Running on empty

 I set two alarms last night - my clock and my mobile.  In the event I didn't need them.  I went to bed at 8.30 and read for a bit, slept until midnight, and that was IT for the night.  I got hot and of course the more I moved around the bed, the hotter I got.  At 4.50 I checked the clock yet again, and just got up and got myself sorted to go and was out of the house inside of an hour.  The first half of the journey was in the dark, and I don't enjoy night-time driving.  I took it steady and didn't listen to a podcast as I needed to concentrate.

I think my being tired didn't help me buying.  I really didn't find much to interest me.  Some nice things there, but shop price.

Various doors, a water pump and a modern penny farthing bicycle . . .

This made me smile :)

Every stall seemed so very random . . .

This is the stand of the chap that buys up everything dirt cheap at an auction I've been to a couple of times.  (He isn't in the picture).

An interesting cart saddle - European I think.

I think everyone was trying to clear old stock.

A quilt.  The only others I saw were a couple of crappy hexagon ones.

Above and below, our friend A's stall.  Love the little child container (seat) on wheels.  We had a similar one years ago - thought it would fly out as it was so different, but it nearly ended up as firewood!

This lady has a lot of French stuff too.

I didn't buy much.  I was pretty disappointed by what was on offer and wondered why am I here at all?  I wouldn't have missed much if I had just turned the alarms off and gone back to sleep.  I clocked up 10,000+ steps and now my hip is complaining.  I did the few bits of shopping I needed for the week, spending £18 in Tesco in Ledbury.  I need to save fuel where I can as I have quilting group on Weds and the Chiro in the morning before it, and then am going to Tam's next week too.

So now I shall settle down and have an early night.  

A definite improvement, and patchwork

 

I am relieved to report that my stye is a lot less inflamed - I have changed to a thicker eye gel rather than drops at night - a bit like putting a slug in but it lasts all night and keeps the eye from drying.  In the day, I am using drops too, both ones Gabby got for me as samples.  OK, I wake up in the morning with my eyes feeling like they have had vaseline smeared all around them - just like we used to do when we were showing my friend's part-bred Arab horses, when we put Vaseline around their eyes and on their muzzles.  Oh and sprayed their coats with Pledge furniture polish to really make them shine!!

The yellows are actually deeper than they appear here.  They will hopefully tie in when I start putting them together.  The butterfly print is too wan.  

It rained hard this morning.  I polished the kitchen table and a couple of Windsor chairs, and did some work on the curtains.  It's a start anyway.

No sign of my neighbours but their cars aren't there so they have popped out somewhere.  Update - caught up with them and have met Sam's girlfriend.  She's lovely.

I've just been down at Pam's helping her pick the apples from the tallest branches - the biggest apples of course.  Now I have lots to lay down for autumn and winter.

Now a quick meal and do my rolls for tomorrow.  Pastrami, with a small container of chopped salad.

Enjoy your weekend.

A Scary Day and an Update

 I decided I would try and get an appointment with my Optician yesterday, as the soreness from the stye I had 6 weeks ago still hadn't totally gone away.  She was very thorough and used a dye and checked it with her opthalmic machine.  I had two options - ignore it, and wait for it to heal, or I could spend £10 on a heating mask that you put in the microwave.  I chose the latter.

As I was driving home, my phone went.  It was the Optician.  I pulled over and phoned back.  She was writing up my notes she said, and she went to check her Big Book of Eyes . . . she was going to get an emergency appointment for me at the Hospital at Hereford, as she just wanted them to thoroughly check my eyelid just in case it was Squamous Cell Cancer.  She said she was 95% sure that I had just had a stye, because of the pus it had produced, but clearly she wanted to do due diligence . . .

Tiny catkins on the Hazel bushes.  A sign of hope . . . there will be a spring after all.

Needless to say, this hit me like a brick and I spent the evening trying not to think about it.  95% chance it wasn't, but still a teensy chance it was . . . We all take our health so much for granted.  Problems with limbs I can deal with, but anything to do with internal giblets or eyes/mouth etc, not so easy to think about . . . 

Much sewing today I think, to take my mind off it . . .  

A helpful little Pippi Cat . . .  I have to move from my place on the sofa so she can snuggle down beside or behind me!

Update:  I have an appt. to go to Outpatients early in October for an eye check with a consultant.  Not long to wait and not as far to go as Hereford, as it will be in Llandod.  That doesn't sound so worrying.

