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Way back in May I posted about finally getting the hang of a difficult (to me) crochet stitch. I knew it would take a while to complete my project and there were times where I seriously doubted that I’d finish it but here it is in all it’s finished glory!!

 

 

It is more of a jacket now than a cardi as I was a bit over eager with the length! I like the long length and when the weather turns a bit cooler I’ll be swaggering around in it. At the moment it’s too hot to swagger or do anything. I’m full of beans early in the morning these days, charging around like a mad thing but as the day gets hotter my energy gradually ebbs away to a full stop. I feel such a woose, I guess we Brits are not used to such high temperatures especially after such a freezing cold winter. In fact there times during the last winter that I thought I would never be warm again in this country and that I have to go and sit in the middle of the Sahara for a week to defrost my bones.

 

Crocheting doesn’t take much energy and is very portable, so I have been finding shady (as in cool, not dodgy) places to crochet some summer bunting and flowers and things for my Etsy shop

 

 

 

More of my lovely roses have started blooming. This is a beautiful Gallica rose “Cardinal Richelieu”. It’s fast becoming my pride and joy!

 

 

Isn’t it beautiful? I’m out every day sniffing and admiring it.

 

I’ve decided to rename the stray tabby cat I’ve recently adopted. I had named him Ben but he mustn’t have liked that as he ignored every mention of it. So he is now “Tabikat” and he actually does come when called. He gets admired every day as well but not sniffed!

 

 

One final thing, please, please, please remember to put water out for your local wildlife. So many poor animals are ending up in wildlife sanctuaries severely dehydrated during this hot spell.

 

Slainte

 

Linda xx

I can’t believe I’m writing this so soon after Frisco’s passing.

 

 

This is Jasmine or Jazzy for short. She was diagnosed with several tumours today and sadly I had to once again make the decision to let go a much loved pussycat. Jazzy would have been 14 next month. She was a rescue kitten.

 

 

Oddly enough she was the only cat that I didn’t choose for myself. I had rung the local cat rescue shelter and asked if they had any kittens and the lady described Jasmine. The next day she brought round this adorable fluffy kitten who sat so quietly in her cat basket while I signed the adoption papers. I don’t think Carol had driven even to the end of my road when this ‘adorable’ kitten was straight out of the cat basket and up the net curtains.  Swinging on the curtains was to remain a hobby of hers until she got too heavy for them.

 

 

 

She loved her toys and over the years she ‘killed’ quite a few over and over again.

 

 

As you can see from the pictures she was a very pretty cat and she loved to take care of herself. I was always snapping pics of her. The one above was used in the book How to Have a Happy Cat (page 78). She was paid in tuna. In fact she was the ultimate happy cat, no trouble, interested in everything.

 

 

Meerkat impersonating was her party piece.

 

 

She loved Christmas and was always devising ways of getting the tree to part with its ornaments. She had a bit of a soft spot for Daisy my Tortie and always let Daisy have a share of any treats that she had.

 

 

As she got older, sitting in the sun by the front step became her favourite occupation. It is going to be so weird not to have to step over her anymore.

 

 

Rest in peace my brave little girl xxxxxxx

I thought I’d post an update on the little stray tabby cat who seems to have adopted me. I took him to my vet to see if they could scan him for a microchip and yes he did have one! His owner was Brighton Cat Welfare. My vet left a message with them to call me and the lovely Julie from Cat Welfare called me yesterday.

It turns out he was originally an un-neutered tom cat living on the streets and breaking into people’s houses and generally making a nuisance of himself. So he was caught and brought to the rescue centre where they had him neutered. As he was semi-feral he was taken on as a stable cat and it was from there that he escaped and travelled the 4 miles to my house. As the ‘owner’ never bothered to report him missing the rescue centre is sending me the adoption papers and the microchip will be transferred to my name. I’m so pleased that I didn’t have to give him back to anyone as I’ve become so fond of him. I do wonder though how he managed to travel and cross 2 A roads to get here. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the answer to that one.  I’ve named him Ben.

