care of the phone, looking for map and Facebook updates, messages and texts, whenever patchy signal allowed.
We decided the best thing to do would be to go home, back to my place, where we could hang out with the cats, eat our packed food, watch the telly and generally vegetate for a few hours. We got back down the Carmarthen, where Pensarn trading estate, which was just heavily puddled on the outward journey, was flooded (a few hours later, the river overtopped the 8-foot high flood walls at Llangunnor).
Once home, we could get updates. It seemed that the Bridge and Co-op on the way into Lampeter were already flooding at 9.30 am, after I'd set off. Llechryd bridge, which is usually a problem, wasn't just flooded but the water was running over the top of it, just the tops of road signs visible. The amount of water coming down the rivers was incredible, and many places were flooded up to at least a metre. And there was a sad fatality when a bus stopped because of a fallen tree, and a young man got out to see what was going on and was caught by a landslip.
And the dance studio where the workshops were based in Lampeter had also flooded. The whole event was cancelled. Even though the weather on the Sunday was due to be fine, with no dance studio and many of the roads still impassable, it was impossible.
It must have been a moment's madness to think this would be okay; things could have gone so badly wrong! The tension from driving for three hours in lashing rain, blustery winds and negotiating flooded roads means that I'm still aching, a few days later. Next time I shall listen to my instincts.
Thursday, 11 October 2018
Learning Curves
I'm having a love-hate relationship with the learning curve involved with getting everything working and myself up to speed with my new laptop.
I had a lovely time at the music course weekend and loved having K to stay. She was the perfect guest, easy, accommodating, unfazed by my chaos and clutter. We chatted almost non-stop.
And so to the homework assignments which are part of the course. I have CDs where I need to identify rhythms, musical instruments and music styles. I have a portable/external optical drive in the form of a DVD/CD read/writer. I haven't used it since my old computer died, but it worked fine then, so I should be able to plug in and play, right?
The new laptop has a couple of USB 3 ports, but only has one USB 2 port. Although you can plug a USB 3 connector into a USB 2 port (it just runs slower), you can't plug a USB 2 into a USB 3 port. It doesn't fit, and needs an adapter which I don't have. I have a little multi-port hub plugged into the USB 2 port, into which I plug frequently used things, like leads for transferring things off camera and phone, the dongle for a wireless mouse, and then there's a port free for anything else. My optical drive has a USB 2 port, so I plugged it into the free port on the hub.
The drive showed up in the Devices and Drives, and I looked at the properties to see that my laptop already had some sort of generic driver for it and thought that it was working properly. Cool!
I popped a disc in and closed the tray, and immediately the drive's icon disappeared. No error messages. The drive was stuttering away, evidently not reading the disc, the green light flashing on and off. I tried ejecting the disc but nothing happened - the button on the tray front wasn't working.
Okay, well I know this one of old. Into the desk drawer for a paperclip, open out one of the arms, poke it into the little hole next to the eject button on the tray, and it releases the catch.
Take a look in the tray, blow a few times just in case there's dust or fluff or something. Try again.
Same problem. Sounds as though there's a problem with the hardware, it's making such a horrible noise.
There is plenty of help available through the internet, lots of experts out there, although it really takes some sifting through to find the thing which might be the solution.
I searched using the make and model of my optical drive, adding 'troubleshoot'. The first thing I found was a video from some chap who was reviewing the same optical drive that I have, and had found that neither of the ones he had from new worked. Then there were lots of other reviews which said that it worked fine. No help there, then.
I found the manufacturer doesn't make it any more and had no information on it. I bought mine in 2013, I think, so it's 5 years old, which is practically antique in IT terms!
There were quite a few discussion groups and a couple of sites offering help for a 'modest sum'. Reading some of the discussion groups, with lots of experienced, possibly expert users chiming in, gave me plenty to explore.
From the various opinions, I gleaned the following possible issues:
- Too much play in the disc tray (= tighten up some little screws. They were already tight)
- Dirty head (= clean it. I would, but it can't run the cleaner disc)
- Drive failure, or all sorts of other impenetrable issues with the optical drive hardware (= so buy a new one. Even though they are relatively cheap, I'll hold off from spending if I can possibly help it!)
