Some amazing things...

...this is my friend Karen with the smallest little puppy we've ever seen.

She was a runt Jack Russell pup and really just looks like one of those battery powered dogs that bark, take a few steps and then do a somersault. Here she is playing with her brother, she measured just over 20 centimetres in length. She was really feisty and was chasing the other two pups and growling. Karen said 'you have to be tough when you're the runt'.


Yesterday Mr B was supposed to go into work but the weather was so nice we went and had a wander around Harrogate for the afternoon, we are looking for nice freestanding kitchen units at the moment. So far this probably doesn't sound amazing but wait for it.....whilst walking though M&S we bumped into Sophie, who was a very good friend of mine during the nine months of Art Foundation back in Blackpool. It had been 12 years since we'd seen or heard from each other and nether of us could quite believe it. It was like one of those moments in a film. It put a smile on my face all day.
I don't have a picture of Sophie but here is another picture of the small dogs I saw, this little white fella isn't quite as small as the others.

An amazing button shop had just opened in Harrogate, Duttons for Buttons, what a collection! I treated myself to five pounds worth (sadly not in weight)

Whilst unloading some washing from the machine this morning a massive hot air balloon wooshed over the house and garden! Myrtle barked at it and I quickly grabbed my camera but only managed to snap it as it disappeared into the fields behind (apparently you get £200 from the balloonists if they land in your field) I think I'd like to have a balloon ride one day.


Last night next doors chucks laid two soft eggs. They are the weirdest things and resemble wilted party balloons.

I've looked up online and apparently it's nothing major but can indicate a lack in calcium. Recommends keeping the shells when we've eaten other eggs and then baking them for ten minutes in the oven, crushing up finely and feeding them to the chucks

Blackberry; wireless and yummy

On Sunday we went blackberry picking, it wasn't what we set out to do, Myrtle needed a walk..


..and then we stumbled across a real stash of them growing just down the lane and couldn't resist picking as many as we could reach. Mr B could get up a bit higher than me, which was where all the really bigguns were. Our fingers were stained bright purple by the end.


It was a beautiful warm evening, perhaps the last one this year, the berries had soaked up all the goodness from the sun and tasted super sweet. It was quite hard not to just eat the lot there and then (like Myrtle was doing) but I'm really looking forward to making jam out of them to give us a taste of the beautiful Cumbrian summer throughout the winter months.

Ghostrees

Dead trees are really something special, they could easily have been chopped down but thanks to some thoughtfulness (or forgetfulness) they remain, amidst the greenery, monuments to what once grew on their branches, the birds that have nested and hatched in them, the animals that have lived in them, scratched their backs on them and the lovers that have kissed under them.


I'm starting to photograph them now after years of admiration so will post more up on here when I have some more to show.

...and pink and black!

Further to my post 'It's easy being green' I have to show you who we found living in the garden yesterday!

This fat little Caterpillar was so well camouflaged on this pink and green plant I nearly didn't spot her..


...and this hairy chap was having a rather speedy wander along the flower bed edge while we bagged up the rubbish.

Y'al right chuck?

......well these chucks certainly are!


Our neighbours have gone away for the weekend so we are looking after their hens. The three lovely Oakbank ladies need letting out of their house every morning, not too early though as they are busy laying their eggs until about 9am. Here is where the magic happens.


We give them some fresh water and food in their special feeders and also scatter some corn on the ground in their enclosure amongst all the leaves and grass so they can spend the day finding it. They like to jump on top of their house so they can see over the wall, they're a bit nosey (or is that beaky?)


So far we have had eight eggs from them in just three days. They are all different sizes and shades. We have only eaten two so far, fried them up and had them in butties with Brown and Fruity sauce on (Fruity being the girls version of Brown) I think we might bake with the others.


Yesterday one of them escaped and Mr B (with the help of his dad) caught her and popped her back in the chuck enclosure. If you hover your hand flat over them they stand still, as though paralyzed by invisible rays, then you can quite easily pick them up.

I have stroked one and she felt so amazingly soft, like a cloud. However I do have a bit of a scaredy thing about birds feet which is emphasised on the chucks as they have really big scaly looking ones, like dino feet. So I don't really go in with them but admire from over the fence.

