Following on from yesterday

 I am sat here watching my wind-up radio, solar light, torch, charger etc charging, as I have taken myself to task to finally get around to doing that, and working out how it works, and realizing I need AA batteries as well.  I have sensibly tuned it to Radio 4 . . .

I was awake early - slept right through until 4.20 a.m. when I answered a call of nature.  Then Alfie heard me and yelled for food.  15 mins later he was yelling to Go Out Now . . .  I didn't sleep after that but stayed in my nice warm bed till 6.30 or so.

My latest project, which will be a gift for a friend.  I am enjoying working on this.

Yesterday, Tam and I discussed getting butane gas cooking stoves to replace the ancient (as in only use in an emergency) camping stoves in the stables.  She couldn't afford one till next payday, so I ordered two from Halfords and we will share the butane cans, and I'll get more as I shouldn't think they will last long.

I have also found Keith's big Ever Ready battery and got a new heavy duty 6V battery for that.  I also found my ancient head torch, which was beyond use now, having been stuffed in the back of the drawer.  I ordered another one.  Have a shopping list of Charcoal, more Matches, Butane gas and Cup-a-Soup.

I had a little idea this morning - could you cook rice in a thermos flask if you put in a portion with boiling water?  The answer is yes.  Takes about 5 hrs - one measure of rice to two of boiling water. Heat the thermos first with boiling water. Pasta is a lot quicker.  Spaghetti, angel hair or couscous work best - place a portion in a warmed flask and fill to within an inch of the top with boiling water and add a pinch of salt.  Shake.  Ready in 5 - 10 mins.  A proper food flask is best for this, as it has a wide mouth.  On my shopping list . . .

I have enjoyed reading all the comments, and had a lovely long off-piste chat/video  from my friend D, who showed me her Bug Out Box, which has all the useful things you would need.  There are four in her family so best to have everything in one place. Hot water bottles, batteries (lots), candles (lots), 2 lighters & 2 packs lotsa matches, tissues, first aid kit, notebook with useful and family phone numbers in, food you can eat cold incl. crackers and biscuits, peanut butter etc.  Empty glass jam jars for safe candle holders.  Fully charged battery chargers.  Brilliant 24v solar panel for charging phones etc.  (you have to charge them whilst it is being solar charged, I understand, as it doesn't have a battery to store energy.)  Hope you didn't mind me sharing that D.

So, bearing in mind we could have power cuts, I am at least getting towards being winter-proofed.  I have found the heated gilet Tam bought for Keith.  I am far too big for it (he was very slender) but it would be fine across my front or tummy.  Tam said that the battery charger can charge phones too.  D and I both realized that we would be slightly panicky without being able to make contact with family members if phones went down, but as she said, think what it was like in WWII, when husbands, sons (even daughters and wives) went to help the war effort in whatever way and for some of them, you didn't know where they were going (for the chaps, even they were in the dark at times) and when you might hear from them again.  Hand written letters were pretty well the only form of communication.  

Here is my new book (SO glad I treated myself).  A few illustrations for those who like quilting/sewing.  I take them the right way up but for some reason they all come out sideways!, even though I try and turn them up the right way.

FInally, my sideways puffin without legs and feet.  Having worked flat out all morning I am going to give myself the afternoon off and do some sewing.

Central heating was on for an hour first thing and I shut all the doors to keep the warm air in rooms as long as possible.  This of course had a queue of cats wanting to get the other side of the shut doors!!

Spag. Bol. again tonight and enough to freeze two portions too.  I cooked extra pasta and am using up broccoli I had pre-cooked too.

You'd soon run out of clean knickers . . .

What we take for granted - above all, power.  Power to heat, light, cook, preserve.

I've been thinking about this recently, and wondering whether the Government Nanny-State guidance to us to build up 3 days' store of foodstuffs, especially things which don't need to be heated/cooked, and water, have anything to do with threats from Putin to cut off power supplies.  

I used to work for the Marine division of the Post Office, back in the day, and know only too well how many (now fibre-optic) telecommunications cables run beneath the sea.  In the past they would sometimes be dredged up accidentally but now there is a much more targeted approach from our enemies.  Think how easily supply lines for food could be attacked and how instantaneous the result.  In the past, supermarkets used to keep stocks of supplies on site - they no longer do.  When they have run out in store - that's it until the next delivery.  With no communication system, that's it for a while.   That's it on the most basic level - no food, no power.  How to hit a country hard.

Halloween on Llandrindod lake.

