More Wall

We have seen lots of Wall, walked beside lots of Wall and done two spectacular museums. The Roman Army Museum is quite small but very good with lots of recreations. The other was Vindolanda which is overrun by excavators and archaeologists. While we were there, one of them found a shoe. The museum has thousands of shoes and probably more important, thousands of writing tablets. Bits of wood which have been preserved in the boggy ground. And they contain all sorts of info from 'I am sending you two pairs of socks'.  to posh invites to a birthday party. And there is the best part of a large dinner service which arrived broken and was thrown in a ditch unused. Very beautiful. It must have been for the CO and I bet his wife cursed.

In amongst this we have stayed at really luxurious B and Bs and the standard of food has been high. The standard of my walking has not been so good and I had to abandon the walk on Sunday when I saw what I was supposed to tackle next. I knew I could not make it up that steep hill. Has not stopped me walking several miles a day though.

 

  Entrance to fort strongroom where the soldier's pay was stored.

 

Sparrow building a nest 

Hadrian's Wall

Ruth and Robin drove me up north from Reading to Carlisle yesterday. It took all day. Anne and her family were leaving home later in the day and did not arrive until 10 pm whereas we arrived at 5pm. Lovely dinner at a rather nice family hotel. This morning we were off before 9am and the luggage was obviously collected and taken to our next stop because it was waiting for us when we arrived in the evening.

No bits of stonework to specify the Wall for several hours of walking but then all of a sudden was the first sight of Hadrian's wall.

 After that, lots and lots of steep hills and Roman stonework.  I am not too good going up hills these days (just getting old) and so I slowed the group pace a lot. We ended up by walking 12 miles and my muscles were beginning to complain at the end. 

 A major fort just off the wall itself. Lots of sheep and cattle around

 And this is what the surrounding country side looks like. Lots of bog plants so must be very boggy, so no cereal cultivation. Just sheep and cows for beef.

Went to the local pub, the Milecastle Inn, which is totally isolated on the moors. Food terrific,place packed out.

Tomorrow we are only walking five miles.

Chelsea Flower Show

First the weaving. I have woven 2 metres of the stuff and made myself sick in the process. So it was just as well I had a visit to Chelsea Flower Show for today organised months ago. Anne and Dorothy came with me and Anne caused a lot of head turning.

by wearing her hat which I call Tallulah Bankhead and she calls Carmen Miranda.

We did not care much for the Show Gardens, altogether too many painted  steel beams and sheets. But the Pavilion was its usual magnificent self.

 A particularly fine bonsai

 No idea what these are but nice.

 A rose on David Austin's stand

 Who would have guessed there were so many colours of potatos

A tuk-tuk decorated with fresh flowers. Five horticultural colleges were given a tuk-tuk each and had to decorate it. So there were five of which I thought this was the best but the judges gave the Gold Medal to someone else.

Other info. We all had a good time and were exhausted at the end. Dorothy who is very keen on the Underground said 'That's a good idea' when I said we should take a taxi back to Waterloo Station. It has to be said that the most interesting - and most beautiful - things in the Show were two photographic exhibitions. The first was run by the RHS and the photos were blown up to a lrge size. The other was startling. We came across a small display of about eight photos of seed pods. They were jewels or abstract art, I don't know which. I found myself saying These are lovely to a young lady, only to discover she was the photographer so naturally we continued the conversation!! The reason why they look jewel-like is that there are no shadows because she uses a light tent so loads of diffused ambient light. And the photography is impeccable. She is going a publish a book containing these but she reckons it will be in 2019. Her name is Anna Laurent and she can be found at www.annalaurent.com/photography

Getting somewhere

I have been weaving steadily after some time removing errors. And I really did not like the colours when woven so after a lot of practise runs and twisting of threads together, I settled on a dark brown cottolin for both patterns. But of course I only have 250 gms of that. So much consultation with William Hall and Co. I ought to get the yarn on Wednesday but I have enough to weave my required three yards or very close to it. So it seems like I might meet the deadline of June 1st.

