Another year.....

As the sun sets over Dundrum Bay and the Mourne Mountains, thus another year draws to a close.

This has been a year with a lot of

Sunshine

and

a lot of Stitching.

I have not had much time for blogging recently and an unhappy incident when I accidentally deleted all the photos that I had taken over the past few weeks did not help matters.

Most annoyingly, the photos were those I had taken of the annual Christmas at The Barn event at Lucinda’s last month, including embroidery pictures that were sold and of which I now have no record. It was most careless of me.

Photos too of a glorious autumnal day where I captured amazing scenes of the local Northern Irish countryside for future stitching purposes. All gone!

Sadly, this year’s Christmas at The Barn was the last one that Lucinda will host at her home. The tiny winding country lanes and muddy field for parking are not really conducive to the hordes of vehicles and people that made their way to Lucinda’s, undeterred by the heavy rain that fell.

However, this does not mean an end to the event - as next year, there is an exciting plan for the event to be held at the nearby beautiful Larchfield Estate.

There will be a lot of stitching and some new soaping ideas to prepare for this, but in the meantime and between commissions, I have indulged in some stitching for myself. After a moment of consternation when I “ran short of twist” – (just like Miss Potter’s “Tailor of Gloucester”),

I have finally been able to complete the Bucket of Foxgloves

 designed by Caroline Zoob 

and which is now framed and in place upon the fireplace mantel in my bedroom.

Happy New Year everyone and Happy Stitching!

xxx

Distractions

The annual “Christmas in the Barn” event is approaching fast and I am in a slight panic, as there is still so much to do and not a lot of time. There have been plenty of distractions over the past few weeks meaning that I have been dashing from one thing to another and accomplishing little.

All of my sewing and soaping is painstakingly handmade by me, and takes time to create. 

There have been no little elves to help me with wrapping soap, writing labels and making the boxes for the soaps and lavender hearts.

Recently however, I was woken abruptly during the night by an unnerving sound, which after a few heart-stopping moments I realised to my consternation was the noise of a mouse!

The sounds of gnawing and scratching between the ceiling in the downstairs front bedroom and the upstairs floorboards

indicated that this mouse intruder was not helping with my stitching like the mice in “The Tailor of Gloucester” but was instead intent upon eating my house.

With horrifying thoughts of the house burning down due to nibbled electrical cables, I raced upstairs to where the noise was coming from. Evie (who is a formidable mouser) lay in her bed, eyes half closed, sleepily listening to the noise – her nose twitching slightly and ears pointed, but astute enough to know that the mouse yet so close was in reality unreachable. The gnawing grew louder undeterred by my footsteps. I rapped sharply on the floorboards with my knuckles. “Be Gone!” I sternly commanded the mouse. Amazingly, the noise stopped immediately!

Incredibly, (and thankfully) from then on there has been no further sound of the mouse, though I lost a lot of sleep lying awake listening, until finally a couple of days later I found the petrified corpse of a mouse on the back doorstep, for which Evie was undoubtedly responsible, despite her innocent demeanour.

Evie’s penchant for mousing was the cause of the next incident that distracted me from my preparations.

An unusual and marked reluctance to leave her bed one Saturday morning puzzled me. 

At first, I thought it was because the weather was cold and miserable, but as the morning progressed, she still showed no inclination to come downstairs. Concerned that she hadn’t eaten, I coaxed her out of bed. There was a heartrending miaou of pain and Evie limped towards me holding her front left leg stiffly into her body.

A hasty visit to the vet ensued – Evie wailing and hyperventilating in distress in the cat box and me hyperventilating and babbling incoherently – thoughts of the cause of Evie’s previous injuries at the forefront of my mind. The nice vet soon had us both calmed down, Evie pretending to be brave and act as though there was nothing wrong.

The vets examination produced an unexpected finding - a deep gash on her left shoulder that I had not noticed before. The explanation was alarming. Evie had grown overconfident in her mousing and this time had taken on more than she could handle. She had picked a fight with a large rat, which had viciously inflicted multiple bites upon her resulting in rat bite fever. Whilst Evie appeared to have lost this fight, it is debatable as to the state that the rat was in at the end of fight.

Happily following a painkilling injection and antibiotics, Evie has recovered, although she prefers now to remain indoors and keep me company as I sit and stitch. At an estimated fifteen years old, (76 in human years) she has probably realised that “she can’t do what she used to do” – as the young physiotherapist told me when I had just turned 40, making me feel like I was in my dotage.

To alleviate the stress, I indulged myself in stitching a lovely embroidery design from Caroline Zoob that I had intended to keep until after the Barn event.

A Bird in the Oak on antique French Linen.

Enjoyable that it was to do, completing this embroidery has been mere procrastination and although I can now admire it in my hallway, I still have heaps of preparation to do for “Christmas in the Barn”.

The stress has returned.

xxx

Lavender and Linen

Visitors to La Petite Maison frequently comment on the fragrance of Lavender - both outside and indoors.