An attack on the under-sea gas pipeline from Norway to the UK would be catastrophic too.  In rural areas in Wales, we don't have access to gas anyway, unless we buy it in cylinders to heat a cooker or stove.  I am very vulnerable here as I am all electric - we did consider having a wood-burning stove put in, but there is no functioning fireplace - the old one in the kitchen does have a non-functioning cast iron gas heater, but it was condemned before we got here.  It was connected to an outside supply (gas cylinder).  Gas fumes and asthmatics don't go well together though.  The original chimney above it was covered and I have a storecupboard, with a little window in it, so no longer any good as a chimney!!  Keeping warm and fed would be reliant on blankets, quilts and a primus stove . . . .

It may never happen, but in the middle of the night, when I can't sleep, such thoughts go through my head and cause much pondering! I am perhaps fortunate that less than half a mile away is a shop called The Bug Out, which is about survival equipment and prepping . . .  Perhaps I should check it out!!!  My little recently-bought wind-up radio and phone charger seems a bit inadequate!!

On that happy note I shall leave you and go and see how much it is going to cost to sort out my malfunctioning handbrake (which did NOT want to co-operate when I had to pull off a single track lane last evening coming back from Tam's - 10 sacks of rubbish stopped me pulling into the top of the STEEP driveway and I had to drive down it. Think Porlock hill in miniature (about a 1 in 4 steepness). Handbrake didn't hold and I thought I was going to go through their gate before I could hold it on the footbrake to start reversing out . . .  Oh, and my phone has Malware on it (came in on a QR scanner), so more expense.  Tam tried to fix it yesterday, but it's a sort of self-replenishing one.  Barsteward thing.  (Update: the lad at the phone shop fixed it in about one minute flat . . .)  Phew.  Garage closed (as it was when I passed it last week, so the handbrake will have to wait).

Whilst I was out, I was thinking about how it was when I was growing up.  No central heating of course, just a coal fire in one room.  Mum kept warm-ish in the kitchen (which she called the scullery) with a paraffin heater.  This same beast heated the icy bathroom on bath night.  In winter there was often frost inside the windows where condensation had formed.  Clothes often felt damp.  You put the clothes you were going to wear next day (often the ones worn the previous day, plus clean knickers) on the bottom of the bed so you had extra heat and they weren't icy cold to put on.   When small I wore Liberty Bodices, which were like a fleecy lined vest.  If there had been a storm and a power outage, mum would light the living room, which had the coal fire, with a Hurricane Lamp on the table.  We would play cards or board games until the power came back on again.  Our old house had a gas supply and mum had a gas stove, so we could always boil up a kettle for a hot drink, or cook on it.

At Ynyswen, in 2010, we had about 1 foot of snow on the ground when we woke up on Christmas morning.  That was the day the central heating boiler decided to give up the ghost, and as we were on the waiting list for a replacement one under the Warm Front scheme, it wasn't until April until THAT happened!  We thanked Heaven for the Spanish Hergom stove in the kitchen (which heated the room and you could heat things in pans on the top and it heated a couple of radiators too).  It was a multifuel stove, but once we had it changed to oil it lost its oomph and the oven was only good to warm plates in.  We had the woodburner in the living room and often said that was the only thing which saved us from hypothermia that winter. 

So let's hope and pray we keep our electricity supply . . .

So, did I buy anything?

 Yes, I had a shopping list.  I did buy proper quilting needles for my sewing machine.  I passed on the ultra expensive Best Pins for quilting.  RIDICULOUS prices esp. as made in China like everything else. I pondered whether to improve my rotary cutter by buying a new one with titanium blades.  As I had recently bought blades (non Titanium) for the one I have, I let that rest.  Fabrics it was then.  Some felts to take the place of the woollen fabrics suggested in the cushion I want to make from Kim Diehl's Simple Harvest (they are wool felt anyway).  

That's my dehumidifier they're on (currently drying my clothes and extracting moisture in the Utility Room, under the laundry poles in the corner.  The single ones were 80p each and I think it was just under £11 the lot.

A Christmas bundle.  I think this was £11, so not bad value.  I want to make a tree skirt this year.

These gorgeous different colourway variations on William Morris' s Strawberry Thief tempted me on Doughty's stand, as well as the half metre below I bought from them too.  £3 per fat quarter.  

This is from the Fine French Linen stand and it will go with these below which I bought at the Builth Quilt show back in the spring.  They had a kit/pack of pattern and fabric for a gorgeous triangles quilt but that was about £120!  I will make up my own.  Perhaps just a lap quilt.  This was 1/2m for £7.

Plus a metre of this gorgeous pink print which won't go to waste with grand-daughters in the family.  £7.

Here's the duvet cover I got at the Fleamarket, which is a lovely design and colour-way.  All washed and dried and ready to use.

