A couple of days ago, the Cotoneaster growing by our fence was looking magnificent. Not bad for a volunteer seedling! There are a few berries on it, but they take a bit of finding. We've had some wind and rain since then, and all those glorious leaves are gone.

 This one needs the caption "Spot the berries"

 Meanwhile the self-sown Antirrhinum continues with the soil-free option.

And upstairs, on the spare bed, a VIT (Very Important Teddy) tests out the pillow and blanket that are part of a certain young lady's Christmas present. No, it isn't real patchwork, but a very nice print on good quality poplin from here.

Dressing up

My Grandaughter is three. This morning she told her Mother that she wanted to dress up.

"What do you want to dress up as?"

"I want to dress up as someone who is not sure about Duplo."

It would appear that somone who is not sure about Duplo wears exactly the same dressing up clothes as a nurse who makes people better, and a nice lady in a shop who helps. With this addition:  she sits on the beanbag and sighs from time to time, saying "I'm not sure about Duplo"

My daughter would love to know what is going on inside that head!












2

It has taken far too long to get this one finished - I had hoped it might get a wear before the weather turned cold, but too much has got in the way.  It is a rather nice cotton with a suedey finish from my favourite market trader in Boston. ( Bernie the Bolt)
 

Sorry about the blurry, but these buttons are rather special - they are older than me and on their third garment to my certain knowledge. The hoarding instinct is clearly hereditary.

Look what I tripped over in the supermarket! I really wonder why Sainsburys picked on that particular yarn when there are so many kinds of standard everyday acrylic already around in this country. Also, it calls itself Double Knitting - no way could you knit a regular UK DK pattern without a lot of grief. I swatched (there's a wonder) and had to go hunting for a pattern with a very different gauge. See below. I found the pattern on Drops site but I can't seem to get back to it. I have altered it anyway - I decided it needed lice.

This is all part of my aim to produce a good basketful of garments for not much money, with plenty of Wow Factor, for next year's show.

In Oxford's covered market, there is a charity shop  which sells yarn, alongside the donated goods. I found three balls of Trekking XXL, so decided that, since I have been using stash quite successfully of late, I was entitled to purchase. The shop raises funds for Helen and Douglas house - a children and young people's hospice. We have never needed anything like that in our family, so count ourselves very  fortunate. In 1966 I was working on the children's ward of a large general hospital, and some of the dying I saw has never left me. We need hospices.

I have been knitting a couple of manly little tank tops for the grandson. He is starting on solid food now, and just as the weather gets colder, he has learned how to put his cuffs in the dinner!

Short Break

Just had a brief visit to the daughter who is a librarian. I'll see if I can find a picture or two.

 What a lovely old quadrangle.  Part of where she works. This is the picture without the large group of Japanese people taking pictures.

 In the covered market, there is a shop that makes exquisitely decorated cakes. We loved this one - something of the feel of the Western Isles about it.

 The Ashmolean is closed on Mondays - who knew that? So we couldn't get back to where we left off the last time. Instead we went for a walk in Christchurch  Meadows, where the squirrels are very laid back. This one looks as though it is about to make a speech.

 Looking back at some dreaming spires.
And then looking down at some reflections with autumn leaves sprinkled.

It's the Ta Da moment

         I'm pleased with it. I prefer colourful.

 Looks like it will be oilseed rape out in the back field this coming year - it is a bit early for sowing winter cereals. Haven't tractors got enormous lately? I think it has snuck up on us because the basic shape has stayed the same. When I think of Uncle Jack's little grey Fergie - the one he used for the jobs that were a bit much for Betty the horse to manage on her own.

Thanks Gill (and Clare Balding)  the dragonfly was a Red Darter. Now we seriously don't need any more white butterflies, but we have been very short of the colourful ones this year.

Miscellaneous

 We have had a lot of dragonflies this summer, the ones with red bodies that I have yet to look up and put a name to. This one was perched on the edge of a tatty old bucket, and I couldn't get a decent angle to take a picture of all of it, but it didn't seem to mind me poking the camera straight in it's face.

 I had to take a picture of this and take it in to look it up in the book. Nemophilia.

 The centre of Cosmos is a stupendous sight when magnified.

 Got a bit tired of just draping a tea towel over my new kitchen friend, so I have chucked together enough patches to make it a tailored cover. I toyed with buying one, but they are a terrible price, and so boring - shades-of-beige totally fails to excite me.

