Rattling On...

Move it, move it...

On the 1st of July I loaded a GPS running app onto my iPod and started what I hoped would be a new regime of regular exercise.

At the beginning of the long summer holiday a friend asked if I wanted to try and lose a bit of excess baggage in an act of solidarity with her. I said no. Then got home and changed my mind. Why not?

I went back out and bought a set of scales, the first I've ever really owned.

And now? I have been doing a bit of running and a lot of power walking, always in the morning before work. I'm not saying it's easy, and it's getting harder as it's getting colder and wetter. But once you're at the front door you may as well keep on going.

So far I'm 22lb lighter and hopefully a lot fitter. I have my regular hecklers who see me on my rounds and call out a mixture of encouragement and dodgy comments. The best being from R, the postie, who shouted after me that if I wore a bin bag under my gear I'd work up a better sweat. Take that as you will...

Mash up...

So, you have a favourite cashmere cardi, a really cosy one. The elbows are thinning a little, but there's plenty of wear in it. You notice a few bobbles on the sleeves and reach for the battery-operated-de-fuzzer-thing. The one that came with a plastic shield that fitted over the whirring part that you apply to the fabric. You know, the bit you chucked in the back of the drawer because you couldn't see the point of it.

Turns out the point is to stop the woolly thinness from being sucked into the whirring part. The part that rips holes in tender cashmere.

Iron-on patches to the rescue. Not exactly good as new, but better than the hot water bottle cover it is one day destined to become.

Note to self: stop being so gung-ho with power tools. It'll end in tears.

Here be Quakers...

On the way back from Cambridge I decided to take a detour and visit Wisbech as there was a National trust house I fancied a look at, Peckover House.

It was a little on the tricky side to find, but well worth it I thought.

It's quite a compact house but there's plenty to see, as usual I liked the cellar kitchens and also the stables with tack room.

The tea rooms are at the end of the garden and there's a rather touching pet cemetery under some big old trees.

The house is in a row of similar Georgian properties, definitely in the good end of town. I went for a stroll around Wisbech itself and it was a bit of an eye-opener. Not what I expected at all. But then that's true of a lot of places these days.

I took out the National Trust membership for another year after deliberating over it for some time. Even the two new places we've been so far probably cover the cost. I bought some memberships as Christmas presents last year and they were very well received, so if you're stuck for a gift it's a good possibility for anyone who likes rooting round interesting places.

I'm struggling to get back into a routine with the blogging, I'm not sure why this is. But it'll come eventually, or it won't!

How are you spelling that?

Do you play Scrabble at all? I have to say I'm a big fan, and we play it at school quite regularly. It's good on a lot of levels, both for improving spelling and vocabularly; for encouraging turn-taking and social interaction; but most of all for having a good laugh. Like this afternoon...

We play 'proper' Scrabble, as in by the rules and quite strictly; with no slang or abbreviations and the words having to appear in out ancient Chambers' dictionary if there is even the hint of dispute.

There were three of us playing, me and two teenage boys. One of the boys had the P and the W and, quite rightly, wanted to maximise the points scoring by banging them on the coloured squares. The other boy was lost in thought.

It came to his turn and he'd been shuffling the seven tiles for a while. I asked him if he needed help (we all help each other, all the while trying to make sure we win) but he said not as he had a good idea. What's that, asked the other boy.

Chronic diarrhoea.

Good luck with that...

Where was I?

So, I went away for a few days during half term. I don't think it'll take long for you to guess where I was...

The bikes and the punts should give it away. Cambridge.

I had a really good break, even though it's quite a long drive from here. I chose a bog standard hotel that was in the centre after humming and hawing over a pretty place that was out of town. I'm glad I did, as I parked the car up in a secure locked carpark and then just walked everywhere. Much cheaper and better for you.

If you like history, food, shopping in any or all of those combinations then I'm sure you'd like it as well.

I had been to Cambridge once before, a long long time ago when my cousin lived in a village nearby. Some things have changed and some remain the same. The throngs of foreign tourists being one of the latter.When I last visited it was in summer and the sun was blazing down. This time it was a bit drizzly but this didn't detract in the least.

The drive back though was horrendous, with driving rain and a motorway consisting of standing water and standing traffic for most of the way. Having tea for two for one (are you following?) just before setting off was a bit of a bad decision and a quick pit stop at some services was required!