I nearly forgot, this is the cushion cover for me to embroider for a friend for Christmas.  £8.  I shall start on that this evening.  There should be a new video from Rewilding Jude, and I'm looking forward to that.

I have lots of fabrics to make things with over the winter now, as it could either be very cold or very wet and windy or a combination of both.

Podcasts for the last two days were from Three Ravens (ghosty stories for Halloween) and two brilliant podcasts from The Rest is History about King Arthur and his Knights.

A Disappointing Quilt Fair

The saggy old roof on an old barn at the Farm shop.

 Pam and I met up on the edge of town this morning and made our way to Hereford, stopping first at Breinton Manor Farm shop as I needed apples and they do lovely Heritage varieties. I bought two bags of Russets and one of Ashmead Kernel, and some lovely onions and garlic.  Then on to Lyde Court for their last Fleamarket of the season.  I wasn't expecting much (and so wasn't too disappointed).  I got a history book for just £1 - The Forgotten Castles of Wales by Paul R Davis and a pretty double duvet cover set for Tam's bedroom here.   I may try and offload some of my oldest old stock there next year.

Old oast house for drying hops at Lyde Court.

I loved the little figures on this stand but resisted temptation.

Some lovely quilts formed the backdrop and skirting on this stand.

Isn't this lovely?

And these Goldfinches.  I think it was a preprinted panel which you then embroidered.

All hand-quilted.  Beautifully done.

There were several similar of these at the side of the hall.  Very colourful.

A nice view through a window.

Loved the 3-D fish that the Puffin had caught.

I love Swallows.

This was the 2nd day of the Fair and I didn't arrive until gone mid-day.  It seemed pretty quiet.  When I went a year ago I went on the first day and it was very busy.  There were perhaps 25% less stalls this year, and some stalls with very ordinary cheaper range fabrics which didn't interest me.  There really weren't many quilts on display either.  I was disappointed.  I did buy some fabrics, but had "good sharp pins" on my shopping list and they stayed put as I am NOT going to pay £15.85 for special quilting pins (and not that many of them).  There was a busy and very packed Quilt Fair on Builth showground this year - and again next I understand.  I will just go to that in future.  2 miles each way is cheaper than a 140 mile round trip!  I did bother a church on the way home, so will share that with you soon.

Oh, I nearly forgot.  I have cancelled the Autumny quilt book of Kim Diehl's that I ordered, as when I checked, I have it already!!!  It's Simple Harvest.

The Autumn Blues

 Since Keith died, as the evenings draw in I start to feel rather low.  I have two friends who at the moment are in a particularly bad place, and I feel so helpless that I can do nothing to change their lives, but we do chat and "see" one another on video calls.  (First time with my friend K in France yesterday).  I hope that just offloading problems helps.

I am not enjoying my daily walks  - today's was on the flat along the old abandoned railway line.  I did it, and it has helped my health, but I am fed up with repeating the same routes and would love to be up in the wilds, but at my age, probably not a good idea on my own.

I came back and pieced and sewed a bit more of my bigger patchwork curtain, for the bathroom window.  I was gritting my teefs with that too though . . . So in the end I went out and gardened for an hour or so, which felt very positive, and actually freed up my graunchy left shoulder a bit.  I pruned the bits on my Indigo rose which has been raking us as we go up the little steps to the square lawn where I have my patio set.  Tam will be pleased as she's been telling me to do that for ages.

I cut back Aquilegia leaves and even pulled a good few young plants up as they were really taking over the gravel area at the front of the house.  Then THIS area had been driving me mad for ages, so I set to and cleared all the buttercups and transplanted the Cranesbills which had set up home there.  (For transplanted, read hoiked out of the stones and dumped unceremoniously at the back of the bed above them from whence they had escaped as seeds or young plants).

It looks a lot better now, but there are still some bits at the far end I will tackle at the weekend. 

Yesterday's walk along the valley side.  I sat on a log and just relaxed and took in the view looking towards Aberedw.

I have gotten SO fed up with my slip on summer shoes (from Cotton Traders' sale last year) as they are making my socks move round my feet so the heel is at the front.  Grrr!) that I bought a pair of purple slippers on line yesterday and they should be arriving shortly (so you can guess where they were bought from . . .)

In fact, I was feeling pretty low and when I saw an advert by Kim Diehl for her Autumn book which had an absolutely stunning quilt or four on the cover, I treated myself to that as well, so with the slippers, a bit of a spending spree.  That won't be arriving until next week though.

Today's bread - I made two, one for me and one for Ed, but can't see his car there . . .  Will have to try and make room in the freezer.