I have guests tomorrow - part-time neighbour and good friend Sam is bringing his girlfriend up to meet me.  I have galloped round with the vacuum, deep cleaned the bathroom, and baked two Chocolate Courgette Cakes (BBC Good Food recipe).  I have had a still warm slice and it is GOOD.  My friend Ann will get a slice on Sunday when I go to Malvern.

Postal deliveries too - a new (half price) sweat shirt from Cotton Traders, and my two yellow fabrics from The Cotton Patch.  A little brighter than yellows used but one is virtually the same pattern (which is like a little darker shadow) and I think they will tie in nicely.  

I have had my dehumidifier on this week as Tam was telling me last weekend I needed to as it had been so humid, and I had to empty it this morning. A container full of water.  So she was right . . .

My walk today was up to my horsey neighbour and my back/hip coped with the steady slope up there.  I was fed up with the same flat walk along the old railway line.

Now it's time to sit down with a cup of Earl Grey, my new library book (Agatha Christie's Evil Under the Sun) and an ice pack on my lower back.  

What happened to Pope (Popess!) Joan . . .

 

I had a bit of a wasted journey to Carmarthen yesterday, as I wanted to close my account with Nationwide and can only do that by going in person to their office.  I found out it is shut on a Wednesday . . .  So I will have to combine it with another journey south-westwards.  I allowed myself the luxury of going into Waterstones bookshop, but just had a quick look round the history/archaeology section and didn't indulge myself.  Then I popped a Welcome to your New Home card through Danny's front door (he was at work) and went to friend Pam's for lunch and a natter.

You can see what I was up to at my Patchwork class.  I am afraid I was cursing the lady who made this quilt as she used the TINIEST machine stitch to stich-in-the-ditch quilt it and it will take many hours of unpicking with my stitch-ripper to take this off.  Never mind, it was good to see my friends again and was able to sit with Pat, and talk about her horses and patchwork.

I am just about comfortable enough to get back to my x-stitch Puffin, so here he is.

I DID actually take this the right way up, then the camera/computer put it sideways and even after I had righted it, put it back sideways.  I give up.

Not much happening here today, but I shall go up and work on the bathroom curtains after I have had my walk.  Just simple 3" squares in blue and a pale cream print.  Should make up quickly.

Yesterday's The Rest is History podcast was a bit mind-blowing - a very clever Englishwoman who managed to go up through the ranks and finally became a female Pope, but who wasn't discovered to be female until she began giving birth as she was mounting her horse to take part in a religious parade (rather bad timing there!!)  Pope Joan she was (though Pope John as her male name).  She had one of two fates according to legend, the worst being tied by her ankles to a horse's tail and dragged through the streets being stoned to death.  Or else she went into a nunnery and her son became a Pope in due course.  Probably a mythical allegory, but you never know . . .  It made for good listening anyway.

WIld birds, blogger and new curtain plans

I wrote my post then checked on my side bar to see if Blogger had sorted itself out now, but no - it has shot itself in the foot, and several blogs have gone right out of order and when clicked on (Going Gently is one of them) just appear in gibberish - the HTML? view.  This is getting ridiculous.  Just done a search on this and last month lots of "hobbyist" blogs were blocked under a Malware False Positive issue.  Don't know quite what is happening but it is frustrating . . .   Moments later, refreshed again, and the blogs have returned!  Crazy.

                      *                                *                             *                               *

I must have slept awkwardly as I woke this morning with my SI pain stretching up to my right shoulder (that is the route of muscle attachment).  I have just checked my calendar and Sunday is Malvern Flea.  I don't think I shall be going, as hauling my camping trolley round would be the worst thing for shoulder and hip.  I'm not much good at Being Sensible . . . but needs must.

Yesterday I was auditioning fabrics for a new curtain for the main bathroom, and one for the door there too as the lace effort there at the moment doesn't really give total privacy.

These all tie in nicely with the tiles I have in there.  A good way of using up my stash.  It will be a simple pattern.  I'm not sure how long I can sit and sew right now though.  If only the painkillers worked. . .

Yesterday I had my asthma clinic check (OK), and then went on to do the shopping.  I needed some hair conditioner, as I have just about reached the end of a couple of  bottles left behind by my girls.  I was really quite shocked at the stupid prices on them in Tesco (I did my main shop in Lidl - £23).  Most were £4 plus, many £6 - £8.  Oh come on, that is just daft especially when I look on Amazon (not renowned for being cheap) and they are half that price on there!  I paid 89p for a bottle, on the principle you can only spend it once . . .

