Pruning and traffic jam

 This morning I went out to prune the hydrangea which is enormous. The fence man needs two feet between the hydrangea and the metal fence. I wasn’t sure the base of the plant was two feet away and although it is hard to tell from the photos there was as much of the plnt on the other side of the metal fence as there was this side.

When I was getting the tools out I noticed that the tiny spider I re-homes by the shed had built a really large web.

When I had finished I couldn’t take an after one of the first photo and the pile of branches was in the way!

There was bramble in the hydrangea which made it more tricky and the bramble root probably needs digging out, but not by me!

After lunch I did a bit of jigsaw and some prep for this evenings dinner. Then Darren and I went to Dobbies, had a drink and I bought some bits. An amaryllis, as I don’t have enough plants, some recycled wrapping paper, a diary and some bulbs for St Ninians.

On the way back we got stuck in traffic as there was yet another bad accident on the A9. The road was closed nd traffic was being diverted through Birnam in both directions. It was chaos!

We had dinner late, so I managed to see the Strictly results show while it was cooking. Neely bed time now.

Life drawing and walk

 Firstly I will add the photo of the new sign to go outside the church which I forgot to post yesterday.

I was feeling a bit better today, not right but getting there. Had a quick trip with Tina to the shops before making my way over to Birnam Arts for the tutored life drawing workshop. About a dozen of us I think. First of all the tutor got us to put the pencil on the paper and not look at what we were doing but to draw the movements she was making with a ball in her hand. Quite difficult to not look down but it was interesting. Then we had to do thirty second sketches! Yes, so:the images are very feint.

Then we spent a lot of time measuring at arms length and marking places on the paper for the sketch which wa bout twenty minutes.

Then to finish we did some thing completely different, the model, Dave, stood in front of a black sheet and we had to draw the shape of the black area.

It was an enjoyable session and I will try to get a place on the next one in a months time.

I bought the drawings home and then went to have a look round the market in the grounds of the Birnam hotel.

Then I spotted that the art gallery was open so went and had a cuppa there and a chat to the owner. She said it has been closed this year but hopes to be open regularly now. She does do workshops or said that I could take my own stuff to do if I wanted. So that may be good.

I had a message to syzygy my prescription was ready so I walked into Dunkeld. Took a couple of quite different photos.

Watching Strictly now!

Up and down!

 I slept reasonably and felt okay this morning. I needed to drop a repeat prescription form in at the doctors so went there and on into Dunkeld. Took some photos and walked back via the Beatrix Potter garden.

I had a light lunch and suggested to Darren we might take a trip out, but that wasn’t to be as I suddenly got stomach cramps again and felt sick. It did settle, but didn’t want to chance it happening while out, and I won’t eat anything else today.

On the bright side I ordered a glass tile photo of the 3D type photo I took and I m delighted with the result.

Final of Traitors of tonight, but other than that I won’t be doing much!

Upset tummy

 Not much to write today, I have done very little, even went back to bed for a while.

Spent quite a lot of time on the jigsaw so will show there has been some progress.

I have been on hot water today, hopefully get back to other drinks and some food!

On a different note the second cactus I bought a few weeks ago has flowered and it is very lovely.

Yew berry clearing and afternoon walk

 When I went to post a letter yesterday I noticed how bad the pavement was outside the church, littered with wet, crushed yew berries. I think they are more slippery than leaves. So this morning I went out and swept the pavement and the church steps. Took about an hour and I managed to get and break a blister on the inside of my index finger. Ouch! The rest of the morning I did general housework and a little jigsaw before lunch. This afternoon I walked into Dunkeld and looked round St Ninians garden to check for damage. Really only quite a few twigs but not too bad. These very large hostas are very dramatic now they are dying off.

Took a few photos on my way back.

Hard to believe this burn was almost dry a few weeks back.

I think Darren and I have spent about three to four hours on the jigsaw, you can see from our progress that it is going to be a long job!

The knitting pattern I got at The Nest is way too complicated, and actually trying to knit again made my wrists ache, so that project may be put on hold!

I messaged Moira, who runs the gardening volunteers to see if she could leave the shed unlocked form me in the morning so I can to a bit to the pollinator bed. She said she will before she goes out, so that is good as I have some bulbs to put in and can do a bit more clearing.

Blairgowrie and leaflet drop

 I went into Blairgowrie with Tina this morning, she had an appointment so I had an hour to go to The Nest craft shop and a general look around. I wanted to get a knitting pattern for a hat and some wool and needles, may as well try some knitting at Knit and Natter! I did find a patter and needles, but not much choice of wool, I did buy some but only because there was enough of it. We went a different route today avoiding very wooded areas and road closures. There have been a lot of trees down causing havoc. We went along some pretty tree lined roads and passed a famous beech hedge!

            

I probably took my most colourful autumn shot by a small park in the town.

We had a drink and then did the food shopping before coming back for a late lunch.

Tina had some fliers for an event she is holding and also some for another organisation so I helped her pair them up and then we went out to put them through doors. It started to rain as we left but we went anyway, it did stop quite quickly. We were out less that an hour but had been non stop and nearly every house had steps to the door and so many of them had those bruh lined letter boxes which are very difficult to post thin paper through. I wasn’t sorry we had used all the new we took out!

I have been achy today so not planning to do anything energetic this evening.

Slight change of plan

 I will start with things I said I would add pictures of. The jigsaw.

And the note book I made at the workshop on Saturday.

I had been going to make a chicken pie yesterday but the electricity went off and stayed off for five hours. I said I would make it today but I had the clubs and Tina had an early evening meeting. So I got up early and made the pastry, I had cooked the meat yesterday evening. We got rid of the large pie dish I had that had holes in to prevent soggy bottoms! As I was making the pie early I was worried about the bottom layer of pastry. We have an air fryer pizza dish which has never been used as it didn’t fit in our air fryer! It was shallow but I decided t make a ‘dome pie’. I did worry that it would end in disaster…….

I ended up cooking it this morning in case it ended up an exploded mess! But it cooked fine and we ate it this evening and I can still make okay pastry!

When I took some stuff out to the bins one of the garden bins had gone walkabout and I couldn’t shift it!

Moira, who leads the garden group texted to suggest I stayed at her me this morning as the weather didn’t look promising. So, I actually finished the embroidery! Much as I like it, I am glad to see the back of it!

I did walk into Dunkeld to the afternoon group as the ladies have been asking for a couple of weeks if the embroidery was finished. They have been interested in its progress and all really like the finished article. I didn’t stay long as I needed to get home to cook dinner.it was a damp day.

Masses of leaves at,the end of the bridge, I imagine they were swept as it is unlikely they blew into such an orderly pile.

This tree was uprooted, which is quite sad.

I had ordered some plug cowslip plants which arrived today in a very tiny box. They were probably the smallest plugs pants ever!

I have planted them in a couple of seed trays for now.

I have started finding the edge pieces of the next jigsaw. This one is a painting by a mouth painter and it is lovely. But I think as a jigsaw it will be a stinker, I haven’t got the edges together yet!

Probably time to do some exercises now!