They hasten to clarify that it is not the cloying sickly lavender smell associated with chemical air fresheners or cheap perfume, 

but the dusty pungent herbaceous scent experienced when walking through a lavender field on a balmy evening,

 or a rosy morning 

when the dew is still wet on the grass.

In the garden, the Regal Splendour lavender in the chimney pots leading to the seating area could have come straight from a Mediterranean Hillside.

 

 Grey / blue flowers of Lavender Augustifolia edge the back walls of the house, mingling with rosemary and fennel and the roses that clothe the walls -

such a contrast to the way the house used to look with the lean-to-boiler house that adorned the back wall, 

before I rescued it from it's tired and dilapidated state.

Lavender and nepeta now line the gravel paths leading to the back door, the flower spikes gracefully swaying in the summer breeze, whilst

lavender and sage flop over each side of the reclaimed sleeper steps outside the French windows - releasing a heady, woody, pungent scent when brushed past on the way up to the grassed area.

After a sunny day, the lavender has been picked and brought inside to dry in bunches; harvested in phases, so that the bees still had access to a constant supply.

This years heatwave has also created an opportunity for gathering rose petals 

that dried in the sun almost the same day they flowered. 

As a result over the past summer months my home has been full of the scent of lavender and rose petals,

some of which I used to fill a cushion that I made from antique white linen.

I also stitched a Summer Bouquet with hollyhocks, foxgloves and daisies onto freshly laundered and lavender scented French linen -  

(the beautiful design was courtesy of Nicki), 

and sewed it into a lavender filled cushion. 

Some of the dried lavender is ground and used as an ingredient to my handmade herbal soap - carrying the lavender fragrance throughout the house.

As the days shorten and the evenings close in, the scent of summer lingers on through the dried lavender, the woody fragrance combining with the seasonal autumnal smell of kiln dried wood burning in the stove.

November is approaching fast and Lucinda's "Christmas in the Barn" event. I am wondering if I have enough dried petals for all my projects. Already I am making plans for next year to plant an entire bed with lavender at the allotment.

xxx

Seasons Change at The Allotment

The allotment has an autumnal feel about it now.

Fruit trees 

that a few months ago were dripping with blossom

are now heavily laden

  with fruit, 

their branches drooping beneath the weight of apples

and pears.

Teasels and 

 yellow-headed Sunflowers

 have grown tall 

along the winding brick edged path

and beside the French beans 

 climbing their hazel wigwam.

Yellow and orange flowered Calendula

 planted in amongst the vegetables create a vivid splash of colour, like the Nasturtiums that tumble and trail over the narrow paths at the top of the plot 

alongside the scented herbs Rosemary, Fennel, Dill, and Lovage.

The beautiful creeping thyme,

on either side of the path,

 – much loved by the bees (and home to a little frog), thrived in the hot sun and so has fully recovered from the harsh winter weather at the start of the year.

Sweet peas still carry their blooms

 as they climb the willow and hazel supports

 and opium poppies 

have grown randomly

 in the herb beds.

Pumpkins and gourds are forming, 

although their large leaves do not compete with the huge leaves still borne by the rhubarb.

The harvest of blackcurrants and gooseberries was early this year – a bountiful crop of the tastiest fruit, little of which made it home, but was instead picked and eaten immediately on the spot. 

Recently planted autumn raspberry canes have already produced large berries that are on the verge of ripening.

At the bottom of the sloping plot,

rosehips and jewel coloured berries of Hawthorne and Elder provide a veritable feast for the dozens of small birds flitting from branch to branch in the hedge and twittering ceaselessly.

The allotment site is enclosed on three sides by land that once formed part of an old country estate 

and the majestic ancient trees remain a haven for wildlife.

During the summer, we heard the high-pitched calls of a family of buzzards nesting in the trees and watched them as they soared effortlessly through the trees and over the plots.

The old trees are also home to a bat colony and at dusk, the bats can be seen flying out from the trees and along the corridor of the laneway. 

At the end of the allotment site on the other side of the mature trees where the bats roost is a little park also owned by the council. A short while ago the council leased the park for use as a BMX track and the infuriating constant bang of bikes as they hit the ramp has caused a noise nuisance similar to the sound of a Crow Scarer and is a disturbance of the peace and tranquillity usually found at the allotments.

Sadly, the tranquillity and harmony with nature that has thrived for so many years at our allotment site is now under even more threat as the Council announced their intention to overhaul the allotment site.

Existing plot holders have been displaced and the plots and hedges at the entrance to the site have already been flattened. 

The council is now preparing to cut down the trees and hedges.

There are also ominous rumblings that as well as replacing the plot boundary fences with standard green mesh,

and the grass laneways with aggregate,

the hawthorn hedge that runs along the railway embankment at the bottom of my plot is going to “be addressed”. The response to my query as to what this entailed was vague, so I am unclear as to what further catastrophes await this wildlife friendly site.

xxx