dovegreyreader scribbles

Pleasings...

'Relentlessly Optimistic of Devon Here', let's focus on good things shall we.

Do you know whenever I look at this picture I can still feel that little owlet's plumpness and its heart beating, and the softness of those downy feathers. Our barn owl is still in residence and has taken to perching on the summerhouse verandah where we have a delightful spattered sea of white guano and heaps of pellets.

I hope you are all keeping chins up and looking upwards too There's a big sky to be seen out there, and the sun is making its way back to us (sorry Southern H. it's our turn next) though truth be told it's been freezing grey fog here all week so a lot of imagination and pretending required.

This was ages ago. I hope it's still there...

Firstly, a huge thank you for all your wonderful messages this week. I can't say its been easy dealing with so much from afar, and I suspect if Bookhound spends one more hour on the phone trying to sort something the thing will become welded to his ear. Everyone is working from home so access is limited, and as you can imagine there is a mass of 'stuff' to sort when someone dies 350 miles away.

Forgive me if I'm not around much for a week or two more...I've barely picked up a book but I am listening to Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith (loving it) and I am making myself settle down with some sewing each day.

And it's time to think about the other sort of sowing too.

Did I say I'm going large on sweet peas this year? The autumn sown seeds are already up and growing in the cold greenhouse.

Father-in-law was a great gardener in his day, a real expert at sweet peas and a member of the Sweet Pea Society.  I have benefited from inheriting a couple of electric propagators from his greenhouse so I plan to get my next batch of seeds started any day. I discovered Roger Parsons and the National Collection at Bracklesham Bay online and ordered a variety of seeds from his catalogue. I also treated myself to his book so I'm not messing this year...straight stems and lots of blooms.

I fancy a dedicated trench with cane supports and will enjoy watching Bookhound dig it while I supply tea and cake...he doesn't actually know about it yet, but might do now.

So now I'm realying on ALL of you. At least one Pleasing each if you can possibly manage it to cheer us all along. Among the other great achievements of my life at the moment are ...

Getting dressed before 11am...

Being bothered to wash the kitchen floor...

Not falling asleep in front of the fire before 4pm...

Hold tight everyone, we're getting through this. All will be well eventually.

Now over to you...

 

 

 

 

Farewell 2020...

Well all I can say is goodbye 2020 and please 2021 will you be nicer to us. I want to say good riddance but in a way I also want to say, well, thanks for the life lessons. 

I suspect we've all learned a lot through these tough times. Not only the value of treasured friendships and taking nothing for granted, but also recalibrating the things that matter, sifting them out from the things that matter much less.

Maybe we've got things done that we never expected to, maybe we haven't. 

Maybe we've just stayed afloat and that's plenty to be proud of.

Maybe we lost loved ones...

Bookhound's very independent father, aged ninety, died of Covid, 350 miles away from us, on Wednesday afternoon after a torrid month of worry in the run up. Bookhound and his brother couldn't be there, and can't be there now, making the sadness of what so many families have been through very real for us too. All you can do is be incredibly grateful to those NHS staff who cared for him and fought for him on our family's behalf. This has been devastatingly sad for so many and our hearts go out to any of you who may have found yourselves in a similar situation. 

But the vaccine cometh. and I'm predicting that by the time my sweet peas go in the ground things will be perking up nicely. We are doing our bit as part of the 150,000 homes ONS Household Survey, chosen randomly by postcode, and have been tested about eight times so far which makes us feel we are playing our own small part. 

I've planted tubs (and more tubs) of bulbs for spring loveliness and already first shoots are appearing. If I could remember what I bought that would be good, but as I can't we have surprises in store. I remember thinking back in the autumn these green shoots would be more important than ever and I wasn't wrong. 

So anyway, a huge thank you for your company this year gone by, thank you to those who kindly donate to me here (very much appreciated), and thank you for your support of the Think People Think Story Christmas fund raiser. Thanks to Covid restrictions Ugandans have found themselves without work, living day to day and without NHS, savings or back up, so this has made a real difference. From March through to December Tommy's projects have funded 33,756 meals overall... astonishing.