- Faulty lead, USB connector, USB port. (The former two were working, the latter definitely works).
- Faulty leads or connections in the hub. (Nope, other things plugged into the hub work fine)
- Original drivers needed (there's nothing available to download except some rather suspicious non-specific stuff, and the original drivers are on a disc, which, you guessed it, won't run)
- Windows 10 is not designed to work with external optical drives (I seriously doubt it, although there are a LOT of comments about the unreliability of optical drives, internal and external, with Windows 10)
- Updated drivers needed (Windows 10 doesn't give you an option to look for updates if it's only just installed a driver - logical, providing the driver works, and it thinks it does. It also thinks it's just a CD ROM, so I wonder if this is the source of a lot of the complaints that Windows 10 doesn't work, because the driver doesn't provide the full functionality?)
- Outdated USB controllers (it's a new machine, unlikely)
- Eject/deinstall, reboot, reinstall (the old, reliable 'turn it off and turn it on again'. No change)
- And then, four hours later the very last suggestion; to use a powered hub or plug the lead directly into the USB port, no extensions, as apparently optical drives use a lot of power to start up. I plugged it directly into the USB 2 port and it worked. Hurrah! However, it means I no longer have a USB2 port for anything else, so I could do with an adapter, as I automatically reach for a mouse. (And then tap it a few times and wonder why it's not working, forgetting that its dongle isn't plugged in.)
I was so excited, I let the system rip the disc without setting any options and then spent another ten minutes wandering around my new system trying to find where it had put the tracks. When I found them, they were .wma when I would normally have gone for .mp3 (but what do you expect when you let Windows Media Player loose on them? Tsk!). Then I found that my old reliable audio file converter software is no longer free. Okay, I get it, it's good software, why should the company maintain and update it for free? But it was the final straw and so late it was early (in the morning!), so I took my grumpy face off to bed.
The following day, I wondered about the complaints I'd seen that Windows 10 was unreliable with optical drives and wouldn't play DVDs; also the way that my system just saw this as a CD ROM drive. I had a look and could find options to burn discs but no, it would not play a couple of DVDs I had to hand, and therefore no options to rip or burn video off a DVD formatted disc either. Indeed, it turns out that Windows 10 is not supplied with this, assuming that everyone now streams stuff and uploads/downloads via cloud storage. Or something.
So every issue spawns another few, in this case, a USB 3 to USB 2 adapter, or possibly a powered hub, as I could do with being able to type without resting my arms on the front of the laptop, and a separate keyboard will either need a port for a connector or a dongle. Also, file converter software and DVD read/write software.
The list of things to learn and buy in order to give myself the capability I want seems never-ending. I keep asking myself when the complications will decrease to a level where I appreciate the benefits.
Ho hum, better get on with this running order for the weekend. Funny, I had one to do only 10 weeks ago or so, when my old system died. I never really appreciated how WYSIWYG and plug-in-and-play it was! I was wondering though: do others go through this learning curve with their computers and if so, how do they cope, or is it just my lack of knowledge? Comments welcome!
The list of things to learn and buy in order to give myself the capability I want seems never-ending. I keep asking myself when the complications will decrease to a level where I appreciate the benefits.
Ho hum, better get on with this running order for the weekend. Funny, I had one to do only 10 weeks ago or so, when my old system died. I never really appreciated how WYSIWYG and plug-in-and-play it was! I was wondering though: do others go through this learning curve with their computers and if so, how do they cope, or is it just my lack of knowledge? Comments welcome!
Tuesday, 18 September 2018
Fire-fighting
My jobs for this morning included cleaning out the veg racks, making vegetable curry and tomato soup, mounting new cork boards in the kitchen, sorting some laundry, stripping and remaking the bed, … actually, the list is endless. It didn't include washing all of the cat toys and the basket they live in, nor this blog post, but I so need a quick rant to get things off my chest.
