Wasp Vandals

We came home from our camping trip to find some new patches ripped from our wooden shed.  Now, we do know the culprits having observed this last summer too.   I grabbed my macro lens and waited to get proof...

Here he is - our wood thief!  Mr Wasp has stripped thin little rolls of wood pulp to make a nest.  We have found one old nest in a far, dark corner inside the shed.  It's too dim to photograph but is a beautifully created sphere hugging a hidden spot.  There's no waspy activity so we think it's been abandoned and a new nest started.  Judging from the missing strips of wood from our shed it must be huge but we haven't found it yet.  Generally, we don't bother the wasps and they don't bother us.

It's nice to return home to see what the garden has been up to.  Our orchard (two trees at the end of the garden) is beginning to swell with apples.

The ants have been busy farming their aphids which I find both fascinating and ugly.  We are good at spotting which leaves will hide aphids and we track the ants on their milking trips up and down the trunk and out to the branches where the aphid herds are grazing.  None of this is good news for our apples but you could easily spend your whole day spraying with washing up liquid and frankly I've got other stuff to do.

Our first mangetout popped it's pod.  We are very late with them this year because we forgot to plant things this spring or it was raining or something but anyway, it didn't happen until about a month ago because we're not good gardeners.

This might be a pea or a bean.  (We're really not good gardeners.)

The chives are past their best and are providing nourishment for flies.

This is a pretty weed.

And this is mint.  We grow a lot of mint because I like proper mint tea and use it in fresh salads too.  364 days a year I have a massive bowl of salad for lunch.  (The exception is Christmas Day when I mostly eat roast chicken, roast potatoes, bread sauce and chocolate.)

I've been taking the flowering tips and secretly throwing them into the grassy verge down the lane outside our house in the hope that I might be able to grow a huge bank of mint.  I think plants should be useful and available.  We should grow them in places where we can walk past and freely pick parsley or chives much as we do when we pick blackberries or cob nuts in autumn.  Why not expand the range to include easy to grow plants or herbs and encourage them to populate our waste verges?  I don't know if my ninja style planting will work (see earlier note about poor gardening skills) but I've lobbed some poppy and forget me not seeds about too, so next year if our lane erupts into colour and flowers my work will be done.

Camping with a dog

We've returned from a week camping on the south coast, soaking up the sunshine and waves near Padstow in Cornwall.  You didn't notice I'd gone because of clever technology which allows me to schedule blog posts in advance.  I only discovered it a month ago and it's great!  If I have a busy week coming, I know I can set the blog to run for a few posts and I don't need to worry that you are getting lonely without me :)

We set up our tent on a campsite with it's own private beach a few minutes walk away.  Early in the morning you are allowed to run your dog on the beach without a lead.  Because the early morning sun woke us naturally at about 6am, we were very pleased to give B. Dogg some unrestrained exercise each day.  It was his first exposure to sea and sand and he wasn't too keen on either at first.  The sound of crashing waves,  moving water which laps round your paws (unlike puddles) and sand sticking to your favourite ball which then gets in your mouth all take a bit of getting used to.

We don't think he'll make a swimmer.  He managed to avoid the sea and perhaps he can be forgiven.  The waves were pretty big.

This view is of the opposite end of our little beach looking directly at the local lifeboat station.  Each Wednesday evening while the volunteers practice launching and putting out to sea, the campsite organise a beach BBQ.  Saves cooking!  Not that a decent breakfast under canvas is a problem...

The hour after sunrise and before sunset is called the golden hour in photography.  Although I only had my phone camera with me on this trip, I managed to get some pics which if not perfect, at least will serve as reminders of a beautiful location and some lovely weather.

About a Brother (scan and cut)

A few weeks ago I bought a Brother Scan and Cut CM900 machine.  

