Morning and evening church shots!

I enjoy finding pictures for the special days, when I don’t decide to put pen to paper. Today’s celebratory days are International Zebra Day, and wait for it, here comes the whacky one, National Gorilla Suit Day! Nothing more to be said.

A lovely morning again, in fact I went out and did some tidying quite early on, didn’t take pictures but filled to carts for the garden bin! The sun was dating part of the church and the clouds were pretty in the other one!

A couple of pictures of Pandora, one looking cut on my window seat and the other one exploring! When we first had her and she was nervous she used to get up on that shelf quite regularly.

This afternoon I have been sewing. Got the last two columns of the quilt sewn together and pressed and then attached them to the others. So the top of the quilt is done but I have to buy the wadding and material for the back so it will be resting in a box for the time being. I have a couple of second hand books coming so should get some ideas for other quilted things to make.

I am pretty pleased with how it turned out as it is a reasonably complex construction and I haven’t done any quilting for a while.

Will finish with another shot of the church which I took when I went to put the fox food out.

Take yourself in hand!

I have had a pretty off colour day today, mostly I think the continuing discomfort in the legs and wondering if I will ever get beck to reasonable mobility! But thinking like that does no one any good so I have tried to keep busy, but not really been doing much picture taking! When I was feeding the bird this morning I heard rustling in the greenhouse and a robin had decided to join me!  It was flapping against a window under the shelving. I came out and stood away, didn’t see him fly out but didn’t want to trap him inside. I left the door open slightly but don’t want squirrels or birds in there, don’t mind them trying to get some food but the cats follow me in sometimes and I don’t want any sitting targets waiting for them. So I went back down to the greenhouse for a while, I had three sacks of different bird food to get into containers so got that sorted and no sign of the robin.

Apart from going to the greengrocer this morning I haven’t been out, did go in the back garden again to put fox food down as it was getting dark.

I haven’t done any quilting today but put Bob Dylan on and did some sorting in the bedroom which has been chaotic with boxes of material and sewing stuff all over the place. Getting stuck into something lifted my mood, then ai had a nice bath!

When I was going down to get dinner I thought the view from the window was interesting, naturally monochrome.

The windows at the back were cleaned this week too!

I have done a bit of colouring this evening. Worked on one of the unusual cat illustration from the book that Marjorie gave me. I will make this int a card for a friend who used to look after my car when I worked in Swanley many years ago!

Today’s special days are, Change Your Voicemail Greeting Day and Yodel for Your Neighbor Day  (American spelling as on the calendar). That is an odd one!

Casualty tonight and apparently an explosive episode!

Freethinkers Day

Love this day, try to be a bit of a free thinker myself! It falls on the birthday of Thomas Paine, a prominent thinker whose work and publications promoting the philosophy of Enlightenment heavily influenced the course of the American and French revolutions. On a less high brow note it is also National Carnation Day! I did a quick sketch which I will make it a card for somebody.

It hasn’t been quite so cold today and the rain stayed away for most of it. Some spells of sunshine and some overcast. Tina and ai drove to Morrow 

Avenue car park and walked along the front almost to the leisure centre then had refreshment before walking back! Work going on at the beach, we couldn’t fathom what they were doing!

Those were taken with the phone, I had taken the camera today in case we spotted a kestrel, we didn’t, but took some with it anyway!

Didn’t take this one!

We had a couple of winter clematis delivered about a week ago, as it was dry and not so cold I got them into a nice pot today. They are small and we won’t get the benefit of them flowering until next winter.

This afternoon I sewed up two more columns of the quilt design and after pressing attached them to the tow I did yesterday. Looking pretty funky!

I do love the batik fabrics.

Feet up and a  bit of tv tonight I think.

National Daisy Day

No explanation needed for today’s special day, just enjoy the lovely picture I found!

It has rained pretty much all of the day today, I went out fairly early to visit the post box (for a change) and get some rolls in for lunch. I bought myself some reduced flowers today as I haven’t had any for a while.

This morning I did a bit of unpicking of the quilt pieces and reassemble them and got to columns ready to sew together, thinking they would not be a success. After lunch Tina suggested we went out for a bit and despite the weather we went up to Mappleton. As we drove in we saw a kestrel, it was around for a little while but went off without getting any lunch! I only had the phone with me which has very little zoom. Took his picture and tried to crop it but really it was too far away!

We walked down the steep slope again to the beach and went onto the beach this time, I zigzagged down the slope this time so a little less pressure on the knees. First picture was from the car park.

We called in at Pound Stretcher on the way home, the only other store open is the cycle hire place!

I got the two columns of pieces ironed and sewn together, then pressed that seam. It actually looks a lot better that I had thought but six more columns to sew together and then attach yet!