It doesn't help that I was woken too early. At about 05.20 (the shipping forecast was just starting) I was awoken by Greebo yodelling at me and a strong smell of cat wee. I switched on the light to see his tail leaving the bedroom and went out to the toilet to find him sulking (lying with his back turned and taking the maximum amount of space) on the landing. I returned with loo roll in hand, just in case, to discover that he had sprayed my make-up case and peed in the cat toy box. I've no idea what this protest was about. It could be that I was ignoring him, which was because I was fast asleep. I cleaned up as best I could and left the yuk until I was feeling more human. The little beast sashayed back in some time later and woke me again (still too early!) by jumping onto me and purring loudly, butting the hand outside the duvet for head rubs. So cute, (apart from 6 kilos of cat landing on my ribs!) butter wouldn't melt.
The reason I need to clean out the veg racks (and their cupboard) is that a couple of onions I had in there suddenly collapsed into smelly pulp. The rest are okay, but having been in proximity to rotten ones, it's best they're used, hence the need for some cooking.
Several weeks ago, the sticky pad for the hook holding the kitchen notice board suddenly gave up and the board crashed down, breaking the dustpan and brush which were neatly standing beneath it. So in the meantime, I have had to buy a new dustpan and brush (which I find I like very much, but which I have also had to wash already. Greebo decided it needed scent marking, so he sprayed it and the utility room skirting and wall where I'd placed it). I also found that the pine frame of the kitchen corkboard had broken and there were a few holes in the cork too, so I needed a new one. And something to mount it on the side of the cupboard. And therefore also to clean the side of the cupboard so the mounts will stick well. And a trip to the dump to ditch the old board.
I know life is a problem-solving exercise, but it's not surprising I can't make any headway on my To Do list when new tasks which need some sort of urgent resolution suddenly appear, spawning a number of dependencies and sub-tasks. Fire-fighting (in the time management sense) is a good analogy, except that there's generally a team of fire-fighters. I can't delegate, there's only me.
The single-handedness is getting to me as I can only get so far with multi-tasking. I'm grateful for the technology which allows my coffee to percolate while the washing machine spins and I'm doing the washing up, having left the cat bowls to soak temporarily, but I can't change the light bulb at the same time as I'm putting a battery in the kitchen clock or mount cork boards while hanging out washing (not that I can hang out washing, it keeps raining. A tumble drier and new dishwasher would be nice, but no money for them!).
I went out to empty the kitchen compost, to find last night's wind (the tail end of Hurricane Helene, for which the met office removed the severe weather warning, since the gusts were only 40-ish mph instead of the forecast 60) has led to a massive tear in the canopy of the swing seat, and some of the attachments for the canopy frame have sheared and broken.
The compost trug is now full, so that will need to go into the compost bin, which itself is nearly full, and bin #3 will need to be dug out into bags to make more room for compost making. (So much gardening to do!)
I'd be much more relaxed about this, but I've got a guest this weekend, a fellow dancer doing the JWAAD music course. We have dance in common but don't otherwise know each other, so I've warned her that this place is chaotically messy with added cats. I've just been into the guest room to find coats and hangers all over the floor, where the clothes rail that they were on has fallen over. And the reason for that is because the plastic thingy which attached the rail to the stand at one end has split. Yet more things to do.
I've just saved and previewed this post, only to find that some of the text which I'd edited appeared in a different font. I couldn't immediately see the change of style in the editor, and ended up editing the HTML to fix it. Add 'finding out what's up with the insertion of a different span style when I've moved text' to the ever-growing list! Not such a quick blog post after all!
I suppose I'd better get on with it. Thanks for listening. Comments welcome below!
It doesn't help that I was woken too early. At about 05.20 (the shipping forecast was just starting) I was awoken by Greebo yodelling at me and a strong smell of cat wee. I switched on the light to see his tail leaving the bedroom and went out to the toilet to find him sulking (lying with his back turned and taking the maximum amount of space) on the landing. I returned with loo roll in hand, just in case, to discover that he had sprayed my make-up case and peed in the cat toy box. I've no idea what this protest was about. It could be that I was ignoring him, which was because I was fast asleep. I cleaned up as best I could and left the yuk until I was feeling more human. The little beast sashayed back in some time later and woke me again (still too early!) by jumping onto me and purring loudly, butting the hand outside the duvet for head rubs. So cute, (apart from 6 kilos of cat landing on my ribs!) butter wouldn't melt.