A day out to look forward to tomorrow, firstly with Pam to a (small) Fleamarket at Lyde Court in Hereford.  The pitches are only £7.50, so I am not expecting it to be too highfalutin, but it will be a nice wander round and I can check it out for me to do next year, having what will probably be a Retirement clearout or 6!

Then I will go on to the Quilt Fair at Malvern and intend to be frugal as I have bought fabric and books recently..  I am also planning to go church bothering on the way home.  Watch this space.

Wind "farms" and Forest bathing . . .

 a modern term.  To me, it's just a walk in the woods!  My friend Pam asked if I wanted to join her when walking her rescue dog Foxy yesterday, so we went down to the beautiful woods along the lane and did a circular loop.

Make the most of this view as if Bute Energy get their way (which of course they will, because the Welsh Senedd is backing them all the way) there will be T-pylons marching across this landscape, from the huge disfiguring wind"farms" (imagine several Blackpool towers on each of the mynydds hereabouts).  Concrete footings the size of four bedroom houses, but twice as deep.  The rape of the countryside - destroying the peat upland that other factions in Wales are desperate to restore.  Affecting wildlife, natural springs which many of us rely on in rural areas.  Cutting back woodland to get the equipment in (blades bigger than a jumbo jet), creating motorway sized roads up to the wind"farm" sites, making travel on our country roads slow to 5 mph when this convoy is travelling through Wales.  Yet we have no say, it would seem.  At the meeting myself and friends went to yesterday, the only concession that they have made is to use wooden poles in the Hundred House section where there is a big holiday caravan site (Billy Blue Eyes will be glad to hear that), and to shorten "our" T-pylons by 5 metres to "just" 22 metres high.  I am sure that will be a great relief for the low flying military Aircraft, especially the Atlas low-drop planes which fly at just 100m to practice approaching drop zones . . .  Makes little difference to my friends who will be able to count 14 pylons from their conservatory, which overlooks the valley above.  I am fortunate, as the trees I moan about spoiling my view will hide all but two.

My neighbour Ed bought me up a little goody bag of produce from his polytunnel yesterday - a yellow courgette, salad and cooking tomatoes and a lovely cucumber.  I am baking rolls today so will take some down to him.  

"Heatwave" is now officially finished.  My x-stitch Puffin for Rosie just needs his legs and feet added and I can cut it out and stuff it.  Then start on one for little "I".  

The three 2nd hand Patchwork books from World of Books that Tam bought me for Christmas arrived yesterday and I have been good - a quick flick through and they have been put aside for her to wrap.  The Bucilla x-stitch kit I bought for a friend's birthday also arrived - it shows North American wild animals - deer, bear, racoon etc.  I hope she enjoys it.  Unfortunately I am still waiting for my order of the Simple Christmas Tidings patchwork book by Kim Diehl is still on its way and I won't get it until 19th soonest.

Time to stretch my legs now before it comes on to rain later.

Two treats

 I was feeling a bit down in the dumps again yesterday, so I decided I would live dangerously and rent MGM for 99p a month for three months, so I could watch the new Series of Blood of my Blood (Outlander followers will know exactly what this is about).  For non-Outlander followers, it is a prequel of the parents of the main characters in Outlander.  Set in Scotland and I was back in my happy zone last night as I set the final stitches in the Heatwave quilt binding.  I'm about to go in and watch some tv and sew in all the ends from the long arm quilting.

This morning was sunny but a bit breezy, and I decided that I would drive up to the Elan Valley and have a walk there.  As always I really enjoyed it.  

You can tell it was windy though, just from the white horses on the reservoir, which is still pretty low.

The Rowan trees had a good crop of berries, but some had been blown off or scoffed by wild birds already.

Amazingly, there were still ripening blackberries.  Perhaps I should go back and pick in a week as lots like this along the side of the pathway.

I rounded the bend, and could see the church on the far side, but boy, the wind hit me and nearly knocked me sideways, snatching the breath from my mouth, and so I turned around at this point, back onto the more sheltered pathway at the side of the reservoir.

I do appreciate it being a FLAT walk, as all the ones locally are hilly.

I have got some mince out thawing, and think I will make a Cottage Pie for my tea tonight and tomorrow.  

I've started on the first of the Library Books I got yesterday, Anthony Horowitz's A Line To Kill, set on Alderney.  In my just-before-Keith days I sailed there on a friend's yacht.  I had a stinking cold, and can remember us mooring in the Braye Harbour, and then being taken ashore on a water taxi, and walking up the road to the nearest pub, for sustenance.  The few cars that there were sounded like they were on their way to the breaker's yard, as no MoT's were required on the island.  

Well, this won't do.  Time to sew those ends in.