50 SHADES OF SOMETHING BETTER: Better by 4

What to do with books you never want to read again:
50 SHADES OF SOMETHING BETTER: Better by 4

A quiet Sunday

After a quiet week.
I was up to count on Friday NaNoWriMo wise 38,352 words. 
My frames arrived so my pics are now a bit more dust resistant than they were.
I ought to sing the praises of Winnie the robot vacuum cleaner here, but I don't want to risk her breaking down.  She is the only one doing any housework at the moment.
This is the moon I didn't put on blipfoto:

I've been meaning to try and find out how to get the features for ages and finally did.  I don't know if the white marks are part of the moonscape or bits on the window.
















Went to Jonathan's autumn show on Saturday and got (well I haven't got it yet but it's on its way) a print and ordered a couple of little ones which are wood engravings. They are so fine and detailed they make me squeak.

I've been cutting lino for Christmas cards and taking a bit more out of David and Willow, fingers crossed on that one!  This is Abigail (or girl woman reading while playing with hair).
I tried doing it as a woodcut last year but slipped when I was cutting her nose which was quite annoying.













And that's it.
Taking the dog now.

Monday catch up

Here is my new picture - I ordered it when we went to the Harrogate Photographic Society show.  I reckon it's a male thing - these four or five men decided that they wanted to take photos sometime in the beginning of the twentieth century, but they didn't just take photos, noooooo, they started a society, with a constitution and membership. Anyhow it is still going strong so the urge to belong must be as strong as the urge to take photos.
This one is my photograph now, (except that being digital I suspect that it is only my copy) and is by Patricia Noakes:

It isn't as good here as on paper but although the contrast is off I think you can just about still see the light and all the textures.
And, in case you are still following my NaNoWriMo progress, I've written30,621 and I'm slipping behind.  I was getting bored with it, but still plodding on, now I think I've wandered off the point but at least I am still writing and maybe even catching up some ground today.

Sleeping Beauty

We went to see the Mathew Bourne's version in Salford Quays - huge space:

- and a great fresh look at 'Sleeping Beauty'.  The Guardian did an interview with the Lez Brotherston, the set and costume designer and that's how I got to know that the ballet was on.

 

I can't find any pics of the costumes, so here's this instead.

I love beech trees. 

We went a long walk the other way round Middleton woods on Friday.

Going the other way gave us new routes and fresh looks.
Like being on eye-level with this beech tree.


I love the way they grow













I love the crunch and colour of the carpet of leaves under them

 

I don't know if there is a proper collective noun for them but I think of a group of beeches as a stand and a stand of beeches make a room, they keep the ground under them so clear.
Down foxen woods in Eckington there was a stand of beeches the other side of the dam that always seemed magical to me, they were so still and church like.  I think that standing there must have been the first time I ever thought about architecture.

Collective nouns - I can remember having to learn them at school.  Wherever the presenter on Radio 4 on Thursday afternoon went to school, she was happily - hopefully unscripted, calling a number of sheep 'a herd'.  I was shouting at the radio - 'it's a flock, missus, it's a flock!'.
And now back to trees.  My non-fiction reading at the moment is The Wild Places by Robert Macfarlane.  He has just been in a wood and incidentally mentions that Elms have not been wiped out.  I didn't realise that.  Apparently, if they stay below 12 feet tall, the virus doesn't get them.
I'm going to have to do a second blip this week because I left it too late to photograph my new picture in daylight.  I gave up on buying a carpet for now because I needed new frames for my pictures.
Angel is out in the garden barking at Shadow - no not shadows, its too dark for them - one of next door's cats.  She's set all the other dogs off so I'm going to have to go and get her.


 

18,000 and some words done!

I'm about 1500 words behind my target this week so I'm not going to waste my verbosity on blogging when I could be counting it.

But I couldn't not blog because TaDa:














I got my picture from Etsy.And if you look at order is optional you'll see that some of her work is on display in Jam records. I love the wood pigeon.  I'm waiting patiently and with no nagging at all for the next Etsy upload.

I'd forgotten how much I love writing.

Two days into NaNoWriMo and 6,000 odd words down.  Writing makes the time go nearly as quickly as playing patience.
I'm not saying it's good but it is fun.

And then Betty got fingertipz going on Etsy and the landscape I wanted should be on its way to me by next week.  And she commented on my frock and I can't remember if I covered it in the blog or not. And I like using and.

I did, I mentioned it and here's a photo of it looking all golden .


And now a paragraph without the word 'and'.


Gary the choir director said for once we were going to dress up in evening dress.  I'd just about got my head round having to get something black, with a flash of red. But, no, there he was, talking about 'red carpet glamour' to a chirrupy storm of approval from the sopranos.  I have never owned an evening dress. I  have very little idea of what constitutes glamour.  But I thought gold ought to do it.
Now he wants bells!  I've sent out the call for the brass bells that used to sit on Mum's mantle piece.  if they don't turn up, there's always the wind chime thing that Angel rings to let me know she wants to get out of the back door.

Talking of Angel, here she is out of focus but blissfully eyesclosed over a windfall apple she managed to get into the house while I wasn't looking.
I'm not starving her, honest.  She is still on a diet but that's because she isn't losing any weight.

Here she is, in focus, featuring her recent hair-cut.
Now (it is chucking it down with rain and dark as doom at 4 on Friday 2nd November) I am going to start weighing out the fruit to soak for the Christmas cake and pudding.







This is my 101st post by the way so I thought I'd do a bit of jigging the blog about.
Sunday now. 
The first Christmas pudding is steaming.  The dog is curled asleep beside me.  We had a proper frost this morning. And I think my room needs a rug for the winter. I fancy this one:

 

So I'm off internet shopping now.