Stripping the Willow.

One of my allotment neighbours told me a couple of weeks ago that she was about to remove a small pollarded willow tree from her back garden, as the roots were starting to grow through the nearby pond foundations. Would I like the top growth for basket making? Ohh, yes please. So I gave her a hand to lop the top growth off and came away with a large bundle of willow.

This is it after about a week, when the leaves had wilted.



I wasn`t entirely sure what to do with it as regards to processing, but reasoned that leaving the canes (Branches? Rods??? Withies????) in amongst a pile of rotting leaves wasn`t a good idea. So I decided to strip off the foliage. I ended up with a sack of leaves for the compost bin, and quite a lot of promising looking willow.




What next? I thought hanging it up to dry under the eaves might be a good idea, for air circulation. And it made a very artistic looking pix against my weathered old shed, I thought!



I couldn`t resist making something, even though the willow was still green. So I wove a little God`s Eye to put in the herb garden. Yup, you`re seeing right...the base is made from two knitting needles. I keep getting given bags of old knitting needles for school and craft groups so when I take out all the old bent "useless" ones, I recycle them into row and plant markers. (Yes, my fellow allotmenters do think I`m a bit strange sometimes.....)



I`ve been growing willow this season already, incidentally, following a basket weaving workshop I did last March at which I made my one and only basket so far.



Now, I`m sure someone out there is shaking their heads and going "Wrong, all wrong." If so, could you please send me a link to a good website or a book title where I can learn about willow growing and processing? I don`t seem to be able to find much, and I`m reluctant to shell out for a book until I know that it will tell me what I need to know. Specifically I want to find out about the bit between harvesting it and actually making the basket.

Weekend Cat Bloggin`

I was going to put these pix up for the unofficial Weekend Cat Bloggin`, but Blogger wasn`t loading pix very well at the weekend. As usual.

Soooo...dinner for two.....



...and all change round...



(The food belonging to your sibling always tastes better, no?)

They were seventeen weeks old yesterday, btw. Here they are at three weeks. Bit of a difference, eh?

Knitting!!???

At last! Some knitting has been done!

First in ages too. Somehow I always hit a knitting slump in the summer months. I`ve got too many other outdoor things I`d rather do in summertime and that usually means the evening is spent finishing off chores. But the nights are fair drawing in, as we Scots say, and it`s getting colder so my thoughts are turning to knitting again. Plus I`ve been sorting out the kids` clothes, and they both seem to have grown out of 99% of their warmer stuff. I`d feel pretty pathetic buying them wooly jumpers, wouldn`t I, not with the attic stuffed to the rafters with wool and yarn. I feel I have to knit them at least one sweater each, plus hat and scarf.

So after a quick rummage around the stash I unearthed the Sirdar Denim Sport Aran I bought for kiddy sweaters last spring, following a lead that Alison from CityKnitty posted for a really amazing sale. I think it was about 95p a ball, so I bought enough of a colourway with a pale pink fleck for a jersey for Mairi, and a denim colourway for Duncan. Yup, sure it`s an acrylic blend, but given that my kids tend to wear sweaters for messing around on the edge of rugby fields or campsites, the machine washability of it is a real plus. And it actually feels pretty good because of the wool and cotton in the blend as well. It knits up fast into a nice smooth cosy fabric too. A good yarn for kids.

I decided I didn`t like the very simple T-shaped sweater pattern I`d originally thought about using for this yarn so it was back to the bookshelves. Eventually I decided on Nell from the Debbie Bliss Junior Knits book. Of course, Debbie Bliss is notorious for her hugely oversized childrens` patterns so I wasn`t in the least bit surprised to find myself knitting the age 3-4 size to get a finished chest size of 30 3/4 inches. Bliss kids are short too, btw. I always end up putting in extra length as well!

Here we have a truely inspirational picture of ten inches of straight stocking stitch....



I quite like the odd bit of non-stop stocking stitch, btw. I know it bores most knitters to tears, but I like being able to mindlessly rattle back and forwards while reading a book or on the PC. I`m not a fast knitter and I find it difficult to carry a pattern reliably in my head for even one row (unlike my amazingly prolific friend GourdonGirl) so it`s nice to make something I can knit fast for a change.

I see that the same pattern gives an amazing 41 1/2 inch finished chest measurement for a 9-10 year old, btw!! I think I may make it for Duncan, who`s not a small boy by any means. Matching (apart from the colour) brother and sister sweaters, ick ick!

Kitty life.

"Okay, so it`s your chair. And? Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Life in general.

Lots of little general updates today.

