Mum's birthday and spring on the farm

Mum hit 70 last Friday. Looking good on it too. We had a very very very early start and drove from Wales to Cornwall pretty uneventfully. Birthday lunch went well, mostly family with some friends and neighbours.

My brother printed a t-shirt for Mum and she was a good sport and wore it all day. She's made a note never to poke her tongue out at a camera again as that photo keeps coming back and biting her! My sister made a lovely cake. She's a whizz at icing and sugarcraft.

The house was so full of people, it was a good that we could spill out into the garden, even if I did get a red neck. No party games, just relaxing chat, beer, cups of tea and fizzy pop and juice for the children.

My siblings and their offspring stayed in holiday caravans just up the road, so there were only five of us at Mum's overnight, however, some of them had already come back again before I'd finished my breakfast (I took a vacation from my diet and had a piece of real bread toasted with butter and some of my sister's delish lemon curd, yum). Another relaxing morning, more tea and coffee and chat with my aunt and uncle, then we set off for home. The return journey wasn't so good, someone had had a prang on the M5 just south of Bristol and we got stuck in the tailback for ages. Sigh.

Stopped off at Carmarthen to get some grub in Tesco then home to see my babies. They were fine, didn't seem to have missed us at all. Cats are like that. Didn't even seem particularly hungry (which is unusual!).

Later I took the camera and checked on the outdoors 'nimals and generally walked round our estate (!)

The edelweiss has reappeared.

The hawthorne is looking good now, and the laburnums are in full swing. I think this is my favourite time of year.

However, I'm not so good at standing the heat. Bit too warm for me yesterday and today, so after trying to knit outside yesterday I decided to stay indoors mostly today, a good move, as my new spinning wheel arrived. She's cute!

Now have to decide between housework, knitting or spinning. Well, one of those is a non-starter! I do want to get my shawl finished then I can start on Mum's Xmas pressie - probably the myrtle leaf from Victorian Lace Today. Just got to decide on the colour.

We Haz Cowz!

Jack brought three of his girls up to us yesterday. They're going to transform the crap grass in the front field into more moo cow and cow pats. Just what it needs. We've resisted bovines for ages, mainly 'cos our water supply isn't up to serving us in the house and keeping the moos watered, but Jack solved that like this ... (blue pipe goes to a trough in the field).

This is what we can expect to see from the kitchen window now ...

I've just ordered a copy of "The Lace Reader" by Brunonia Barry. Sounds intriguing. I tried to request a copy through Ceredigion County Library using their online system a few weeks back, but as I'd heard nothing I phoned the library this morning. Lady there has heard/seen nothing - says she can't remember ever getting anything from their online msg system. Ho hum. Gave up and ordered from Amazon.

BTW Managed to get the alpacas sorted on Monday afternoon with assistance from Jack and Val, even though Val could hardly walk with a bad foot, she was handy at refilling syringes and making notes. Jack did a brilliant job of catching and holding each 'nimal in turn whilst I stuck a needle in one end (blue tongue vaccine), drench in the other, and then trimmed toenails.

They were mostly well behaved, even April surprisingly. She's a big girl and usually puts up a fight, but we did her first, caught her unawares I think. Marta did her usual, plonk, down on the ground in the cush position, but we're wise to that and just pushed her over far enough to find each foot. She sat there for ages after we'd done her, must have been comfy!

Toffee was a bit of a bugger. He kept nibbling my hair whilst I was bent over trimming someone else's toes. What topped the lot was when he leaned over and bit me on the bum! Made the others laugh though.

Still, that was a good job done, and a good bit of extra exercise, all that bending must have helped! Have the vacs to do over again in a few weeks. Sigh.

I'm trying to order my new spinning wheel (one of these) but Hedgehog aren't answering ATM. Come on guys, now I've made my mind up, get my CC details whilst you can!

Having fun and games with the spider's-web shawl. Finished Chart A and put in a lifeline. Sooo glad I did, started on chart B and totally misread it! Managed to do YO, K1 all round instead of just a couple YOs at the beginning and end of each section. Duh. That gave me about 1200 sts on the needle, then I did the 2nd round and thought, that can't be right, so eventually decided there was nothing for it but to frog back to the lifeline. Sigh. Still at least I'm using a smooth yarn (Colourmart cashemere/silk) that will frog, unlike some peeps using KSH!

Did I say that I ordered a kilo of lace yarn? Must be outta my tree. What am I going to make with 26,000m yarn?!

