Finished something

A pair of Flip Flop Socks... and they're for meeeeeeee! That's rare - it's usually only the stuff for other people that actually gets finished. But these were small and I was determined. Especially after spending ages splitting a skein of Anchor Magic cotton from 8-ply into 2 balls of 4-ply 'coz I loved the colour but wanted thinner yarn.

Broken record

Yeah, look, I know - I keep posting links to Preacher-Boy's blog and I imagine you're beginning to think I'm getting 10% or something, but his ability to see Christ/God/Love in action and then convey the beauty of these encounters to the rest of us is extraordinary and I just have to share them with you. In fact, forget "sharing" - READ THIS! - it will do your soul good. Imagine the possibilities if we all looked with our hearts open.

Visitors

Saturday Sky from my friends' back garden, where a number of us from Clacton Friends Meeting enjoyed a lovely tea and the chance to have a good natter. Quaker worship may be based on silence but we can sure make up for it the rest of the time!

And here's a visitor to *my* garden this afternoon - a big, green dragonfly. She was about 3"/75mm* long with a 4"/100mm wingspan but still difficult to see against the leaves. I say "she" because I believe it was a female Southern Hawker (Aeshna Cyanaea).

*8/8 Amended from centimeters (thanx PB) - now that would have been a big dragonfly!

Rain at last!

It started raining yesterday morning and has been raining on and off ever since. The temperature has dropped to a much more comfortable 21°C/ 69°F and I am sooooo happy. The girls, on the other hand, keep clambering up onto my lap for warmth, glowering at me like this ice age is all my fault.

Water from the sky?

Hey, lawn - recognise this stuff? It used to be called "rain". I trust you'll remember what to do with it.

(Postscript - Ten minutes it lasted. Ten. Minutes. Never mind, lawn - as you were.)

Hot and Hazy

View from the bathroom: across the River Stour towards Shotley Marina - 29 July 2006, 11:11am.

When I took this Saturday Sky this morning it was very hot and humid, but the wind picked up this afternoon and it's a bit cooler now. We have the promise of rain from the west for tomorrow. There have been isolated downpours all around us for several days but not a drop here. I hope we do get some rain this time. We need it - for the garden and for our sanity!

Saturday Sky

After a scorcher of a week the weather turned overcast today but it's only a teeny bit cooler. And it's due to get even hotter next week. SNAKES ON A PLANE!*

(*You can blame that little outburst on Crazy Aunt Purl.)

Saturday Sky 3

A crystal clear blue sky above the Fryatt Memorial (Harwich) Hospital Fete - 15 July 2006, 3:16pm.

Not as dramatic as last week's offering but you couldn't have asked for better weather. Who told you it always rains in England?

Saturday Sky 2

Near Little Bentley, Essex, looking north - 8 July 2006, 10:42am.

We spent this gorgeous day walking on Mersea Island and then stuffing ourselves silly with prawns, crab, smoked salmon, smoked mackerel, cockles, mussels and crevettes - the current seafood platter selection from the Company Shed, West Mersea - all accompanied by a hunk of stonebaked bread and washed down with a lovely Pinot Grigio (both bring-your-own). Fantastic.

Don't make Me come down there

Preacher Boy's take on the Will of God.

Saturday Sky

Here's a brilliant idea from Sandy of Sandy's Knitting.

<--- Click here for details

And here's my first contribution:


Why don't you join in? I'd love to see the sky where you live.

Hulloo!

Hi everyone! Thought I'd better pop in quickly to let you know I'm still here. I've just been a little busy - in a good way - so I haven't been posting/commenting much lately. But I'm still stalking all my favourite blogspotters. Luv ya loads!

God bless Crazy Aunt Purl's grandmother

Because the sainted woman has given us all the Oh.My.God chocolate cake recipe of all time! It's dead easy to make and it tastes fantastic. Not one of your fancy, intense, dark chocolate extravaganzas - just a good, old-fashioned, gooey lump of chocolate heaven.



Crazy Aunt Purl's Oma's Chocolate Cake Recipe

Now I'm a real cake pig - I have astonished (and probably horrified) people with the amount of cake I can pack away - but I could only manage a small piece of this cake at a time - v.rich.

Helpful hints: 1) If you can't find buttermilk use runny plain yoghurt (thin it with a bit of milk if it's too thick) and 2) a "box" of powdered sugar = 1lb. Yes, that's a whole pound of powdered sugar for the frosting. You got a problem with that?

Wir lieben Sie, Oma!

Waving a few new flags

I've made a few recent additions to my CyberSoapbox list:
Cats Protection, PDSA, Restorative Justice Consortium and Trade Justice Movement.
Hmm - cats, pets, people, people... seems a reasonable balance.

Then there's Free to Stitch, Free to Bitch - the "cause" that started it all (see my very first post: Let's start here).

Check out the list (or better yet click onto their sites!) for more details.

Quilt Show

DH and I went to a little, local quilt show today, held in the Village Hall in Westleton, Suffolk. Entry £2.00 in aid of the East Anglian Air Ambulance.


Well, I say DH went but really he just drove me there and only came in to get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake (he loved the date & walnut cake by the way, ladies).


He did have a little look around and saw a few quilts he liked. He seems to have a preference for "pictorial" designs using appliqué and decorative stitching.

I quite like this one - I love the bead "water droplets".

But my favourites are always the "block" quilts - and stars are a particular favourite.

Even a simple "Nine Patch" can be very effective. This one was made by an 11-year-old girl (with a little help from Mum) as a cuddle quilt for a friend undergoing treatment for cancer.

All in all, a very nice show.

Cool!

Desktop Flamingo has done it again (thanks, Ashe).












Try it yourself at SnapShirts

I'd love to get a t-shirt of this, but at $33/£20 I'm going to have to pass. :o(

That's a big boat

MV Cosco Ningbo was docked in Felixstowe yesterday - the 6th port of call on her maiden voyage, which began on 22 March. She is the largest container ship in the world and can carry 9447 twenty-foot containers. Length 350.57 meters, width 42.8 meters, carrying capacity 107277 tons, speed 25.4 sea miles per hour.
















Source: Official Web Portal of Ningbo, China

Yep, that's a big boat.

Why do I tell you all this? Because we can see Felixstowe docks from our bedroom window. (Looks great at night, all lit up.)

This is the best picture I could get -



















You can see the stern clearly enough, the bow is just "touching" the trunk of the (thoughtlessly placed) tree.

Should be in Hamburg now, and due to arrive back in Shanghai in May.

Favour-returning time

My goddaughter, Marin, has a new blog. She put a link to me in her very first post (she's a good kid) so I'm adding a link to her! -- Dementedly Sane.

Disclaimer: So Far, So Good and jmk are in no way responsible for the content of the above site. Visit it at your own risk! Have a nice day.

Whatever next?

Spotted this at Tesco in Colchester.
Had to buy one - just so's I could take a picture of it to show y'all.

(It's a Jonagold, by the way.)

My virtual Speakers' Corner*

Greetings, faithful readers (as opposed to newbie viewers - no exclusion intended, see below). You've been here before, you've nosed around, you've seen all there is to see, right? Well, I'd just like to flag up my new link list: "jmk's CyberSoapbox" - where I scramble up on my soapbox and shout a bit to draw your attention to organisations/projects/concepts that are important to me. (If you hadn't already come to the conclusion that I'm odd, you will do when you see that lot.)

Now then, you newbies - Welcome! Make yourself at home, have a look around, come back anytime. Oh, and before you go, please feed the llama. Thank you.

*Wikipedia: Speakers' Corner