Niggle, niggle, niggle

I don't want to rant but feel it's all I'm capable of at the moment, so less words, just a few pics:

for Diz's noren

 

 

Susan's bag

Wall / looking for chaos

We've been to Wales

and seen

some buildings

some animals

some skies

and had a lovely time.

A bit of a white rabbit (I'm late and full of questions)

OK - is it sunrise or sunset - Fleck and others maintain you should be able to tell.
Is it beautiful?  Is it only beautiful if you know it's Mt Fuji or is it equally beautiful if you know it is a slag heap?


This is why I didn't blog yesterday - I thought it was a hangover from Viv's party on Saturday night. Which raises the question - ' What music will I have at my 80th birthday party?
Chris in Marudi swore by this as a cure for that wired feeling.  I think that being built like Boris Johnson helps more when it comes to not feeling the after effects.

It was more sinus than booze (and noise and the stress of being sociable) though so I was off it all day.   Went to Bretton and the wind helped.  Trying to photograph this grebe whatsit didn't.  It's not just that they dive and come up yards away but trying to keep a bird in shot against a background of sunlit choppy water is neither easy nor restful on the eyes.

This is for Diz.  As a thank you for the reminder of 'cousin caterpillar' - If you can't be bothered to chase the link it's Incredible String Bands' 'hedgehog song'.  Not sure if it would make the party top 100 or if I would have trouble dancing to it. 

Was Blooming in the park Saturday.  It was quite busy considering it was not yet 10am and I ended up doin a collage for  the blip - this was my favourite shot though - even though you can't see that he has a cig in his hand.

 

 

There is new stuff on 'Quilting'.

Polishing the past

Before                    during                     after

I suppose we all do it - add a little shine to our histories. (Ha ha)
Mum's dad was a top worker after being gassed in the war and was killed in a pit accident when she was 7. Her stepdad, his brother, started down the pit at 14 (I think) and the lamp is the one he was given on retirement (again - I think because he retired early so might not have done 50 years but that's when the brass lamps were given - on retirement)
I always thought that Mum came from a family with a long tradition of mining.  She did - but it was a tradition that only lasted two generations.
If I go back to the 1841 census then her Greatgreatgrandad was a sickle maker and lived surrounded by 8 sicklemakers and a grocer.
1851 shows her Greatgrandad as a sickle smith with a butcher a farm labourer a coal miner's widow and a blacksmith as neighbours.
1861, when her Grandad was 4 her great grandad was still a sickle forger and his neighbours were a colliery engine man, 3 coal miners, a school mistress ( who was 60 and had 37 scholars!), 2 sickle forgers and a sickle manufacturer with 4 employees.
By 1871 her greatgrandfather was still a sickle forger, her grandfather at 14 was a coal miner 2 of their neighbours were sickle smiths and 2 were coal miners.
For 1881 I don't have the census page, just a transcript - I don't remember why.  Mum's Greatgrandfather was dead and her Grandad and his 13 year old brother were both coal miners.
I couldn't find her Grandad's 1891 census record.
By 1901 he was a coal hewer and his neighbours' jobs were much more varied: for the railway - a platelayer, 2 signalmen, a station agent, a porter;  2 labourers in the steel mills, a brickworks manager a farmer, a lamplighter, a dressmaker, a postmaster, 3 grocers, an engineer, a butcher's apprentice, a joiner's apprentice and 7 employed in a colliery - 1 clerk, 1 top worker and the other 5 as coal hewers.
On her Mum's side - her Greatgrandad was a colliery labourer in 1881 and her Grandad a coal miner
In 1891 her grandad and 6 neighbours were all coal miners, apart from a licenced hawker (!)
By 1901 he was a deputy.
In 1911 (just a transcript)  He was still a deputy and 2 of his sons were underground workers - a hewer and a road worker (I'm not sure what that means - maybe he drove a pit-pony.) 

Grandad wasn't built for mining - nor was his dad, both being 6 footers (photos when I can find them)- and by nature he was a gardener and fisherman.  Working underground was a man thing though and he was proud to be a miner, but more of that another time - I've got carried away and written too much!

There's a new journal quilt on the quilting page. It was based on a batik Tracey did that has always reminded me of the start of 'Elidor'. Here it is:

 and I finished the sashiko sampler - I think I'm still pulling the thread too tight cos I don't think either should gather but at least the stitches are smaller.

This is the start of the other side of Diz's noren.

And this is an example of my card making at Santa's sweat shop.  It is great fun - specially when the heat gun turns the dust to gold - but much too expensive for me - It seems to me that you need a bigger stock cupboard than for quilting just for the paper, and that isn't starting on equipment, inks, stamps, dyes and glittery stuff!

Walking Thoughts are fractal

I found this when wondering why it was 91 posts and 1 draft
What started as thinking about the Beeston in Bloom blog and our trip to Scampston on Friday > wanting lunch in a hurry > is hunger = short temper personal or general > Gene Hackman in Enemy of the State having hypoglycaemia > ( quick detour via Will Smith's breadth of beautiful back) > medical advice as given by Hollywood > ... and then I was offered a lift by Mick and Sylvia which precluded all further thought.



In addition I was browsing Bibliography and found this, which I don't think I'm going to add to my list, and this, which I am - partly cos she blogs regularly on a variety of stuff and partly because of this:

A bit of random, this week

Are people tidier or poorer.  Angel - who has lost 0.1kg - found her first soft drink bottle of the year on our way back from the weigh in.  They still make a very satisfying racket and have her running round in circles trying to pick them up.

This is what the world looked like on the way to yoga

and this is what it looked like on the way back

 





And this morning it was Autumn - you know when the sun is bright but the air is cold and the shadows too long.

 

I planted six of these 'cos the advert said they would do well in shade.  I suspect that it depends on your definition of shade and weather they like being daily danced on by a small dog that is looking for the photo-shy hedgehog which suppers on the droppings from the bird feeder.  If it survives the winter it might make more than one plant 10" high.

 

 

It has been a good week, aims wise:

• for my journal quilt, I got a word from every inchie Monday - 'world'  I thought 'round' then a phrase from the travelling vicar we had on Sunday, 'broken made whole' and of course, the book of Welsh quilting for the quilting patterns.  For more see the quilts page.
• I did 4 chapters of Chinese revision.
• in preparation for printmaking I've started a 'weathervane' series with a cockerel that is in my head - I'm not sure if it is Kellogs or a Spain advert - but it's to do with the fact that prey is always slightly insane with adrenalin (if that's what they have that makes them not only safe but always ready for flight).
• I got out my winter quilt and started quilting the borders.
• I am doing a row a day of the sashiko sampler.