Sunshine and a change of direction...

Summer finally seems to have arrived! How long this will last, who knows? But it is so lovely to feel the sun on your skin (adequately SPFd up, of course ;-)). Somehow, it seems to encourage me to just relax a bit more, which is probably just what I need! The last 10 days or so have been just beautiful, sunny and hot so once the working week was over I spent as much time as possible outside!

The festival in Norwich finished this weekend and on Saturday the city was buzzing with people - chilling in the sun, listening to some of the buskers and street performers and outside the forum was music and dancing...

And some fab cars! (not quite sure what the chap on his hands and knees was doing?!! Didn't notice him when I took the photo!)

I have had breakfast, lunch and tea al fresco! What a treat. Which got me thinking about my little bit of garden. I had rather suspected that the pretty pink flowers that I mentioned in my last post were in fact a weed and Sweet Seahorse confirmed this! She said they are oxalis and and as it looked a bit as though they were going to make a takeover bid, so I pulled them all out today! They were beginning to look a bit past it anyway and I wanted to make a bit of space for some tomatoes so out they came (definitely a weed judging by the roots!!!).

When I had my morning cuppa, the rather wild looking patch of oxalis and borage was just to my left...

The pink is the oxalis and it was looking a bit straggly and pushing its way across the whole bed. The borage is a bit floppy too but I read somewhere that its a good plant to have for the bees so I tidied it up a bit but left most of it there. It is such a pretty blue flower...

By the end of the day, I had moved my chair to the other end of the garden where there is just the teensiest bit of sun still peeping over the houses and the view back towards the house looked like this...!

All the sprawly pink stuff gone, a bit of an edging up (the soil was awful up there and I wanted to make a bit of a raised bed) and planted up with tomatoes, marigolds and onions! Quite pleased with this hour or so's work :-)

This is not a bad little garden really; compared to where I have been living for the last 18/19 years its tiny and the sun doesn't get to it a huge amount but it is quite pretty and has some nice plants in it...

My only problem with it is that I don't feel any great sense of permanence here. Because I am renting at the moment and moved here a bit 'on the quick' I don't have a strong sense that I will be staying here in the long term. And I can't really pull out and start again which is what I would do with some of the bigger shrubs I think. But it looks as though I'll be here for at least another 6 months so I figured I may as well do something to make it a bit more enjoyable out here. Fingers crossed for lots of cherry tomatoes!

And as for the change of direction? Well, crochet and I have had a bit of a falling out... Or at least I'm just a bit bored with it. Trouble is I have a limited concentration span I think and have to keep doing something different - hence the number of started and unfinished projects! I couldn't really think what else to make with crochet - somehow the living room in this house doesn't lend itself to brightly coloured crochet - and the hexagons I started on the way to Derbyshire a couple of months ago aren't keeping me interested.

So, I've been having another dabble in some knitting instead! (only a slight change of direction really! still yarny!!) I finished the red white and blue bits for the charity Jubilee party...

And then I turned to this...

I have had this pattern for years and years. In fact I did start it once before - but was just using up bits and pieces and didn't really like the colours I had. Of course, I'm not doing it in such muted shades - I'm using my usual range of stylecraft DK so I hope it will be a cheerful blanket for my spare room.

Its basically a collection of sample squares...

I'm quite enjoying the chance to play with different stitches. They look very uneven squares in this photo but they are all pretty square once blocked.

I'd forgotten how effective cable stitches are...

Just another 133 squares to go... will keep you posted!

Til then, 

Sx

Yellow! And other colours...

I went a bit mad taking photos of yellow things this month as this was one of the words in Kathy's photo scavenger hunt list for May. Only now I've decided which one to use for the photo hunt (to be shared in a couple of days!!!) it seemed a shame not to log the rest. I hadn't really realised how many spring flowers here are shades of yellow...

Wildflowers by the river (I've forgotten what these are!)...

Buttercups...

...and dandelions...

Wallflowers...

When I planted these in the very early spring I hoped they would brighten up my little patch with their multicoloured blooms; in fact, they are all shades of yellow but they do cheer things up out there...

Not sure what these are, but I thought they were very pretty growing in the hedgerow on one of my walks...

And away from flowers, yellow cars! This made me think of when my boys were little, they used to play a game on long journeys where they had to spot yellow cars. There was some sort of chant (can't remember how it went, must ask them if they can remember...) and they had to give each other a nudge or a poke - so you can imagine there was an element of competition to be the first to spot the car. I hated this game! It certainly kept them occupied for a bit but invariably ended up with progressively harder 'nudges' and almost always ended up with tears! 

There have been some other colours about too - pretty blue and pink in my garden...

I'm not entirely convinced these aren't some kind of weed, but quite pretty anyway!

Multicoloured crochet on my (at last!) tidied knitting needles...

Stripes on my coffee cup...

Red in a welcome glass at the end of the day...!