I find it quite wearing trying to weave a metre a day. I managed 0.75 metres yesterday and will probably manage that today too.

Since I have done nothing else but weave, there is nothing else to report. We did have an interesting artist visiting us. He talked about his college day where his tutors used to hand out three words and they had to make a work of art from the,. His were fabric, plaster and weaving. The interesting thing is of course this is what Kennet Valley Guild calls Blackjack. Our three topics are weave, and two restrictions like do it in black and white or use mohair. Interesting.

More Cheerful.

This blog is for readers over 65 years old.

Lately there has been a TV ad with a song attached about boots. This has been bothering me for some days and I woke up at five one morning, having a eureka moment and remembering some more words. So I looked it up on the website and it was 'These boots are meant for walking' sung by Nancy Sinatra in 1966. That was a good decade for me and very exciting. At the end of it, I had given up academia and become a commercial engineer, much more fun. It was seeing Nancy in thigh high black boots that triggered memories. I had those! And A-line dresses in solid colours. No pattern any where. We owned a very elderly Mini but had risen to a Cortina at the end of the decade. You try getting two toddlers, their belongings and a pushchair in a 1959 Mini. (Yes ours was built in August 1959, the first month of Minis).  

Michael wrote two books on computing which became best sellers. They were translated into lots of  languages which meant lots of money. Hence the change from a Mini to a Cortina.
As I said, a good decade for us.

Fed Up, Browned Off and Gritting my Teeth

I have at last got the warp sleyed and tied on - and the crossing errors corrected. The draft (unreasonably complicated) is ready. I freely admit that I do not like the colours now I see the whole pattern. Dorothy likes the back much more that the front. I spent some time late last night searching for a suitable yarn to replace the brown silk noil but could not find enough of anything that would be an improvement so have decided to grit my teeth and go with the original colour plan.

You have probably realised that no photos have been shown recently. As with Cally Booker. We are both doing a piece to be included in the Complex Weavers book and there are strict rules about no prior publication. I am not at all clear on whether blogs count as publication but better safe than sorry. (There are too many clichés in this blog). I will take the woven length to Guild when completed (if ever) so some people will see it.

The 'fed up browned off' state is me this morning realising that I have still have to weave the damn thing. I have today to myself so should get somewhere, even if it is only to decide to terminate the project.

Two lovely prospects. One, I am going to Chelsea Flower Show next Tuesday with Anne and Dorothy. Two, I have been watching the irises which grow along the Kennet and Avon Canal. When I was there on Monday there were a few flowers out and lots to come. Dorothy says that elsewhere in the neighbourhood, there are banks of them. So I might knock off to do a bit of photography this afternoon.

And on the topic of photography, I have discovered the pleasures of courses run by Craftsy. I have nearly completed all the lessons on 'Landscape Photography'. I eventually, after several lessons, found the materials list. All I can say is that I do not think my accountant would stand for me buying all the gear the tutor thinks you ought to have. And I would certainly have to abandon any thought of foreign travel for a year or two.

More Progress

The threading is going well. I should be done tomorrow. Just hope there are not too many errors. In between bouts of threading up, I have planted all the plants we bought earlier this week. There has been a fair amount of rain in the last few days and the newly planted plants should be okay. Annuals have planted out.

 

 

And lots of PCIs. These were all brought from Malvern. I specified to the estate agent that I reserved the right to take any plants I wanted plus all the irises!

The other good news that I had an email from Lori Sauer saying she had a place on her regular bookbinding class and did I want it? The answer has been an enthusiastic YES. I am going to concentrate on binding in leather. I have done a little but I need practise to get more confident. I have a couple books all ready to bind. The course is in Salisbury so it is a fair step from here but the classes are on Saturday soThe other course I have signed up for is one run by the Designer Bookbinders with Mark Cockram. He is very famous and I keep wondering if I am going to get shouted at for incompetence. Once I get past the deadline for Complex Weavers and the Open Studios, I will be a lot happier. Lately life has returned to what it was like when I had a company and got up at six to get a good start on the day. One of my customers used to get into work at six and got the shock of his life when I rang him at six once to ask a technical question.