Loving Latitude....

A few pictures from a great weekend at Henham Hall in Southwold, the 3rd year of the Latitude Festival. The picture above is Sigur Ros, probably my highlight of the weekend..as were Elbow, Go-Team, Amadou and Mariam and Grinderman..These pictures were taken by Mr Passey, a housemate and friend of sister Jo..I forgot my camera..I'd never met Jo and Stu's friends from London, but they were lovely and it's the best I've felt in a long while..much needed music and mingling..other highlights were Simon Armitage who was as down to earth as imagined and very funny, Stewart Lee and the milkshakes/smoothies, literally chocolate snacks like jaffa cakes, hob nobs, chocolate orange , strawberry cheesecake blended up with milk and ice cream..superb!..roll on next year...

She laid a good egg...

R.I.P. Meave ...

It's been a while...

hello again, it's really been ages since I last wrote. Time flies and I was just about to start the new job...now its been nearly 3 months..

What can I say? I'm lucky to be somewhere where colleagues have been supportive and friendly from day one , also to feel that I've built up a good rapport with our tenants who have learning disabilities. On the downside..well..just being who you are, forever being 'down' or 'low', getting stuck in a rut, not believing in what's possible..or that your'e just not making enough effort.. these are the things that are a constant...and make me want to escape life right now ...totally or maybe just Japan..start somewhere new..where nobody knows you..but i guess you dont escape, not really..

we saw Julie Myerson, the author this week at a newly refurbished church in town, which is now a cafe, meeting place and a venue for an enterprise called Genesis which provides opportunities for people with learning disbilities to take part in all manner of creative activities ,and in this case sell them at the church. There is some fantastic stuff to purchase. Julie was talking to my old tutor on the access course I did at college some years ago, so it was a doubly interesting night. Julie was a great character, really engaging, someone who obviously loves books and wanted to be a writer from childhood. Her new book, focuses entirely on a group of children, but is aimed at adults. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Lots of cupcakes have been made recently!

Sadly, Maeve the hen went downhill rapidly..she hadn't been herself but had seemed content and eating hungrily out of our hands. The last few days was awful, for us to look at and no doubt awful for her..well, I hope she wasn't suffering too much. She was put to sleep.. a relief for everyone and her..she was a strong old girl and a sweet natured chicken, bless her.

Finished 'flowers for algernon' , a fantastic book and recommend to anyone, as also the new cd by 'Santogold', a real gem.

take care and hope to resume normal blogging!

Cranberry Cupcakes...

We've just finished this batch and they were rather tasty. I've noticed that like a good wine (she says tongue in cheek) they seem to taste even better a few days after they're out of the oven and have 'matured and settled' !!

Had an unexpected but welcome phone call last night and will now be starting my job as of Monday. This is good news..I'm not feeling as nervous as I thought I might, especially compared to the terror I used to feel at the prospect of an occupational therapy work placement which was part of my course. This used to involve weeks of worry prior to finding out where you were going, then weeks of worry after finding out and then slightly less worry while actually there! Some of this calmness is probably due to helping out at the Oxfam shop and getting back into a work routine and meeting fellow volunteers and customers..it has definately improved my confidence in relation to starting work again and I'd recommend it highly.

Speaking of the volunteers at the shop, one of the ladies, Sue, I have been on the shopfloor with on Tuesday afternoons left this week after over a year at the shop to start work in a store in town. She is really going to be missed I think. I used to really look forward to these afternoons as it was so good chatting to her and we had similar taste in films, televison and books so there was always plenty to talk about and she was just generally a very sweet person. This was also apparent on Tuesday, when a new volunteer started with us and Sue was able to put the new volunteer at ease straight away and she seemed genuinely sad that she wouldn't be working with Sue again. I'll be sad to stop working there also but it has been left open to see if it will work out when my shift pattern starts at the end of the month but somehow I don't think it will..

An afternoon in mid-April....

and some finished projects..

Baby tank-top in Rowan cotton

Beanie hat in Sirdar Blur mohair

Gardening Mitts in Louisa Harding Kimono angora

A knitting needle wrap for mother's day from a pattern by Tania Howell in the 'Crafter's Companion' book

And meet Maeve, our sole remaining hen, thriving since the untimely demise of her soul sister Siobhan (RIP...) she now has designated garden roaming time and doesn't seem to wreck the garden as they tended to do when they were let out as a pair. She is one fine figure of a hen!

Which means this chap, Nas, has to share his garden domain!

Crazy hair!

Hi, just thought I'd share this with you! The weather has been so strange today, beautiful and sunny this morning although a touch windy, and then suddenly overcast ahead and hail and rain, but I must take Nas out in a minute as he hasn't been out today yet and he'll start giving me dirty looks soon!

Went into town for a wander with Mum. We found a newly reopened cafe with an Italian vibe, an Italian radio station was playing. Nearby is a lovely shop that we just can't bring ourselves to go into unless we have serious intent to buy something! It's the Scandinavian shop with Moomin cups, which we just coveted through the window for about 10 minutes!

We popped into the 'will it ...won't it close down...no it'll be open for a while longer, we've just got new stock in!' woolshop for a crochet needle as neighbour Sue kindly taught me to crochet yesterday while she's recovering from back pain and orders from the doctor to take it easy. She was a very good (and patient!) teacher, I've created a small square and hope to be able to remember what to do when I pick it up again. We saw some lovely soya wool made by Sirdar I think, very reasonable price and the Baby Bamboo range also has some lovely mix and match colours.

Nearly finished a baby tank top for a special baby, having a bit of trouble with the neck dividing and understanding the pattern, Mum has been very patient in getting me out of several mistakes.

Also bought some Cranberries on the market to possibly go in some weekend cupcakes!

I'm hoping to hear some good news soon about a starting date for my job, as time goes on I'm starting to get a bit down about it all ...but not to dwell on it..

Dad is going up to London on Sunday night to help his mates Willy and Tony to bring the 'Ardwina' Sailing barge from St. Catherine's Dock back to moor at Malden. Hopefully it'll be a rather more enjoyable trip than last weekend helping bring the 'Victor' back to Mistley from Malden in the horizontal sleet and snow!...he loves it really!

Hope you have a lovely weekend wherever you are and whatever your'e doing.

April Fool's Day..

It was my birthday last Tuesday. April Fool's Day. I've always felt this is pretty appropriate as one way or another I tend to feel foolish most of the time.. As the years go by, birthdays don't seem to take on the same significance as they did when we are children and you tend to want to forget that you are a year older! ...now that's something you didn't regret when you were a kid!!

But birthdays are always a reminder that I have some good friends out there, even if they are across the country or the other side of the world and this I appreciate very much. Thankyou, obrigada, arigato to those above and to others whose photos I don't have readily to post.