The reason I need to clean out the veg racks (and their cupboard) is that a couple of onions I had in there suddenly collapsed into smelly pulp. The rest are okay, but having been in proximity to rotten ones, it's best they're used, hence the need for some cooking.
Several weeks ago, the sticky pad for the hook holding the kitchen notice board suddenly gave up and the board crashed down, breaking the dustpan and brush which were neatly standing beneath it. So in the meantime, I have had to buy a new dustpan and brush (which I find I like very much, but which I have also had to wash already. Greebo decided it needed scent marking, so he sprayed it and the utility room skirting and wall where I'd placed it). I also found that the pine frame of the kitchen corkboard had broken and there were a few holes in the cork too, so I needed a new one. And something to mount it on the side of the cupboard. And therefore also to clean the side of the cupboard so the mounts will stick well. And a trip to the dump to ditch the old board.
I know life is a problem-solving exercise, but it's not surprising I can't make any headway on my To Do list when new tasks which need some sort of urgent resolution suddenly appear, spawning a number of dependencies and sub-tasks. Fire-fighting (in the time management sense) is a good analogy, except that there's generally a team of fire-fighters. I can't delegate, there's only me.
The single-handedness is getting to me as I can only get so far with multi-tasking. I'm grateful for the technology which allows my coffee to percolate while the washing machine spins and I'm doing the washing up, having left the cat bowls to soak temporarily, but I can't change the light bulb at the same time as I'm putting a battery in the kitchen clock or mount cork boards while hanging out washing (not that I can hang out washing, it keeps raining. A tumble drier and new dishwasher would be nice, but no money for them!).
I went out to empty the kitchen compost, to find last night's wind (the tail end of Hurricane Helene, for which the met office removed the severe weather warning, since the gusts were only 40-ish mph instead of the forecast 60) has led to a massive tear in the canopy of the swing seat, and some of the attachments for the canopy frame have sheared and broken.
The compost trug is now full, so that will need to go into the compost bin, which itself is nearly full, and bin #3 will need to be dug out into bags to make more room for compost making. (So much gardening to do!)
I'd be much more relaxed about this, but I've got a guest this weekend, a fellow dancer doing the JWAAD music course. We have dance in common but don't otherwise know each other, so I've warned her that this place is chaotically messy with added cats. I've just been into the guest room to find coats and hangers all over the floor, where the clothes rail that they were on has fallen over. And the reason for that is because the plastic thingy which attached the rail to the stand at one end has split. Yet more things to do.
I've just saved and previewed this post, only to find that some of the text which I'd edited appeared in a different font. I couldn't immediately see the change of style in the editor, and ended up editing the HTML to fix it. Add 'finding out what's up with the insertion of a different span style when I've moved text' to the ever-growing list! Not such a quick blog post after all!
I suppose I'd better get on with it. Thanks for listening. Comments welcome below!
Tuesday, 21 August 2018
Hang the Diet!
Saturday lunchtime, I took my bleary, scruffy Saturday self off to Milford to buy a few everyday basics (milk, coffee, bin bags …). There seemed to be a lot of traffic, so I followed it (out of curiosity) down to the docks and found a food festival on Mackerel Quay. It turned out to be the Welsh heat of the British Street Food Awards. The place was absolutely heaving with people (and lots of dogs on leads!) but I found a (free) parking space easily enough. Having skipped breakfast (no coffee in the house!), my tummy was growling at all the delicious smells wafting around. Free entry. Oh yeah, hang the diet, let's eat!
With 15 or so stalls, including a beer tent, there was plenty to choose from. My first stop was for a vegetable Malay curry, sweet and fragrant with coconut rice. A sign for squid attracted me, but I went for their monkfish taco with a charred sweetcorn salsa and mojito dressing, which was superb. I finished my three course lunch with a very gooey brownie, which was described as chocolate and laver (the seaweed), but I couldn't detect any trace of the latter. It did contain pistachios, which I love, but I didn't like the extreme gooeyness.
