WOYWW 498–Mystery Project Revealed

Writing this on Tuesday afternoon.

Three little hanging heart ornaments for friends, from this:

to this:

Here are some closer details.

Can you guess what I made the little terracotta pots from? Bet you can’t… Details in an earlier post.

The purple heart was for one friend’s birthday, so I also made her a card.

I have uploaded all the posts about the making of these hearts and the card and you can scroll down to see them if you are interested.

Some Fun with Photo Manipulation

The other day I was preparing some fruit for my normal “diet day” platter and cut a peeled clementine in half. I thought it made such a beautiful shape.

I thought I would have some fun manipulating this photo, as I did once before with a rather artistic piece of orange peel.

Clockwise from top left, adding effects cumulatively: black background, brightened colour; posterise; paper cut-out; polar co-ordinates. Quite fun, eh? I could have done loads more with it, and spent (wasted?) all day at it. (I know, I should get out more…) Oh, by the way, it tasted good!

Sourdough

I didn’t make sourdough again this week but made some more sourdough crackers and fed Esmeralda and put her back in the fridge to cogitate for another week.

She’s quite happy as long as she gets a weekly feed and a clean bed for the week!

Other Cooking

Overnight I made some more bread in the bread maker, with lots of seeds – sunflower, pumpkin, sesame and brown flax. Gorgeous and crunchy with a good nutty flavour!

I also made a salmon and broccoli bake for our supper. Here it is, ready to go in the oven.

Computer Update

Most things are now working OK, but the computer shop have told me that both hard drives that I took in have failed. The caddies are OK though. One of them I was pretty sure was dud (very old) but the other one is pretty new and still in guarantee so I’m hoping to get my money back on that one. Some things on the computer still aren’t working properly and I need to spend time resolving these issues but I’m too busy with other stuff at the moment.

Kitties

Ruby is still grounded because my hubby has been out a lot and the weather has been too awful so he hasn’t been able to spend any time in the garden. Neither of them has been hankering to go out that much (which isn’t surprising given that it’s raining all the time) but they are obviously needing to blow off steam more than usual!

Health Update

I had a very fruitful appointment with my surgeon last Thursday, and I’ve blogged full details here so I won’t go into it all now, but suffice it to say we discussed risks and advantages of further surgery or leaving it alone, and he is going to consult a colleague in Exeter to discuss the best way forward. I came away much better informed about why things had gone wrong in the spring, and the reason for my post-operative infection, and as a result, I am no longer quite so resistant to further surgery if that is what they conclude will be the right thing to do.

This situation is pants…

The pants saga continues, not having heard anything since my last conversation with them on 19th November, when I emailed the GP and requested a further prescription, and they promised they’d deal with it straight away. I phoned the rep last Wednesday and she didn’t return my call. I managed to speak to her today and she said she’d been waiting for news before calling me, and I said I would have appreciated a call to let me know at least what was happening, even if it was nothing!! This afternoon they called me back and said they were requesting another prescription as a matter of urgency, and I said I was so fed up with this and wanted the pants by Christmas. Ha ha. Tomorrow is the last dispatch day till the New Year. I was practically screaming by this point. I said that would mean they wouldn’t even be able to start making them till then, and she agreed that they usually took about 4 weeks, which would take us into February!! I said I could just about manage with two pairs (one on, one in the wash) but if I had an accident I’d be sunk. She said they’d mark the order as top priority. Again, she kept saying, as they all do, “I completely understand, I really do…” but it’s just words, words, words…

As I say, the whole thing is pants. Grrrr grrrrr grrrrr x 3,000,000. I could add a few choice words too, but I don’t want to break my laptop after all the trouble I’ve had with it recently.

Have a great time over Christmas everybody. I probably won’t be posting next WOYWW because it’s Boxing Day and we are out.

WOYWW 494–Turtles and Tortoises, Ants and Pants

Studio Time!

