Autumn Day

After a week of welcome wet weather, we have been gifted a day of blue sky. The air now has a definite autumnal feel to it, cooler, and the sun later to rise each day, is much lower in sky, so the light is softer. 

The apricot tree too, has started losing its leaves and will continue do so until well into winter. It never really manages to shake them all though; one or two will hang on even as the acid green leaves of spring emerge.

Like people everywhere after a week of rain, today for me will be one of washing. This also involves a game of follow the sun in an attempt to get everything dry due to our lack of ‘after renovation where do we put it’ clothes line.

Hopefully, there’ll be a little time between loads to sit, and knit, and dream, and well, just savour the gorgeous autumn day.

Through the window...

Through the window April 1^st, 2015. Thought I should post this before May arrives.

Time on his side

One of the problems with unemployment is that you have all the time in the world to do those things you want to do, but no money to actually do them. Unless of course, you have a stack of wood left over from your house renovation... 

Inspired way back in August last year by this post Measure Twice, Cut Once, but having no time to do anything but talk about it, SP’s period of unemployment has given him the time he needed to build our own. 

Except for the two slats that form the back, the wood is all recycled, and was once part of the pergola that shaded our pre-renovation backdoor. The instructions were a free download, so for the cost of one piece of wood, some paint and nails, we now have a garden bench.

This is the finished project in all its glory. 

The back garden, where the bench will be placed, is mainly native plants, so greys and greens are dominant for much of the year. The idea behind the colour, is that it will add a punch of brightness that recalls the colours of the roses that will eventually be planted in the front garden. 

I thought I might have a go at making a futon-like cushion that can be rolled up and brought inside during wet weather. It would also need to be washable as the cats will no doubt make it their own, so I am leaning towards thick wool wadding like this Super Puff Wool Wadding, sandwiched between two pieces of upholstery strength fabric, that will be tied not quilted. For now though, we're enjoying the bench as is.

Through the window...

 Through the window March 1^st, 2015 (just a tad late).

 Oh, and a big hooray for autumn!

Pinch and a punch

For years now, on the first day of the month, I have taken a photograph of the ‘view’ from our kitchen window. 

Whilst these scenes sometimes vary dramatically month to month (the position of the kitchen actually moved when we renovated the house, so the view changed from being the vines on our boundary fence, to the backyard, which itself morphed from being a complete builder’s dumping ground one month, to one that is half landscaped), most of the time the changes are subtle – a pot will have moved or the something is flowering. Tiny changes we see, yet don’t really see every day. 

I once read that Laurie Lee had lived so long in his beloved Gloucestershire, that he was able to tell the date simply by looking at the quality of the light falling on the countryside around his home. Not sure I’ll be here long enough for that to happen, or for that matter whether I’d like to be, but do I love seasonal change even if it is almost indiscernible.   

Anyway, here’s how February 1^st, 2015 looked.