Wednesday - at a stretch

A  quiet moment before I start blogging.

A beautiful candle (giving off a wistfully gentle scent) 

and lovely hippy-dippy Zen music filling the room...

 

Not all is as calm and soothing and gentle as it sounds, I have just done ten minutes of Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutations) and ten minutes of stretches and exercises and I am waiting for my heart rate and breathing to become a little more normal! 

All this gardening I am doing for folk has made me stiff as an old boot, so I thought I would crack out the ol' yoga mat and get on with sorting out the creaks (to my shame, I am not as supple as I used to be - so I shall be working on that!).

Later I shall blitz the bedroom which has managed to get ignored in the tidy-up routine a little too long..... then I am off working this afternoon.  The instructions I received by text last night were ..... Can you do two hours and bring saws!! Xx .... Wonder what I will be getting up to this later :D

I shall leave you with some photos from yesterday's walk post volunteering at the village community shop. I shall share more micro-adventures later on in the week, have a lovely and blessed Wednesday.

...the adventure continues

Day 1 (still really day 2) Saturday  part 2

...our micro-adventure continues .... After a soggy start, we left the Coldstone Cut and trundled off through the quieter lanes, following the hills and valleys while all the time heading up towards Wensleydale. Along our route, the only 'we have to stop there' place was Gouthwaite Reservoir, Nidderdale.

We stopped at the reservoir parking, a small but lovingly kept green space with seating and hedging. Across the road was a equally well maintained viewing platform where like minded folk were peaceably keeping distances and whispering happy bird watching whispers. We joined them and through our spotter telescope watched Canada and Greylag geese, Mallard, Black headed gulls, Cormorants, Lapwing and Oystercatchers, Coots, Buzzards, Crows and Starlings.

Moss sat patiently between my feet watching the folk watching the birds.

We reluctantly dragged ourselves back to Zeb, had coffee and cake on the grassy embankment in the most glorious sun while Moss played up and down the sunny slope.

The last drop of coffee drained and all the cake crumbs flicked off ourselves, we settled back in the van and left Nidderdale passing through a beautiful landscape .... onward to our next mini adventure! 

The micro-adventure starts here ...

Day 1 (the prequel) Friday evening

We seemed to manage to shed all of the youngsters on one weekend which meant Himself and I (and Zeb the van) and Moss (of course) could have a micro-adventure all on our ownsome! On the Friday we planned and packed (ok - threw together and cobbled an idea or two) enough food and clothing, maps and boots, dog stuff and dog to get out and away.

Day 1 (actually day 2) Saturday morning part 1

 

Loading the van between showers, we ran in and out of the house, Moss soon got bored waiting for us to set off and fell asleep on her bed I made for her. It rained most of the morning as we drove up towards Wensleydale.

A rather narrow squeeze to fit through Bolton Priory stone archway (cue frantic internet searching both the height and width of the van and the height and width of the gate). On a whim we had a soggy stop at Coldstone Cut - a large land based art installation - a strong and striking structure over looking a huge working quarry - well worth the visit and we really enjoyed wandering around it. We returned to Zeb (van) for lunch and best of all?  The sun broke through - wonderful!

.... to be continued ....

Not all hexagons are equal

I should be out working today - getting a garden looking at it's best for a 'socially distancing garden party' tomorrow, complete with lights and suitably spaced outdoorsy furniture...... it is raining .... so I am hanging on until this afternoon when the weather has promised to improve - fingers crossed!

Any way, that means I can indulge myself in a little down time - with a coffee and blog catch up.

Something I have held off sharing was this beehive hexi-lapghan as it was meant (originally) as a birthday gift for the beginning of June and it caught me by surprise how long it took me. 

I didn't have a pattern - just an idea - so as it grew (but not big enough or fast enough) more and more hexis had to be made. They were a joy to do - only took a few minutes each however, weaving in the ends slowed down progress.

The blankie was taken on a few road trips so I could weave in ends then too.

Laying out the colours was fun, I happily allowed some repeats to run through the random placements and then the marathon started...... connecting all the hexis together 

The flat 'zipper-stitch' (a sort of slip stitch that collected loops from two hexis) looked good but was

rather a slow method of connecting.

  

Then, as the blankie grew, I could feel that it was far too lightweight to have made a suitably snuggly laphan to be warm. So I rummaged around in my rather meagre fabric stash and found a lovely piece of cream fleece - PERFECT!

Once I had zipper-stitched all the hexis together and crocheted a single row around the perimetre, I then wove in another gazillion ends, washed and blocked it - what a difference that made! 

 

 Stitching the yarn to the fleece proved to be careful and slow work - but worth it.

Oops, 'imposter hexis' making an appearance!

The blankie was pinned and stitched to the fleece, followed by a decorative stitch around the edge of the hexagon shapes and finally I cut the fleece to echo the shape as the crochet blankie.  

The final hurrah was to add a small bee token to the lapghan, it took so long to arrive in the post that I was finally able to hand the blanket over a mere month and a half late!

What did discover was not all hexis are equal, some are more magnificent than others and some are ...well -  sort of token hexis of indiscriminate shape that almost border on free spirits!

Hexagons have only two ends to weave in which in theory sounds easy peasy but when there are nearly 200 hexis to do..... then all the zipper-stitch starting and ending ..... I suspect that is where the majority of the time doing the wip was spent.

Stitching on the fleece fabric was the best thing I could have done, it added warmth and weight and visual 'solidity' to the finished hexi-lapghan. 

I have just looked out the window and it is still dull and wet and cool - but at least the rain seems to have lessened - I may still be able to get out today (wearing a full set of waterproofs I hasten to add!) 

Have a lovely Wednesday xxxxxx

Topping up on the blue notes

I'd written a post, waffled a bit, closed it down. Picked it up a day or two later, added a bit, re-read it and closed it down, then yesterday I tried again and decided against it - it was self indulgent meanderings of no particular interest apart from marking the fact that half the year has gone as has the glorious weather .... so I shelved it completely in preference to a more cheery note on yesterday's walk.

I do have some things I want to show and share but as they are gifts - they will have to wait until the recipients have seen them first :D

Yesterday, after lots of indoor stuff 

due to the rain being so ... well.... WET! 

(sewing/baking and the dreaded tidying) 

Finally by 3pm

the clouds suddenly relented and let in the sun and the sky - 

 Moss and I just grabbed the moment 

(as well as a lead, some dog-poo-bags, sanitiser, mask and camera) 

and yomped out. 

I am not sure who enjoyed it more - she or I. 

 Despite the days and days of rain we seem to have endured,

the rivers - although full - were not raging.

They were a perfect 'come and play with me' depth for Moss,

and she heeded their call. 

Her inner otter and her alter-Labrador-guise both came to the fore

and she swam and played and loved every minute. 

 I personally preferred the meadows and the flowers

which have appeared in their masses since the rain.

The air, slightly humid, was filled with a determined buzzing hum

as the bees made the most of the dry afternoon. 

It was such an amazing feeling being back out, 

I just filled my eyes with the blue sky and blue flowers and my lungs with warm air. 

And Moss? well, she filled her whole body with full-on-fun :D

Now, I must stop waffling, I have to set off soon for my volunteering stint at the community shop. A small price to pay - two hours - to help keep this amazing little gem open, so if you'll excuse me I'll be off.  Oops, mustn't forget my mask :)