Ben sunbathing

Ben playing with the daisies

Slainte

Linda xx

 

It’s Father’s Day today in the UK. This is my Dad who sadly passed away in ‘92.

 

 

This lovely gentle man loved animals with a passion, wrote amazing poetry and supported all my crazy schemes with incredible enthusiasm.

 

Second to animals, surfing was the love of his life. He could be seen most days riding the waves down at Whitsand Bay in Cornwall or frequenting Bilbo’s Surf Shop in Newquay. He even gave his surfboards names, his favourite being his longboard Big Whitey.

 

I like to think there is a spot for him in heaven where he is paddling out from a silver sunlit beach into cool blue waters looking for the perfect wave.

 

Rest in Peace Dad xxx

Welcome to the second instalment of my favourite eight discs. Seems weird writing the word ‘discs’ but it would be even weirder writing Desert Island MP3s. Just doesn’t gel.

 

Jessica by The Allman Brothers Band from the album Brothers and Sisters

 

This is my instrumental ‘classical’ piece. I’ve never tired of listening to it despite BBC’s Top Gear hijacking it. It’s a long track at 7 minutes 28 seconds, but you just go along with the music. Love it!

 

The Ballad of Cursed Anna by Jonathan Kelly from the album Twice Around the Houses

 

I’ve no idea how I got to hear this song, I suspect it was by listening to Radio Luxemburg a long time ago. It’s a beautifully written folk song about a young man who ignores an old man’s warning about the beautiful but cursed Anna and finds himself trapped as a gatekeeper who can only be released when another young man ignores his warnings about her. On Friday nights a few of us used to take our guitars to a wonderful old pub in Donaghadee called Grace Neill’s Bar. You would order the drinks, find a table, sit down and if nobody else was playing you’d simply start strumming. I remember going there with 2 friends Davy and Maurice and we started singing Cursed Anna. For ages before we hadn’t been able to find anyone else that knew the song, but that night when we performed it a couple of groups joined in – bliss!! We made some great friends that night!

 

Crazy Man Michael by Fairport Convention from the album Liege and Lief

 

A beautiful slow folk song performed by the ethereal haunting voice of Sandy Denny. Liege and Lief is my favourite Fairport album and any song performed by Sandy would do but Crazy Man Michael just has that extra little piece of magic. I still listen to it a lot.  So sad that Sandy has left us, but her voice will go on for ever.

 

Sebastian by Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel from the album The Human Menagerie

 

Steve Harley has got one amazing voice and Sebastian highlights just how incredible it is. I don’t know why but this song always reminds me of Venice, masked balls and red velvet cloaks. It’s the sort of song that should be playing in the background while you’re reading The Da Vinci Code. It’s another song that I would belt out at the top of my voice on my lonely beach, especially the line “Somebody called me Sebastian”

 

Book to take with me would be Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. It’s a book you can pick up for a quick browse and before you know it a few happy hours have passed. My luxury would be a couple of tons of ruled writing paper complete with fountain pen and a few gallons of violet coloured ink as I would envisage having enough time to pen the great British novel!

 

Well those are my 8 discs, what would yours be??

 

Slainte

 

Linda xx

Listening to Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs this morning got me thinking to what 8 records I would take to my desert island.  I have many, many terra bytes of music stored on hard drive, probably the equivalent in vinyl to fill every shelf of a mega superstore. Yet it did not take me many minutes to come up with eight musical milestones of my life. So here they are, albeit not in chronological order.

Carey by Joni Mitchell from the Album Court and Spark
Twisted by Joni Mitchell from the album Court and Spark

Where I grew up in Holywood, County Down we didn’t have a record shop for many years and when one finally opened I swear I was its best customer. I was eventually banned from bringing any more records home with me, so I used to smuggle them in in my school satchel and hide them at the bottom of my wardrobe.  The record shop owner who got to know me very well used to play me records that he thought I’d be interested in and one day he played Court and Spark. I loved every song on it and from that moment became a lifelong fan of Joni Mitchell. With Carey I love the opening line, “The wind is in from Africa, last I couldn’t sleep”. It makes me think of exotic climes, tents in the desert, mosquito nets. When I think of travel I think of Carey.