At last I have managed to have a good long session in my studio, so for once I’ve got a real desk to show you for WOYWW. I’ve got a few projects with a deadline, and I’m waiting for some supplies from Ebay, but in the meantime I’ve been able to make a start on embellishments, in the form of a flower factory. Sheba, my Cougar cutting machine, has been working overtime.

I’m afraid I can’t go into detail about the projects for the usual reasons, but all will be revealed in due course.

A few weeks ago my hubby gave me four little frames that he’d bought at a church sale, and then discovered that they didn’t have glass in them, so he didn’t want them. He offered them to me and I was sure I could do something with them.

I dismantled them and took the embellishments apart for use in other projects. The first step will be to paint them with gesso, and then they can be embellished.

Sourdough

After my success last week, I decided to try making two small loaves instead of one large one, so I could use my small bannetons again. I made it on Saturday and ended up with two small turtles again – it collapsed completely. I was very disappointed and frustrated.

Where it did rise a bit, it had formed one big hole, that you can see in the photo. Again, it tasted delicious. I decided to make some more straight away, so the next day I did a repeat performance, with great success, and ended up with two tortoises instead of turtles!

Here they are, with the bannetons.

Really not bad at all. The only problem is, using the Dutch oven method, I have to bake one after the other, which means having the oven on for quite a bit longer, but it’s only once a week.

I realised that I’d made a couple of mistakes with the first batch. I’d put the salt in too soon, before the autolyse had had time to rest, and I definitely over-worked the dough, which results in developing the gluten to the extent that by the final proving, it starts to break down and the dough collapses. Success is all in the handling, and with the second batch, I followed the instructions to the letter and got much better results. It’s still a bit flat but the dough felt a lot less wet and sticky, and it did hold up better.

I did some other cooking as well during the week. I made a couple of big casseroles for the freezer so we’ve got plenty of ready cooked meals – a beef one and a tarragon chicken one, both very tasty.

I also made some sugar-free marmalade at the weekend, adapting a recipe I found on a diabetic site. I adore marmalade and could eat it all the time, but am always conscious of the high sugar content, especially as I am watching my weight. My hubby is no longer pre-diabetic since he gave up added sugar, and when he was last checked he was absolutely fine – normal, with no indication of diabetes at all, which I am sure has been helped by our general change in diet over the past few months, with more low GI carbs, fewer processed foods and all the fermented stuff – kefir, kombucha and sourdough.

The marmalade is sweetened with Stevia, and thickened with soaked chia seeds which produce a natural, unflavoured gel. The recipe warned that the seeds make the marmalade look as if it’s full of ants but I don’t care about that! They are full of nutrients and also prevent dehydration which is good news for ileostomates too! I made the marmalade with one of the tins of Mamade I had in the pantry –this is just prepared Seville oranges with no additives, to which you simply add sugar and water and boil it up, so the next best thing to completely home-made, just without all the hard work! The sugar-free version is delicious, even if it doesn’t look that palatable.

I’m not sure how long it will keep, so I’ve put the jars in the fridge. I don’t think it will hang around for long, though, especially if we are both digging in!

I’ve got a couple of events coming up for which I need to make some little presents, so I’m hoping to be back in the studio again this coming week.

Health update

I’ve had three days this week when I’ve been completely wiped out and not able to do anything much, which is a bore, and this has not been helped by another dose of hair-tearing frustration today over my ongoing support garments saga.

Not having heard anything, I phoned them a couple of days ago, only to be told that the GP had only prescribed one additional pair instead of two. The first pair (which had to be made twice because they messed up on the first pair, which didn’t fit me) was issued on a single prescription, so getting a further prescription meant more delay. I was annoyed that the company hadn’t seen fit to inform me of this, and if I hadn’t phoned up, I wouldn’t have known, which would have caused more delay again. I emailed the GP surgery straight away (hopeless trying to phone), asking what was going on, and had an immediate reply, saying they had issued another prescription straight away, for two pairs! If all goes according to plan, this will mean that I should end up with a total of four pairs, rather than the maximum of three that I am supposed to have. Three is the absolute minimum – one on, one in the wash, and one for emergencies in case Kermit has a leak or something. I told the GP about all the problems I’ve been having with the company.

