All things woolly

I’m in Wales at a wool fest. ‘Wonderwool’ it’s called, by the lovely River Wye in Builth Wells. We are staying in a village I can’t pronounce nor spell. I have been really excited all week at the prospect of seeing and handling the fibres, talking to stall holders and being in the company of fellow knitters. Even the woman in the village charity shop is a knitter. Though with a strange choice of material: she was knitting with video tape. She told me that it makes splendid glittery and hardwearing shopping bags. Well that’s novel. Most of the people, well women, in the vast hall are very colourful. Differently coloured hair, mad jewellery, long skirts. Lots of young women which is good. And a lot of women who look just like me: grey hair, glasses, jeans. The other guests in the b&b are weavers. They spin in their spare time. Sounds like hard work to me although they claim it is very relaxing. You can buy wool at any stage of the process, from fully grown sheep to balls with labels. Wool from sheep, llamas, rabbits, goats. Every colour under the sun. I bought lots of wool: undyed blue Leicestershire sheep wool, glittery green merino and undyed Aran. It all smells, looks and feels lovely. I also bought giant wooden needles from a young woman whose father makes them for her. I like people’s stories. There are some beautiful garments on sale and of course you can buy the patterns. But I go for simple designs. I have to be able to hold my head up when knitting so that I can chat or watch tv. Or even read the sub-titles on foreign films. Not Welsh ones though. We tried to find a cinema this afternoon but they are few and far between and only seem to show once a day. Never mind. I can start one of my knitting projects.

Musings on death

It’s been a strange week. Of endings and beginnings. My father in law, Jack, died on Saturday. Eighty eight years old, he’d been bed-ridden for two and a half years, looked after my brother in law and sister in law who put their lives on hold, in effect, to care for him. So Jack’s death was a release all round. It certainly freed him from the suffering of Parkinsons. You wonder what is the point and why the life continues but I don’t believe it’s up to us to reason why. It will all become clear one day. When my Dad died I realised I’d become an orphan. Now with Jack’s death all our parents have gone. It’s a chilling thought. I don’t think Jack would have realised what was happening at the end; he was too far gone. Whilst in hospital towards the end my Dad asked me ‘Am I dying?’ How do you answer a question like that? ‘Yes’, I said, ‘but not yet’. He died the following day.

I watched the You Tube video of Philip Gould’s words about death just now. Former Labour Party peer and strategist he was one of the apologists for New Labour, a mate of Tony Blairs. Dont let that put you off. His thoughts about his impending death are not what you might imagine. For a start he uses words like ‘lovely’ and ‘bliss’. I suppose being given a death sentence makes life all the more poignant. It’s for this reason that I find funerals inspiring. A strange word to use perhaps. But they can remind us of what matters in the here and now. And I find myself mentally rehearsing my own. And assessing what I should be doing and not doing.

See the Observer article and You Tube link.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/22/rachel-cooke-philip-gould-dying-video

Fund-raising in style

These days charities use sophisticated methods to attract us. I understand that; they have to. Particularly today as much of their funding is withdrawn. Half my mail is made up of appeals. Most go straight in the bin. Having said that I’m a sucker for the ones that give personalised labels and pens. I can’t bear to think they have wasted money on me. I don’t tend to support sponsored runs or races and particularly not for those in exotic foreign parts. And I can’t bear the ones with the greatest emotional pull, using images of starving children or those gut-wrenching pleas on the radio. This is trying too hard. In general I guess I tend to give to those charities with which we have a personal connection. And local charities. Best are the ones where there are small administration costs and where you know the money is going directly to those in need. You have to determine some giving criteria for yourself; otherwise you can end up just giving to the big charities who draw on huge funds. Or feeling guilt, a useless emotion.

One good example of clever charity funding was an Indian meal we had last night. If you live in Leicestershire you have to be a lover of Indian food. There so many restaurants, the city even has its own Golden Mile. This one was a Balti house. We paid £10 for a two course meal with rice and naan bread. Bring your own alcohol, which cut down on the cost. The place was packed on a Tuesday evening, when it may have been empty, I suppose. The food was freshly cooked and the service was effortless. Their smiling faces and courteous care is what we have come to expect from our ethnic restaurants. Needless to say the place was full, 77 covers I believe. The owners allowed 60% of the profit to go to the charity. They have supported charity nights before. They invited Princess Anne to one. She refused of course. We were shown the letter with the royal crest. The evening raised £600. It was a great do, as we Northerners say. Many of us said we would return. You could be cynical and say it was a PR exercise, but this way everyone wins. The money is going towards a new classroom for an African school.

