View from the little church at Capel-y-Ffin.
Well, autumn has arrived, and with the colder weather, so has the rain. When I was busy doing things other than tidying up my garden, I should have done the night-shift out there to get it properly tidied. Now that I DO have the time, the rain has arrived. Ah well. It can wait, it's not like we have a queue of people wanting to view - the market, after promising signs in the spring - has gone dormant again.
Time to focus on indoor things, and I am currently assembling a quilt top. VERY slowly I might add, However diligent I am with measuring and double-measuring, there seems to be a mistake I have already made, requiring the stitch ripper to be doing overtime!
My head has been full of all sorts of blog-postings when I am out and about, and then I get home and they have fled my mind. I see some beautiful scenery; watch a Buzzard sitting atop a telegraph pole stretch out his wings and then launch himself into the air; down a narrow lane a Merlin dives out of a hedgerow and skims the lane in front of the car, barely a foot off the tarmac; I see the last Buttercup flowering, such a vivid yellow now it is on its own and the hedgerow colours are fading; swathes of ivy in the hedgerows peppered with flowers and I wonder how many will be pollinated because bees are so scarce.
As I was at the sink yesterday, at dusk, I noticed a procession of tiny Wrens making their way into a little cubbyhole they made in the autumn, between two concrete beams across the outside window aperture. They excavated the gap, leaving a little spoil-heap on the window-ledge below, and now cwtch up together to survive the winter months. There are LOTS more of them in a similar spot above our bedroom window, where the bats live in the summer, though this year they had to share with a nest of House Martins - INSIDE the house! I was amazed - we have never had House Martins outside the house as they don't consider there is enough of an overhang. I never knew they might see a hole and think it was a Good Idea! We watched them checking it out one day in late May.
I wish I had more time to read. I always feel guilty if I sit down with a book in the day time, although I have a stack of them to read, and want to read my way through all of Thomas Hardy's poems and re-read some more of his novels. I am drawn to Dickens again too, and want to re-read David Copperfield. I am also sliding down a steep Edward Thomas slope again at present, and I just want to sit down and read every word I have on him.
I have finished the embroidery on a partly-sewn tablecloth belonging to my friend A, who is so ill (she has Pancreatic cancer). So I will take that to her next week, along with a small basket full of goodies - it makes me feel good to assemble it, and make something edible, biscuits, scones, jam etc - along with a magazine, some flowers, a small piece of pretty china etc. I will make some biscuits for her this weekend, either Lemon Curd Biscuits or else Sugar Biscuits, or perhaps some home made Jammy Dodgers.
Meanwhile, my patchwork table runner is close to being assembled, though I am going to go back to the bud I sewed last week, unpick and rework it as I'm not happy with the experimental result (the magazine just said to refer to the illustration . . .) I wish I had planned the colours properly now, as it just "happened". I had been sewing some little hexi flowers together in whatever material I had close to hand, and then bought this patchwork magazine and it had the hexi runner in it. Hopefully the edging hexis pull it all together.
Meanwhile, it is home made soup time again, and my slow cooker is being used regularly.
Photo below from when we went to Hay with my poorly friend. I need a bit of a colour fix this morning.
