Thursday 26 July 2012

Busy weekend


This past weekend (starting with Friday the 20th, ending Sunday the 22nd) was one heck of a busy weekend!

Friday was the agricultural show.  A chance for the locals and visitors to show off their animals and their handicrafts.  While I did take photos of animals, I completely forgot to take the camera to the handicrafts tent, oops!

Giant horses
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This black one was apparently being moody.
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Jo and I loved these little ponies, they were pretty much barrels with legs.
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A very warm ram
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Highland calf
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Saturday and Sunday were afternoons only, so I did get some kip.  I was helping out with showing off weaving, this is the table with the little looms that attracted a young girl (well, nearly 11yo) who pretty much spent the whole TMF (Tiree Music Festival) weaving with us.  She has a real thing for neons, the yellow and the multineon are mine that I donated so I told her to keep them, she was so thrilled with the brightness!

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Every time the big loom came free she was on and adding to the banner.
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Jane having a play
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Proof men can weave
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So can kiddiwinks
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In fact, any age!
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Much fun was had, many hands took up a shuttle and wove.  Sunday 6pm was the grand reveal!

Fiona carefully releasing the banner, all 2.69m (I think I remember that correctly)
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Going from right to left, the start:
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The end:
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The whole banner, closer and in more sections:
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Even the birdies were being artistic at the weekend!  I saw this deposit on the window and just had to get a photo.
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This week has been me recovering.  I've also discovered a liking for very milky coffee which is having some interesting effects (I can finally sleep like a log, but the timing is still off).

Tomorrow evening the-games-that-cannot-be-named start and so do the Ravellenics!  I need to swatch the shawl to check I like the fabric and I could really do with finishing the scarf sitting next to me to free up a cable and tips.

I've got photos of my peg weaving from the TMF weekend, but you'll have to wait for those, my PC went on the fritz (power supply went wonky and corrupted my Windows install quite impressively) so I've reinstalled Windows AGAIN, backed up a clean install this time, after spending 6 hours sitting with updates.  So I'm not really in the mood for image adjusting.  oooh, I do have some videos...

Jo flying the kite:


Me flying the kite (with Jo's sarky comments)



Finally, a little video by Jo of night on Tiree.









Saturday 14 July 2012

This week we've mostly been...

Mowing.  Firstly let me say: if you ever move into a house where the 'lawn' hasn't been trimmed for years, we can highly recommend a Mountfield RS100.  I kid you not, this tiny thing (only 100cc engine), when pushed by a person (it can propel itself) can slowly, and steadily, work down a meadow.

realises she's missing an up to date photo, nips off, comes back 5 mins later with photos and video<

Okay, the video's not worth the effort, but let me share photos.

When we moved in, the house and garden looked like this:

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Since then Spring crept in and turned all that brown grass into two foot long meadow.  Lovely for the frogs, crickets and birdies, bit messy looking to us and playing merry heck with my hayfever!

Well, the front lawn now looks like this:
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This was my humble effort over the week:
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And Jo has even started down the side of the house!  We are taking turns mowing, but my hands and wrists complain about ripping the start cord fast enough, plus all that mown grass seed is making my eyes itch like billy-oh.
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And here is the little device that's making all this happen:

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and this is the grass mound we're making:
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Yeah, the garage is starting to get a leeeetle crowded now!  Doesn't help that there's a dead electric mower in the corner behind the bike too, not sure what to do with that, it was here when we moved so I'm wary of advertising it for someone to come take incase the NATS folks ask for it or something.


So, the rest of the week.

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Tiny purple flowers down at the resouce centre.  I've got no idea what they are, but they're cute.


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This is my spinning wheel, an Ashford Traditional.  It was sitting outside because I'd just spent some time brushing it over with linseed oil then wiping off the excess.  It stank to high heaven but it's now looking very happy and well fed.  Fiona and I are doing a little spinning demo at the agricultural show this Friday and the consideration is if we only have enough room for one wheel to take this one as it's more what people expect.



What else?
Alice sent us a kite!  I admit to being a bit bemused to begin with, but it is rather fun to fly.

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Jo showing his skills.
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Me managing to stay aloft.
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A fairly common scene.  Less so with Jo, but when we took it to the beach the second time he made up for it ;)
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I think this seagull had a similar accident:
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I finished my Inkle weaving.  I think I might stick some D rings on it and have a new belt, but for now it's just sitting about.  My grandparents did send me some money and I spent a fair bit buying some finer threads for playing on the inkle loom, this thick cotton makes nice stripes, but anything fancily patterned looks loose and blah.
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Yesterday saw me in receipt of two zwartble fleeces from the farmer up the road.  Apparently he'd like a scarf for each of his daughters I think it was, four scarves I've been told!  Last night I sorted them, pulling off the poo-ey bits and the matted bits and the bits that weren't really worth the effort.  I still had a good bit left.  Here is about 1/6th of what I have soaking in a hot bath:
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The water afterwards:  Impressive what one sheepy picks up in a year.
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And out drying.  The hockey sticks are to keep it put.  It'll stay in place initially because of the weight of water, but when that gets too low the wind tries to steal my fleece!  There's about 3x this now washed, the rest was nearly dry so I put it back in the mesh bag and peggd that on the line to air dry.

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And that's about it.  I do have some videos too, but one of them is nearly 50MB so I'll post those later.

Friday 6 July 2012

It Lives

Reinstalled the drivers, now I can get my photos!

While I wait for those to upload, let me share some good news:  After three weeks of dieting to no effect, I did my weigh in and have lost 3lbs this week.  Only another 144 to go ;)

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This week we received our newest purchase, a strimmer.  The above photo is about 3 hours of strenous labour.  Yes, the grass was originally the same height as the stuff on the other side of the fence, yes I now know *exactly* where my arm muscles are, yes I have a blister on a blister on my left hand.  BUT, we've also ordered a Mountfield petrol mower that we're hoping might manage if we do the job in small bursts so it doesn't overheat.  If not, there's a lot of days of strimming in our futures.


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Jo's new PC.  There was a brief worry that it was going to do what mine did (BIOS not up to date, won't talk to graphics card, blank screen) fortunately it was just poorly seated RAM and quickly resolved to much relief!


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This is my inkle weaving.  I now understand how to warp up for stripes and have spent some birthday money on finer threads to attempt pattern picks.  I tried picking with this but it seems that 4-ply or thicker is a bit too thick for Inkle.


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Side view of the inkle loom.


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Baby log cabin blanket.  The friday crafters - the 'official' name of which I have forgotten yet again - make up little bundles for island babies, this will be my contribution once it's done.  Getting there slowly.


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All the strimming combined with passing showers brought out the froglets, this one did it's best "I'm not here, you can't see me!" impression when I went out one evening to snap this shot:

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Sunset on Tiree, beautiful!

And with that, I am orf to bedfordshire (bed).  Tomorrow may see the arrival of the mower and Jo and I taking the tricycle down to the petrol station for a can of petrol, yep, that's going to earn us some great looks!

Night to all, and many wishes that those caught in the flooding don't suffer more than some wet feet.