1)We had the first on site meeting about the repairs, which was a bit dull as it wasn`t really about us, it was for the builders to come and work out a general plan of attack and where they were going to put all their stuff. However I know know the start is scheduled for October and that it`s going to take fourteen weeks. When exactly in October, hmmm? Well, that depends on the sucessful lodging of all the myriad pieces of official paper into the correct legal and office pigeonholes. We`re turning around our pieces of paper as fast as they arrive, but of course there are also our two co roof owners and the dilatory council to worry about. So if the work start at the beginning of October, I`ll be amazed to the point of needing smelling salts. Incidentally I`ve also figured out that whenever in October the work starts, the house will be covered in scaffolding and the kitchen half destroyed at Christmas time. You might think this is a bad thing but oh no, I`m almost pleased. It was going to be my turn to "do" the family Christmas this year, you see. Reprieve!

2)My car is an official insurance write-off, did I say? I`m still driving it around because the garage said it was still safe to do so, but as the work needed was going to cost £2000-3000 and the car is worth about £400 then for the insurance company there`s no contest. I`m waiting for the phone call to tell me when it`s going to be picked up to go to the great scrap yard in the sky. The tax runs out at the end of the month, so basically the car will be no more after then as even if it hasn`t been collected it will be illegal to drive it. Crying shame, because it was the best car we ever owned, a Renault Savanna 2.1 litre turbo diesel seven seater estate. We could load it up with two adults, two kids, three tandems, four bikes, camping gear to the roof, hitch a 600Kg trailer tent on the back and it would still cruise effortlessly despite being nearly 12 years old. (Let`s not talk about hills here though.)
RIP, Savanna. Well never find another one like you. Especially for £400 minus the excess!

3)Mairi`s first week at school has gone well for her, though she`s a bit disgruntled as to why she has to do things exactly when she`s told. The constant comment is "It`s not like nursery!", which is very true as the school nursery was very free-flowing and liberal and let the kids do more or less what they liked by way of activities within a certain framework. She`s an independant soul and not keen on doing things anyone else`s way, as I can testify! However, she`s also very bright, and she`ll work out for herself that it`s easier and more rewarding to cooperate. Gawd help us (the family) at the weekends, though......

4)Haven`t mentioned it much lately, but my health hasn`t improved much since I last posted about the constant and often overwhelming fatigue I`m feeling. Well, it`s been a busy and fraught summer, I suppose, but there`s nothing normal about having to take about every third day off to recuperate especially if I`ve been doing a lot of very physical stuff. I`m only 47, with no obvious signs of anything wrong unless you count the perimenopause as "wrong", which I don`t. I can`t afford to carry on feeling like this, not with Hubby, two kids and two cats to look after, not to mention the house repairs. I do try to eat properly, go to bed at a reasonable hour and get some fresh air and exercise every day but I still end up on the sofa asleep every third afternoon, or I`m dragging myself around all day. Can`t be normal. I`m off to see the doctor again next week.

5)Last but not least, the kittens. Where did they go??? They`re fifteen weeks old on Sunday and to be honest they`re not kittens any more, they`re young cats. They eat every one of their four meals per day like they haven`t seen food for weeks, race around the house playing and fighting each other for hours, sleep anywhere and everywhere and are growing into sleek, beautiful, healthy young cats, just like they should. I do rather regret that the little kitten phase has gone past so quickly but as compensation, they`re also becoming very affectionate. Before they were always to busy or preoccupied with playing to come and sit on or by you to be fussed over, but just recently both of them have started sitting on knees or, in the evening, lying around on the desk while I`m on the PC and evetyone else is asleep our out. They love human company, and can`t abide not being in the thick of things to find out what`s going on.
Incidentally I guessed their personalities 100% right when they arrived. Missy is the boss, the nosey one, Missy Mischief as we call her here. Theo is definately the "little" brother (Though he`s bigger than her now) usually two steps behind and letting her go first. He`s always the one caught standing over whatever mayhem they`ve wreaked though, because he`s not quite sharp enough to scarper from the scene of the crime. But he`s definately the cuddlier of the two and is going to grow into a big milksop of a cat that goes around sniffing daisies for a hobby...that and eating. Oh boy, does he love his food? He`s never two steps behind at dinner time!

(Pix to follow....Blogger is up to the usual again.)

Fig Rolls and Caffeine

Well, now the girl has gone to school, the next big milestone is the communal repair we`re having done to the building in which we live. We`ve been trying to get this moving since back in the dawn of prehistory...well, we`ve been living here for eight years now, and the repairs that were obviously due then are still outstanding. Partially the delay was due to Robbie getting ill within a year of us moving here...you can`t do that sort of major works when you`re dealing with a child on chemo and we were the driving force behind wanting to get the repairs done. Then after he died we decided to get moving on the repairs again because water was starting to come through the ceiling, into the then newborn Mairi`s bedroom, eek!