Greens in the living wall on M&S - this was only built and planted up earlier this year and I am loving watching this growing sculpture...

And, finally, golds on the Eastern Counties Newspaper building (my kids used to call this 'the belly button building'!)...

...and in the sun setting over Whitlingham Broad...

Hoping you are finding colour in your world :-)

Sx

walking off the blues...

I have learnt a lesson this week. My iphone doesn't much like taking photos in poor light!!

I think I must be losing the plot slightly, as I always have my camera with me...only this week I didn't. Twice. Hence the following fuzzy photos.

The Norfolk & Norwich Festival 2012 continues and on Wednesday evening I went to see Ballake Sissoko and Vincent Segal playing kora and cello in St Peter Mancroft church...

This is a beautiful church in the centre of Norwich and looked lovely as the daylight was fading. I didn't feel I could even attempt a photo inside the building but the concert was held by candlelight and the sound was absolutely stunning. The cello produced a rich, strong tone contrasted by the delicate music of the kora. I had never heard the kora before - the nearest I can describe it is a bit like the sound of a harp, but West African in origin. Really beautiful.

My other fuzzy photos come from a long walk on Friday evening. This was a bit of a stomp initially to be honest. I'd had a bit of a week at work, and got home at 7.30pm to find a letter from the council with a parking fine! The road I live on is permit holders only - I have paid for the permit but it appears that there are some bits of the road that even with a permit you can't stay for longer than 2 hours. The frustrating thing is that there is nothing either on the road signs or on the information that came with the permit - and I have parked in virtually the same spot on numerous occasions in the five months I've been living here. I think I'd have just put it down to experience if it had happened in the first couple of weeks but its very irritating now!

Anyway, I decided to walk my huff off and took off in the direction of the university and then on past to the woods where the bluebells were just beginning to show a few weeks ago. They are not as prolific as those in the woods near where I used to live but they were very pretty all the same...

These photos don't really do it justice - it was probably about 8.30pm by then with the light fading fast but the blue haze was lovely...

Not sure the walk entirely fixed my mood - by the time I got home again it was dark and raining! But I did enjoy the bluebells.

Sx

a bit of culture...!

Every year Norwich has a couple of weeks in May when art, music and theatre take over the city. I'm not sure how long it has been happening for but it has certainly grown in recent years and there are loads of varied events, some free, at different venues across the city. Its a great opportunity to see and experience new things and the city buzzes with activity.

This weekend saw the opening of the festival and, as luck would have it, after all those horrible grey days the weather was glorious - blue skies, sunshine and even a bit of warmth out of the wind!

It also coincided with the annual visit of the all male Shakespeare company Propeller - last year we saw one of the two performances they put on (Comedy of Errors) which we  loved so this year Ben and I decided to go to both shows. We started our weekend Friday evening with The Winters Tale, with the second half of the Bard's 'double bill', Henry V, on Saturday night. Neither production disappointed - this company perform Shakespeare much as I imagine it was intended to be performed, with all its clever language and bawdy humour, with lively direction that makes these stories as relevant and current today as ever. We loved it and I'm already looking forward to next years tour!

Saturday was so beautiful we headed into town after breakfast at the pub over the road to see what was happening festival-wise.

I joined a friend and a growing crowd by St Andrews Hall for the 'Voice Project' - a kind of auditory choral artwork. Some hardy folk had started the day with the choir in the cathedral welcoming in the dawn at 5.11am (!!!), we joined them at 2pm for a colourful, tour round the old streets...

from the front of St Andrews Hall round to the Art School...

and on down Elm Hill where the crowds watching/listening filled the narrow cobbled streets...

The singing came from the streets, the arches between the ancient buildings and even from the windows...

before a finale in the riverside gardens...

It was unusual, and slightly strange and really rather lovely - enhanced enormously by the warmth of the sun.

We stopped for a cup of tea at the Britons Arms (I've mentioned this place before) where we spent a very pleasant hour or so in the tiny enclosed garden...

I love these fancy, deep purple tulips...

Our childish streak came out when Ben spotted this...

There were actually rather more modern facilities but it did rather look as though this small tin bucket was it for the gents!!!

It was a lovely relaxed day and so good to spend unhurried time with my biggest boy :-).

My weekend continued today as, for the first time in a while, I managed to have my Monday off so met a friend for afternoon tea at the Assembly House. This was such a treat! Plates of sandwiches (with the crusts cut off, no less!), scones with jam and cream and pretty little cakes, with as much tea as we wanted...

We decided we could probably manage to be 'ladies who take tea'...

The other thing I've noticed this weekend is that yarn-bombing has hit Norwich! Not sure if this is just for the festival or if its going to stay but I'm loving their work!

The only 'fly in the ointment' this weekend was the havoc being wrecked in the garden...