The woman I spoke to at the company said she would check with the work room and see what progress was being made on the single pair that they were making, and she would phone me straight back. I sat by the phone for two or three hours and then phoned again because I had heard nothing, only to be told that the woman had phoned back and left a message on our answering machine! I told her the phone had not rung, and when I checked, there was no message. Hopeless. Anyway, she said the pants would be sent out on Friday, which means I won’t get them till early next week. They were supposed to be pushing this through as a matter of urgency, after messing me about with the first pair, and now I’ve got to wait another whole week! I told her that I had been wearing the only pair I have got so far, for nearly 3 weeks and they need a wash!!! The old ones from last year are not giving any support at all so it’s pointless wearing those.

I told her I was fed up with all this messing about, and I was very unimpressed with how unbusinesslike the whole thing was, and how frustrated I felt. I told her my hernia had definitely returned and that these garments are essential medical supplies, and it was completely unreasonable to have to wait for 3 months from when the stoma nurse made the initial appointment, to receive even one pair. I told her I’d had all this nonsense last year as well, and I didn’t know what I would do if they got the subsequent garments wrong, so they’d jolly well better get them right! She said she was very sorry, and completely understood how I felt, etc. etc. I said this is what they all said, but nothing ever got done! What I need is some action, and some results.

Shoshi spitting tacks again. Grrrrrrrr and double grrrrrrrrrrrr. I shall definitely tell the stoma nurse when I see her in December at my surgeon’s appointment. She was appalled last year, and said she would contact them about it, and reported back to me that she hadn’t had much joy with them, either.

Hopefully by this time next week, I will at least have got a second pair.

Kitties

No kitty photos this week. Neither of them has done anything very interesting except eat and sleep and keep me warm, and a bit more mutual washing on my lap! They are both eating well now the weather is colder and they’ve filled out quite a bit. Two nice little substantial kitties! (Or should I say, “Fat and lazy!”)Ruby hasn’t got out again now my hubby has cut that tree right down.

WOYWW 490

No change on my main work desk this week, but over the other side, all my felt stuff has been pulled out again…

On Monday afternoon, I finally got round to wet-felting the embellishments I made for the striped scarf. You may remember a while back I needle-felted quite a few felt balls and flowers and these needed a bit of rough treatment to firm them up a bit. At the top of the photo on the left you can see my olive oil soap that you use with hot water for wet felting. That stuff smells lovely and I always associate it with felt.

All the pieces are laid out on the table with the vinyl cloth which is beside the sink in my studio. I shall leave them out until they are fully dry, and then I can start sewing the embellishments onto that scarf.

I’ve done quite a few more inches on the peacock scarf and I should finish the knitting in a few days’ time. I need to make a few more peacock feathers and then I can finish that one too.

I’ve also resumed unravelling a rather unsatisfactory knitted tunic top I made years ago – I like the colours and the design (purple circles on a yellow background – there’s a snippet of it in the photo montage that makes up my blog header) but it never fitted very well and I didn’t like the neck. I am going to knit it up again to a different design. It is made up of different 4-ply thickness yarns so there’s variety in the texture as well as the colour. I started working on this particular UFO (UnFinished Object) unravel months ago and it was another one that bit the dust along the way and definitely needs finishing. It will be good to have a new knitting project to keep me going through the winter.

The only other thing I did in the studio this week was also on Monday afternoon. I mended one of my necklaces that had got broken, and soldered a stretchy metal arm band that had also snapped, which I’ve been putting off doing for months! I like these old-fashioned men’s arm bands as I’ve got rather short arms and my sleeves are always too long, and they keep them up out of the way when I’m busy in the kitchen etc. Really pleased to have got that little job done. I had to do the other arm band too, last year. The joins obviously weren’t that secure, but I’ve had them for years so I suppose they haven’t done too badly.

