The everyday tale (tail?) of cats

I often sneak in to my blog updates a few photos of our two cats, Max and Rio...some may call it padding, but I like to think of it as legitimate distraction from the things I should be getting on with. Our cats are brothers from the same litter. They were part feral and Mark took them in when they were very young kittens. They were quite poorly and the vet wasn't sure they would survive, but with Mark's love and care they both thrived.

When Mark started seeing me, quite a lot of years ago now, they instantly accepted me. Rio sat demurely on my lap and let me stroke him and Max draped himself brazenly across my chest in a frankly floozy like way. Now I am their first port of call for food, being let out first thing in the morning (we keep them in over night) and generally to pander to their every whim.

In return, both cats like to help me with my work. Rio takes responsibility for communications:

Rio attempts to contact other types of life

Max is in charge of packaging; checking boxes personally for size and quality:

Max tests cardboard boxes

...and when I try to sew, they make sure I do not want for company:

cats at work

purry snores abound

With support like this, surely it will be no problem making my business a success!

Tea pots and turtles

Tea Pots

I am a bad, bad woman! I am being made redundant in just five weeks' time and I am then going to give myself a few weeks to get the house decorated and the garden sorted out, and even when I do put my energies in to a business, realistically it is going to be quite some time before I get any money coming in...and even then I am not kidding myself that it will be a lot of money. The point is, I need to live as frugally as possible to make all these dreams possible. I do not need to buy more teapots! Is there a dodgy gene that makes an otherwise sane(ish) woman yearn for another teapot...when she already has...ahem...thirty? However, despite all the sensible reasons not to buy another tea pot, yesterday I did anyway. Now, before you judge me too harshly, please bear in mind that it was in a really cute shop (Charlie Boots in Bath - sells mainly local handmade items, but also has some vintage), it was reduced big time in the sale, it was vintage Bulgarian and utterly beautiful and the price I thought would have been reasonable for the tea pot was actually for the whole tea set....one tea pot, one sugar bowl, six cups and sauces and six tea plates. Now I ask you, how could I walk away???

Bulgarian drip-glaze vintage tea set

The particular joy is that it was so cheap I will have no qualms actually using the tea set. The downside is that the shop is almost opposite the Kath Kidston shop where my fabricoholic took over when I saw a marked-down remnant of the Stanley the dog print cotton fabric, in blue...ah well.

I do sometimes worry - well, maybe not actually worry, but certainly wonder - whether these...urges...are quite normal. I understand from women's magazines that it is more usual to lust after handbags and shoes (and pasty, young actors who, to me, look far too young, underfed, pouty and somewhat girly - give me Russell Crowe any day! But I digress.). I mean, I was just having a bit of a google to see if I could discover the age of the tea set - no luck, so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know - and discovered a lovely Etsy shop, I Love Lily Belle, and I have to confess it was almost like ceramic porn! Talking of which, for weeks now I have found myself drooling over the most gorgeous teapot from Scrapiana on Etsy.com. It's a Brown Betty and I love it. I can picture myself chatting in the kitchen holding the newly warmed tea pot in my arms...phew...I have to stop now!

Brown Betty teapot from Scrapiana at Etsy.com

The temptation with this is that Eirlys, who runs Scrapiana, lives very near me, runs the Big Bath Mend (at the Museum of Bath at Work on the last Wednesday of every month) and is running a WI craft class next Thursday where I will be learning to make fabric flowers...how will I ever stop myself asking whether the tea pot is still available, whether I could pick it up to avoid postage charges, whether we could negotiate a lower price if I didn't have the accompanying teacosy. Stop it! I need to remember that this teapot costs almost as much as the whole tea set I bought yesterday, that I really do not have space for more teapots, that I don't need it. But I really, really want it...!

