Hiatus

When the sun shines this place is beautiful.

 I'm in a really good place right now.  Not in any new-age self-help sense,  I mean in terms of bricks and mortar. Some chums have taken themselves off on holiday and left me in charge of their home. I am also responsible for the well being of a collie with a tail like a Burlesque dancer's fan and a sweet tempered cat who has all the food removal skills of the smartest sneak thief.  My joy would be complete if the sun was shining but as the rain and mist bring with them the smell of the sea only a few minutes walk from my door,  I can hardly complain. It reminds me of growing up in another small Scottish seaside town where the bovine call of the foghorn would be heard on damp days.

Spinning challenge.

This place is peaceful in the way that only a house that is normally filled with family can be. The fridge hums, the dog clicks her way across the kitchen floor and the bird themed kitchen clock hoots like an owl at twelve. There is a strong sense of hiatus, a feeling that the house is just taking a breather and at any moment three boys will rampage through the front door to inhabit the coats and hats that hang empty in the hallway.  Their absence is everywhere, from the snooker table folded up and stored behind the sofa to the plastic lizards who keep an eye on the plant pots in the garden.  Peaceful with a hint of melancholy, perfect for reading, reflection, and staying up too late watching all the TV channels I don't have at home.

Bob - fond of a food grab.

 In other news, I have been spinning, it is the Tour de Fleece and my challenge is to spin enough to make myself a jumper. To this end I have been working through a giant ball of shetland/angora roving. There are socks too, using Mary Jane Mucklestone's book for inspiration and a ton of scraps that needed a purpose. So far I'm one and a half socks in. If the sun shines I might manage a whole pair. 

Champion darts player Jazz.

Timing.

I've been wondering if I was born in the wrong century. Today I spent half an hour darning a sock and all afternoon spinning some yarn.  And if I tell you that I intend to knit a shawl with the finished handspun then you can see why I might be feeling a little anachronistic.  Shawls have not played a big role in my wardrobe until recently when I found out how soothing it is to be wrapped in one. Like giving yourself a hug. I can see why people knit shawls to give to loved ones in need of comforting. I also like the added bonus of imagining I'm a Nineteenth Century farm girl going out to feed the hens on a frosty morning.  Tess of the d'Urbervilles but with a happy ending. Or maybe that's just my anachronisms showing.

Roving to be spun. I don't think Tess of the D's got her fibre from Colinette.

This most recent shawl is Whippoowill by Carina Spencer. Most of the knitting is very plain and simple but it is livened up by the shaping which is great fun to knit. I loved watching the waves unfurl as I knitted the more complicated rows. The grey yarn is a silk/cashmere mix that I unravelled from a second hand jumper and the red is left over four ply wool. While the silk in the grey yarn gives a tremendous drape, I think the 100% wool is needed for the lacier rows so that the stitches and the pattern stand proud.  It turned out beautifully. Even if I never wore the shawl, it would make me happy just lying on the back of a chair.

Blocking - tedious but necessary.

Whippoorwill on the line.

In other news,  we have a blackbird with a deathwish.  A week ago there was a flapping and a pounding at the glass door. The beast had caught a fledgeling blackbird and the little one was putting up a good fight.  Beast was removed and bird was placed in a box to see how it would fare. Later on, after a visit from a friend who knows about these things, I gave the bird a little bit of Rescue Remedy diluted in water and some catfood from my finger. It was a simple task, all I had to do was touch the little chap's head and his beak would open in readiness. So far so good, he was taken outside, hidden under a bush and we watched him the next day being fed by his mother.  That'll teach you to take care around cats I thought.

Magnus - not for the unwary.

A few days later while Magnus was slumbering in comfort on his chair,  I opened the front door and there he was, the unwary blackbird, sitting on the doorstep right next to the cat flap.

Quick Pictures.

I've been away on family business ( all good stuff ) and that takes a little recovery time. So in the absence of anything sensible to say, here are some pictures of what has been happening while I take things easy.

More words next time, I promise!