I am getting absolutely inundated with dried teabags and I really need to start working on those, carefully cutting them open and tipping out the tea, ready to go on the garden. Then I’ve got to decide what to do with them all! This job is definitely on my UFOs to-do list.

Bread

I’ve decided to start making bread rolls. They are useful for sandwiches etc. and looking at the list of ingredients on the supermarket ones, I was horrified! So many added chemicals to such a simple food. They are very little trouble to make really, and much more delicious, and with no artificial additives. I found a simple half-and-half wholemeal and white recipe online and added lots of nice seeds to the mix (my usual sunflower and pumpkin, and also some chia and brown flax seeds for good measure), and topped with sesame seeds. A huge success!

My sourdough this week was NOT a success. As usual the flavour is good but I tried altering the technique a bit because I thought the reason why my sourdough never rises very much may be due to over-proving, but leaving it for a shorter time clearly wasn’t the right decision.

Oh well, it tastes OK, even if it’s rather dense this week! It would make good ballast.

Our Michelin-Starred Meal Out

Last night we went for our special meal out. A friend from church gave us the ticket that he’d won, saying we would enjoy it more than them. What a lovely treat! Scroll down to previous post. View it if you dare. Prepared to be green with envy, and don’t view if you are hungry or you’ll hate me!!

Kitties

On Sunday afternoon my hubby was busy in the garden, cutting back, and clearing all the weeds from the waterfall outside the kitchen window. Ruby was fascinated by all the activity and I snapped this sweet piccy of her balancing on the trellis – taken with the zoom through the kitchen window.

Lily has decided to be antisocial in the evenings and her latest sleeping place is on the armchair in the flat, much to my hubby’s disgust. Ruby just loves to settle down on my legs once I’ve got my feet up on the recliner and we both enjoy the mutual warmth!

My little buttercup was in real trouble yesterday – not just once, but twice, I caught Ruby in the act of licking my butter when my back was turned – while I was actually still in the room! The second time I caught her, she ran away and hid. She knew she’d been a naughty girl. Lots of cuddles and forgiveness later.

Health Update

The first pair of support pants duly arrived last Thursday and to my extreme annoyance, they don’t fit. I thought, “Oh no, not again…” I went through all this last year. I immediately phoned the lovely rep and she was absolutely horrified that this has happened to me again, and immediately swung into action, consulting her manager and attempting to sort out the problem. The next morning she phoned me for some additional accurate measurements and I emailed her photographs too. They are going to remake them and hopefully they will arrive in the next day or two as she was marking it urgent. I also sent her a photo of my now very obvious hernia and she agreed this really needs proper support.

They have cut the pants much too short. The band at the top cuts right across the middle of my stoma bag – completely useless! Also, I asked for lace, and they haven’t put this on. Someone isn’t reading the directions the rep gave them.

My hubby wondered if I could go with another firm but I really don’t want to – when they get it right, the pants are excellent. This company uses a unique fabric which is specifically designed by a doctor to give adequate hernia support while not interfering with the operation of the stoma, and is the only company that does a bespoke service and home visits. Our hospital also deals with them and they run a regular clinic in the colorectal outpatients, and they know the rep that covers our area. The rep didn’t think that what had happened to me was a common problem and was mortified that it had happened to me at all, let alone twice! I had such a time with it last year when they got it wrong twice, and it took months to get it sorted.

