Oh, My Days!

As November draws to a close, it is time to brace yourself, dear reader, for the start of the traditional and annual Much Malarkey Manor Christmas Story 2019. Chapter One tomorrow. I’m telling you this now so you can either prepare yourself for the ride (sweets, ice cream in a tub, sick bag) or arrange to leave the country until Christmas Eve. You choose. This year I’ve had the gift of time on my side so I’ve actually managed to write ahead and have completed up to and including 19th December. 24,000+ words so far; I reckon it’ll pass 30,000 words by the time I’ve written the last 5 days.  It’s a rather novel experience for me to know what happens so far ahead of  the game. I’ve even done some editing! This year, there won’t be the usual ‘arrive home from work feeling frazzled and having to bash out something, ANYTHING, in order to keep the story rolling along’ approach. I’ll let you judge the difference, if any, in quality. There is certainly more quantity. Of course, if I ...

I’ve had a bit of a rocky weekend, what with one thing and another, but I’m okay now, having spent the morning immersed in writing - The Christmas Story is now topping 18,000 words - and this afternoon thus far seeking out and registering on a distance learning course and making a tentative plan on The Future of Me which seems to be changing on a week-by-week basis. I’ve tried not to feel irked by this constant swinging between ‘Shall I do this, or that or the other?’ attempting instead to go with the flow of each idea and test out the thoughts they raise. The problem is I am so used to making a decision and going with it, or having some sort of regime or timetable to my life I am finding this looseness of structure somewhat discombobulating. I was going to say ‘disconcerting’ but isn’t ‘discombobulating’ a much more fun word? I think so.  Serendipitously - another good word - I’ve also been able to exchange a series of reassuring and ‘Go us!’ emails with an old and dear friend w...

The Sheep Gang has arrived! They animate the field beautifully. There is a small electric fence to prevent them coming into our driveway. However, if I was a big girl sheep like these ladies, it is the type of fence that wouldn’t stop me going wherever I darn well pleased.

His Lordship Malarkey presented me with a Craft Course voucher as part of my birthday present so I was straight onto the CraftCourses website to find something on which to spend it. And what do you know, but around 15 minutes drive away from Damson Cottage is textile artist, Fiona, who has a lovely studio from which she teaches tapestry weaving, loom weaving, spinning, knitting, crocheting, fabric dyeing and working with silk! Well, I was booked onto the ‘Introduction to Tapestry Weaving’ day faster than you could say ‘warp and weft!’ And yesterday, I went a-weaving! And it soon became very evident that keeping track of your ‘overs and unders’ is a bit more tricky than you’d credit. Seriously, weaving is full on brain exercise! There were two of us in the class, which was lovely as we received lots of attention as we wrangled with our butterflies (small wool skeins for feeding through the warps) and counted our picks. (A pick is a single line of weaving.) I chose to work on a small...

I’ve made Christmas cards this year! I have been saying for YEARS now, ‘This year I AM going to make Christmas cards,’ and then failing abysmally because being a teacher got in the way. I even bought a pack of blank cards at one point. But this year - I did it!! Wasn’t sure to begin with what would go on the cards. So I do as I always do in these moments of indecision and I let it sit for a few days. Then, clear as a jingle bell, the image of a knitted Christmas tree popped into my head, and I was away! I’m glad it was a Christmas tree because it’s one of my favourite parts of Christmas - the sheer romantic lunacy of having a tree inside your home, covered in twinkly lights. We always have a real one, too, for the scent. And this year we have decided to buy a potted one because I read that they live happily in pots for around 4-5 years, so after Christmas it can live in the courtyard where I can attempt to keep it alive for next year. Fingers crossed. Anyway, I already had blank ca...

Knitting, cat snuggling, creating, calm. The best kind of afternoon. 

Annoyingly, the cockerel Tootsie, has discovered that I put out fat balls and bird seeds for the wild ‘uns. He thinks it is great larks to ignore his chicken food and come down to the courtyard in order to avail himself of the finer tidbits of birdie cuisine. He is, as Kenneth Williams might say, bold. Needless to say, the garden birds are not keen on his presence. And I certainly get fed up with chasing him away at regular 12 minute intervals. However, during the week, and fresh from my triumph of woodshed cleaning, I decided to tackle the laundry. This is mostly because the tidal wave of its contents was spread all over the floor (some people NEVER put things back where they find them, do they, Andy?) making it difficult for the maid a.k.a me to access things like the washing machine, the freezer and the bins containing the cat litter. By 8 a.m, then, I was out there wearing my Hat of Ruthlessness and my Boots of Determination, and by 10.30 I was posting this video clip to His Lord...

Bit of a heavy frost this morning so I served up a seed and fat ball breakfast for the local birds. I stocked up on bird food the day before yesterday. They only get the cheap stuff from Wilkos, I’m afraid, but it’s better than nothing given the mess they leave on the garden furniture. Still, it is very meditative watching birdies about their business. And this year I am going to set up a proper feeding station for them rather than hanging feeders on insubstantial branches and random hooks. So far I’ve seen blue tits, great tits, wrens, chaffinches, dunnocks, house sparrows, collared doves, a robin, a nuthatch and a naughty cockerel called Tootsie chancing his wing. Bambino and Flora are also doing some attentive bird watching... My favourite bird to see is the nuthatch. I’d never seen one in real life until we moved here. They are very streamlined and they scoot along the ground like they are ice-skating. I tried to get a decent photo but failed, so here is one from the interwe...

Here I am! Lovely birthday, thank you! Lunch out with Himself Lord Malarkey, visit to see the new Shaun the Sheep film (very entertaining, apart from being accused of sitting in the wrong seats by a narky family who had actually, themselves, turned up a day late - ha!) and lots of shouting at the telly during ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ when ONCE again the judges (ha!) showed increasing bias towards some contestants and Shirley was horrid to Emma and Anton, which immediately got them 3 votes from me! One of my lovely birthday gifts was a craft course voucher to spend on a craft course of my choice. Well, I’ve had a yearning to try weaving, and in the next small town along from us there is a lady who runs weaving workshops! So I am going to book myself into her Introduction to Weaving day, which Andy says is very handy because if I like it, that’ll be my Christmas present sorted in the form of a loom! How exciting!! Anyway, one of my new ‘things’ for this coming 55th year of mine is to ...

Spooky moment this morning when I found myself chatting to my Rusty Duck blogging pal, Jessica, and she mentioned that she’d had a ‘First Day of the Rest of Your Life’ feeling this morning, and I said so had I! Weird, eh? But I have put my feeling down to the fact it is my birthday tomorrow and I shall be... I feel oddly positive about the imminence of this birthday, this start of my 55th year. I don’t know why, but it feels important somehow, a gateway to something new. Just a weird and inexplicable feeling which, right now, I can’t pin down but one I shall embrace and ride with because it seems the right thing to do. The urge to record this next year in a dedicated diary is very strong. Now, this could be an excuse for me to go and buy a lovely new notebook, because I love a new notebook, don’t you? I could just as easily record it, warts and all, on a new blog, that will ride alongside ‘Oh, My Days.’ But I don’t know if I can be that brave, because (and this might surprise you...