'The sale of 37 BOREHOLE TINS in our shop originally budgeted for 185 Christmas dinners but in true African style over 400 children arrived across the two teams and enjoyed rice, beans, cabbage and soda'

Here is the village enjoying their Christmas dinner...

And congratulations to Sally, owner of tin four who won the prize draw.

I know plenty of you enjoy visiting here, but this has always been a wonderful place for me to come too, and, as I scribble, to feel in touch with a friendly and populated corner of the world. We live in a very beautiful real corner of the world but safe to say it's sparsely populated, not a lot of passing traffic or neighbours to go out and clap with, or sing with, so at times it could feel lonely were we not used to it and happy with it. And we do know how fortunate we have been this year. 

And then we have books.

My reading seems to have been all over the shop this last year but I've reined it in for the New Year with a biography of Rosamond Lehmann and I shall follow it up with more of her fiction soon. My last read of 2020 has been The Kraken Wakes by John Wyndham...what on earth was I thinking. Last read when I was about fourteen but still a brilliant book, and so much that resonates about threats and panic and human nature, the ability to deny danger and how people cope when that danger becomes real. Written in 1953 this is a book that has certainly stood the test of time so I shall revisit more by John Wyndham...Chocky, The Midwich Cuckoos et al. I'm also listening to The Owl Service by Alan Garner (in the bath) and Career of Evil by Robert Galbraith while I sew. I'm back on hexagons, have a small sampler wall hanging on the go, and larger hexagon quilt to finish hand quilting and the Knot Garden is also finished and ready for quilting, so plenty of projects to see me through to that day of bright light in February.

And so here's wishing you and yours blessings a-plenty for 2021. I think we all deserve a surfeit of them, don't you.

FOOTNOTE: Due to this week's events I might be a bit out of step here for a week or so. My apologies if comments go unanswered for a day or two, please do talk amongst yourselves as usual. I'll be back in the swing of things very soon so don't go away.

Wishing you...

...a very Merry Christmas and the best of days that we can have given the constraints. 

I’m so sorry for those who have had plans curtailed and changed at the last minute and if anyone is going to be alone rest assured you’re not and we’re here. Please do stop by and chat in comments if you want to, I’ll be dropping in during the day as usual as it gets me out of the washing up...just got to go and check the scribbles etc.

Meanwhile the twinkly fireplace (and clome oven) in the kitchen has been a triumph and we plan to keep it going (minus the Christmas deccies after Twelfth Night) until the light proper returns. 

Christmas Reading...

We do it every year and I love this post....it's time for the 'What Will You Be Reading Over Christmas' post.

It's almost as traditional as me decorating the bough in the kitchen wherein I have gone slightly off piste with the lights this year. They were half price in Tesco's and suddenly I decided twinkly light was what we needed. I've threaded them along the shelves...

Another set swirls around the dresser...

The fireplace and clome oven (just visible on the left) were begging for the stable treatment...

 

And then the bough in the corner as per usual.

It all looks so lovely as the winter light fades on those grey afternoons, which is by about 3pm now. But listen, we are beyond the Winter Solstice and before you know it we'll be at that day in February when the light returns. (sorry to go on about it Southern Hemisphere).

But I digress. Christmas reading. 

Well as usual I have plans which, for yet another year, don't include an attempt at Bleak House, because I've made that mistake so many times before, and I know my limitations. This year I've picked out a few children's books 

The Eagle of the Ninth (1954) by Rosemary Sutcliffe. I have a lovely Folio edition but now that I'm wedded to my Kindle Oasis I was delighted to discover that, at some point, I must have bought the trilogy because there it was with The Silver Branch and The Lantern Bearers. Surely I read these as a child, but I have no recollection. I know little about Rosemary Sutcliffe either but am intrigued to discover that she was disabled in childhood as a result of Still's Disease (juvenile arthritis) and spent most of life in a wheelchair.

I'm wondering about some Alan Garner too. The Weirdstone of Brisingamen (1960)  and The Owl Service (1967) are here ready and waiting and will either work or they won't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In keeping with more Christmas tradition I have copies of the newest pamphlets from Candlestick Press and can heartily recommend each one...

'If we could gift each other moments
I'd wrap up that bauble sun we felt
warm our backs to the tip of Mam Tor.

