Deblyn

I haven't been on a train for some time now, but it's one of my favourite ways to travel, apart from flying as I have never been on a plane. I love long journeys by train; you get settled, get out your knitting and book, or just look out the wondow. There is a constantly changning set of passengers as the train stops and sets down and picks up people. I've met some very interesting people on trains in the past, some of them weird................. When ever I see a train, I feel like just getting on it and going wherever it is going. We hope to go to Edinburgh on holiday next year, and will go all the way from Dorset to Edinburgh, which is a nine hour journey; the children will love it, some of the scenery is spectacular, and I know the route well. Although our railway system seems to be in a permanent state of disarray for various reasons, give me a train over a car any day. Itchy feet again, now!

I went out to a meeting tonight in a t-shirt and no coat. It's very mild here at the moment!

Technically, in my book anyway, it is winter here. Having said that, on Sunday I was outside hoeing in the veg garden in a sleeveless t-shirt!

I have recently finsihed Dorothy Wordsworth's (sister of William) journal of some of her years spent in the lake district when she lived with her brother, between the late 1700's and early 1800's. As well as the obviously important and interesting literary connections, it was a fascinating insight into daily life in a cottage at that time. It was very hard work, and sometimes she spent all day ironing; she also did a lot of work in the garden, and there were a lot of details about the nature round about her. It has inspired me to start a journal of my own, so that is what I have done. I bought a nice notebook to write it in, and off I go. Does anyone else keep a journal?

I bought a cranberry plant yesterday for the first time in our garden centre. I went in for compost and came out with a lot of other things!! Does anyone else grow cranberries? I thought I might grow it in a pot so as to give it ideal conditions; however, being me, my plans have expanded a little bit, and I now plan a whole acid bed, with four cranberries and half a dozen blueberries! I wanted to start on it today but the weather is very very wet, so it will have to wait.....

I have recently started to bid for a few things on e-bay UK; we have an e-bay gallery, where you can see a photo of the item up for sale, which can be quite useful, especially in the case of books. I have bought books and seeds so far, that's all. I will get into the selling soon I think, as I have a lot of books to sell, and they seem to be popular on our e-bay. The first thing I do before I place my bid is to check on the postage and packing costs; if these are quite high, I don't bother as it really pushes the price up. I've had no problems so far, and everyone has been very good. I do however need to learn to keep a close eye on things; I've been outbid very close to the finishing time twice for fabrics; obviously old e-bay hands have beaten me to it by sneaking in in the last two minutes! No matter, it wasn't anything I couldn't live without!

Helloooooooooo from me too, nice to see you again.

It's cold here, but not cold enough for snoe; I think we may get some this winter, but we don't usually get very much down here. It has, however, been tipping it down for most of the day, so we are inside beside a roaring fire doing knitting and things like that!

It's very cold, raining and windy here today. Moved the rabbit into the greenhouse for the winter; whe is OK in the cold, but the wet is not good for her, so she'll be fine in there, and keep the temp just above freezing for the plants in there. I made some beer this morning, did maths with the children and made a huge pot of yellow split pea soup for lunch; it's always been one of my favourites, but I'd forgotten how good it was and really enjoyed it! It is so cold here I am wearing a jumper (sweater) in the house - almost unheard of!!

I got your ornament safely yesterday, Joan; it's lovely and very clever. The design is beautiful.

This is a good one for me. I have a husband who is sceptical about preparedness, and flatly refuses to buy bottled water for various reason. I have a lot of spare jars I can fill and put away where he won't see them. So I will have my water stored, and get the unused jars out of the store room where I need more space, and he need never Know. Everyone happy! Thanks for that one.

I don't really have a favourite time of day, as there are lots of bits that I enjoy for different reasons. One of my favourites is the five or ten minutes (sometimes more!) I spend watching the ducks and chickens after I let them out in the morning. Like Snowmom, I quite often have a nap in the afternoon; I tend to flag around 3.30pm for an hour or so, so I either sit or lie down for a while. That way, I find I can stay up later into the night and get more done. As usual, all my theories are great......................!

It's been a hard frost here the past few nights, but it rained last night, and it is wet again today; good for the garden. The streams and rivers are all low and so are the reservoirs, so we desperately need the rain. Did the monthly shopping last night, and still have a lot of it to put away this morning. If we get back late, I just put away the freezer stuff and anything the dog might eat in the night! (He sleeps in the kitchen) It's mobile library today, so will see what literary delights I can dredge up from there; I have so many books waiting to be read......... Apart from that, everything much as normal; starting to think about Christmas - have bought some stuff, and have plans to make some presents for those who will appreciate them (!), and cards. I hope to get the cake and pudding made this or next week, but there is plenty of time yet. I have to bottle wine today and do the ironing. Not wildly exciting, is it, my life? But I like it!

That's lovely.

Aha! Another instance of cross purposes due to language differences! I call a milk jug something that is made out of china or earthenware, etc, that you have on the table full of milk. I worked out (all by myself!!) that you couldn't make holes in it, so then I thought it might be a metal milk jug. Many years ago, milk jugs were made of enamelled metal, which kept the milk cool. I then thought, well they would mention cutting the metal carefully, etc. I looked at the site itself and it suddenly dawned on me that it meant the plastic containers the milk comes in from the shops - I presume that is it. If so, and I'm sure it is, then this is a really good idea, as nut and seed feeders are very expensive to buy new, and we have a lot in the garden. Definitely one I will be trying, so thanks for that one, Snowmom.