These were my carefully nurtured seedlings - courgettes, beans, nasturtiums & salad leaves... Were being the operative word! One of the culprits is still sitting on the pot cheekily! They haven't just had a nibble at the leaves, they have scythed the tops of many of the plants altogether! Generally speaking, I'm one for letting the garden creatures have their share of plants but this is sabotage beyond forgiving! I  haven't yet quite decided how to tackle the little blighters but I am officially declaring war... Any bright ideas???

Til next time then,

Sx

Memory jogging...

Insomnia has its plus points! I rarely sleep beyond 5.30 or 6am. I don't always get up that early but at the weekends I do quite like to get out early and just walk and it is the best time of the day - when the streets are quiet and the birds are not drowned out by the sound of cars.

I've been thinking about starting running again for a while - in part, inspired by various people in blogland who have mentioned the benefits. I used to run 3 or 4 times a week with a neighbour - our usual route was a 3 1/2 mile round trip and about 5 years ago, I think I was the fittest I have ever been and able to do that rout without too much difficulty.

Of late, I've been very conscious that whilst I am pretty active, and not trying to lose weight (I have lost a LOT of weight in the last few months!) - I am conscious that thinner does not = fitter! I know I need to do something about my cardiovascular fitness and the budget will not stretch to anything that involves a fee at the moment! So....

Yesterday morning, no rain! Grey, cold, but not actually raining so, before I lost my resolve, I set off for a walk/run...

I've got to confess more walk than run really - 1 minute running, 1 minute walking for about 20 minutes then I just walked a scenic route back - about an hour and a half out altogether. Slightly depressed about just how breathless I was after such short spells of running but I'm sure it will improve! And now I've written it here, I might feel more inclined to stick to it. We'll see...

Didn't take any photos to begin with - nothing caught my eye and I couldn't cope with stopping when I was trying to time the running! Once I was walking I came across this colourful row of houses on a street nearby - seem slightly out of place in the rows of Victorian terraces but I guess these were a bit grander than your average city terrace.

I used to live in this house...

I expect it was a lovely large family house originally but about 30 years ago, it was one of the off site residences for student nurses. I lived here for a year (my room was on the ground floor, bottom right where you can just see the white lintel) with about a dozen other girls and we had a ball here. The rooms were pretty grim, cold, damp and I think the maintenance left a bit to be desired (think it was condemned eventually as unsuitable accommodation - no fire escapes for one thing...) but it felt much more like independent living than the large impersonal nurses home blocks on the hospital site and we had some great parties here!! The turret rooms were particularly envied I seem to remember. I believe it has since been turned into flats - I'd love to have a look inside, probably wouldn't recognise it.

This was a walk of memories. This little church is tucked away in the more upmarket end of the city and is where a friend of mine got married. I think she was the first of my school friends to marry and their wedding was a couple of months before ours - seems a lifetime ago now, we were all just kids.

This morning I looked out of the window to this...!

Proper Blue Sky!!!

So, out I go at 7 am determined to soak up a bit of brightness. It was really cold, so I was still wrapped up head to foot but I made myself do the walk/run routine then just kept walking out to my favourite route around the university broad. So lovely to be out early and appreciate the beauty of the green spaces on my city home 'doorstep'...

As a child I was convinced these were called 'popular' trees! And why not?!!!

My route takes me alongside the river. I just don't get fed up with this...

There were bright buttercups along the river banks...

Unfortunately, my camera will just insist on auto focusing on the bits I don't mean it to focus on (grr!) but you get the gist of the zingy bright yellow. As kids we used to hold these under each others chins to 'see who loved butter'! I can't really remember why it was such a big deal to be a butter lover! Other than, I suppose, that most people didn't eat butter routinely. We did in our house actually ( at the time, I thought it was my parents attempt to be a bit posher than we were - maybe they just knew it tasted better!) but I can remember wishing we had 'margarine' like everyone else, so that your sandwiches weren't a shredded mess from trying to spread too cold butter on soft 'plastic' bread. The 'marg' then was pretty vile I expect - no olive or sunflower, just margarine of some indeterminate vegetable oil origin, doubtless full of hydrogenated fats too! My nannie was a complete convert - she used to call it 'spread' and there was an art, in her eyes, in getting the thinnest smear evenly across a piece of bread, right to the crusts (it was not ok, as far as she was concerned, to have a gap between the spread and the crust of the slice!). Did anyone else play the buttercup game?

On round to the broad, lovely and peaceful as ever at this time in the morning...

I was out for just short of two hours by which time the clouds were returning...

And by the time I turned into my road, there was just the odd patch of blue...

"Enough to patch a sailor's trousers" was my Mum's expression! Lots of memories triggered from this weeks walks! 

I've spent much of the rest of the day sat listening to the radio and knitting and, having just got up to make a drink, realise running two consecutive days after several years gap might have been pushing my luck a bit! Seem to have stiffened up a bit! Off to tackle the stairs and head to bed, hope I'm not too achy in the morning!

Til next time then, and thanks for all your comments on my last post - lots of no-reply bloggers so can't respond individually to all.

Sx