There have been banana muffins.

The lad took it into his head to organise our ever growing collection of technological bits.

The garden grew greener and wilder

I ate some soup made from all the things we needed to use up in the freezer and in the cupboards.

Magnus wore a feather and I didn't like to ask where it came from

This happened - I took a picture of an alkanet sprig on long exposure by mistake then auto-exposed it.
Turned out like a  watercolour.

Listen to the worms.

It has been stunningly hot these last few days as if May has finally given up pretending to be March and rewarded us with a timely heatwave. The garden is gorgeous, even the overgrown areas home to nettles and too much comfrey are a springy green source of wonder. Time for some gardening. We have been sorting out the compost heap. When I say we, the lad does all the actual work and I have the laborious job of taking pictures. His reward? An introduction to the joy of listening to the worms and their assorted slimy friends.They are a noisy bunch, the beasties who turn food into compost. If you listen closely, but not too close, you can hear them moving and munching. The heap seethes and crackles like a frying pan full of sausages. I love it, it is one of the things in the garden that makes me very happy.

Good friends for the garden.

The good weather has been bringing us out into the garden at mealtimes too.  When it is warm, I'm less inclined towards a proper dinner and more more likely to fancy cold snacky food. There has been a lot of bread and vegetables, I made some fine hummus with chickpeas and half an avocado, as well as the yellow pepper triumph below.  Tasty things for us and treats for the worms. 

Cat is too hot to be bothered trying to steal food.

Some interesting discussion has appeared online about how truthful each blogger's representation of their life is. There appears to be a growing sense that while posting all the positives is a perfectly fine thing to do,  it can make other bloggers feel under pressure as if they couldn't possibly compete with how wonderful every one else's lives appear to be.  The response can be found here - with links to many other blogs.  I love the honesty of those taking part and it got me thinking about my photographs and how selective they are. Obviously I want to take the most picturesque images but at the same time it could lead people to think that things Chez Mog are a little more Homes and Gardens than they really are. So, in the interests of honesty and frankly because it makes me laugh, every now and then I'm going to show you the other side of an image that I've chosen for the blog, what lies behind the carefully composed frame.

Hummus - the pretty picture.

Today I've chosen the hummus.  The proper blog image and the bigger picture. I was sitting in the middle of a washing line full of sheets and clothes, the lad's smelly trainers were airing on what is laughingly referred to as the patio and there are bins and pots all over the place.  Now you can see why I crop!

Yikes.

Time Passes.

Stripe Study in its natural habitat - the study.

The kitchen is still a work in progress but as we nipped off to London in the middle of the DIY and added new plans to the initial ( simple and fast ) plan, that's only to be expected.  Things are looking up though, the flooring has gone. The kitchen had been covered in carpet tiles the texture of pot scourers in a particularly rotten shade of brown. The tiles were there when I moved in about fourteen years ago and I hated them on sight. The hatred was mutual, I swear the only thing keeping these horrors on the floor was spite. Spite and the spills of a million dinners. Whoever thought that carpet in a kitchen was a good idea? Certainly no-one who lives with a cat who likes to drag his food out of the bowl and kill it all over again.

With this sense of colour I really should be banned from any decorating choices.

So, the removal of the stupidest floor covering in the world is a joy to behold.  No more hoovering up the debris of my baking escapades and no more stamping tiles back into position after Magnus' natty little claws have dislodged them in a post-prandial frenzy. At the moment the floor is wearing a  few crumpled newspapers and bit of half sawn timber. If I tell you that it is a vast improvement on the tiles, you'll get an idea of how awful they were.

These worktops will never be so clean again.

As Dylan Thomas once said:  Time passes. Listen. Time passes.

Some plates and a couple of bannetons.