I shall pull my finger out and show you some more highlights soon...

Getting it in the neck...

It's funny what catches your eye, isn't it? Out of a massive houseful of stuff ranging from silverware to stuffed birds, it was this quite small painting that made quite a big impression.

It's St Christina of Bolensa, painted by Carlo Dulci in c1650-55. It's 11.25 inces in diameter, oil on panel and absolutely beautiful. Even taking into account the rather bizarre and gruesome subject matter.

I wonder, did the people of so long ago have perfect skin, hair and teeth? Or did the painters do a bit of oiloshopping? Literally glossing over imperfections. We know they did it for big wigs like Elizabeth I and Henry VII, but average people? I suspect if you were paying you could make certain requests...

And saints should be perfect anyway. But I'd like to know what people really looked like, what Beautiful looked like before photography and mass media.

Curves...

More Kedleston Hall, and tody some rather gorgeous curves. The house has crescent shaped wings on it, or at least that's how it seemed.

The floorboards were beautifully cut to echo the curve. It would have been so much easier, I imagine, to simply lay them the other way round and spare the work. But it was worth the effort.

Even the doors in the half-moon alcoves are curved, this must be very difficult to do. Unless you live here and the average softwood front door looks like that after its first winter!

The doors are all beautiful, if you like that sort of thing. Even the back bits that have the hinges on them are curved and not flat. They roll into place. Magnificent.

I am not here today and for a couple more days. I've taken the opportunity to have a break. Somewhere with lots to see. A few days R & R. So if your comments don't appear for a while you'll know why, I may not even take the computer, I haven't decided yet! Meanwhile there will be ghost posts with more KH pictures.

How the other half lives...

This is one of the formal staircases at Kedleston Hall. Very elegant with nice shallow steps so the gentry wouldn't have to strain themselves getting upstairs in all their corseted finery.

Contrast it with one of the servants' staircases.

Spartan to say the least. But mercifully still shallow steps as the poor servants were corseted as well as probably knackered at the end of an average day.

I think it's splendid in its simplicity, but the most interesting part (for me at least) needed to be looked down on.

Look how many times the steps have been repaired over the 260 odd years since they were put there. That's some serious climbing, and the repairs were getting worn down as well. I found myself wondering how many times a day a single servant, say a housemaid, would have had to climb up to the top of the house. Probably carrying coal, laundry or cleaning tools. Not to mention the water that was hauled upstairs before plumbing was invented.

These days we probably wear out a stair carpet over the course of a lifetime, we don't get down to the wood. How lucky we are.

Duchess for a day...

If you've seen the film The Duchess you may recognise where we went yesterday. Kedleston Hall, which stood in for Chatsworth in the film. Due to the terrible weather the river was very high and racing along.

You notice the similarity to Chatsworth as soon as you arrive, even the drive up to the house is reminiscent.

In the entrance hall the four massive fireplaces contained crackling fires and it was surprisingly warm. I've often wondered how those mansions fared in cold weather. Basically, if you light big fires all over the show it does the trick.

Here's just a little tour...

The bathroom was put in for a visit by the King in the 1920s, he slept in the rather impressive four poster with the feather dusters on top. I think most people these days would be dismayed to have an ensuite that is so spartan, but it was the height of modernity once upon a time. The tiles are like little pieces of glass.

The disappointing part of the visit for me was that we only went round the impressive showy parts of the house and not any 'downstairs' rooms. I asked a guide about this and he explained that the tour we did was almost exactly the one that would have been offered to visitors in the 18th century. Think Elizabeth Bennett turning up at Mr Darcy's crib and wanting a lookie round. They just showed her the good bits.

The old kitchens and scullery are now the restaurant, which is very good. The blue theme, which is all over the house, continues even in there. It could be considered either classy or a bit too much, the jury's out on that.

There's also a lovely little church that dates back to the 17th century but I'll save that for another post. Good to see even a stately home could do with the windows cleaning.

In fact there are a few interesting little things I've decided to save for other posts. The weather is so bad (hailstoning today) that photo opportunities are few and far between!

Somewhere over the rainbow...

The girls and I had a day out today, eldest is home for just a few precious days from Paris, more of our visit later.