I fancy having a go at that; it would lovely hung on the front door in the autumn. I could get the little darlings to collect the acorns for me, but they would charge by the piece, I suspect!

I remember that epicsode of Changing Rooms; it was on here a couple of years ago, but I won't forget it. I was absolutely horrified, but I thought the poor woman who owned the teapots took it very well. I know Linda Barker, the designer was mortified though. We don't get a lot of trying to imitate Americans in speech, but moreso in singing. Just out of interest, what are the commercials for when they try to imitate British accents? I would think it would be easier for us to imitate Americans than the other way round.

Mommafitz, it was just something that came to me when I read the word dressing here; it rang a bell in the back of my brain! Like zucchini/courgetted, and jello/jelly, etc. Just different words for the same thing! When I do ours, I always cook it separately from the turkey so that B and I can have it too, as we are vegetarian. I have a bowl of breadcrumbs, add finely chopped onion and a big handfull of herbs, salt and pepper. If I have cooked chestnuts I add them too, but not alwyas. Put in a dollop of cranberry sauce and enough beaten egg to bind together. Place in a well-greased dish and cover and bake until firm. The traditional one here is sage and onion, but I am persoanlly not too keen on the taste or even the smell of sage, so I use other herbs. Sometimes I make them into little balls and bake them that way - the children like them like that.

Am I correct in thinking that by turkey dressing you mean a stuffing that goes inside the bird, or is it something else? Have I got the wrong end of the (drum) stick? (groan, sorry)

Yes, I listened to the Hitchhiler's Guide when it first came out on the radio. I was at college then, so it would have been 1979 or 1980. I have read all the books as well, and my daughter is just getting into them. Douglas Adams died earlier this year; he wasn't very old. Interestingly enough, his mother lives in the nearest town to my village, and he lived with her on and off while he wrote sometimes, so there is a bit of a local connection. Oh freddled gruntbuggly and all that................!!

A wee wild duck.

There was one quilt with stirking red and dark pink fabrics, but I don't think I got a photo of it. I do like the pastel ones, but all his stuff is lovely, very inspiring!

Fresh bread anyone? You can almost smell it from this picture!

This first one shows Kaffe's quilt on the left, and an antique one on the right that is part of his collection. The coat in the foreground is one of the costumes from The Tempest, a Shakespeare production for which he designed the costumes.

As I posted earlier, we went to visit the American museum near Bath on Tuesday. It was a lovely day, plenty of sunshine and autumn colour in the forests and woods on the way. We stopped for lunch at a very ancient pub (used to be a monastery), and it was one of the best meals I've ever had when eating out. It was right beside the Avon and Kennet canal, so we went out and looked at some of the longboats after lunch; some are permanently moored there, and people live on them. They had solar panels and little pot gardens on the roofs, and they all had bikes as well. There were lots of ducks about too, and some swans. Some of the ducks had obviously bred with the coots - they were almost black with a white bib; looked a bit strange, but I wouldn't mind a couple, they were lovely! The main reason for the trip to the museum was for me to see the quilts - both in the permanent exhibition and the kaffe Fassett one. I will put a couple of pics of the Faffe Fassett one down in Crafters Alley; there was no photography allowed in the main museum because of the age and delicacy of the exhibits. A lot of the rooms were almost dark as well, to prevent the light from damaging the fabrics, etc. The rooms were complete rooms as they were in that specific time period, from colonial right through to the 1920's. My favourites were the Shaker and the Louisiana with all the French furniture. there were lots of artefacts, including a lot of Native American things ( I love the Hopi turquoise and silver jewellery), and a gallery of Folk Art, where I came across Theorem painting which I had never heard of. This is paintings done by well-to-do young ladies, but using stencils to make up the pictures, so they didn't actually have to "paint"! They were quite nice, and I like the landscape paintings in there as well. The quilt room really was something else; a great number of quilts hung on big swinging racks which you could leaf through; aplique, pieced quilts, a lot of the patterns I recognised. My favourites were the two Amish quilts. They also had pegged and rag rugs and samplers. The workmanship of all these exhibits is stunning, and all done by hand ofcourse. The Kaffe Fassett exhibit was a mixture of his own quilts he designed, some old ones he has collected, and costumes he had designed for some Shakespeare productions. The whole gallery was truly stunning. I am a great fan of all of his work, and have several of his books. The colours in his quilts were breathtaking. The older quilts fascinated the children; they were made up of such tiny pieces; one of them was a postage stamp quilt, with the pieces no larger than about 1cm square, all pieced into a pattern, and full size to fit a bed. Now that is a labour of love! They had a gift shop, but I only bought a couple of postcards for myself, and a Christmas present for my niece. I did buy a small recipe book with some baking recipes in which I am going to try soon! The children got some thins. The prices were very high, though, and I kept looking at the things and thinking - "I could make that.........". but it's always good for ideas! It was a great day, and we all enjoyed it, and as a bonus it counts as an educational visit for home education!