In the name of Beauty.

I do a lot of my learning on the hoof.  Inspirations have a habit of falling into my head at unexpected times, a lot like the lobster claws and odd shells that appear in the garden dropped off by seagulls even though we live seven miles from the sea. It is a rather ramshackle way of gathering information but there are some wonderful detours along the way.

Mr Mark Cousins.

Let me give you an example starring my newest socks, a beautiful film and  Walt Whitman. I went to the cinema to see the premiere of  What is this film called Love made by Mark Cousins. The result of a few spare days in Mexico City,  a couple of quid and a laminated image of Sergei Eisenstein. WITFCL is a glorious wide open invitation to wander through the mind of the director, finding common ground as you go.  Everything is imbued with importance, from children playing to a fly on a ledge. Heroes and heroines, poems and imagery, are celebrated with a full on enthusiasm that made my heart happy.  Best of all, the film was a lesson in sticking to your creative guns, a note to self to believe in your own ideas.

A discussion after the film led me to look into Walt Whitman, shamefully all I knew about his poetry came from my teenage exposure to the Kids From Fame. This was not likely to be the best example of his work so I decided to get hold of a copy of Leaves of Grass. The introduction to the book was by E.M. Forster. You can read it here and I would recommend that you do. I haven't read any of Whitman's poetry yet but I've read the introduction six times and found an uncanny echo of what I had learned watching Mark Cousin's film. This is what Forster says:

" The average man needs to be just a little braver. He loses so much happiness through what might be termed "minor cowardices". Why are we so afraid of doing the "wrong thing," of wearing the "wrong clothes," of knowing the "wrong people," of pronouncing the names of artists or musicians wrongly? What in the name of Beauty does it matter? Why don't we trust ourselves more and the conventions less?"

Socks.

and the scrappy bits.

One thing I am never afraid of is wearing the wrong socks and I knitted these beauties in a fit of Fair Isle enthusiasm that I hold Mary Jane Mucklestone's book entirely responsible for. They are made from the scraps leftover from other sock endeavours and I had been struggling to find a name for them when E.M.Forster came to my rescue. During one of my many re-readings, I found this. Happiness, Forster suggests will not be with us all of the time, it would be unrealistic to hope that it could. "But" he says " we may hope for intensity of beauty; that is absolutely certain." there will be "what one may call the irreducible minimum, the inalienable dowry of humanity: Beauty in scraps."  I looked at my socks, looked back at the page and thought that's exactly what I have. Beauty in scraps.

In other news, I've been spinning.

Quick Pics

Oh heck, I meant to post days ago but I'm still thinking. Please accept these photographs in lieu of words.

First raspberries of the season.

Fennel weather forecast.

Usual post breakfast spot.

Redcurrants - already in the freezer and in my tummy.

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.