Time to stand on my head then . . .

Purple vetch.  Isn't it gorgeous?  One of my favourite wild flowers.  Seen here growing in a hedgerow between the A40 and our house.  I wish I could go out for a walk to take some more wild flower photographs, but the steroids are bringing out all their worst side-effects to have an airing, and now my Kidneys are having a break from overworking, I now have terrible aches in my legs (yesterday it was hips) which is probably connected with the Steroids.  Long term it would be Steroid Myopathy.  Deep blardy joy.  So I can't lay down/sit/stand/walk for very long.  That's it then, I will just have to stand on my head . . .

Thanks for your lovely supportive comments.  I am on the mend, but there is going to be a HUGE lifestyle change in my diet (a lot less meat and dairy, and even more rainbow veg), and which rooms we live in over the winter here, as the wood burning stove may be the major culprit - apart from recent family stress - in the downturn in my asthma and all those infections. (Causes particulates in the air which set up inflammation in my lungs).   I can't wait to get back to walking again, but in the meantime I just have to mooch about and take things steadily.

As an afterthought, I wish I could keep my photos the size they initially load on the page, before they shrink again.  Does anyone know how to do this?

Sewing in progress, btw, and I've pieced the 9 piece block for the seaside cushion fronts.  I'm just off in search of some suitable material for the border and then I'll take photos later.

Ozone and chips . . .

OK - so I lied about the chips!, but I did get some ozone today and it perked me up no end, despite the tide being right out and a few, ahem, rainclouds being obvious. We popped down to Swansea to see our daughter G and drop some tickets off for her, and then after a slow crawl around her local charity shops (2 plates, a book on antiques and a pasta jar) we drove down to the Mumbles (posh end of Swansea leading into the Gower peninsula) so I could get some sea air. After a very poor night's sleep, I wasn't feeling too clever, and my legs were very feeble again, but it was just so lovely to get out of the house and for it not to be actively RAINING, that I didn't care.

We got stuck in a queue of traffic on the way to Swansea, but I had a good library book (nearly finished now - a Ruth Rendell which wasn't too demanding to my sleep-deprived brain) and as we were at a standstill for a good while, just looking at the uncut wild flowers down the central reservation was a joy.  Most people would call them weeds, but to my eyes they were so beautiful.  Lots of ox-eye daisies blowing in the breeze.  Tall stately lavender-purple thistles ditto.  Pink and white clovers, yellow vetches, and brambles flowering everywhere which if you turn off your mind to brambles, are such pretty flowers, especially the deeper pink varieties.

When we got to the Mumbles, the tide was a fair way out.  We managed to park, and had a wander along the seafront, with the "breeze" now upped to a blustering wind but the ozone in it flung itself into my lungs and gave them a step up in the breathing department and even put some energy into my legs again too.  (One of the side effects of the steroids is weak muscles.)  You can just see in the right of the picture above, looking across Swansea Bay, the remains of a couple of old fishing boats - all that's left is the main rib along the bottom and the keel.  Nearly reduced to just shadows in the mud.  I wonder what the fishermen who used them would think if they could see them now? The popular novels of local writer Iris Gower were set in Swansea and the Mumbles area.

I walked a couple of hundred yards at a steady pace to visit the Quilt and yarn shop I had noticed when we drove past looking for somewhere to park.  There were some gorgeous fabrics and having bought wool earlier in the week, I blew my last £5.50 on this little Seaside charm pack.  There are 20 5" squares in it, so I should have enough for two pretty seaside cushion covers which I think I will hand-piece as it means sitting down quietly to do so.  I was absurdly excited over such a modest purchase . . .

As my husband and I walked back to the car, I managed a couple of stand-on-a-bench photos of some of the older property in the Mumbles.

Below: Isn't this a pretty little cottage?

We had hoped for chips for lunch, but settled for a steak pie instead, and another wander round the charity shops, so I am all charity-shopped up for this week.

I am slowly on the mend but dare say I have overdone things a little today and will have to really rest up tomorrow. . . with my sewing.

In search of healing . . .

Well, how strange that I should find an incredible synchronicity this evening when I was merely searching for something to help me heal.  A while back I had found a couple of excellent sites for meditation (on dear old YouTube).  I first tried Caroline Myss, but couldn't find the link I remembered.  Another site came to mind - a white horse against blue skies - but who was it linked to?  I typed "white horse meditation" into the YouTube search engine, and amazingly I found this . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1S-WcoWLoY

Note - a reference to Edward Thomas's South Country (on my little Edward Thomas bookshelf with many other books by and about him) and to the chalk downland of Wessex which I know so well from my childhood.

