Faux Fair Isle Fail

I was very taken by the idea that I could use a wool

that would knit Fair Isle all by itself,

according to the lady in the shop.

I have attempted the real thing and it's time consuming, fiddly

and rather too warm with the double layer of loops at the back of the work.

I needed a quick project that would be off the needles before

grand-daughter went away on her holiday.

Planes can be chilly even though her destination isn't.

So I embarked on a hooded jumper with pom poms

excited to see how this would work.

Hmm. Nice stripes with the merest suggestion of alternate stitch colour change

but Fair Isle it ain't.

For the real thing you could do no better than to visit this clever person.

Luckily grand-daughter likes it a lot

and wore it with the hood up on quite a warm day

until we both agreed that she was getting a bit too hot.

Grr, gah, waaa

Well there's no denying it's lush.

But it's getting hard to stay motivated.

 The tomato seedlings have stalled

and the sweet peas are lying weakly on the soil

next to their robust wigwam.

It's too sad to show you.

Slates are sliding off the roof

in a manner horribly reminiscent of guillotine blades

so that's the next big job - one that we have dodged -

since we first moved here twenty odd years ago, 
apart from some remedial work.

I predict that the sun will come out just as soon

as we are wrapped around with light excluding scaffolding.

Perhaps we will be glad of the shade.

Meanwhile I am knitting faux Fair Isle,

 binge watching Parks and Recreation

and there's a batch of cheese scones in the oven.

Hard rain and daffodils

A gray day...but, strangely enough, a gray day 

makes the bunches of daffodils in the house have a particular radiance, 

a kind of white light. 

From my bed this morning 

I could look through at a bunch in the big room, 

in that old Dutch blue-and-white drug jar, and they glowed. 

I went out before seven in my pyjamas, 

because it looked like rain, 

and picked a sampler of twenty five different varieties.*

It is the moment now. Daffodils, many different kinds,

are glorious, in spite of a whole day of hard rain and wind...

It is the moment because the leaves on the trees have not yet sprung, 

so the light and blue sky shine through feathery, just swelling twigs. 

The structure is still visible and that is what gives the effect of stained glass.

* Two extracts from Journal of a Solitude - May Sarton

entries for May 15th and 16th written in Nelson, New Hampshire.

So I mustn't complain about this late cold, wet Spring -

she had another seven weeks to wait.

Desperate measures

As winter renews its grip

I have resorted to bringing indoors the 

 hopelessly optimistic blooms and blossoms

which have been repeatedly bludgeoned by snow and icy winds.

In a bid to entertain a housebound three year old

I started fiddling with some loo rolls and a taller inner tube from

some tinfoil which had a slighter smaller circumference.

Et voila, the Twisty Loo Roll Dressing up Girls© were born.

So far there are four interchangeable heads,

two tops, two skirts, and two leggings per girl.

Grand-daughter, rearranged the body parts to her own satisfaction

and to my slight distress, but she's gone home now

and I can play with them to my heart's content

refine the design and add to the wardrobe.

I had boys.

I've waited a long time for this.

Thinking little

If I do precious little in the flower garden, that little is directed

towards providing for what will give us the maximum reward

for the minimum effort over the longest period, 

and into that category come bulbs, 

particularly because from bulbs come all those really early, 

brave forerunners, by many weeks, of spring.

Last year I ordered a huge quantity, 

intending to cram the garden with them.

When they arrived it was blustery and cold 

and I spent a horrible couple of afternoons 

on my knees, with a trowel and my nose too close to the soil, 

my hands throbbing and smarting as I worked.

I loathed those little wrinkled, warty bulbs 

and there were a very great many of them,

and they were all very small. . .

But one of the eternal laws of gardening 

is that suffering and labour are rewarded,

and from January to April we had a succession of flowers

 when everything else was black and bare and depressing;

tiny iris reticulata, with their spotted, recurving tongues, 

in darkest purple and an amazing Cambridge blue;

a special, creamy early crocus, and another the colour of sea-lavender. . .

