Autumn images

Just a very brief post today - hadn't realised that it has been nearly a week since my last one. Thank you all for your very kind comments on the Breast Cancer Awareness post - much appreciated. I have been to London twice since then including a trip to the Knitting and Stitching Exhibition - more on that next time - and what with various other commitments the days have flown by. This morning on my way to yoga I took these pictures - it was a fabulous sunny autumn morning and I noticed how blue the sky was and how brilliant the berries and leaves looked in the sunshine. Hope you will enjoy them too.




As usual my walk led me along the old railway track now strewn with fallen leaves - had I not been carrying my yoga mat and blankets etc I might have been tempted to skip and scuffle through them!

This is the wall of the cutting and just look at that blue sky above!

And here in the car park of the pub where my route leads me off the railway track and out onto the road

Not sure what this plant with the pretty pink berries is called but isn't it pretty?

Sadly this photo of the spindleberry didn't come out too well but I just adore the combination of that orange and the shocking pink together don't you?

These leaves are so brilliant - I want one of these small trees for my garden - I think it is called a Soumac or something like that and worth it just for the autumn colour which lasts such a short time but which is amazing in the sunshine.

Sorry this is such a something of nothing sort of post - I promise to do better next time. Must go and get something for supper now.

Hope you are all enjoying some similar sunny autumnal weather (unless of course you live in Australia when it will be spring I suppose!)

Pink Post

I have just been over at Shells and Bells and Flowers and Viota tells of an idea to support Breast Cancer Awareness Month by posting something pink each Thursday. As yesterday was exactly a year since my good friend finally lost her long battle with the disease I thought I'd like to join in so here is my Pink Post for this Thursday.

PS You might like to have a look at Pink Project too for some stunning crochet items also in aid of Breast Cancer research.

Crazy heart

Thank you all so very much for your kind comments on my last post - more comments than ever before on that one! I have been away over the weekend so just a quick post to let you know I am still here and I hope to catch up with all your posts later and maybe leave a comment or two!

This is a pile of scraps my patchwork teacher gave me a week or so back when I showed her some of my crazy patchwork. They were not very wide but sufficient for my needs.

As she had admired my little crazy patchwork heart when I showed it to her I promised to make one for her and these fabrics seemed ideal for the job since I knew she obviously liked the colour scheme as she was making a quilt from them herself.

Stitched to the backing and embroidered ready for making up.

The spider is apparently a traditional addition and brings good luck - as long as you aren't an arachnophobic!

Finished! Now I think I might make one for myself as I rather like it - what do you think?

Whilst I was away at the weekend I met up with my friends from the City and Guilds Creative Textile course - we did this course together over 20 years ago. One of our number had several of these balls of yarn and we decided that we would each take one and our challenge would be to create something in time for the Christmas get together. I love the colours but what to make? Bag perhaps but knitted or crocheted, felted maybe? A belt of yarn braided? A felted flower? What do you think?

Before I go what do you think of this?

I was messing about the other evening and produced this little piece and now I am wondering whether to make a brooch out of it. Would you wear it as a brooch or does it look too much like a Christmas tree decoration?

A Walk in the country

Hello! Firstly a big thank you to those of you who have stopped by and left such lovely supportive comments. All most appreciated - I am loving this great community I seem to have blundered into and feel I have made a lot of real friends out there. Thanks so much .

Now for those of you who enjoy a look at the British countryside here are some photos I took on a walk I did on Tuesday with a friend who lives not far from Bridport - the place we went to is called Pilsdon Penn and was in ancient times an Iron Age fort so it is a steep climb to the top but the 360 degree view is breathtaking - in more ways than one!

That's the sea you can see on the horizon - if you look closely! What a shame a cloud came over just as I took this one.

The sky seems so big from up here! And those soft fluffy clouds - aren't they lovely?!

On top of the world and only one lone walker to share it with! You can see for miles from here and it ws fun trying to decide where the various places were in the distance.

On the descent now.

We followed this up with lunch at the craft cente in Broadwindsor - a lovely bowl of soup with a hunk of bread eaten outside in the sunshine. It doesn't get much better than that does it?!!

