Summer at last

What fantastic weather I have sitting in the shade weaving outside today. I am back to making small hangings for my open studio event in August, the Skye tapestry has been put on hold temporarily. Long may I be able to weave outdoors and the opening ceremony of the Olympics to watch on Friday, my son was involved in some of the filming for this but its all very secretive.

Having a Rant

Have just finished an amazing book Ragnarok by A.S. Byatt, its about the Norse myths so if you don't like myth books I guess you won't be interested but if you see it in the library just read the epilogue, "Thoughts on myths". This is a story of our time, characters in Norse myths are more human than those in Christian myths, they are greedy and uncaring just as we are seeing in our own times at the moment.
To me these times of austerity are a time to get real about what we as humans are doing to our world and a time to show that for poorer countries getting rich quick is perhaps not what its all about. This could be a time to help equalise our human aspirations and take a long careful look at what we are doing, maybe we can still save the planet instead of just going back to the the get rich quick ethic of recent years.

Impressions of Skye

Slightly closer view

After having made seven small hangings for the Guild exhibition I can finally get back to my larger weaving, its progressing at a reasonable rate.
Then it will be back to smaller saleable items again as I am having an open studio weekend in August with three painters.

This morning we had a woodpecker in the garden the first I've seen since we moved here. We are getting a lot more birds in the garden since the trees have got larger. I know all you cat lovers won't want to hear this but we would have a lot more birds in the garden if people kept their cats in at night. Something like 40 per cent of all small bird deaths are due to cats.

I read this quote in Saga magazine (yes I am that old though this is actually my Mum's)
Keith Richards "Getting old is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get."

Sometimes I feel like this, too many things you still want to do and I think I'm going to have to wait a while before I see any grand children. Too many aches and pains setting in and I can't spend all day doing things in the garden anymore.

Saying this though my Mum is 21 years older that me and still has loads of energy so what am I complaining about.

Back to weaving I think that will calm me down and take away the negative thoughts.

Blogs

I have decided I am following far too many blogs, but I so enjoy reading them its interesting seeing what other people are up to near and far and they are great for inspiration and make you realise the frustrations that other craftspeople encounter in their work. They are nearly all textile or gardening blogs with a few exceptions. Then what did I do yesterday, Googled tapestry weaving blogs and came up with a load more to follow, oh dear what to do, while I'm reading blogs I'm not weaving or gardening and certainly not doing boring stuff like housework, I will be wading through dust and cobwebs soon.

Walk on the beach

Today we went for a walk on the beach, a lot of people had the same idea, its Sunday and its sunny.

We found a smiley face and watched a woman swim in the sea with all her clothes on (seize the moment) it didn't look very inviting to me.

We found some good pieces of wood and watched four horses canter up the beach. On our return we bumped into my brother with his two sons and held up the traffic a little while we were chatting. We have that right I think we live here the cars are just visiting.

Now we are on tenterhooks watching the Wimbledon final, they are putting the roof across while I'm typing this as guess what its raining up there, still sunny here.

Well back to watching the match now. See you soon.

Flowers and fruit

Todays berry picking

Ripening blueberries

 Everyday at this time of year I go out to the garden to pick berries for breakfast. Wild strawberries grow everywhere, we also have cultivated strawberries in pots and three blueberry bushes in half barrels(first pickings today). Down the garden I have two blackcurrant bushes. one redcurrant and a loganberry and blackberry growing on the fence. A also have a gojiberry bush which grows proliferately but hasn't flowered this year.

Loganberries and Blackberries
I also have two apple trees and a damson all only two years in the garden and disappointing this year but did well last year. We also have an apple tree on the beach and sloes so later in the year I hope to be making apple chutney and sloe gin.  (Why do I have two sizes of print and why is this a negative of the rest, oh the joys of blogging)

 I've gone a bit overboard with photos of the garden but there haven't been many sunny days when I've had the opportunity to get outside.

Angel's fishing rod

 I can't be bothered to look up the proper names for all these plants, anyway angels fishing rods is a lovely name, its taken a long time to get established this is the first time it has flowered

My favourite grass looking its best

This small tree smells delicious

Angels fishing rod and unnamed geranium taken from seeds at
Oxford botanic gardens where it didn't grow into a monster

My newest rambling rose

This lavender is a lovely colour but doesn't smell very strong

Seasonal pots

Sculpture with grasses

A foxglove

Gertrude Jekyll

Geranium

Detail seasonal pots

Geranium with bee

Close up of fishing rods

Scabious with bee?

Detail of flowers on small tree

Guild exhibition

I did my stint of stewarding for the exhibition yesterday and we close on Saturday. We have had so many lovely and encouraging comments from visitors, and we have all had reasonably good sales which is also encouraging and of course one of the reasoning for showing work in the first place. So all in all a very successful venture which hopefully we can repeat sometime in the future.

This weekend

The Womad event was much better than I had anticipated, no huge crowds but families picnicking very civilised. The music was varied and interesting and not too loud. An all female group called the Boxettes were amazing the sang and made music with their voices, this is apparently called beatboxing, I've never heard of it shows I'm getting old. Only real complaint if you're reading this Womad is the stages needed to be higher especially for people 5 foot 3inches and shorter.
There was an amazing dance troupe but most of the time I could only see their arms and heads.

We also went to the Easton Arts trail, but gave up when we had to start paddling, overall I would have to be honest and say the work was mainly mediocre but some was amazing, one venue had beautiful photographs of Orkney and another excellent mixed media work. My favourite however was a women who originated from the Pacific Islands and made baskets, mats and other containers for her own use mainly out of flax. She was so happy that she could make things that she could use, her work was both beautiful and useful.