I would also take ‘Twisted’ from the same album.  I have one fun memory attached to this song. When my best friend’s dad used to pick us up every Saturday night after the disco had finished, the pair of us used to sing this song at the tops of our voices in the back seat of his car.  In retrospect the man must have been a saint to have put up with our caterwauling. We always tried to hit Joni’s high notes but could never quite manage it. So I would have fun sitting on the beach of my desert island singing this at the top of my voice knowing I wasn’t hurting anyone’s eardrums.

Lola by The Kinks

I was a fan of the Kinks from the very first minute I heard ‘You Really Got Me’ I love Ray Davies’ song writing. He writes about real people, emotions, places. I love the story of how Dedicated Follower of Fashion came about. He was refused admission to a well known fashion designer’s party so Ray straight away immortalised this precious pedantic in song. As I was very young when Lola was released I didn’t immediately twig what the song was about, all I knew was I loved the sound of Ray Davies’ voice, especially how he sang C-O-L-A cola. He originally wrote coca cola but was forced to change it to cherry cola due to copyright laws. I always thought Coca Cola missed a big marketing trick by forcing him to change it. I remember going to see the Kinks when they played in Sussex a few years back. I couldn’t persuade anyone to go with me, so I went on my own and had a fabulous time.

Next song – Always Look on the Bright Side of Life from The Life of Brian by Monty Python

I went on an archaeological trip to the Eastern Desert in Egypt many moons ago – we were looking for prehistoric rock art. I didn’t want to be without any music on the trip so I compiled a cassette tape (pre ipod days) with my fav music on it. As we experienced disaster after disaster in the desert this track was rapidly adopted as the trip theme song. I have this wonderful memory of standing on the top of a sand dune in glorious pink and gold evening light waiting for the rest of the party to come in when one jeep came hurtling up the dune with six people inside singing ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’ at the top of their voices – magic.

More tomorrow……..

Slainte,

Linda xxx

Bargain time again – I found this pretty silk top by Alexon in my local charity/thrift shop for the bargain price of £1.50. Yes it is 100% silk!!

 

 

 

It will go beautifully with fuchsia or lilac summer skirts. I love it!! Well that was the sublime part of the post. Here follows the ridiculous bit. I spotted this table for sale in a garden centre. It has a drinks cooler built into the centre of it and costs a whopping £1100! Looks like the original price was £1440.

 

 

I stood there looking at it working out how many bottles of Bushmills Irish Whiskey that equated to! I think for that money I would rather have a bog standard garden table with a cooler bag and invest the rest in alcohol. Well maybe not all of the rest, just enough to fill the cooler bag. Think of the money saved!! What will they think of next (gosh that sounds old).

 

Here is a cheap date. This is Jasmine (Jazzy for short) lying in her own sun puddle. For more on sun puddles read http://justcats-deb.blogspot.co.uk Debs blog is where I first read the phrase sun puddle – very apt.

 

 

She’s got her arm around an old cat and fiddle statue I bought years ago from an antique shop in Arundel. My friend came with me and helped me load it into her car boot. It was sooooo heavy, I dread to think what it did to her car’s suspension! The end of the fiddle has broken off over the years, but the little mouse at the cat’s feet is still there. Jazzy is conveniently lying on it. When I want to move it around I have to roll it as it is too heavy for me to lift, needless to say it’s still stayed pretty much in the same area in the garden!

 

Sláinte

 

Linda xx

Here we have the ultimate in portable sewing!

 

 

I got this machine some time ago from a man via Gumtree. This machine  had been his mother’s and was given to her brand new (1934) as a present for her birthday when she was a young girl. Apparently she sewed on it all her life until she sadly passed away. I’m so honoured to have it.  As it was a nice day I decided to take it outside and clean it up and oil it ready for use. It took about an hour and with the minimum of tweaking on the upper and lower tension I have a lovely portable sewing machine! As it is a hand crank one I can sew in the sun to my heart’s content! No stopping me now!

