do you mind if i knit

Blue skies, bright mood.

That BRIGHT blue sky we had, this weekend just gone! GLORIOUS!

Joyous it was. It's a rare event to have two consecutive days of blazing sunshine in these parts, but we had it, we did, we did! When we have good weather, it's sometimes difficult to take it in. I always feel slightly desperate, because I don't know when it's going to end, I don't want the sun to stop shining. So despite having to work over the weekend, nothing was going to stop us going out and about, and enjoying ourselves a little.

That meant going to the beach with the doggies, and taking my crochet scarf to work on, when we stopped for a coffee after our stroll.

A little light beachcombing was inevitable, plus some examination of bird's foot prints, aren't they so delicate? I think they must be Seagull foot prints.

I like beachcombing, never tire of it ever. The whole process of observing makes every shell, pebble or bit of driftwood something to be marvelled at.

These pebbles are smoother than my hands I've just noticed.

I like to search for the smoothest, flattest pebbles I can find, preferably ones with a single line of white running through them. I've got a 'growing' collection of these pebbles, which I sometimes arrange on a flat surface, admiring their simple beauty.

On Saturday morning I woke up, opened the shutters, and lay in bed watching huge meringue-like clouds drift by. That whole day the sky was full of picture-book cotton wool clouds, ever so plump and fluffy. A blue sky with big woolly clouds gliding past has to be the nicest sort of sky, don't you think? A sky without a cloud, whilst pretty, is not as interesting as one peppered with drifts and puffs of cotton wool.

Yes, we made time for relaxing. Coffees on the promenade when the weather is good is a must.

This weekend was jam-packed with events in our town. The Slow Food Festival was on, and it was Open Doors day, where we got to access buildings and parts of the town the public don't normally get to see. The town is surrounded by Elizabethan walls, and there are tunnels under the walls that are usually shut off, so we did a little scurrying through tunnels, and up dead-end staircases, which was fun, I love a good explore.

One of the highlights of the food festival was seeing the piglets. Some very happy piggies, with their enormous mothers.

We were looking at them, longing for a cuddle. Hugo did stroke one piglet, and said it was like touching silk.

And there was a stall selling handknitted items, made from Alpaca yarn. I forgot to photograph the delightful Alpacas, standing eyeing everyone up and looking soft and kissable. The owner says that some of them do give her kisses. I was mortified that all her yarn had sold out very quickly, and had to console myself with buying a pair of hand knitted fingerless gloves. They're very soft, and the colour is the most gorgeous slate grey. Apparently it's very difficult to breed Alpacas with a grey fleece, they mostly pop out of their mums in a white, brown, black or a mix of all of those colours. The grey is very covetable. My tag that accompanied my gloves explained the yarn used in my gloves comes from Kate (who is apparently a bit grumpy, despite her beautiful grey coat). The husband and wife who run Barnacre Alpacas were lovely. They give all their Alpacas names, and don't have more than fifty in their herd, so they have time for each animal.

Well, dear readers, I must be off, I've got things to do and things on the brew. See you on Wednesday. Love Vanessa xxx

Doesn't time fly!

I just looked at my watch, and did a double take, it's six in the evening, and I'm just sitting down to say hello to you, where has the day gone!

Did you have a good weekend? I hope so. Ours was a very simple weekend really, just walking the dogs, I did some work on my paintings, and Hugo tried to find things around the house to put on e-bay, to make some extra cash. I had to keep a close eye on him.

I thought you might like to see a before-and-after, with one of my paintings. I showed you the above watercolour a few weeks ago, and since then, I've been working on it. I worried that it looked unfinished, and you can be the judge of whether I've ruined it or not, because this is the painting now:

Personally, I prefer this painting after having worked into it more, it just looks more substantial, but you might disagree with me!

I'm so pleased you all liked my last post so much, I did enjoy that massive shot of colour, and glad you liked it too. So when it came to today's post, I was in two minds about it. It's starting off nice and colourful, with the photos of my painting, but I'm just about to launch into showing you pictures of our weekend walks, which are much less colourful. I prefer to put up colour filled posts, but our walks this weekend were so lovely, I thought I'd show you the photos. So be prepared for a sudden drop in cheery colour, because we woke up to a thin covering of snow on the ground on Saturday morning, so the landscape was quite powdery white.

Even the beach had snow on it. But the day was bright as a shiny new button, and the effect of the sun made us feel happy. The dogs were running round like puppies, I love that happy body language of dogs, it's so endearing.