The sat nav took us on another white knuckle ride over all the back roads, which were flooded in the rural areas. It doesn't matter what you put in the programming, the thing just goes its own way.

When the torrential rain stopped and the sun put in an appearance there were lots of rainbows around. I did think, though, that it was meant to be a pot of gold at the end. Not a sheep...

Any colour as long as it's red...

I said there'd be a cardigan, and here it is. It's red just in case your browser is like mine and it appears as a shocking orange. It's red because I wanted a sort of vintagey cardigan to wear at Christmas. And you have to have red and cables for that. Or reindeer. Or both.

It was a very easy knit and didn't use much yarn (it's slightly cropped which helps in that department) but I did make it a size too large. Which turns out to be okay, as that seems to be In at the moment. Very 80s.

I have good memories of 80s knitwear. Even down to the batwing mohair number I knit on broomsticks for a friend to wear to a concert. I made it up as I went along and it was a roaring success. That and the T-shirts I spray painted slogans on using car body paint. We used to knit our own school jumpers, I think the school sort of admired our enterprise and it kept us occupied at break and lunch. Them were the days.

I've been knitting quite a lot recently, I'm rediscovering the zen like quality of plugging away at stocking stitch. The knitting group has taken a turn for the better as well, with the addition of three women who are really good fun. In fact we have so much fun we don't do much knitting, but that's a good thing-right?

Thank you all for the fabulous comments and emails following my last post. I haven't replied to them all individually as constant repetition of Thank You may end up sounding shallow. The support of readers, lurkers (you know who you are) and fellow bloggers cannot be measured but is very precious.

Life is full of setbacks, at least mine is. They appear out of the blue and upset the apple cart. One such derailed the blogging back there and I was all set to either delete the blog or carry on. All or nothing, because you can't archive it, which is a shame.

I had some lovely emails checking I was ok, and some notifications from ravelry pointing out my patterns were no longer accessible. Hadn't thought of that. So I thought, bite the bullet and get over yourself.

Then two weeks ago on Wednesday, while I was getting ready for work, Frank the cat collapsed. I threw on some clothes and rushed to the vet, dripping wet from the shower and very worried.

Twenty minutes or so later and he'd died. He was 5, and the vet hasn't a clue what happened to cause it. Most probably an undiagnosed underlying condition. The girls are gutted. Frank was a gent and a real character. The house is quiet without him, less messy, less smelly, less fun.

I am resolved to have no further pets. Probably.

I still don't know whether Rattling On has a future or whether it's come to a natural end. The longer the break goes on the harder it is to contemplate showing you the cardi I made or the knackered stepladders I bought to tart up.

So, anyway, that's where I've been.

PS Comment moderation is on for now...

Horsey heaven...

Guess where I went yesterday. The book shop, or store as the sign says, annoyingly. I don't like the way the word store is taking over from shop, a store is where things are stored a shop is where they're sold. I know; pedant.

It was one of those hazy, warm late summer days; the fields are full of drying hay and tractors going about their business. In the field where the cows usually are there are some new inhabitants-

 
Three mares with their foals.

I have always been horse mad. I longed for a horse but riding lessons and trekking filled the gap somewhat.

It wasn't just the riding, I love the grooming, cleaning the tack, mucking out; everything including just the smell of horses and stables in general. I rode until a few years back when a bad accident made me re-evaluate my priorities. Being able to walk was a bit of a list topper. I miss it all still and regularly dream I'm galloping across a field.

My fantasy horse was always black, and big. No ponies or fancy arabians for me. I always wanted to ride the ones that could really get a move on and jump things as well. It's funny how people are worried when riding a bigger horse, it's probably only a foot or so further to fall after all! And it's always the little ones that are jumpy, the sort that bite your bum as you're getting up there.

I thought what a beautiful mix of colours this little lot had produced.

As I was walking back to the book shop, along the side of the road (there are no pavements out there) a car towing a caravan came speeding past, almost clipping me. It was speeding in the true sense, going far too quickly for the type of road and the approaching corner, where many fatal collisions have occurred (and there are signs warning this). The driver didn't even pull out to give me room, very thoughtless and very dangerous, especially in an area where there are many people out walking and rambling.