Had some sachets of Douwe Egberts decaff in the mail this morning. I'm drinking too much of their instant pure gold and I'm sure it's affecting me. See what the decaff tastes like, if it's OK, then I have to find somewhere round here that actually keeps it!

Llanerchaeron Shearing/Spinning Day

Today was fun. I went to Llanerchaeron, a National Trust property, for their shearing day event. They keep a flock of Llanwenog sheep, the same breed as we used to keep.

I loaded up the car with spinning wheel, lunch, flask of coffee, carders, batts, rovings, knitting, etc, etc and set off in the pouring rain. I met up with Sheila, Janet, and Alice from the Ceredigion Guild of Weavers, Spinners, and Dyers, and we started getting set up. This is the first time I've been to this event, and in previous years when the weather has been OK the spinners have been close to the shearing, but this year we were in some stables out of the rain, a bit away from the shearing action. At least we had easy access to water - if you wanted to use the trough!

We were allowed to drive our cars in to unload and move them to the car park before the visitors arrived. Walking back with Sheila we went to see about the fleece we were supposed to have for the demo. Surprise, surprise Jos was the shearer! Haven't seen him for a while, he taught me to shear (not that I did much), and sheared our sheep for us until last year when he hurt his hand quite badly. Nice to see him back shearing, he does a good job, treats the sheep and the fleece with respect. You can't say that about all shearers!

I picked out a ewe who looked nice, and her fleece was dry (although they were under cover in the pole barn, the rain had blown in and some of them were more than a little bit damp) so Jos pulled her out of the pen and sheared her for me. A few minutes later I was hugging a nice warm newly sheared Llanwenog fleece under my umbrella and heading back to the others.

Sheila spun the fleece in the grease on her wheel, and Alice spun some on a drop spindle. I spent the day spinning some white alpaca batts that I made a while ago on my drum carder. I now need to drum card some more and spin another bobbin full so I can ply it. Duh. Should have weighed and divided it up before I started. Ho hum. Dim problem, I have plenty of fibre!

We had a lot of visitors and a lot of interest from people of all ages, it was a pleasant day.

Nearly forgot to say (how could I forget!) ... just as we started to eat our lunch a TV crew from S4C arrived. They were doing a piece about the shearing day for the Welsh magazine programme, Wedi 3, and wanted to show what happens to the fleece after it comes off the sheep. Being a Welsh programme they needed a welsh speaker, so the NT lady (Janice) brought in a lady who knits but doesn't spin, and Sheila and Alice explained the process to her so she could tell the viewers. She was sat in front of me, so if you see someone behind her head down and spinning, that's me!

After that they took some shots of us all spinning, so I continued to keep my head down and tried not to fluff my spinning!

The item will probably go out next week. I think Wedi 3 is on most days, 3pm on S4C. Will have to set the recorder up.

Lazy Day

Had a lazy day today. Didn't plan it that way, just happened.

I felt like a blob this morning, ate too much chocolate yesterday. Who'da thought it possible - a chocolate hangover! It's not like it was a record breaking amount either, it's just that I haven't had much lately and it was a shock to my system.

I've a good reason for the chocolate; it was a sort of consolation for the fact that DH needs a hip replacement. I'm getting him rebuilt in installments. I reckon it's easier than getting a new DH and breaking him in. Anyway, he's officially on the waiting list now, and they reckon that's about 12 wks. We'll see. His knee op took about 18 months to come to fruition.

So, feeling sluggish this morning I took it easy. I spent way too long on Ravelry, e-mail and Twitter, then did a few rows of the spider's-web shawl then DH came downstairs and watched the golf, I knitted and made cuppas.

Then a big FO (ask Eddie Izzard what that means) tractor complete with a spinner on the back turned up and parked outside the kitchen window. So, kettle on again, settle Jack down for a cuppa and a natter. Carly was all over him, interesting cow and horsey smells! It had taken him an hour to get to us, about half a mile, 'cos he kept meeting people on the way. Then he gave me some lime from the spinner (for my veggies) and tootled up to the field recently vacated by the brood mares. I've booked him and his wife for a couple of hours tomorrow or Monday. We'll get the alpacas in for vaccination, and general MOT (at least two need a wormer, so they might as well all have some) and there are a few toenails that need trimming. Champers could probably do with a fringe trim too, I don't know why he's not bumping into things! Photo at the top is of some of the boys in the race - here's Champers!

On the yarn front, I heard from fellow Raveller in Italy that she's working on getting a lace book for me that I've been coveting.

Also on the yarn front, Wyndwitch is now a Yarnie on Ravelry. Yay, should increase her exposure to the yarn buying public. Linky to her store.

