I am just reporting in to say I am hopefully feeling slightly more alive today. My breathing has eased. How much is due to the cornucopia of medications and drugs I am taking and how much I can put down to inhaling Thyme essential oil in a sink of hot water last night I can't say, but I do know that the moment I inhaled the Thyme fumes (which made my eyes water!) they percolated into the nooks and crannies of my lungs and my breathing eased. I breathed easily the rest of the evening and repeated this before bedtime. I was still awake in the night with breathing problems but nothing like as bad.
I have not been idle whilst I have been laid up, and have now done more than a hundred rows on my Sweetpea Granny Stripes lap warmer for the winter. I am debating whether to carry on with it and make it long enough to go across the end of the bed, but I think I will stop now and edge it. I am just printing off some "how to's" from Lucy's wonderful Attic 24 blog. I will start edging it today I think, and then I want to get started on trying my hand (and brain!) at a Ripple cushion. Watch this space.
A close up, to give you a vague idea of the colours (though they blend better than this than under the stark brightness of my camera flash.)
Outside, our sodden summer carries on much as usual - rain, rain, rain, and slugs, slugs, slugs. I have just about given up in the veg garden as nothing is surviving. However, I DO have brilliant crops of Gooseberries and Raspberries (best ever rasps), and good pickings of Blackcurrants, the most Blueberries I've had, and crops on Redcurrants, Loganberries, Wineberries and Boysenberry. All is not lost. Just the Courgettes, and the Carrots, and the Runner Beans aren't looking good - lacy is the word I want . . .
Outside there is the steady patter of rain, sparrows chirping - they sound like they are passing the time of day as they rear their broods behind the facia boards. A blackbird is singing in the paddock, and there is the soft moo of a cow to her calf. The swallows in the barn are not happy with the weather, but in dry moments they sit on the power line and chat metallically, ending each refrain with two long notes, Dahhhh-Dehh with a slight question mark ending.
If you would love to win one of Em's beautiful drawings of Dartmoor foals, please visit her blog Dartmoor Ramblings and leave a comment. She has a wonderful blog and makes my heart yearn for the moor with every photograph. Good luck.