You can just about make out the little Swallow perched on the phone wire.  I noticed it sat there for 15 mins or so, resting on its way home to Africa.  A youngster, as full tail feathers not developed yet.  On the roof, I had 3 Spotted Flycatchers, and two Pied Wagtails, and it was a joy to see them.  In the shrubs on the bank this week, there has been a female Bullfinch and a couple of Chiff Chaffs.  It's lovely that my garden attracts so many different birds.

Close up of a Robin's Pin Cushion.  Tam from Llandod - best picking of blackberries up opposite the giant boulder blocking the gateway in the last few hundred yards of the path.

Not a lot happening here.  Still reading Death in a Desert Land, and yesterday's podcast was an interview with the proprietor - Christina Oakley Harrington - of Treadwell's bookshop in London, which specializes in Esoteric books - Pagan, Wicca, Occult etc. She grew up in several countries, speaks various dead languages and had an Anthropologist as her dad.  This podcast was on The Three Ravens.  Made quite a change from Samuel Johnson last week!

Both Pam and Tam bought me apples, so I am a bit unsure what I can do with them all now the freezer is full and Tam has my dehumidifier . . .  In the past I made chutney - but I can no longer make that as the fumes upset my asthma.

Looking outside, there are rainclouds, so I had best get out for my walk before it comes on to rain.

Where the blackberries grow

 

Here you go Tam fronm Llandod, when you reach this National Cycle Network sign, you are near the blackberries.  You will probably have to be quick though, as the heavy rain we had last night has knocked a few off.

The humidity is very high today - about 78 - which didn't help my breathing any when I was out on my walk.  I had zero energy as well, as Rosie is cutting the last big molars and wouldn't settle for bed until 11 p.m.!  Poor Tam is exhausted as it would appear she has Long Covid - no energy, breathing very reactive to struggling with a difficult toddler - she really did NOT want to be strapped in her car seat. Poor Tam had to step away to try and get her breath back whilst I kept Rosie from escaping.  She is very b-minded and determined, that little girl.  A true Aries!  Tam's also been losing her hair, and has a brain full of cotton wool.  She went to the GP in February, but the Symbicort inhaler he gave her just made her breathing worse.  I'm hoping she can remember to keep taking her iron tablets and then go back and have her health reviewed again.  

Anyway, they are on their way home now, but Tam has forgotten her little cool bag so the contents of that will be chucked/eaten (I don't eat Avocado).  

Before they left, we had a wander round the garden.  One of Tam's Winter Squash has been cross pollinated by what appears to be something in the pumpkin line as it is round and orange, and NOT more tubular and grey, which her Winter Squashes were meant to be.  The 3 ones on the other plant are the right beasties, but tiny and I doubt will get big enough to be worth harvesting before the colder weather knocks them back.  My Telegraph cucumbers are big and fat at one end with a pathetic growth to lengthen at the other.  Hmmm.  This hot summer did not encourage them in any way.

I am going to sit down with my book now I've tidied up a bit. I have been organized and put the recycling out as they are coming round earlier now and I don't want to be rushing in the morning.

Have a good week all.

Well that was a disappointment

 I arranged to meet up with Pam to go to the talk together.  I set off at the appropriate time, but found the car park packed - rugby practice on the Groe, folk for the talk and folk boozing up the town.  Found a place nearby but then discovered that the talk was over-supported and there was limited standing room only.  (I didn't know they had that many members!) NO WAY was I going to stand for two hours.  A hot fug of breath and warm people hit me at the door too, which boded ill if anyone had a cold!  So as soon as Pam arrived, we agreed to go for a drink instead.  It made a pleasant change, though my left ear is a little deaf/full of wax, whichever, and the background noise (din at times, as lots of young lads in the pub) made conversation difficult.  I can't remember the last time I went out for a drink of an evening, so it was a novelty!

From yesterday's walk - nice and level!  Just what my lower back requires.

Guelder rose berries.

It's a good year for Blackberries.  My freezer is full now though.

Sloes too - a shame I can't reach them.

As Tam and Rosie are here later, I had best do my walk sooner rather than later.  My back should hopefully ease up then too.

Enjoy your weekend.