FRENCH IDYLL

Driven round the bend!

Time for another tale about our life in France. When we moved to France we kept our British driving licences as we were allowed to drive using those and the thought of more bureaucracy in trying to change them to French ones wasn't something we were keen to confront!

In France you have to carry your driving licence with you at all times when you are driving as if you are stopped for any reason you must produce it there and then so when I discovered that I had lost (as in mislaid not been disqualified) mine I knew that I would have to do something fast as I couldn't risk driving without one. Not too dificult you might think? Well to start off with I e-mailed the DVLA (driver and vehicle licencing agency for those of you who are not familiar with this term) asking if they could provide me with another one.

No - came back the answer since I was no longer resident in UK! With hindsight I could have had it sent to my sister-in-law's or somewhere but being the honest soul I am I had by then told them that I lived in France. They did however furnish me with a paper confirming that I was the holder of a UK licence and listing what groups of vehicles I was qualified to drive, how long I had held the licence etc.

Next stop a trip to the gendarmerie to ask if I could exchange the paper for a French licence. No came the reply. To do that would need the old British licence which of course I didn't have!

After numerous calls to the British embassies in both Paris and Bordeaux - our nearest Embassy - and more visits to the gendarmerie in the end it was decided that the only way I would be able to get a French licence, since a UK one was out of the question, was to go to the Hotel de Police in Limoges and tell them that my UK licence had been stolen! This I did although I felt dreadful and kept saying "Je ne comprends pas" to all their questions as lying doesn't come easily to me.

Armed with the required paper from the Hotel de Police I was now able to go to the Prefecture to apply for a French licence.

The lady behind the desk gave me a paper listing all the items I should bring along and we duly returned with them only to have her tick off numbers 1, 2 and 3 and then to tell me I needed a photocopy of my passport - number 4. She sent me to La Poste (post office) across the road to get the photocopy done although why she couldn't have done it for me I don't know as I'm sure there was a photocopier in the Prefecture somewhere and indeed my French friend told me had I been a French person this is what would have happened. Racism she called it!

When I returned with the photocopy she ticked off 4, 5 and then stopped at 6 saying I needed a photocopy of that document too and another trip across the road more coins in the slot were called for! Why she couldn't have checked all the boxes before sending me off to photocopy any of them I don't know but that seems to be the French way. By now I was getting somewhat stressed and annoyed about the whole affair and the photo which I then had to get taken to go on my new licence shows this!!

Eventually I handed over my 30 euros and was given a temporary paper till the actual licence arrived. I could drive again!

My driving licence duly arrived and according to it I was licenced to drive everything except a motorcycle. I could drive a bus, heavy goods vehicle a bus with a trailer..... how mad is that! So should you ever find yourself without a driving licence perhaps because you failed the test or have been disqualified or something all you need to do to get another is to go and reside in France and claim your original one was stolen and they will happily provide you with a French one! Mind you on second thoughts maybe not as the bureaucracy involved in becoming a French resident might put you off that idea!

Now that we are back in the UK I am given to understand that the French licence will be acceptable for up to 3 years and before then we will need to do the procedure in reverse! At least I will be able to speak the language this time!

Words that make me think

I spent the day yesterday having a bit of a sort out in my workroom/office/junk depository and came across a load of cuttings I had saved many of which were quotations I had felt inspired by. I thought I'd share some of them with you if you'd like? The first is a poem I found in a magazine and loved.

Reteach a thing its loveliness by Galway Kinnell

The bud

stands for all things,

even those things which don't flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow

began remembering all down her thick length,

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking

and blowing beneath them;

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

PS Anyone tell me how to change the spacing to single - I didn't intend this to be in double spacing.

Old china

I wrote the promised Old china post on Thursday and saved it to publish later but I discover that it has inserted it along with the post dated 24th! Can't find any way to bring it forwards to today's date so I'm afraid if you want to see it you'll have to scroll down to Thursday 24th! Sorry about that - hopefully I will get the hang of it all eventually!