I'd box the two hours spent tracing
the tinselled reservoir, no two miles 
the same as we ran and ran..'

This Year by Ben Wilkinson starts the Christmas Presents - Ten Poems to Give and Receive pamphlet beautifully, and if perchance you know anyone who has known sadness, or a difficult time being apart this year, this would be the most perfect collection to send them, and my apologies for being a little late in the day about this but I think you can still order via the website.

I'm not quite sure where December has gone this year...has anyone else found this. All the time in the world but I seem to be treading water, or asleep by the fire.

I also have a new volume of poetry from Di Slaney, Candlestick publisher. Di's last collection Reward for Winter is a real favourite of mine, I wrote about it here, and Herd Queen looks just as good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We've never met but Di and I have been in touch for years thanks to the scribbles and I know she has kept ships various afloat despite enormous challenges this last year. I see Di as a real powerhouse of a woman who achieves more in a day than I think I manage in a week. Not content with publishing these pamphlets and writing poetry herself, Di also runs an animal sanctuary. We think six chickens and two dogs keep us busy, well Di cares for 170 animals of all shapes and sizes and I love her writing.

So that's me sorted, how about you...

Please do share your planned Christmas reads in comments, you know how inquisitive we all are...

 

 

FOOTNOTE : For anyone wondering what a clome oven is (thank you Wikipaedia)

A clome oven (or cloam oven) is a type of masonry oven. It has a removable door made of clay or alternatively a cast-iron door, and was a standard fitting for most kitchen fireplaces in Cornwall and Devon. The oven would be built into the side of the chimney breast, often appearing as a round bulge in the chimney. This bulge consisted of the masonry surrounding the oven, and was intended to be dismantled should the oven ever need to be replaced. During installation, they are surrounded by packed clay to prevent the actual oven cracking

To use a clome oven, one must enter the fireplace and build a fire within the oven. Dried gorse or blackthorn was traditionally used. As the oven has no internal chimney, the smoke is allowed to escape through the oven door, and into the adjacent fireplace where it leaves through the main chimney. Once the oven is white hot, the hot ashes are either raked out or pushed aside, then the baking is put in, and the door propped up to the opening.

The Mirror & the Light...’tis done

22.15 Sunday November 29th 2020

I flicked over the final page of The Mirror & the Light and I really do feel as if some sort of medal, honour, award, Damehood or something should be in order. And not just for me, for any of you who have also finished (or are in your way to finishing) the nine hundred pages of this book after our shared read through November, and into December for some.

There wasn’t a lot of jolly was there and from my point of view I’m not sure I could have chosen a worse month...

Unexpected Lockdown...

Grey chill November days...

Dark afternoons...

A month of toothache  culminating in finally passing the telephone exam on the third attempt and getting a dentist’s appointment for what I had told them was ‘only a small filling’ that ‘wouldn’t take a minute.’  It turned out to be a fractured tooth needing  root canal, rebuilding and will eventually need a crown, all of which took an hour and half ministered to by people in full hazmat. Bookhound, waiting outside (don’t worry I’ll be out in fifteen minutes) thought I’d probably died. All this followed by a week of soup and porridge.

And so it’s been a bit of a slog this end. But I’ve stuck with it because it was my bright idea so thought I better had. I've done a mix of book, Kindle and audio and feel as if Ben Miles lives here after so many hours of listening. 

As always Hilary Mantel is superb on her textiles and colours. Tawny and russet cloaks trimmed with ermine, lush brocades, it’s the way I find she locks me into a particular scene and some of those scenes were breathtakingly good. One that comes to mind is Cromwell’s realisation that Wolsey may not have trusted him. Memorable too, the betrothal mix-up, the garter ceremony, the ongoing reminders of Cromwell’s lowly beginnings and inferior status, and, running through the entire book, the status of the women. Well, lack of status really, child-bearing vessels, pawns in the marriage game, commodities to be traded.

In the end I could hardly bear to look, but along the way ...well I got lost quite a few times and if I’m honest, whilst I’d have paid good money for another few hundred pages of both Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, I think I’d have been happy to have lost a few from this one. I’m prepared for those of you who have loved it to challenge me on this. I feel like a traitor because I am such a huge fan of Hilary Mantel, and doubtless it has been more to do with me than the book. Nevertheless I do feel a huge sense of achievement for now having the trilogy tucked under my reading belt, a bit like the day I finished Ulysses.