Turtles

I have made another turtle. Sadly, it is for a five year old little boy who is bravely battling cancer. It makes me so sad to think of all he is going through and all the worry his family faces, and I am really touched that when offered a gift from his granny he wanted one of my bits of sewing. His sister has an Ellen Mouse and he didn't want to be left out. The turtle will head to its new home this weekend:

patchwork turtle

I am mainly self-taught when it comes to the sort of sewing I do. I did a bit of dress-making at school and at home with my mum, but quilting and soft-toys and bags and the like is something I picked up from a few books and trial and error. Consequently there are probably better ways to sew together fabric hexagons, but I find the patchwork shell of the turtle rather fiddly - can't believe people make entire quilts that way! I was also distracted as our friend Jamie (Smiffy's Plumbing and Heating) had popped over to have a look at our boiler and we had a nice cup of tea, homemade lemon slices and a catch up. In fact, I was so distracted that I when I turned the turtle's body the right way out, I realised I had forgotten to put the head in the seam before I sewed it! (I also realised that when I made a similar turtle for Mark's mum, I put the back legs on the wrong way round...oops!)

When I start my business, I probably will not make many toys - or at least not many different models of toys - because of the need for a CE Mark. There is a lot of testing and documentation for each design and I am not convinced there is enough added value to make it worthwhile. Ellen Mouse has proved so popular, I will keep her in my portfolio - and I am still hopeful I can come up with a Briony Bunny variation I am happy with, that will be sufficiently similar to Ellen to make the testing and documentation a little easier, but doubt I will do more...although, maybe a rag doll?

I talk to the trees...

I do talk to the trees. Actually, sometimes I even sing to the trees. My eldest sister and I used to go to Westonbirt Arboretum in the Winter every year - just the two of us. We would go off-path, hug trees and sing Simon and Garfunkel songs (very badly indeed). I guess our lives have become busier and we are more likely now to mooch from tea shop to tea shop for an hour or two, rather than walk and sing in the trees all day. We need to restart the tradition.

So today I went to Westonbirt with Mark and his parents. A wonderfully sunny day, there were too many people for me to get away with singing or tree-hugging, but it was lovely feeling the dappled sun on our faces, spotting the buds so full of promise, listening to the birds and...

...enjoying a grand Sunday lunch of sausage and chips!

sausage and chips for lunch

I love seeing the early Spring bulbs fighting their way through the drifts of leaves that fell in the Autumn; it feels like a triumph over adversity.

snowdrops and Autumn leaves

fair maids of February

I love the way the low Winter sun catches the bark of the trees.

cedar tree bark

I love the way the sun catches the vivid yellow petals of the witch hazel - like a Winter fiesta!

witch hazel pom-poms

I love the way carrying (and using) a camera allows me to distance myself from the rest of the world; watching from a distance is so calming.

walking a few paces behind 

I love catching sight of little splashes of colour as the natural world starts to wake up from Winter.

signs of life

I think this will be Mark and me one day. An elderly couple sitting companionably on a park bench, watching the world go by.

sat on their park bench like bookends

I do believe in fairies...I do, I do!

A quiet week - still a bit croaky and wheezy but getting better. Decided a bit of fresh air might help the healing process so Mark and I set out to see the new sculpture trail at Lacock Abbey. A series of wire mesh fairies and dragons and the like. There were clearly a lot of visitors making the most of some hazy sunshine, but Lacock is one of those magical places that can absorb a crowd without feeling crowded. Just as well, as I am not good among crowds (unless they are the host of golden daffodil type when wandering lonely as a cloud).

As we walked through the wooded gardens we came across a number of timid fairies; some resting on tree stumps and others floating amid the trees. I really like the way you can see through the figures - makes them all the more other-worldly.

fairy at Lacock Abbey

Lacock sculpture trail 

a fairy holding a fairy...cool!

As we followed the path, we came across a rather splendid dragon...I could definitely imagine having one of these in our garden!

here there be dragons

In the centre of the cloisters there was even a unicorn!

unicorn

 Now, I get the mythical creatures and the figure reading and the monk...after all it is an abbey...

lost in a good book

ghostly monk

...but a motorbike??? Huh?!!

a motorbike?!