In the meantime I am continuing to wear the old ones which the rep said were no longer giving me adequate support because they need replacing every year (they are now about 18 months old) as they gradually lose their stretch with wearing and washing, and also since they were made, I have lost some weight. I didn’t order any more early this year because I knew I was due to have surgery and you can’t wear them for several weeks after that as they exert too much pressure, and then I was waiting to see my surgeon and the stoma nurse for several months after I eventually got out of hospital. When I saw them in August they agreed I should continue with the support garments and the nurse arranged an appointment for the rep to call on me. Everything takes so long to get organised these days and with them making a mistake with the fitting just adds insult to injury and all the time my hernia is getting bigger, it seems.

I had my CT scan last Thursday and of course I haven’t had any result back yet. I shall probably phone the stoma nurse early next week to see if there’s any news.

Rollator

My hubby’s brother has used a rollator for some years now and swears by it, and several months ago, our sister-in-law suggested that I might find one useful. I did some online research and found the one I wanted on Ebay, but it was collect only, and too far away. I looked up the model but unfortunately it is no longer made, which was disappointing because this particular one ticked all the boxes for me. I set up an email alert on Ebay and decided to wait a while to see if any more came up, rather than getting a different one, and this week I got notification of one, and immediately bought it. It’s second hand but looks virtually unused, and I got it for a very good price, and they were prepared to send it, too. It arrived on Monday and it’s really good! We went for a 90th birthday drinks party later on that morning and I was able to try it out. It uses a lot less energy than walking with crutches.

Ruby is terrified of it.

The next thing is for my hubby to try and rig up some sort of bracket so I can hook it on the back of my buggy.

So again, another pretty eventful week chez Shosh! At least I haven’t been so exhausted this week.

Visit to Knightshayes Court

On Wednesday 30th May it was my birthday, and my hubby took me and our neighbour for an outing to Knightshayes Court, a National Trust property near Tiverton in Devon. We had been several times before but not for a while, and being one of my favourites, when my hubby asked where I’d like to go, this is where I chose.

The weather was wet to start with, and the rain stopped but it remained overcast for the rest of the day which was a bit of a shame, but it didn’t dampen our enjoyment.

I took loads of photos as usual, but this time I concentrated on details – particular items of furniture and ornaments in the house, and quirky little architectural details so beloved of the Victorians. Knightshayes was built for an entrepreneur who manufactured lace in the town, and the style of the house is Victorian Gothic Revival, a style which my hubby and I both love. It was designed by William Burges in the 1860s but much of his original design was never implemented – had it been, the place would have been even more over the top than it is!

Here are some pictures of architectural details on the outside of the house.

Moving into the house, we entered the great hall past the staircase, and I admired their idea of an under-the-stairs cupboard!

Gorgeous window designs.

There is quite a bit of wall painting and stencilling in the house and this inspired some of the interior decoration I did in our old house. Here are a couple of carved corbels which also featured fairly frequently in the house.

A beautiful glazed door.

Some decorative elements.

More stencilling and wall painting.

In the library there is a very rich wall covering which looks like leather, but which in fact is made of Lincrusta paper – a linseed oil-based paste on paper which has an embossed design pressed into it by steel rollers. This was painted with various layers of paint and gilding to give a rich effect.

Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the library, but here is an Internet picture. It’s one of my favourite rooms in the house.

There is an impressive array of incredible decorated ceilings, mostly of partially painted wood.

Some chandeliers that took my fancy.

A detailed shot of the first one.

There were quite a few clocks in the house. Here are a couple that took my fancy. The first one is a modern clock.

I was very impressed by this amazing table top. The steward told us that the different parts of the table had come from different periods, but the top was ancient, and most probably from ship’s timbers. It was pitted and scarred with a wonderful patina and I can imagine that every dent and scratch had its own story to tell. I was most intrigued by this little patch that had been let into the surface, presumably to repair an injury at some point.

One thing I always notice in National Trust properties is the fantastic polish they achieve on their furniture. Lots of elbow grease over many years, I suspect.

This delightful little mother-of-pearl inlaid table reminded me very much of one we have, which belonged to my mother. It is less ornate than this, but charming nonetheless.

This Chinese bench took my fancy.