I stopped taking notes (thank you Penny Gardener for showing me the error of my ways in this instance) and just let the book make its way to the inevitable conclusion and I felt a bit hollowed out by the end truth be told. The aftermath has been interesting too. I barely feel I have settled to a good book since, almost as if I ran my reading batteries as a flat as a pancake. To the rescue a jigsaw puzzle and Olivia Manning, and a book I’d put on my Kindle ages ago, The Doves of Venus.

And so over to you. If you have managed to read along with The Mirror & the Light I'd love to know your thoughts...mine are a bit of a blur so it would be good to have a chat in comments.

And, though I realise reading shouldn't be about this, are you relieved it's done...

I do feel a sense of pride now as I look at the three books on the shelf, along with huge admiration for Hilary Mantel who brought us Thomas Cromwell, warts and all. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Puzzling...

I’ve been trying to remember the last time I did a puzzle and I think it might have been with Offspringette who was staying here in the weeks before she headed off to New Zealand. That was over eight years ago, and we’d been sorting her ‘stuff’ in the loft.

I wonder if your children do, or did this.

For a few years, their often peripatetic lives mean no permanent base, so they come home with boxes and say ‘I’ll just put this in the loft,’ and so it goes on...and on. Our biggest mistake was probably building on a large single storey sitting room (which is now more of a studio and Bookhound’s lair with just the two of us) and creating a huge loft above with a lovely safe ladder, making it readily accessible. 

Anyway Offspringette got ruthless with her stash and in amongst it all we found a puzzle still in its shrink wrap which we decided to do. It was a wonderful few days as we commandeered the kitchen table and chatted as we puzzled, and it was this I recalled as I headed back into puzzle-dom last week.

Tavistock is very fortunate to have quite a few unique little shops and one of them is Howard’s puzzle shop, I’m not sure that’s what it’s called but it’s in King Street and it’s been there forever. Howard’s parent’s used to run a bookshop next door. Owen’s was quite an unusual bookshop back in the 1980s. Every book was in a plastic bag and if you had children in a buggy they had to be parked by the door and were allowed no further, so I never really looked on it as a treasure of a shop, but the elders of the town most certainly did. Everyone ordered their books from Owen’s until a rival user-friendly indie bookshop opened and then along came W.H.Smiths. Owen’s limped along for years and Owen’s son Howard would eventually open his puzzle shop next door, his parents died and he’s been going ever since. 

We’ve often wondered, through the onslaught of online selling, how this little shop has stayed afloat, but somehow it has. Sometimes it can look a bit sad too, there’s no denying it; the completed puzzles in the window display faded by the sun, the paint peeling around the shop front.  And yet inside it’s a riot of colour and nirvana for any keen puzzlers as we’ve recently rediscovered.

One of the things we had noticed about Tinker’s Cott was that our guests often brought a puzzle along with them and kindly left it behind, so last year Bookhound and I decided a trip to Howard’s might be a good idea to increase our stock. We hadn’t been in there for years, but what an Aladdin’s cave it turned out to be, and what a lovely time we had choosing.

And there the puzzle has sat undone until last week when I finally cracked open the box, set myself up in the lovely cosy Tinker’s Cott sitting room, lit the fire and proceeded.



The best thing about this room, and one of the things we’ve always loved about it, is the winter sun. It faces south and when the sun is low in the sky it shines in to brighten and warm the room all the day long. Light matters in the depths of winter and we follow it around the house and soak it up. 

Finding my puzzle brain has been really interesting and very therapeutic. It's about flow and very quickly the world and its worries disappears.

First off you tip it all out, 1000 pieces, and think maybe I’ll just put it all back in the box right now...

But maybe I’ll just find a few edge pieces first...

And as I laid out the pieces my heart sank a bit as I looked at the picture and wondered why we’d chosen it...

That rug...that sofa. Impossible, every bit looked the same.

Slowly the edge pieces emerged and I discovered that old feeling because it only takes a few moments of joining them up for the bug to bite doesn’t it. 