However, it was a lovely day for a walk and the woods were showing hints of Spring.

snowdrops and sunshine

snowdrops

crocus

woodland stepping stones

umbrella of light

pond life

woodland walk at Lacock Abbey

Lacock Abbey gardens

snowdrops and crocus

I have been grumpy all week, but a splash of sunshine, some fresh air, trees, snowdrops and a fairy or two turned me almost human again. Tomorrow we are going to Westonbirt Arboretum for some more of the same medicine (although the fairies there are somewhat better hidden!).

little to say

I don't really have a proper blog entry this week. The cough and cold turned in to full blown flu and I spent most of the week in bed. Then the asthma really kicked in and I have had to give in and take antibiotics and steroids. The medicine has started to kick in and I will be back at work tomorrow, but I have done nothing all week - no sewing, no cooking, I didn't even feel up to reading. However, I would hate to think anyone popped in to check my blog and found nothing but a whinging old sick person, so here's a photo of our cats sharing my work chair. At least, I call it my chair, but if as they say possession is nine tenths of the law, then I guess it is more Max's chair...!

who's chair?

Sniffles, Sunshine and Sewing Machines

Sniffles

I am not a good patient. I am not a patient patient. I am a grumpy, self-pitying, whinging type of patient.  Luckily I have a very tolerant boyfriend - I think he survives by putting up a whinge filter and letting it all wash over him. So, ten days ago my physiotherapist tried (forcefully) to persuade my knee cap that it had been in the wrong position for over forty years. My kneecap is made of the same stubborn stuff that the rest of me is made of and it fought back, refused to move, and then sulked painfully for some days. Accordingly, Mark and I put off last week's planned trip to our holiday flat in Dorset until this weekend.

Mark took a day's leave on Friday and his parents arranged to come and stay in our house to look after our two cats. Unfortunately, I was involved in a duvet cover changing incident and from the colour and pain in my big toe, I suspect it may be broken. I bravely strapped it to the next toe over and, with very little crying and swearing, we set off for Dorset. We had a delicious lunch at the Watch House Cafe in West Bay (spicy seafood and chorizo broth), had a brief hobble along the beach and settled in to the flat to watch a dvd. I then proceeded to cough all the way through the film (appropriately "Brave", about a feisty redhead ready to face all challenges!)...and all night...and all day Saturday. Eventually, late Saturday afternoon, Mark did his best to look sympathetic and suggested we just go home. Bless his heart.

Sunshine

Actually though we had a really nice day on Saturday despite the coughing, sniffling, hobbling redhead. It was a perfect Winter's day - cold enough to make your face tingle, blue skies and lovely low sunlight.

West Bay pre blue skies

We headed to Lula's in Bridport for a delicious breakfast (ham, eggs and bubble-and-squeak) and then on for a hobble around the sub-tropical gardens at Abbotsbury. We have Abbotsbury season tickets (for the gardens, swannery and children's farm) and no matter when we visit, the gardens are beautiful.

ghosts of Summer's hydrangeas

leafless tree canopy

I always find myself drawn to reflections - I love the slight surreality of them.

reflections in the Jurassic pond 

reflections in the fish pond

 Of course there are times when I try to take an arty shot and my personal sherpa decides he wants to step beyond his camera bag carrying role...!

Mark gets in the photo

Not wishing to disappoint the poor chap, I let him be centre shot with the tree reflections and fish:

Mark and the fish

Of course no trip to the sub-tropical gardens is complete without a cup of tea and a piece of Dorset apple cake.

crumbs!

Sewing machine

Between breakfast and the gardens, we just had to do a little tour of Bridport's antique and junk shops. In one of the shops I spotted this little beauty for £20. No idea if that's a good price or not, but it was worth it to me.

vintage sewing machine

The photo does not do justice to this wonderful machine (I'll try again during the week): Frister and Rossmann Vibrating Shuttle. I looked up the age by the serial number, and it was made sometime between 1907 and 1914, and I have found a copy of the manual online. Once my head no longer feels like it is stuffed full of cotton wool, I will see if I can wind the bobbin and thread it up. I don't expect it to take over from my Janome, but I really do want to use this beautiful sewing machine. I found a great blog about vintage sewing and machines - Lizzie Lenard Vintage Sewing - which is most helpful; do have a look, it's a lovely blog!

Now I am going to get another lemsip and go back to bed...uggghhh.