I can't manage a picture of the Uffington White Horse, so Avebury will have to do . . .


Meanwhile, suitably relaxed, my breathing has eased again.

The sounds of summer

 (An oatmeal plait loaf I managed to bake last week).

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.

A note from my sick bed

Just a brief update to say that the tests have come back to say that my current chest infection is resistant to the first two lots of anti-biotics I was given.  No wonder I felt like death warmed up this morning and my peak flow was the lowest yet . . .  My Doctor called me to tell me the results and ask how I was feeling . . . I think she must have known the answer to that one . . .  Anyway, have new anti-biotics which, touch wood, should be turning the tide of infection build-up in my lungs.  And thank de Lord, I don't have to take any more of those filthy things the Hospital gave me.  Ye Gods - SIDE-EFFECTS?  I had half a dozen of the nastiest, including turning my saliva to battery acid.  You just couldn't get rid of the awful taste (Clarithromycin).

I think my liver is on its knees, begging for respite too.  Anyway, I am going back to my sick-sofa now and will be available to give lectures on daytime television from next week onwards . . .

The posy above is one I picked from my garden last week.  Sadly all the rain we've had has done for the Paul's Himalayan Musk now and that's gone right over, but the Kiftsgate is about to start unfurling for a brief week of glory.

Foxgloves . . .

You will have to forgive the delay in the Pictish post, but I am feeling rather rough from this chest infection, which is proving stubborn and I obviously need different anti-biotics to cure it.  Anyway, hopefully these photos will hit the spot.  I should have taken my camera with me in the morning when we drove up our valley to Brechfa to go to the shop.  The light was much better than when I drove up again yesterday afternoon, and it came on to rain just as I was getting out of the car!  I will try again when the sun is out so you can see better all the purple-pink masses of Foxgloves - acres of them - growing where woodland was cleared a couple of years ago.

Here is Mary Webb's beautiful poem: Foxglove:

The foxglove bells, with lolling tongue,
Will not reveal what peals were rung
In Faery, in Faery,
A thousand ages gone.
All the golden clappers hang
As if but now the changes rang;
Only from the mottled throat
Never any echoes float.
Quite forgotten, in the wood,
Pale, crowded steeples rise;
All the time that they have stood
None has heard their melodies.
Deep, deep in wizardry
All the foxglove belfries stand.
Should they startle over the land,
None would know what bells they be.
Never any wind can ring them,
Nor the great black bees that swing them–
Every crimson bell, down-slanted,
Is so utterly enchanted.

When my children were small I used to read them (the girls anyway!)  Cicily Mary Baker's Flower Fairy books and I can still remember the Foxglove Fairy off by heart:

Foxglove, foxglove, what do you see?

The cool green woodland, the fat velvet bee.

Hey, Mr Bumble

There's honey here for thee.

Foxglove, foxglove, what see you now?

The soft summer moonlight

On bracken, grass and bough,

And all the fairies dancing, as only they know how . . .

Foxgloves and Gooseberries

Over the weekend I shall be composing a post about the Pictish Symbol Stones, as Kath over at Hillside pricked up her ears when I mentioned them the other day and would like to learn more.

Anyway, today I am up to the gunnels in ripe gooseberries and have come on line to track down some interesting recipes.  I used to make a lovely hot-water pastry raised gooseberry and orange pie once upon a year, but it is rather a special occasion beasty, so I want some more down to earth recipes which turn a huge amount of gooseberries into something useful - jam springs to mind, as I used last year's for wine-making and am still waiting to drink it!

I have also got some oatmeal steeping in milk for a nice oatmeal plait, and that will be my first job of the day.  Everyone in our house loves home-made bread (especially my son) and now I am on the last day of my anti-biotics (though still struggling a bit) I am feeling bright enough to bake again.

In fact, the little booklet of bread recipes which was purchased in the early 70s (Woman's Realm book of 101 ways with Bread) for 60p is still the one I reach for first, over and above all the more expensive and upmarket bread books I have.  Every time I open it, I am taken back to my early bread-making experiments and the feeling of having discovered myself.  Apple Yeastcake.  Granny's Cinnamon Cake.  Orange Buckwheat Bread.  Orange Sunbread.  Savoury Herb Bread.  Sunflower Loaf.  Crumpets and Chelsea Buns. 

Oh, and the Foxgloves?  You'll have to wait until I drive back up the valley again, camera in hand, but where they have cleared woodland a couple of years back and opened up the steep hillside to the sun, there are absolutely ACRES of Foxgloves.  I have never seen them in such quantity and they are stunning, especially beside the little waterfall.