Saturday trip out

I went down to Portland again today; weather was good, if slightly nippy, but OK in the car. I love it down there, nice and quiet at this time of year. Sadly, not many bikers to ogle ;) lol.
Lighthouses old and new; the older white one is now a hotel/B&B I think.

The red and white on is the iconic Portland Bill lighthouse. Lobster thermidor and two pints of Ringwood bitter for lunch, lots of crochet done int he car throughout :)

Knitting

Another new project..........

lol. Couldn't resist this :)  I've used Forest Fibres a few times via e-bay, a brilliant business, can recommend them thoroughly.

I bought this:

It's a kit for socks - 100g of top quality Trekking sock yarn (75% wool, 25% nylon), your choice of 3 dye shades and instructions for dyeing; good value at £9.95 I thought. I chose turquoise, slate and bluebell for mine - sort of blues/grey ix, hoping it might be quite subtle, but will be fun whatever it turns out like. I hope to at least get it dyed voer teh weekend, so watch this space!
http://www.forestfibres.co.uk/

10 influential books

These are mine :D (no particular order) ; there are a lot more, I may post some up later, but these are the important ones for me :)


What are yours?


Johanna Paungger - The Art of Timing



John Seymour - Self Sufficiency



John Lane - Timeless Simplicity



William Coperthwaite - A Handmade Life



Bob Flowerdew - Companion Planting



Satish Kumar - You are, therefore I am



Masanobu Fukuoka - The One Straw REvolution



Tom Hodgkinson - How to be Free



Thoreau - Walden



Emerson - Self Reliance
 

''I arrange all my own flowers you know!''

I always think of that line form Margo in The Good Life when I'm doing my flowers for the house, never fails to make me smile :)

Home education

Very against the idea of any Gvot intervention/legislation etc, but was heartening to read this. I'd do it all over again :)

http://apps.facebook.com/theguardian/uk/2000/aug/13/education.educationnews1?fb_source=other_multiline&fb_action_types=news.reads

Inspiring quilting blog

I found this today:

http://lucyquilting.blogspot.com/?expref=next-blog

(I should be doing the washing up.....................  )

Growing good corn

Growing Good Corn




There once was a farmer who grew award-winning corn. Each year he entered his corn in the state fair where it won a blue ribbon.



One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned something interesting about how he grew it. The reporter discovered that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors.

...

"How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?" the reporter asked.



"Why sir," said the farmer, "didn't you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn."



He is very much aware of the connectedness of life. His corn cannot improve unless his neighbor's corn also improves.



So it is with our lives. Those who choose to live in peace must help their neighbors to live in peace. Those who choose to live well must help others to live well, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others to find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all.



The lesson for each of us is this: if we are to grow good corn, we must help our neighbors grow good corn.



~ Author Unknown ~See more

Tar sands

This will make you weep, but please watch it, thankyou x

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84zIj_EdQdM

Words for a Tuesday

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

... ... and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth

tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.



~ Mary Oliver ~

http://www.maryoliver.net/

Luscious knitting

In between all the knitting I do for others, to sell, to order etc, I try and have at  least one thing on the go  for myself. I've just started a green cardigan in Rowan Kidsilk Aura in the most beautiful shade of apple green, actually a bit lighter than the photo seems to have come out

I feel so smugly co-ordinated knowing my new cardi will match my kitchen walls............................    lol

Kitchen table activism

I love the internet, and I spend a lot of time on it and I have no problem with that at all. It will never replace human communication, or books, it's juat another tool. There are some folk who spout off about the evils of it all, we should all be up and doing it instead of sitting reading/typing about it, Facebook is the work of the devil - all that sort of nonsense. Well, some of us are capable of  integrating the internet into our daily lives and keeping it in its place whilst still upping and doing and all that jazz.
It had enabled me to keep up with what's going on in the country, and the wider world,  in a far less intrusive way than television, and newspapers to a lesser extent, and it suits me. It allows for participation - one of the greatest tools for getting things done and inspiring others that I can think of.
Just this week there's been a huge amount of activity on Facebook and elsewhere about the Tesco Workshare debacle, and the government cuts to benefits and DLA etc. Now, I would have heard about them, yes, but having access to the internet has allowed me to read so many others'  viewpoints and opinions and has let me take part in discussions and debates all over the net on all sorts of sites. The information I need to make an informed opinion is right there at my fingertips, so off I go. I love it - I can sign e-petitions, debate strong views, have contact with like minded and not like minded folk, share information and inspiration, taqke part in forums for more specific interests; the information I gain can be used for letter writing, joining organisations, boycotting others, etc. I can feel as if I'm taking part and having a voice even if I'm not out there waving a placard and shouting at the government. It works for me.