I had been thinking about upgrading from my 10 year old Craft Robo for ages but I wanted to get it right and go for the right machine.  I've been quite surprised in my crafting research to learn some crafters have numerous cutters.  I only have space for one and having opted for the scan and cut and played about with it I'm really impressed!  It's much easier to use than my old Craft Robo and will save me money and storage since I never need to buy a die to match a stamp ever again.  Hooray!

I have resisted relying on it for these blog posts because I prefer to make projects anyone can have a go at with basic things - paints, stamps, inks etc.  But for this post I wanted to share a card I made for someone (who will remain anonymous in case they don't want people to know their age!) using the scan and cut.  It took about 10 mins working in the cloud based software for the machine, Brother Canvas and involved splitting, welding and inserting, all things which would have taken me ages in my old Craft Robo.  If you're thinking about getting this machine there are loads of video tutorials on You Tube to check and see if you think it will suit you.

14th Century Church Tombs (and beard storage)

We both like visiting old churches and St Peter's Church near us at Dyrham has this fascinating memorial to a lord and his lady from the 14th century.   The stone carving shows the skill of the craftsmen in those times and it's difficult to drag your eyes away from the detail.  This couple will be lying side by side for eternity.  I hope they got on.

This carving shows the children of the couple in mourning and is faded out at the top because of the strong sunshine spilling in from the window above.  It's a very lovely church with more natural light than usual.

The inscription below is described as a somewhat free translation.  My even freer translation (before we discovered this framed version) went something like - "Privately buried here in the tumulus and sub-prime stratus is Morris Russell's victorious wife who was very military. "  I don't speak Latin.

Here are they are represented in a brass embedded in the floor and neither of them look very happy about it.

 Morris looks particularly cross with his downturned mouth.  Or it could be a moustache?  And if it is a moustache, did he also have a beard and if so, where would he have kept his beard?  Inside or outside that elaborate armour which protects even his chin?  If inside, I imagine it would be quite itchy.  If outside it would look ridiculous because I doubt it would like flat in a dignified way.  It would stick out surely?

 Again there was a lot of light spill but you get the idea.  It's a beautiful brass and I was quite taken with the tiles in the surround.

And for a final "oooh", as we were leaving, we noticed this.  It's a replica of a coffin wagon.  I'm sure there's a better name but as I've only seen anything similar in Thomas Hardy TV adaptations it was very interesting to see one up close.  It's not too big a stretch for the imagination to picture this sorry little cart jolting over the lanes, being dragged and pushed by mourners on the way to the church.

Outside the church again in the sunshine, here are some doggie pics.  Our scruffy pup is coming up to his first birthday.  He's taken us by surprise in the way he's become such a big part of the family.  We (try to) teach him manners and to stay on four paws when he greets people.  We hide his plastic balls in a special drawer because otherwise he torments you by dropping it at your feet and looking cute until you get dragged into playing fetch for 10 mins when are supposed to be doing other things.  We try and keep his coat neat and tangle free but he prefers to chew the brush so that gets hidden too.

 

Mostly, we try not to spoil him.  That's been more difficult since he was so ill this spring that he spent 4 nights in hospital and we didn't know if he'd come home again.  But he bounced back to full health and is allowed off the lead now in certain safe places and has (nearly) the run of the house because he's house trained and rings his bell by the front door if he needs "private time".  That doesn't save the toilet roll if we accidentally leave a door open or slippers, shoe insoles, socks (what is it with dogs and socks?!) tissues, paper or the occasional book.  He can open some doors and gleefully pushes  his way into bedrooms in the morning and wakes the sleeping occupants by jumping on them and giving them his special slurpy doggy kisses.  Bless.

I made a Bear!

I like a workshop.  It's time you've bought for yourself to spend precious time doing something.  And you can properly enjoy it without feeling guilty about the dust/ironing/weeds/more dust because you're supposed to be doing the thing you're doing.  In my case it was a second needle felting day with uber talented Gretel Parker the Queen of Pokey Needles.  This day, coming as it did at the end of a rather hectic week of meetings including one in Germany, felt like a real tonic.