Except one of the shops below us (we live in a double flat over the top of two shops) had changed hands, and the new owner was having nothing to do with roof repairs, communal or otherwise. So the last four years have been spent trying to persuade him to fulfil his legal responsiblity to keep the building in safe and good order. It was only when bits started to fall off our crumbling window mullions into the street that the local Council moved in and did a bit of "persuading" of their own.

So since last January we`ve been ploughing through the paperwork, surveys, permissions, meeting etc etc, and though we are getting there, we`re getting there very slowly. However the contract has been awarded, the relevant sigatures obtained and we are having the first on site planning meeting with the contractors, the surveyors and the Council chap on Friday. Of course, this doesn`t mean we have a start date yet, oh dearie me no.

What are we having done? The roof has to be stripped and renewed, both the slate pitched roof at the front and the flat felt roof at the back. The window lintels, mullions and sills are being removed and replaced. All the outside pipes, from the rhones to the drains, is being redone. The render is being completely refurbished, patched and painted. Stone surrounds to our front doorway and the shop frontage refurbished. Doesn`t sound too bad? Well, this flat alone has 14 windows. The pitched roof is 45 feet long. Our gable end (that`s` OUR gable end, not a communal one) is about 40 feet high Etc. This is a BIG building, and tall. They estimate the scaffolding alone will be up for three months..if (big IF) they don`t find anything nasty when they open up the roof and wall voids, like skulls or bats or dry rot.

And yes, even our share, with grants, is going to cost us one arm, one leg and a mortgage on our souls for all perpetuity. Don`t ask. It makes me feel ill to think about it.

Also someone here had the bright idea that while they were ripping out the window lintels, they might as well get new windows put in to replace the ghastly non-functional 70`s ones here at present. You think it`s impossible to design a window that cuts out 50% of light transmission and provides only 10% of necessary ventilation? Wanna picture? I`ve got 14 of them. So the workmen will have to be inside the house as well, at least for that. And for the huge gaping holes they have to knock through above the windows to replace the lintels, of course. Did I mention that we have 14 windows? They`re going to have to knock a hole through the wall of every single room in the house.

So after, we`ll have to redecorate every single room in the house. So wait...how about getting the new boiler and central heating we so badly need before we redecorate? Yup, we`ll do that. Except we need to renew the old 30`s water pipes to take the pressure of the new boiler. And if we have a new boiler installed in the kitchen, then the old kitchen will need remodelled round the boiler. Just as well the workmen will have to take down all the kitchen wall cabinets to put the new mullions in, yup? And of course, the floorboards (and carpets) will have to come up to lay the new central heating pipework, and the old radiators will have to be removed and they`ll leave gaping holes because the new ones aren`t going in the right place.

Other arm, other leg. Redecorate? I`ll be doing that. We won`t have any money left to buy food by then,let alone employ anyone to do it. Hey, I might even get thin for the first time in my life. Usually I need copious quantities of fig rolls and caffeine in the form of strong tea to see me through this sort of thing. I don`t think we can afford enough fig rolls, not if we have to buy paint too..

Today, however, is a dejunking day. Because we don`t have a start date I have all this jittery home improvement adrenaline that needs dissapaited, and what better way than getting rid of some of the junk? Less to move around while the builders are here, and less stuff to scrape dust and stour off afterwards. I have set myself a target of one 80 litre bin bag per day...and I`m achieving this effortlessly. Nearly twenty bags gone in the last week.

(House doesn`t look any tidier though...)

First day at school.

Today the school term started again after the summer holidays here in East Lothian...and for my girl Mairi, aged not quite five, it was her first day at school.




For the non-UK folk amongst you...yes, like the overwhelming majority of schools here, our school requires the children wear school uniform. I`m hugely in favour of school uniform, myself. She was extremely proud of her school dress, let me tell you.

The routine on the first day at our school, anyway, is for mum and/or dad to accompany the child into class, stay for a few minutes to settle the child then leave them and go to the main hall for a cup of tea. The tea is to soothe the parental nerves at their chickie flying the nest, I think! There were quite a lot of tears, from both children and parents.



Mairi doesn`t go in for the clingy routine. She`s been looking forwards to this for months. For her it was more a question of "Right mum, I`m here, now you can go, ok?"

As for myself? Well, this is the third time round for me, so I wasn`t one of the red-eyed parents, no! I`m happy she`s started...she`s a bright girl, loves being busy and the company of other kids and she had a great time in nursery. She`s well ready for school.