Time has indeed passed and it is all over bar the flooring. The cupboard doors have returned to their rightful places and the newly painted shelves are looking spic and span and not a little Scandanavian with the white crockery piled on top. We have been eating our dinners in comfort and drinking our morning coffee in company with the birds who look in on us from from the silver birch in the garden. We're on the first floor and it is a very tall tree.
In all of the excitement I forgot to mention that I've been knitting. Along with many others, I've been hooked by Veera Malimaki's simple but stunning designs and I knitted a Stripe Study Shawl in between snoozing and being on cup of tea duty in the kitchen. I love it even though some of the yarn ( dated 1941 ) gave off an ominous smell of mothballs after washing. The smell has gone thankfully,  and my shawl is gorgeous.

This is the big tree. I'm very fond of him.

Wet Paint.

A small sample of chaos.

It is chaos in Mog Towers. The lad is painting the kitchen a lovely shade of olive green and everything that is usually in the kitchen has been stuffed in carefully selected leftover spaces in the living room. The overflow from the living room has flown into the study and the CDs in the study that should be in the attic are leaning in an ominous fashion towards the floor in the hall.  Food production has been halted except for the provision of pizza and breakfast cereal and the dirty dishes are currently in a basin on the living room floor being sniffed at by you know who. There is a cheese grater in the basin so I'm hoping that you know who doesn't get too carried away with his sniffs. We don't have time to go to the vet for nose reconstruction.

Nose. So far unharmed by cheesegrater.

I'm lurching between two emotions, three if you include the guilt induced by being too feeble to help out. I'm incredibly grateful to live with a chap who volunteers to paint things but at the same time I'm overwhelmed by all the disruption and have a sneaky temptation to run away and not come home till it is all over and the paint tins are stored upside down ( creates a seal and keeps the paint fresh ) in the shed. As it is, I'll stay on the sofa, knit a sock and make cups of tea on demand.

The gift of tadpoles.

In other news - I  performed a daring feat of lifesaving. For once the cat versus woodmouse tale had a happy ending. Cat was unimpressed, mouse was released unharmed in the woods.  We also received a pot of tadpoles last week from a chum. There are only boy frogs in our pond and every year they sing hopefully with no joyous reply. With any luck this new batch will turn out to be girls who can swell the throng..

Saved, put in a jar and forced to read George Orwell.

The shock of the cold

This is why I end up posting once in the bluest of moons. I wrote most of this  last week, fell asleep on Thursday and have been in my bed ever since. Sleeping Beauty has nothing on me.

It has been the weirdest spring. Last Wednesday I was wearing shorts and wondering about suncream, today I am resplendent in long-johns and a jumper. There were record breaking temperatures in Scotland a week ago,  now the cat and I are watching the snow plough ( or in our case, a wee tractor with a ploughing bit stuck on the front ) clear the road outside. If it wasn't a day or two late I'd think that the weather was playing an April Fool. No such luck, it might be the Easter holidays but I can hear the scrape of sledges as the children drag them to the park for an afternoon's chilly fun.

Tulips - didn't stand a chance.

 
The air is bitter and the snow has knocked seven bells out of my early tulips. I'm thankful that we have central heating and soup and supplies of birdfood, not to mention the swanky new Starling box that we put up to cover the hole in the house near the roof that the birds have been using as home for the last few years. Even if they don't yet have enough twigs organised for a nest at least they can shelter from the whatever the weather decides to throw at them.

Hellebores after the snow.

Hellebores in the sunshine, little knowing what would happen next.

Luckily the jumper I was knitting in the sunshine was finished in time for the snows. Mostly handspun, most of that being Blue Faced Leicester from my learn to spin aran weight experiments. The other skein ( the cool grey ) is Artisano Aran that was hanging around aimlessly and just happened to go with my colour scheme a whole lot better than the handspun Shetland that I'd planned to use. The Shetland is too crisp and too glaringly white for this project, I suspect it will turn into a cowl later on. After knitting laceweight for the last wee while, the aran yarn knitted up at the speed of light. The pattern is Vogue's Relaxed Pullover but I changed the neckline by picking up and knitting a 2x2 rib. I love it and Magnus appears to approve as well. Claws off,  fur face!

Dangerous pursuits.