Dread October 26, 2009
Posted by George in Life, Sewing, Uncategorized.1 comment so far
Do you ever get a formless feeling of dread? I have been carrying this feeling around for a few days now, I thought it was because the combination of being down on my uppers and having an MOT due created this mood, but I just heard than the car is okay but for minor things, and yet the feeling hovers.
Perhaps its due to working on Halloween bunting!
I do tend to get this feeling at this time of year. When I had my horse and pony eight miles away, I rationalised that it was due to the dread of driving in ice and snow – but horse and pony are no more, and for many years now, ice and snow have been very rare. I succumb, perhaps, to a primeval dread of winter, but I do actually like the hunkering down. I store matches, candles, loo paper and pet food – so what is to fear?!! We have a woodburner and plenty of wood. There is a larder Sarah Raven would be proud of, with jams and chutneys, beans and rice - and if things get too bad the Elderberry Vodka, Sloe Gin, and Rosehip brandy are underway ! I like winter food – I am a soups and stews Queen! I make a winter salad that nods graciously to my Eastern European roots and has received plaudits!!
Listening to the news is disturbing but not dreadful. I am enough of a historian to know that we live in truly blessed times in the Western world and enough of a Science Fiction buff to know that humanity will thrive on the challenges it has sadly presented itself with. After listening to a fascinating short on Radio 4 about the strange case of the Dartmoor Blue butterfly, I did feel a sense of spiritual crisis that might be described as dreadful. The butterfly’s life-cycle was so complex and duplicitous, sickening in its cruel deceptions, that I have ceased to consider mankind as a uniquely destructive force. In each of us there is a spark of the divine that can elevate us to wonderful acts of selflessness, but our low acts seem to be part of a continuum, rather than an aberration – more’s the pity. In which case I may be filled with dread until the end of days.
Blogger’s Quilt Festival October 10, 2009
Posted by George in Quilting, Quilting and Patchwork.11 comments
Posting pics you might have seen before, but reposting for
and to celebrate my joining the UK Quilter’s Guild!!
I posted about this quilt
It has a story which may be of comfort to any quilter who has bitten off more than they can chew!!!!!!
That quilt, when finished (after many years!) led to super quickly finished Moda Charisma Glory
(named after a pudding called Charisma Glory, a sparkler bedecked affair served in a fish bowl sized dish at Monmouth’s Charisma cafe in the eighties, and which I still miss!!)
What a weekend! October 6, 2009
Posted by George in Dogs.1 comment so far
There were lows, there were highs! At 8.00 am Biddy was running free on the Welsh Hills again, unaware of the heartache and happiness she left in the wake of her unplanned absence!
My advice to any pet owner, be they owners of a cat, rabbit, horse, tortoise, snake – is to microchip – and to ensure that they have their mobile number registered. If we had had other than our Wales number listed, Biddy would have been with us on Friday night. Also, if we had had her chip details with us – I didn’t even know what company she was registered with!!
When you call the local authority to inform the dog warden, insist that he is informed immediately – if our Friday afternoon message had got through to the actual warden, Biddy would have been with us on Friday night.
If you call the Police 0845 number which will be listed in bold in directories, they will tell you that the police have nothing to do with dogs. If you call the local police station, you will find out that they love dogs as much as the next person, have blankets and treats, a microchip reader and lovely ways with people and animals. If the person on 0845 I spoke to had not just kept emphatically telling me that they had NOTHING to do with dogs, Biddy would have been with us on Friday night!
Lessons have been learned!
My poor elderly and absent minded mother blames herself for leaving the front door open. I blame myself for taking my eye off the ball. I was retuning Mum’s digital Freeview, because the Daily mail told her it had to be done – she never uses it – doesn’t even know how it switches on!!!
All is well that ends well and as she ran and ran and ran through the wet grass this morning, all was certainly well
Biddy is found October 4, 2009
Posted by George in Dogs.1 comment so far
She’s found – we can collect her from Salisbury tomorrow- will post more when we get home to Wales.
Biddy is lost October 3, 2009
Posted by George in Dogs.1 comment so far
If you know anyone who lives in Hampshire, Wiltshire or surrounding counties, please ask them to look out for Biddy, or look out for any one who had ‘aquired’ a new little sheepdog.
She is chipped and wearing a Dog’s Trust yellow and black collar. She was lost from Charlton Road in Andover in Hampshire on Friday afternoon, and may have been seen in Artist’s Way, near Anton Lakes. She is very friendly – worrying – but I have to believe that most people would do the right thing and not keep her – if they do I hope they love her well. She is a sweet and foolish pet, but someone once told me she was too gun-dog looking not to be valuable – again I hope such thefts are rare. The dog warden knows, the Dog’s Trust know, local Vets, Abulance drivers and Post men know. The police and the RSPCA don’t want to know. Tesco’s has a notice and several small estate shops. We have pinned up flyers and talked to dog owners . She is so fleet of foot she could travel a long way in a short time. I hope someone has taken her in and will call the warden on Monday
and even worse October 1, 2009
Posted by George in Life.add a comment
I now have an Orf blister forming on my nose. If it grows to the size of the one on my thumb you will be reading about me in the National Enquirer, alongside suggestions that a small nation has been founded therein, where dwell Elvis, Shergar and Lord Lucan, hidden behind its mountainous excrescence.
Suggestions are welcome, as I have wracked my brains trying to decide whether I will be more accepted in Morrison’s wearing a Balaclava, full Burqa, pantomime belly dancer’s face veil, a huge plaster (might be hard to breathe) – or shall I just not go out for 6 weeks.
It has brought home to me how vain I am, although I did not know it. I used to be quite the avantgarde of fashion, being the first person in 70′s Andover to have hair in three colours, and a few safety pins adorning my punctured self. Since getting middle-aged and rural, I pay more attention to the weather resistance of my gear, rather than its look, and after many disappointing and expensive failures, I cut my own hair. I wear make-up when there is an ‘r’ in the month that coincides with a rain of fish in the Orient, and I award myself a gold-star when the rare day dawns that I finish a jar of moisturiser.
It surprises me therefore, how much this further development of the alien invasion has got me down. I am a bit fed up with feeling below par, but to have to see this evidence of dis-ease every time I clean my teeth is making me feel very low. I know on the scale of things it is nothing, and I know it will go eventually, but at the moment I do not have a reasonable perspective on it. Right now I feel blighted. Anyone know what Louise Hay has to say about viral infections and facial blemishes? Any affirmation will do!
Eli Pascall Willis