A beautiful example of marquetry work on the base of this bookcase.

A Victorian linen press.

A small lacquered cabinet from China.

A delightful miniature bookcase, complete with books, in the library. Note also the green leather fringing over the books on the left. These were used to protect the tops of the books from dust.

A magnificent and very ornate cabinet.

A spinet, unfortunately in need of repair so not playable, with some Bach music laid on top, and a book of songs on the music stand. Note the beautiful polished sheen on the instrument.

The magnificent dining room, laid for dinner, in the manner of the National Trust – they make the houses look lived in, and you can imagine the family and their guests sitting down to dinner after the last visitors had departed.

Napkin folding. There was a stack of napkins in the corner of the room and some instructions for doing different folds, but the steward said she’d had a go and it wasn’t very satisfactory because in order to get good results, the napkins need to be stiffly starched, and their stack of napkins unfortunately were not, and it was apparently impossible to get good folds and for the thing not to collapse.

We had lunch in the restaurant and the ventured forth into the gardens. My hubby had heard that they had restored the kitchen garden and he was keen to see it. It was magnificent – absolutely vast, and producing a whole range of different vegetables.

Vines.

The herb garden.

The kitchen garden is built on a slope to improve drainage. At each of the four corners is a little turret, and as the wall slope down the hill, there are steps in them which make the whole thing most attractive.

One reason for the kitchen garden to be walled may be to hide it – this was the working part of the garden, producing food for the family throughout the year, functional, and not deemed beautiful enough to be on show beside with the flower gardens and lawns. Today, we gravitate towards these once-thought insalubrious parts of a house – kitchen gardens, servants’ quarters, kitchens. We are fascinated by the social history they reveal, and how ordinary people lived their lives in the service of the great house.

Another reason for the walls was to protect the garden from the wind, and to produce a micro-climate which would promote the growth of the fruits and vegetables.

In the centre of the garden is a pond, filled with beautiful yellow flat irisis.

Onions, onions, and more onions!

Steps at the top of the garden, leading to various potting sheds etc. I wasn’t able to get up there with my buggy. Beautiful old stone walls, weathered to perfection.

A fruit tree trained against the wall.

A very great deal of rhubarb!

A corner turret, which seems to nestle into the walls of the garden.

We returned to the café for a cup of tea and some cake, and then returned home. What a wonderful day it was.

The only cloud was the fact that these days, the upstairs of the house is closed to disabled people. In our crazy modern climate of excessive health and safety, they no longer have a lift (a few years ago I was told I could no longer use it because what would happen if it broke down and I got stuck in it!!!) and when we said I would make my own way up the stairs in my own time, and my hubby would find a helpful visitor to assist him with carrying my wheelchair upstairs (everyone is always happy to earn their Brownie points for the day!) – this is something we are quite used to doing, having done it in many other National Trust houses in the past – the steward pulled a face and said it couldn’t be done. She was quite stroppy with me and it took several minutes before she explained that it was due to fire regulations – in the event of a fire, how would they get me down again? Our neighbour and I agreed that it was extremely unlikely that fire would break out during the short time I’d be upstairs, and surely if they were that worried, we could sign a waver exonerating them of all responsibility? They could also at least provide a wheelchair upstairs for the use of semi-mobile people such as myself.

What they now offer is a miserable little digital photo frame with a rolling slide show of photos of the upstairs of the house. You could just as well stay at home and look at better quality photos on the Internet. The upstairs is full of magnificent rooms and fabulous wall paintings and gorgeous beds, and if you can’t get up there without help, you can’t see it. Thank goodness I’ve seen the upstairs in the past…

I think this is discrimination against disabled people and I for one am sick to the back teeth of all this ridiculous health and safety which is completely killing off the last vestiges of common sense. I am wondering whether I can still call Knightshayes my favourite National Trust house? This left rather a sour taste.

Anyway, gripe over – apart from this, we had a really lovely day.