Ah the joys of the healthy country life. Here is the tractor pulling a grain trailer past our back fence. In front of the tractor is what looks like a bit of dust. It is actually a cloud so big and thick that it is hiding a complete combine harvester. A good job we don't suffer from asthma.

Finally some happy family news. One of our daughters called to say she has got a new job - at last, after some gruelling years, a full time permanent job in a place that she loves, taking care of things that she loves. A place where they have said to her things like "You are new here aren't you? Would you like to see the Gutenberg Bible?" I hope she feels as proud of herself as she surely deserves to be!

Introducing friends, both new and old.

 It has been his habit to take the free seeds from the front of his gardening magazines, and scatter them in the front garden to do as they please. This year they have been very disappointing apart from some rather showy Scabious, which are much bigger and brighter than the wild ones.

Even the buds have a very attractive form,

 And they make really interesting seed heads which you could nearly make a pet of!

 We are very glad to see our little Milkweed plants - he had a horrible suspicion that he had inadvertantly weeded them, but there they are. They came all the way from Surrey with us and we are very fond of them with their two sets of petals to each flower.

 Finally, I have had to introduce a new friend to help me in the kitchen.

Our local baker has had to shut up shop. He was not able to sell enough to make it pay. We were very disappointed, since it was really good honest old-fashioned bread, and I have not been able to find anything as good anywhere local. So I must bake for myself, and the food processor was working right on the limits of it's capacity, and kept cutting out. Hence the new piece of kit, which will keep us fed with the right stuff.

On the front of one of today's newspapers there is a photograph of one of the Household Cavalry horses splashing in the sea at Holkham - yes, even cavalry horses enjoy their summer holidays.

I remembered a wonderful event that happened years ago, when we were living in rural Hampshire.

At that time the cavalry used to take their horses to camp on Salisbury Plain, for the summer break. When the holiday was over they would take them back to London, and would ride them on the little country lanes as far as they could.  One day I saw a long string of horses coming over the hill, set to go right past our house. Only my youngest was at home (the others were in school), so I picked her up and went out to the front, by the road, to watch them go by.

As they approached, I could see that they were a very large number, riding two abreast. They neared, and the leader turned to the man next to him, and spoke. This one was the bugler. He tootled a command and the entire company broke into a trot.  Most of them were smiling as they went past, and they left a Mum and little girl nearly in tears at the delight of it all. They did a parade, just for us!

 

Lots of pictures this time. First of all, a little wrapover dress to please a little girl who is learning to recognise numerals. It is Tana lawn which I have been saving just for this time. I think she will love it.

 Now we come to the project that has been keeping me innocently occupied for some time.  I didn't go into the shop to get a pattern but just hought I would look - when I saw it , I knew I had to get it. That was a superb wedding dress, and I so wanted to find out how that train was made!  It has been great fun tracking down the bits and bobs needed to make it right, and in scale.
 The doll is one I found a few years ago. They were a series called "Get Real Girls" - made in America and deliberately made as an antidote to Barbie, with natural looking faces and figures and flat feet to fit into climbing boots and swimming flippers and the like. Sadly, I can't find any indication that they are being made any more, so the ones I have got squirrelled away are doubly precious.

I have been nagged in the nicest possible way by Jean Miles to complete the hedgehog story, which is now complete.

We had a card around Christmas time to tell us that "our" hedgehog had not survived - she had lungworm, which is quite a common problem with them, and two courses of treatment had not helped, and she died. Ah well, at least she was given the best chance.

We then had a phone call a month or so ago, to ask if we would like replacements. Of course we would, so we collected two of them from the sanctuary: one boy and one girl. We put the cardboard boxes under the deodar tree and opened the flaps. Sometime during the night they came out and ate the mealworms we had put out for them, and then they departed.

That is the last we have seen of them, which, of course is exactly as it should be. If you see them they will usually be in trouble.

So no photos for this one.

There will be pictures soon of my latest "I'm just doing this for amusement" project. I am having to think seriously how to set the photos up for the model I have created - the real situation had an Abbey and a Palace for background. And, no, it is not the knitted scene!

Bit Cold

 Lookwhat the -14C with freezing fog had done this morning, to a dead Hydrangea head.

 And to the spider silk on the bin.

And just on the surface of the re-cycling bin. I should have put a coin there to show just how small and delicate those crystals were.