Also, also, someone on Ravelry is getting together an order for 50kg of laceweight (v. fine stuff, 52/2NM, 26m/g in merino, silk and cashmere) from a mill in China. Linky to thread. Way to go her! Sounds delish and I'd love to get some, but really, isn't my stash already too big?! Will sleep on that.

Time to start thinking about dins ...

A Sunny Day in Wales

That makes a nice change, a bit of sun. It did rain first thing this morning, so at least the big outdoors was clean and fresh.

I'm now the proud owner of a new fringe! It was quite a step, having 6 months' hair growth chopped off, but I'm glad I've had it done now, and it didn't hurt a bit.

Have just written to Tesco to see if they'll resurrect some Clubcard vouchers I found misfiled - out of date now, but it's probably worth asking.

I also wrote to vetuk.co.uk yesterday (by e-mail) whingeing about their newsletter - they have great offers on large bags of pet food, but only ever for dogs. What about us multiple cat owners? I only ever seem to see 50% discounts on the most expensive foods in the smallest packs. Do I expect too much from this world?

Have been Twittering (more properly, tweeting I suppose) today, we were trying to get Ravelry into the Trending Topics list. Done that, now we're going for higher position. Yay! Wot fun!

Sat in the garden for lunch, a bit bright out there, but sooo green and lush.

Hmm, Muffin has just come and sat next to me ... quick time check, yup, 15 mins to feeding time. He's always early, but then he is on a special weight reducing diet. I sympathise with him, but at least if I get the munchies I can raid the fridge. Cruel cat owner!

Muffin's the one on the left of the piccie, being all loving with his brother Barney.

Still trying to get to grips with this blogging lark ... what happens if I add another piccie ... hmm, seems to put it where it wants to. Time to roll up sleeves and doctor the HTML I think ...

Right, that's better moved the piccie to where I want it! This was from yesterday evening at Aberaeron, looking at the sea defenses work they're doing. Daft time to go take photos, we sat in the car most of the time with it hissing down outside (making the sea bigger!), should have gone this evening, nice and sunny! Strange that they're doing this work during the summer so visitors can't go for walkies on the sea front. BTW those rocks are about a cubic metre in size, and the piles are really tall (don't ask me how tall, I'm useless at estimating stuff like that). Maybe four metres sticking up??

The natives are getting restless ... YT is now attacking the scotch tension on my spinning wheel. I told him off and he's moved on to my carders. Better distract them all with cat food before he starts of the big bag of BFL rovings! Little sod!

Going for a wander in the evening sunshine now ... then back and knit, possibly outside if it's not too breezy.

A Rainy Day in Wales

Yup, another rainy day. Getting fed up with this. Enough!

Late start online today, looked through the post after breakfast, then did some knitting whilst half watching Homes Under the Hammer. Wish someone would take a hammer to this place! (Along with a number of other tools). One day, DH says, when his knees, hip, whatever goes wrong next, are fixed. Sigh.

I do a lot of sighing. It's either that or bash head on brick wall (well, stone round here).

I've got some followers already! Squee!

BTW I found my other blog ... I wondered who would have pinched "toffeesmum" (that's me on Ravelry) and what they'd be talking about so I had a look. Hang on, I thought, this looks familiar. The long lost missing blog is found. Now, do I continue here or use the other one? (Rhetorical question.) Too much of a decision atm, I think I'll stay here for now and point to here from there.

Made postman smile, little Farley (photo above) was sat on the window sill growling at him, but he couldn't hear her through two layers of glass! In the post this morning, some spun alpaca samples from the mill, and (yet another) book from USA - Knitting Fair Isle Mittens & Gloves by Carol Rasmussen Noble. Another tick on the wish list. Yay.

Crikey, it's getting brighter out there, maybe I'd better get out there before the next shower arrives. Thought we were having a warm summer this year. Could be if the saying "oak before ash, we're in for a splash; ash before oak, we're in for a soak" is right - the oaks are well ahead on the leaves stakes.

I've been out and back again, ages ago. More rain since then. DH fancies a trip to Aberaeron at high tide (17:39 today) to see the sea splashing over the new sea defences. Might get an ice cream after from the chippy.








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Another blog

I'm sure I've got a blog started somewhere, but must be having a senior moment as I can't remember where I left it. Never mind, start again here, and make a note of it this time!

Gotta have a blog, everyone else has one.


This is Carly BTW, my ginger moggy.

That'll have to do for now, need to get to WeightWatchers for my weekly weigh-in. Fingers crossed!