That was our morning walk.

After going home from the beach, doing some work on my paintings, and having a quick read of the paper, it was soon the afternoon, and the light was beautiful.

And it was still light! The days are definitely getting longer, yipee!

So we went off for another walk, by the river. Inland there was more snow on the ground, but the sun was still warm. The evening light was soft. I love that soft light.

We crossed Chain Bridge, (that's it's name), and walked along the opposite bank.

It was still, you know? Peaceful, noone else around. I love having the countryside to myself. Here in the North East of England, we get deserted beaches and countryside, which must seem like a miracle to people from more heavily populated areas. When I first moved here from London almost ten years ago, I couldn't believe how deserted the roads were of cars, now I take it a bit for granted. Well, until we drive to more populated areas, then I know just how fortunate we are.

On the other side of the river, the footpath is lined with intermitent stone walls, which you can get a nice clear view of, because the trees are bare at the moment. These hand-built walls are extraordinary, don't you think? Works of art I think.

Can you feel the chill in the air, in these photos?!

When taking these photos, behind me was the river, with its banks full of the dried stems of giant, Cow Parsley, I think that's what it was.

Hugo found the most spectacularly large hollow stem of the stuff.

And Hugo did what boys do, he made it into a piece of technical equipment, a Telescope.

Well, I then thought that it would be interesting to see what the dogs would make of it.

Douglas made it perfectly clear that he was very uncomfortable looking down a tube. (Shame I didn't think of using a treat to get him to look at me).

Ellie was the perfect little performer, and I managed to get one photo that wasn't blurred, of her little beady eye looking at me.

Ellie is more of a natural infront of the camera. Douglas would rather hide from anything remotely odd looking, or even anything that isn't odd looking.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the excursion? I'm off now, to do what, I don't know. Maybe some knitting? Yes, some knitting, after I've lit the wood burning stove, it's cold in here. So I'll see you on Wednesday then? Yes? Goody! Love Vanessa xxx

A boaty and blankety sort of weekend.

Hello there, how nice to see you! It's only been a couple of days since I was here chatting, but it feels longer than that. So, it's lovely to see you again. I hope you all had a relaxing time, and that the weekend didn't zip by too fast for you?
Do you like the photo of Ellie above?! That's my 'special' bucket she's got dangling on her leg. The bucket I use to collect sea glass and pebbles. The expression on her face! That's the expression she uses to indicate she's relaxed and happy, and feeling very pleased with herself, because she's just snaffled something unpleasant she's found on the beach. It doesn't come across in the photo, but she was wagging her tail, the cheeky little madam.

These toy sailing boats, from the forties and fifties, which I used to collect, have finally found a home on a wall. We put them up last week. They had been sitting in the attic for years, then I retrieved them, thinking that I must do something with them. They then sat for another year in a brown paper carrier bag.

Do you ever find youself thinking, "why oh why did I not do something with these before?" That phrase, "actions speak louder than words", often rings in my head..

On Friday, I mentioned that Hugo and I were going to see Germaine Greer give a talk that evening. You seemed interested in this fact, so I thought I'd give you a summing up of the event.

The weather was raging. Wind, rain, whipped the buildings, very dramatic. We braved the weather, and so did Germaine Greer. She was very impressed that we'd all turned up! I didn't know what to expect from the evening, but I went well equipped to listen, with my crochet in my bag. We had seats in the circle, high up, so Germaine wouldn't have been able to see me crocheting..................(!).................... The talk revolved around the subject of the last forty years of feminism. And she seemed to want to defend herself and her history. I thought that she could have celebrated her achievements more. It was very interesting, and some of what she said was quite personal. I thought she came across as a person who cares deeply about people, men and women.
I know there's a lot of antipathy towards her, but I liked her. I know she divides people and their opinions. I still admire her, however controversial she is.
She did talk a little bit about her time in the Big Brother house, (in response to a question she received). She said she went into the house purely to earn lots of money. Apparently it was filthy dirty from the previous occupants of the house. And Big Brother bullied one of the house mates. She wasn't in there for long, because she left early, to "save her credibility." And she still got paid lots of money despite leaving early, because she brought lots of publicity to the programme.

I felt I was watching and listening to an icon, and that it was a privilege. She's seventy years old, which seems unbelieveable when you see her. She's been on an extraordinary journey, during her life so far, which I think she feels is far from over. And she didn't seem have to lost any energy. Still a ball of fire!

