Can’t see the wood

We had a fun day out with friends on Friday, spending some time at Whichford Pottery listening to their gardener speak about planting bulbs in pots.  

 

We are always happy to mooch around there and seldom leave without a new pot to add to our collection.

On Friday, we arrived early enough for coffee and a bacon buttie in the new cafe there, which is an interesting and eclectic space.

Just behind us were a couple of holes in the wall, one of which was stuffed with pieces of brightly coloured yarn.  Of course, I took a photo.

It was only just now though, when printing a few pics out for my Project Life that I spotted the legs.

Up with the larks

I was judging one of my favourite shows today, so up and out first thing and driving through Moreton in Marsh before 8am.  The forecast was good, but as it was early, I’d put on an additional layer, just to get me through until the sun came out.  Working in a damp marquee can be chilly on the warmest of days, so I thought I’d better be prepared.

One entrant in the “memory book” class had created a treasure but I smiled as I wrote a comment about it needing a bigger spine.  Physician, heal thyself!

We worked our way methodically through our allotted classes, did our usual humming and hahhing with the stewards before taking a look around the other parts of the Home and Garden marquee and sympathising with my colleague judging a large class of jars of chutney.

Some of the vegetables were huge this year.

I had intended to go and take a look around the cattle before going for my lunch, but when I saw the quagmire that had been created by the entrance to the livestock arena, I thought better of it and simply watched from a distance.

So much for the fine weather forecast – it seems as though it had rained pretty heavily earlier on.  Such a shame when everyone has poured heart and soul into the organisation of the day.  Each year, there seems to be one particularly popular item of clothing on everyone’s stand – it definitely wasn’t a sunhat this year, but these were flying off the racks!

I took refuge inside the food tent instead and did a little pre-lunch tasting!  I just might have made a purchase here at the Cotswold Fudge Company – something sweet for my Hero, of course.

But the product of the day here?

Gin!  Damson gin, sloe gin, plum gin, plain gin…all offering little tasters just right for a chilly day

Who knew there were so many?  Well, I do now!  What a pity I was driving.

Clearly the programme for the day was similar to last year,  because as I went for my lunch the Ladies’ Sidesaddle competition was under way.

Watching the judge climb up onto each horse in turn, my colleague Carolyn and I heaved a sigh of relief that judging crafts involves no such peril.

Because not all the participants in the class were behaving themselves and one in particular was being difficult.  It certainly put my challenge of the morning into perspective – I mean, dealing with a motheaten sweater is a piece of cake compared to managing an unruly horse, isn’t it?

I hope that judge found her way to the gin tent.

And today I learned…

That the comments aren’t working properly on my blog.  Thank you Lesley and Marion, for emailing me to alert me to that news.  I’ve been in touch with my blog host, Squarespace, and they have engineers working on it as we speak.  In the meantime, I’ve made a slight adjustment which will hopefully resolve the immediate issue until a new, permanent fix in in place.  Please, let me know if things are still not working.

Today, I went to the hairdressers and had another reminder that September is here when I turned the corner and met a long traffic jam at the bottom of the hill.  School is back.

What a difference the school run makes to the traffic flow around here.

Children of the Autumn

Here we are in September already and I know that I’m not alone in looking fondly at those soft cashmere sweaters, the cosy slippers and wondering how soon I can reasonably think of putting the warmer duvets on our bed.  It’s not that I don’t like the warm Summer weather, just that I prefer the cooler days and a chance to snuggle in on darker evenings.  As my German friend Karin observes, “born in September and October, we are children of the Autumn”.

She’s right.

I like the cool starts to the morning, the more so if the sun gets up and brightens the day, as it did in Cheltenham on Saturday.  Not long now before those gardens will be covered in marquees and bookshops; I must set a reminder to sort out our tickets for the Literature Festival when booking opens tomorrow.

I’ve been putting one or two summer things to bed over the last couple of days.  First, my road trip journal from our Mid West adventure, which was especially hard to finish because I lingered a little too long and allowed our Irish jaunt to overlay the memories.  A good job I’d taken notes in my little book, then!

I actually created a keepsake from our Irish jolly too, but for now, I’ll keep it under wraps as it’s a little “different”.  I took my inspiration from the Waterford Charter and have had fun speaking stern words to our printer as I fed fabric to it.  I’ll share a few pics in due course, I expect

Whilst travelling through Iowa, we dropped into the Woollen Needle and unable, it seems, to leave such a shop without making a purchase of some kind, I fell for one of the cute felt cushion/ornament.  The darker skies brought out the urge to embroider and so armed with a box of odd bits of thread and a needle, I set to work.

But as I began, I looked at my stitches in horror.  What?  Have I lost the ability to create neat, even stitches?  Of course, stitching on heavy, woollen felt it isn’t easy to keep everything looking crisp and neat, but even so…

Almost finished, it’s not at all perfect.  It looks likely to give trainee craft judges plenty to get their teeth into when the next course begins!

It also provides me with the first theme of my annual September project because, oh yes, it’s that time of the year again.  I don’t think that it’s really something new, strictly speaking, but I learned that it’s worth sticking with something, even if it isn’t quite perfect, otherwise nothing would get done, would it?