So far, so Magic Apple Tree, but Susan Hill goes on to list 

tiny narcissi, two or three inches high, with fragile, nodding heads

and names like Angel's Tears and Hooped Petticoat,

blue drifts of Grecian windflowers, anemone apennine, scilla, tritelia.

I clustered the bulbs anywhere, between shrubs, in the grass, under fruit trees

and when they came up, they were perfect,

and it was one of the most successful gardening jobs I have ever done.

It is possible that there are bulbs out there that I have forgotten about

and I shall be pleasantly surprised if they appear, 

and I do know I planted some new tulips, but drifts -

no, I have never managed drifts of anything.

I am reminded of the well-meant encouragement 

given by certain celebrated gardeners 

to enjoy planting a garden even if you only have a window box.

This was once particularly poignant as I struggled 

to keep a pot of supermarket basil alive one summer

after watching one of the aforementioned presenters

wheeling away a barrowload of the stuff to turn into pesto.

New Year blues

Our grand daughter was thrilled to be opening presents.

Anyone's presents.

The more the merrier.

The contents? Well they were not really the point of the exercise.

It was the moment of mystery that held her in thrall.

I received many lovely gifts too,

but the sighting of this blue glass gem on a beach that normally

only yields white and green was absurdly thrilling.

I felt as though I had won the lottery.

And yet and yet.

The glass once dry and cached with all the hundreds of other pieces indoors,

has lost some of its lustre. 

The magical feeling of acquisition has faded.

Where does this pull towards possession come from?

It seems to start so early.

And the longer it lasts, the older I get, the more complicated it is 

to shuck off the weighty legacy.

I had a waking dream nightmare, where I was trying to dispose mentally

of all the items in my house, as if in readiness for an imminent move

to somewhere much smaller than my present abode.

The practical difficulties seemed overwhelming.

And yet so many people have to do just this,

perhaps at a time when they are physically least able to cope.

My parents had a large house which easily swallowed 

in its attics and outhouses

the baggage of a long lifetime, raising a family

and running a nursery school from the premises.

My mother was incorrigible.

'You'll have to deal with all this when I'm gone,' she said laughingly.

And when both parents died within five weeks of each other,

that is exactly what we had to do.

It was haphazard and brutal.

A skip was ordered and house clearance people got very lucky.

There simply wasn't time to make considered decisions.

Today I started my Kondo-ing again.

Wot! No haywain?*

Overheard one disgruntled visitor saying,

'Isn't there supposed to be a cart there?'.

This was an interesting programme about a possible lost Constable painting

 from the BBC1 Fake or Fortune series.

* See Mr Chad

Shout out for shingle

This unpromising, nay bleak coastal terrain bursts into life in summer.

The yellow horned poppy.

Valerian.

Wild roses.

Just the other side of this hedge, people are working with nature

to make beautiful gardens.

They shared their efforts with us to raise money for the local hospice.

When I contemplate the sorry apology for a lawn at home,

I wonder if the way forward isn't just to scalp it

and ship in the shingle.

(My only caveat is that pebbles are

 so darned noisy and not barefoot friendly.)

Reminded me of this

and Freda's two gates.

It was all going so well

Lush flowers. 

Blue skies.

Serene swan.

Fresh ferns.

Smiling lambs.

Sparkling sea.

And then the wind changed.

And it has been grim grey ever since,

with a side order of chilly wind

and a return to winter clothing

of which I am heartily sick.

So I took a leaf out of Lotta's book

and culled the towels

and then felt happy for Freda

and anyone else who isn't sitting under a cloud.

Perhaps some of you remember 

Neither Use Nor Ornament.

I get updates from there from time to time

and have vicariously enjoyed a recent trip 

to the tea plantations of Munnar

and an Ashram at Kurisumala.

Time to pack my bags perhaps.

That will guarantee an improvement in the weather at home.

We are the people who arrive at any destination to be greeted by the words,

'Oh if only you had been here last week. It was glorious.'