Changing tack slightly, I managed to do some crocheting towards my blanket during Germaine Greer's talk, (I had a few squares to do). Then I spent a good part of the weekend working on my blanket. At the start of the weekend, I had the ambitious goal in my mind of finishing the blanket! Which seems ludicrous to me now. I'm still sewing in what feels like a million ends, which I want to get over with before I start on the border. Starting on the border will be my reward for sewing in the ends.
(Have to be strict with myself sometimes!).
So dear readers, another Monday has slid by............... too fast of course. I shall see you tomorrow. Love Vanessa xxx

The luxury of a warm and lazy sea breeze.

Hello there! It's a lovely evening here, just glorious! We just got back from taking the dogs for a walk on the beach, after finishing work. It's been a funny old day, weather wise, but this evening the air is soft and the sun is shining brightly. The tide was right out, so the beach was huge. We were walking on sand that is normally quite deep under the water, which I love the idea of, walking on the sea bed. The dogs love the beach. They run and run, and sniff and sniff. Occassionally they find a tasty morsel, like a dead fish, and then there's a race between us. Ellie or Douglas race to eat that old fish as quickly as possible, and Hugo, sometimes me, race to relieve them of their finds. And there's lots of shouting in the process.

This evening, we were all wandering around the beach, luxuriating in the warm sea breeze. I love looking for pebbles and sea glass, (or Mermaids tears, as someone once said to me).
I'm always amazed by the sea weed, especially this irridescent green sea weed.

Look at our blue sky!

And just look at this long bit of sea weed!

Hugo strolled up to me, and then opened his hand, to reveal sea glass! Wasn't that nice of him? Collecting sea glass for me!

I'm a lucky gal! Well folks, I think might makes us both a shandy, and sit down to relax with a bit of crocheting. I laid out all my crochet squares for the Sisterhood blanket today, to see how I was doing in terms of colour and coverage. I did take some photos, but I think they could be better, so I'll try again tomorrow.
Gosh, that stroll on the beach has made me feel very relaxed, and lazy! Must be the sea air. See you tomorrow my lovely friends. Love Vanessa xxx

The days are getting longer.

It's not starting to get dark till 6 p.m. at the moment ...................... This is a very exciting turn of events for us, as it means we have time to go to the beach after work! And the last couple of times we've been to the beach, the tide has been out, so we've had a huge expanse of sand to walk on. On the occasion of taking these photographs, it was just me and the dogs, so I didn't get the fantastic and hilarious spectacle of Hugo running with the dogs. Hugo is tall, with long legs, so when he runs with the dogs, I just see legs moving and two mop heads bopping along around him............ Ellie and Douglas do resemble mops. It's a little game the dogs have, running after Hugo, who is running from them............. It always amazes me how few people we encounter on our beaches around here. At any given time, we could have the beach to ourselves. The beaches in the North East of England are very beautiful, I always think it's a miracle how unspoilt and unpopulated they are. I'll never forget the time Hugo and I had a huge expanse of beach to ourselves, no one for as far as the eye could see. We were sitting in the dunes, having a picnic, when suddenly a lone figure came into view. This lonely little figure in the distance must of thought, like us, that he had the beach entirely to himself, because as he got closer, we realised he was stark naked, not a stitch on him. We knew when he had spotted us, because he suddenly broke into a panicked run, while at the same time stumbling along, attempting to put some underwear on. The whole spectacle was mesmerising................. and hilarious............ poor man................. Over the winter, we've had some tremendous storms, which have shifted huge quantities of the sand on this beach, and changed the landscape. The sand is now about twelve feet lower, exposing these wooden posts, and making for quite an eerie look to the beach. ............. It all makes for new and fascinating investigating opportunities for the doggies. I'd love to know if they can smell the depths of the sea in those newly exposed posts. Us humans only have the visual clues to go on, and wonder what it was like when these posts were twelve feet deep in the sea. Isn't nature extraordinary?

Last Saturday afternoon, the sun came out of hiding................. and blazed!
One thing we have learnt from living in the North of England, is to never take a sunny day for granted.
So that evening, we hot-footed it down to the beach, and Hugo lit the barbeque....................
While I cracked open a chilled bottle of Ginger Beer.................
............Despite the look on Hugo's face.............. the burgers in pitta bread were delicious...................
................And we had the beach to ourselves.................
.................Yes, we live in a part of the world where, on a balmy, sunny evening, we can have the beach to ourselves...................
It doesn't get much better than that, does it.....................