 

 

This is the Aeonium Zwartkop I bought the other day at the garden centre when I visited their cacti display.  I have a love for ‘black’ plants and this is one of my all time favourites. It is such a deep purple that is almost black. I’ve named it Ian after Ian Gillan from Deep Purple.

 

I’ve had them before but I’ve never managed to keep them going as I killed them with kindness and watered them too much. Hopefully I’ve learned from my mistakes and will be extremely cruel towards Ian!!

 

The tabby cat I mentioned in this post has been back a couple of times. It’s visited my friend who live across the road where it’s been fed and the last couple of evenings it’s trundled over to see me. I managed to get close and stroked it and as you can see from the picture below we are now sleeping together!!

 

 

Actually, no we aren’t really!! My back door was open this morning and it wandered in and hopped on to the bed where it commandeered my laptop. I think it wanted to send emails to all its mates about the new B&B it’s found! If it carries on like this I’ll borrow a scanner from my friend who runs an animal sanctuary and see if it’s been microchipped. It is a lovely little thing and is so affectionate.

 

Another small ta-da. This is my pink crochet skirt all finished and sewn up. It is the first all crochet garment I’ve made and I am really chuffed with it. It’s from Debbie Bliss’s book Simply Crochet.

 

 

I’m going to make a little pink half slip to go underneath, otherwise it my be a bit draughty in a following wind!!

 

Sláinte

 

Linda xx

This is going to be a mainly photo driven post. I had a coffee this morning in Manor Nurseries in Angmering, West Sussex, then decided to go walkabout around the nursery. I remembered I hadn’t had a look in their Cacti section for a while. So off I toddled armed with my little compact camera. I think I timed it well as so many of the plants were in bloom. I spent ages in there until I got overheated myself. Here are some of the plants – warning – quite a few of them!!

 

 

 

 

 

I think this looks like a load of bunnies gathered around!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This could bring a tear to the eye!

 

 

 

 

 

And finally – two beautiful Irises in bloom

 

This blue and white one is called Bold Print, it’s just gorgeous.

 

Sláinte

 

Linda xx

I’m still sticking to my mission of finishing all the projects I’ve started and using up my stash before I buy anything else, although I will admit to buying this embroidery design and this sewing pattern over the weekend.

I’ve had this project on my needles for ages

I wanted a really warm, chunky, snuggly dress to wear over leggings or jeans in the winter. I used Drops Eskimo 100% wool instead of the recommended Debbie bliss Como wool. A fraction of the price but it was lovely to knit with and I loved the deep old rose colour. So here’s the finished dress ready to go into the wardrobe to await winter – which should arrive next week if today’s drop in temperature is anything to go by.

 

 

The second Ta da is my mandarin collar top made with some lovely self embossed off white satin fabric I got from a shop on the Goldhawk Road on my last visit to London.

 

Please ignore wrinkles across tummy and waist, I will have to de-stuff my dress form as I’ve lost a bit of weight recently. I used New Look 6407, a really easy pattern to make up.

 

 

So that’s 2 more projects down and about 100 more to go!

Now onto to this lovely little pussycat who came to visit last night.

 

 

I couldn’t get too close as it got a bit skittish, but it gobbled up the cat biscuits that my cats had left. I gave it some more food and that was gobbled up really quickly as well. It seemed to be very hungry. It does seem to look quite healthy and well fed and cats are well known for being con artists when it comes to food.  I had one ginger cat called Bramble who was well known in the neighbourhood for being able to charm food out of people’s cupboards.  I’ll keep monitoring it to make sure it’s OK.

 

That’s my Lily guarding the front door to make sure the little cat didn’t get in.

 

I love it’s little white moustache!

 

Must go more projects to complete!!

 

Slainte

 

Linda xxx