Rhubarb and custard cake

I don’t normally bake cakes because I go on to eat them. And when there’s a massive cake and only two of you, you have to eat a lot before it goes stale. Well that’s my excuse anyway. My mother in law was a great baker and my sister in law too. Whenever we visit she always has delicious cakes on offer. Who can resist? Well today I made rhubarb and custard cake. My friend Diane has an allotment and often brings surplus fruit and veg. This week she brought rhubarb and a recipe to go with it. It is delicious and moist. I used Marks’ chilled custard.

Ingredients
500 gm of rhubarb
150 gm of sugar
250 gm of butter
Half tsp of baking powder
250 gm of self raising flour
4 eggs
150 gm of ready made custard

1. Roast rhubarb with a little sugar for 20 mins at 200 degrees – I forgot and left it in for nearly an hour, it was fine. Don’t boil though, it will be too watery
2. Mix custard, flour, eggs, baking powder, sugar together until creamy and soft
Grease a spring form tin
3. Put a third of the mixture in the tin with some rhubarb. And again. Then the final mixture
4. Put in the oven for an hour and twenty minutes. Put foil on the top for the second forty minutes
5. Eat with cream, ice cream, more custard or Greek yogurt! Yummy!

Crochet unravelled

I recently took up crochet again. The first time since school, all those blurry years ago. Using a gem of a book called Crochet unravelled I reminded myself of the stitches. Painstaking at first as I had to keep looking back to the pattern and undoing what I’d done. But faster and more satisfying once I got into a swing. There’s something about the rhythm that is calming and meditative. Like knitting but better because it grows faster and more forgiving when you make mistakes. You can also design your own patterns as long as they are not too complicated. As I am about to become a grandmother for the third time I have been crocheting a pram blanket. Knowing that my eldest daughter prefers shop made to home made I showed her the results of my efforts. She held it up to the light and said ‘Well it looks perfect’. Which it isn’t of course, but obviously acceptable. I like the thought that it might become an heirloom.

Wool is cheaper on eBay. I used merino wool for babies. Debbie Bliss is as the name implies. Bamboo hooks are better than the metal ones we used to use. I learned to crochet from my Mum. We both made crochet dresses in the 60s. I still have one of Mums. It’s long, black and glittery. Size 10. Maybe I’ll turn that into a blanket or something. There’s something about passing on these domestic skills that I like. If I have a granddaughter this time I’ll teach her too.

Isn’t Spring wonderful?

As I walked with friends Saturday I was struck by how beautiful the trees are at this time of year. And all this despite the fact that I get early hay fever with an allergy to trees. The sky was perfectly blue and the spidery outlines of the trees made me want to draw them. I wish I could draw. I once went to a class called ‘Anyone can draw’ and proved it wrong. My best friend was a rubber. The teacher was Californian with the laid-back approach that this suggests. But he did prefer to spend time with those who could already draw, like my daughter. We went outside and drew a tree. I threw mine away and kept Alex’s.

Cherry blossom trees might be good to draw. You could use the soft side of the pencil to smudge for the blossom. The trees that line our road are so pink they look artificial. It reminds me of when I was a child and used to collect the blossom in baskets. It was a pointless activity as it dies almost instantly. Then there are the camellias. They flaunt their beauty but you have to admire them when the sun shines as they lose their petals with wind and rain. Finally hydrangeas, my Mothers Day gift this year. My favourite shades of mauve and blue. Being able to notice all these beautiful things is a recent thing. It makes me grateful to have more time.

‘Are we to look at the cherry blossoms only in full bloom, the moon only when it is cloudless? To long for the moon when looking on the rain, to lower the blinds and be unaware of the passing of Spring – these are even more deeply moving. Branches about to blossom or gardens strewn with flowers are worthier of our admiration’. Yoshida Kenko

In praise of … Blossom
The Guardian today reminded me of the playwright, Dennis Potter’s interview with Melvyn Bragg, in 2004 as he was dying. Seated near a window he described the blossom as ‘the elitist, frothiest, blossomist blossom that there could ever be… The nowness of everything is absolutely wondrous… There’s no way of telling you; you have to experience it…’