Needle felting is a very inexact science, it's sculpting with fibres but doesn't have a terminology.  You start with this...

 And stab it about with some special barbed needles which mesh the fibres together.

 You shape it...

 And tighten it all up with repeated stabs.

 Add ears.

 Have a one to one tutorial on the best way to add these gorgeous, tiny, hand made glass eyes and suddenly you're looking at something with real character.

Gretel's descriptions of the process are organic, descriptive and instantly understandable.  "Firm it up a bit.  "Poke it a bit more".  "If it's hollow, pop a ball of fibres up it".   Very early in this friendly, tea fuelled day I found tensions unwinding, cares dissolving and breath deepening as I became absorbed by pricking a muddle of wool into a shape.  Even when a break was called, many of us continued working, too engaged to tear our attention away.  Here's what we all made....

The obsession kept hold over the weekend as I continued prodding and poking to try and achieve the same smooth perfection Gretel achieves in each of her pieces.

  Even looking at these pictures now I want to get my needle out and neaten the imperfections.

If you get a chance to join one of these workshops, do.  If not, get a copy of Gretel's book.  And have a nice sit down with a cup of tea while you try and work out which project to try first.  By the way, he's called Sven.

Ballot Box Sunday

At the time of writing, we are only a few days from the UK referendum vote to remain in or leave the European Union.  This Sunday morning, like all the other officials up and down over the UK, we went to collect the ballot boxes and polling booth in readiness.  

It's not me but Himself who has the early start this Thursday to get the polling station open and ready for the early bird voters at 7am.  Once the polls close at 10pm, he will seal the ballot box and deliver it to be counted.  He'll probably come home very late and fall asleep on the sofa.  Me, I've taken the  next day off on holiday because I think this will be the biggest, most important vote of my generation and I don't want to miss the results coming in overnight.

Because Himself has no opportunity to leave his station to cast his vote and because I can never be certain any voting days won't coincide with meetings abroad, we both use a postal vote.  We sent our papers back last week so for us the job is done.  

I have no doubt the UK would survive an exit but I work for a European company who employ over 6,000 people UK and I travel to the Continent several times a year both for work and for pleasure.  I like testing out my wonky French and German and have always found the native speakers to be sympathetic and supportive of my efforts.  So yes, you can get along ok on your own but it's much better to have friends.

Butterfly Greetings Card

I wanted to showcase a beautiful butterfly die cut I bought recently.  To make it really stand out I needed a simple design.  I used my favourite colours of blue and green to make this greetings card and added some extra sparkle on the butterfly using a clear wink of Stella glitter pen.

In the video, I show how to use die cuts to cut your shape just where you want!

Greetings Card - Home

Friends of ours have recently moved permanently to France and two nights before they left, we gathered for some drinks at a local pub to see them off and wish them well.  I had a dig about in my stamp stash to find an appropriate image to make them a farewell card.  No, they haven't bought a castle but they have bought a house with a pointy tower and I should say, although I made the card, we don't have their new address to send it to - yet.  You're seeing it first!

Simple and uncluttered.  Like my brain :)

A tip for any simple shape, if you want it to pop out, add a line of dots around it.   It worked on all those ancient manuscripts like The Book of Kells....

Here's the video :)

Why Would Anyone Want to Live in Dordogne?

Because of the number of Brits who have moved there, a particular region of South West France has been nicknamed Dordogneshire.  I thought I'd share some pictures of our second trip to this part of Aquitaine to see if we can figure out why so many people want to live there.

Beynac-et-Cazenac

Rocamadour

Can't remember

Carlux

Sarlat-la-Caneda and it's Saturday market

Carlux

Wildlife

(Speaking of wildlife, this is what we saw on waking each morning.)

Nope, I can't work it out.  The attraction must be that you can get your baguettes from a vending machine.