They put themselves to bed just before dark, a girls night in every night, so we just have to close the door on their house and slide the nesting box door cross so they keep snuggley and warm and also lay in the right place. It's an amazing process and makes you realise how important it is to eat free range as happy chucks really do make happy eggs. A real bit of goodness to start the day x

Boxed Pretty

Jill bought me a lovely little vintage pink and metal box for my birthday. We couldn't figure out what it had been used for, it wasn't a compact and it wasn't a cigarette case.


Today I found the perfect little sewing project to keep inside it, my miniature bunting.


I'm sure I'll forget about what's inside it and then one day, in many years time, I'll open it up and remember yet another one of the projects I'd started and not finished. I can't wait for that day.

It's easy being green

Whilst gardening yesterday Mr B found this extremely green sleepy caterpillar. It was so bright, almost neon.

We managed to wake him up so he was stood up, but he didn't do much in the way of walking.

Free fun along the Picadilly line

Here's all about my budget trip to London this week, I stayed on the Picadilly line so thought I'd explore a bit of what it had to offer that was free.

First I went to the Saatchi Gallery and looked at the Abstract American show. I really liked Jacob Hashimotos Continent, a massive wall based sculpture made up of hundreds of different sized wooden hoops covered in thin paper with designs and objects stuck to them, it was really neat. Here's a close up of the bit where the hoops have grass on them.

I also loved this tiny maple sculpture by Matt Johnson. Staircase upon staircase, as though they were eaten away by a really particular caterpillar.

Back on the tube I sat in the same carriage as a lady called Debra and her teddy bear, she helped him wave at me as I got on the tube. She told everyone about their website, which shows where they had visited (you can see by their photos they really get about), their diary and information about Aspergers. I didn't look up while she was telling us all this as it was quite unexpected as it isn't usual for anyone to talk or make eye contact on the tube let alone acknowledge a waving teddy bear.

Then I went to the Royal College of Surgeons of England to see their exhibition dedicated to John Hunters specimens. In a section dedicated to amputation I happened upon these tiny stitched samplers made by a young girl who had to have her leg removed after a bad fracture (such was the practice long ago) I found it moving to see the stuff of Sunday School teaching used to commemorate such a drastically life changing event.

Then onto the Natural History Museum. Amongst other things they have a great collection of stuffed animals and I noticed that despite a radical face lift to the exhibitions they had still managed to still keep some of the interactive educational games that were there when I visited 25 years ago. I was really surprised to see the whale skeletons fins had fingers in them, like actual tiny hands on the side of their great bodies, how strange. I only managed to get around one eighth of what was there as it's absolutely huge plus I had to stop in their cafe and sample one of their yummy brownies washed down with a pot of fresh elderflower and lemon tea.

That evening I stayed with Jill and attended her first Lovely London Ladies Social Evening where I made some new friends whilst making a necklace. I'm sure Jill will post about it so I'll just say it was a very nice evening and it was lovely to see Jill and Daniel in their first home together, topping off a top day of free fun in London.

The best 'load of bobbins' ever

This is the second part to the sewing biography of my late Great Aunt Margaret. Along with all the buttons and non buttons I also got a massive stash of threads, most of which are very old and on lovely wooden bobbins. Hard to fathom why we now only see nasty plastic ones in the shops. There is a really good selection of colours, some of which she has bought more than once. So many to wade through when doing her mending she no doubt couldn't always find the bottom of the tin.


They have really great names too. My favourites are Dark Elephant (suitable for mending elephants?), Chartreuse (a french liquor I once fell foul of), Monaco Blue (I imagine Margaret went there on her travels, sipping cocktails) Light Rose Du Barri and Filbert


There is also a small box with silks in it. with neat little printed cardboard's through the middle. I think these a really really old, maybe they were her mums? There was also a couple of 'Flora MacDonald' packets of needles. One for 'Carpets' and the other 'Everydays'. I love the idea that it was so common place to mend your carpet.


This is what the packets look like inside, with a lovely little envelope design on the inner flap. The text reads 'Ladies who are well pleased with the quality of these needles should ask again for the same packet'. I'm 'well pleased' with all the things I've got from Margaret, though I won't be able to order any more.