I spent more time chatting than eating. There were deckchairs (including three giant ones facing the waterway, which the kids were loving to clamber onto and sit three abreast!) and benches in the centre of the stalls and it was a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the lack of sunshine. It's perfectly normal here to fall into conversation with complete strangers, and have other people join in. The general consensus was that the event should be held every year, or perhaps even have just local producers every month.
Yes, it really was that grey. I hung around for a bit, waiting for the doughnut stall to reopen. It's difficult to see on the photo, but there is a long queue. Their light, fluffy doughnuts were worth the wait, but they were having serious difficulty meeting demand.
Something I should have filmed was the rather surreal effect of disembodied masts slowly moving past the back of the stalls at the end of the quay, as yachts moved through the lock between the marina and the Haven. With the weather becoming increasingly drizzly, I decided to go, stopping to shop (coffee!) on the way home.
The Sunday was a little brighter, so I fetched a friend from Haverfordwest for a spontaneous spot of 'Sunday lunch'. I had a barley and bean 'risotto' (overpowering herbs!) while my friend had sausages in a bun (but what sausages, with onions and sauce, I was almost tempted myself!) and I treated myself to sweet chilli squid. We finished with a luscious ice cream and a cuppa back in the chaos of my place (so my friend can feel better about the state of her flat, because it's tidy compared to mine. It's all relative.) My cats proved, once again, that they are antisocial little furbags.
I could so easily have missed this event. I don't generally get the local papers, Facebook frequently doesn't bring up the local stuff I might be interested in, and I often only find out about things after the event. Overloaded with information, it's often only by looking for something specific that I catch what's on. I made a pact with myself to make an effort to get out to some more cheap or free and fun things to do. Which, I've a feeling, is something far easier said than done!
With 15 or so stalls, including a beer tent, there was plenty to choose from. My first stop was for a vegetable Malay curry, sweet and fragrant with coconut rice. A sign for squid attracted me, but I went for their monkfish taco with a charred sweetcorn salsa and mojito dressing, which was superb. I finished my three course lunch with a very gooey brownie, which was described as chocolate and laver (the seaweed), but I couldn't detect any trace of the latter. It did contain pistachios, which I love, but I didn't like the extreme gooeyness.
I spent more time chatting than eating. There were deckchairs (including three giant ones facing the waterway, which the kids were loving to clamber onto and sit three abreast!) and benches in the centre of the stalls and it was a very relaxed atmosphere, despite the lack of sunshine. It's perfectly normal here to fall into conversation with complete strangers, and have other people join in. The general consensus was that the event should be held every year, or perhaps even have just local producers every month.
Yes, it really was that grey. I hung around for a bit, waiting for the doughnut stall to reopen. It's difficult to see on the photo, but there is a long queue. Their light, fluffy doughnuts were worth the wait, but they were having serious difficulty meeting demand.
Something I should have filmed was the rather surreal effect of disembodied masts slowly moving past the back of the stalls at the end of the quay, as yachts moved through the lock between the marina and the Haven. With the weather becoming increasingly drizzly, I decided to go, stopping to shop (coffee!) on the way home.
The Sunday was a little brighter, so I fetched a friend from Haverfordwest for a spontaneous spot of 'Sunday lunch'. I had a barley and bean 'risotto' (overpowering herbs!) while my friend had sausages in a bun (but what sausages, with onions and sauce, I was almost tempted myself!) and I treated myself to sweet chilli squid. We finished with a luscious ice cream and a cuppa back in the chaos of my place (so my friend can feel better about the state of her flat, because it's tidy compared to mine. It's all relative.) My cats proved, once again, that they are antisocial little furbags.
I could so easily have missed this event. I don't generally get the local papers, Facebook frequently doesn't bring up the local stuff I might be interested in, and I often only find out about things after the event. Overloaded with information, it's often only by looking for something specific that I catch what's on. I made a pact with myself to make an effort to get out to some more cheap or free and fun things to do. Which, I've a feeling, is something far easier said than done!
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