No mad rush, it is better to do a bit at a time.

Will soon have some new obscure words which will be good.

Planning the quilt!

Two special days today, Thomas Crapper Day, he died one hundred and eleven years ago, invented the ballcock and held nine other patents. Also National Chocolate Cake Day! Such variety in the days.

This morning I started to lay out the quilt pieces on the bed to get an idea of the colours and placing. Started with just every other half block row to arrange the colours.

Then when I was reasonably happy I added the other sections to get the effect.

I thin needed to mark the ends of each piece for the assembly. Tina suggested little sticky dots but I didn’t have any so took a walk along to the newsagents and then Boyes but could only get sticky notes. They don’t stick very well but it is sort of marked, what could possibly go wrong?

I sewed one column together and was on the second one when two pieces didn’t line u properly. I will unpick that seam tomorrow and adjust it.

Paul the decorator got in touch to say he would come this afternoon to put a coat of paint on the gate as the forecast for tomorrow and Friday is rain and he wanted to protect the bare wood. I did a little bit of clearing dead plants from the garden while I waited for him to arrive. I left him to it and walked down to the post office as I had sold an item on eBay and wanted to get it sent off. My right leg is being difficult so I actually used a knee support today.

A moment of excitement in the post office, before the lady served me she went to the door and tried to stop two men fighting outside the shop, an awful lot of swearing and shouting going on. She was talking to the manager on the phone when the door flew open as one of the men fell into the shop! He was then swearing and saying the other guy ‘was dead’! Luckily a couple of community nurses had seen the fight and came in and started calming the man down. He had picked up a bottle of drink but the counter assistant told him she would sell it to him! I made my escape when I knew the shop lady wasn’t on her own dealing with it. I walked up to the sea front and got a drink as I needed to sit down before ai walked home. I saw one of the HUG ladies and we had a bit of a chat which was nice, well socially distanced! Near where I was sitting someone had tried to make a post into a fairy house, cute idea.

Took one picture of the sea before hobbling home!

Took this I turn on the way home and one of a tree trunk in the garden!

The gate is now ready for the rain!

Will finish with a photo from a year ago when I was still getting the bus into Hull! Caught the gulls a treat!

Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement

I found the write up about today’s special day really interesting and quite uplifting, but more of that in a bit. This morning I went out fairly early to feed the birds, the sky wasn’t colourful but the light was clear, a lovely winter morning. Will post three pictures as although I said it wasn’t colourful I liked the purple tint.

Will go back to the special day now and will actually quote a longish piece, but the history is even more interesting, worth a look up if you are inclined.

‘Toad Hollow Day of Encouragement comes from the legend of Toad Hollow which is rooted in an 1800’s school house in Kalamazoo, Michigan and the stories told by Ralph C. Morrison. Though Morrison said that Toad Hollow cannot be found on a map, but rather, it’s found in your heart. This is a day to give encouragement and support to others (people you like, and even those you don’t not.)

To more mundane things Paul came round today to fix the side gate which has been jammed for a while and is rotting as well as swollen! He got on well but couldn’t paint the replaced wood today as the rain set in as he was finishing,

Darren and Tina were both in on line meetings today and as delivers and Paul were expected to arrive I spent the afternoon downstairs, unpacking bird and cat food and making tea for the workers! I have managed to sew together and press the rest of the half blocks for the quilt so that I can think about the layout.

I did walk down Newbegin this morning, but that was enough as both of my knees are unhappy, I am just hoping that the right one hasn’t decided to give up the ghost so to speak!

I will finish with some photos from a year ago, we haven’t seen Philip the pheasant for months now but he was entertaining when he was visiting.

He stood his ground and saw the seagull off!

No Oops moments today!

Two special days today, Virginia Woolf Day and Women’s Health Research Day. No pictures or extra information today. The sky was a little less boring today, the one through the trees doesn’t give quite the glowing effect that I could see!

A while ago I sent for two odd looking scrapers for Darren and Tina to use on the car when it is frosty. A shot of Tina using it although the ice was melting by then but she did try it on the ice on the bench and it seemed to work quite well.

My knees have both been less that happy today. So apart from a short walk to the chemist I have stayed indoors and spent a lot of the day at the sewing machine. I unpicked and re assembled the half blocks that I managed to sew wrongly yesterday! Here are two of them placed together to show it is now correct!

I have now assembled all but six of the half blocks. I laid a few of them out on the bed to give an idea of the design. Still a lot to do but it should be quite jazzy!

I will finish with a word, well two actually today!

Savoir Vivre (np.): Knowledge of the ways of fashionable society, and of how to live elegantly.