A friend recently posted on the 'social networking site' that her husband had been subjected to road rage while out cycling. He'd shaken his head at a driver who'd failed to pull out for him. The driver stopped his vehicle and gave abuse then drove off. He then turned the (very large) vehicle round, came back and deliberately ran into the cyclist, knocking him off his bike and causing a lot of injuries and broken bones. The police are appealing for information.

The driver was an older man, with his wife in the passenger seat. What is the world coming to?

Wildlife...

Bank Holiday Monday was a proper August day weather-wise, warm and sunny. I decided to do a spot of reading in the garden (not bad, as it happens) by the pond. The bees were buzzing around me and it was clam and peaceful. A large yellow frog hopped across the ground in front of me and plopped into the pond.

It was the first frog I've seen this summer, though I hear them in the evenings, unless you count the ones the cat brings up from the cellar. These are tiny and I really don't know how they got in there, they were living in a corner by the water inlet pipe, it's dampish I suppose and there are plenty of woodlice and spiders down there. I did a quick hunt and rescued a further three on top of the three the cat deposited in the kitchen, unharmed.

So, I'm in the garden relaxing, soaking up a few rays and thinking how lovely it all is when there's a tickle on my hand. Without thinking, I slapped at the spot. Which caused the wasp sitting there to promptly sting me and make a lot of annoyed fizzing noises. I've been stung quite a few times in the garden and they don't really hurt any more, it was my own fault, I usually wouldn't flap or swipe at wasps but my lightning reflexes just kicked in there. Hmm.

And then, this morning I was in the kitchen when some movement outside the window caught my eye. Ahh, I thought, a little wren in the climbing hydrangea. Mais non. It was a little mouse doing a bit of rock climbing up onto the outhouse roof. No idea what he'd be doing up there unless it's caterpillars maybe, I imagine he'd know his way down again, it looked like he was an old hand.

In other news: My computer is rebelling at the moment. The internet security (which didn't come cheap) keeps crashing. My re-boot times are astonishing, in a bad way, and the whole thing spends more time hovering in a state of semi-coma than is reasonable. Thus, I'm avoiding it for long periods as I have a long held belief that if you ignore a problem for long enough it will either solve itself or disappear. Failing that, hitting it with a shoe has always proved effective in the past.

They're no good at home...

Did I mention I was getting my eyes tested? I think I did, well I went along and the results explained why my glasses weren't giving good results. Basically they were rubbish. I paid a whack for varifocals and it turns out they weren't adjusted for the astigmatism, the fields of view didn't correspond to my eyes and several other things, including the actual prescription. Which makes me wonder if it was somebody else's and there'd been a mix up.

So I got new ones, varifocals again as apparently I really do need them and was promised a better experience. The optician was happy to put new lenses in my old frame (so unusual these days) but I opted for some new ones as I got a pair of readers at a discount. They said it'd be a two week wait but both pairs arrived in four days, which was impressive. And guess what- I can see again. If I wear them.

I went into the chemist to buy new shampoo the other day and decided on some sulphate-free stuff as it's supposed to be better for your hair. Blow it, I got the conditioner that was standing next to it on the shelf, as well. May as well really look after my locks.

Next day in the shower I applied the shampoo, it didn't lather but I know all the bubbles in most products are just there for show and actually can strip your hair, so no worries. But I thought I'd give it a second soaping just to make sure. Then I applied the conditioner and left it to do its finest while I had my shower. I have to say I was impressed with the shine and the fullness it gave.

Next day, in the shower again after a long power walk and I had to pick up the bottles to make sure which was which as they look almost identical. They look that way because they are. Identical that is, except one has New written on the front. They are both conditioner. So I'd conditioned my hair three times.

Which I can now recommend, and it also left me wondering if shampoo is all it's cracked up to be in the first place. My Dad never bothers with it, he just uses whatever soap/gel he's showering with and I know my Mother has used Fairy liquid in an emergency (very, very bad for your poor hair- anything that can de-grease dishes so well can only beggar your scalp).

The moral of the story, if indeed there is one, is when you have new glasses actually wear them. I still don't have a sulphate free shampoo but I won't need conditioner for some time. If you use an organic or similar range what is it and how good is it? I have fine hair, prone to frizz in humidity. All recommendations gratefully received.