And gradually my brain slipped into puzzle mode...

Searching for colours...

’Learning’ my picture...

Sometimes looking for a piece by shape rather than content...two sticky out bits on the side, one higher than the other...

I switched on a new audio book, Erika, I think it was you who recommended The Testament by John Grisham as one of his best books. Thank you, it is spot on, I’m really enjoying it as I puzzle.

'Troy Phelan is a self-made billionaire, one of the richest men in the United States. He is also eccentric, reclusive, confined to a wheelchair, and looking for a way to die. His heirs, to no one's surprise - especially Troy's - are circling like vultures.

Nate O'Riley is a high-octane Washington litigator who's lived too hard, too fast, for too long. His second marriage is a shambles, and he is emerging from his fourth stay in rehab armed with little more than his fragile sobriety, good intentions, and resilient sense of humour. Returning to the real world is always difficult, but this time it's going to be murder.

Rachel Lane is a young woman who chose to give her life to God, who walked away from the modern world with all its strivings and trappings and encumbrances, and went to live and work with a primitive tribe of Indians in the deepest jungles of Brazil.

In a story that mixes legal suspense with a remarkable adventure, their lives are forever altered by the startling secret of The Testament.'

 

I've struggled to settle to any reading after the marathon that was The Mirror & the Light, (my thoughts coming soon) so the puzzle interlude has been good.

And of course the upshot is addiction.

’I’ll just go in and do a bit more sofa...”

’If I could just find that cat’s ear....’

’It’s no good, I can’t go to bed until  I’ve found this piece with a bit of blue on the sticky out side...’

And so Saturday morning found us in town for a return visit to Howard’s to buy more puzzles to see me through to next year, and  how lovely it was. We had coffee and cake in the Bedford for the first time since February,

We wandered around our favourite shops and the market, spoke to lots of people,  and the atmosphere was so warm and friendly. Everyone released, albeit under caution, but plenty of us trying to support local business. Easy enough to buy a puzzle online and have it delivered the next day, but how much better to go into Howard’s, have a chat, browse the shelves, get one of his meticulously hand-written receipts and listen to his patient and detailed summary of the benefits of our Ravensburger loyalty card, which now has three stamps on it. 

Anyway, that’s me stocked up for the foreseeable and now over to you. There must be more puzzlers out there, or perhaps something else has claimed you with a very slight addiction.

I’d welcome any good puzzle tips too...

Do you work on small patches...

Work by colour...

Choose by the shape of the piece...

Honestly, who’d have thought it.

Oh yes, and I finished it...

 

Thank you again & puzzles...

I’m so pleased the tins are arriving safely. We did two excursions in the end because of course this time of year the PO is heaving on the best of days, now the queue snakes halfway around town. But we found a little sub PO who we knew would be happy to have the business, and they certainly were, and then a quick swoop in Okehampton to seal the deal....whilst on yet another trip to the dentist (first me, then Bookhound, don’t ask). 

Thank you again everyone, we’ve had huge fun putting this together. From helping Tommy with the tins...he and Bookhound had a day of sticking the stickers on (I went out) and you can have no idea of the precision involved, or what happened if there was a ‘bubble’. Bookhound, a graphic designer by training and eyes like a spirit level, but little did I know our son had developed similar traits, so nothing but perfection was good enough. 

Well, father and son...you had to be there apparently, and I’m quite glad I wasn’t. But worth it for the smiles on their faces when it was done.

And then holding our breath as we waited for the things to arrive from Africa, and huge gratitude to the friend who was heading back to the U.K. from Uganda and very kindly brought everything with them and then posted it to us.

There is something magical about the waxed fabrics, such incredibly beautiful designs and it is lovely to share them with you. Although the Kayaker has no idea when he will be able to get back to Africa, you can be sure he will be bringing back more of the same, bought from Mama Joy’s shop, when he does.

And since then, having slipped into a post-Mirror & the Light reading slump...I mean what on earth do you read after that...I’ve finally flipped and started doing a puzzle. We’ll be having a conversation about puzzles any day now, because I bet I’m not the only one who has rediscovered jigsaws and how good they are for distracting times like these.