My Local Museum Read My Mind

I've just spent a week looking for knitting groups , since my first choice had turned out to include Bible study .
A very nice wool shop just did crochet and sock knitting courses ( "with 4 needles" the owner warned  , having sized me up accurately )  ;  and Leeuwarden's Stitch'n'Bitch seemed to have died  , though there was a brief hope that they'd come back to life in the old jail . This would have offered a spectacular backdrop to k.1 p.1 . but sadly it wasn't true .

Just as melancholy was setting in , the local free paper provided the solution .It turns out that the Fries Museum has an exhibition , Breien ! , opening on October 17th

Reading the article , it will include everything from a wooden C16th sock knitting frame , old fisherman's jumpers , knitted lace pieces to wear with the gold caps worn for centuries as the Fries  national costume , C18th fingerless mittens for the poor and C21st fingerless mittens for the trendy ...

There's going to be a walk-through route where you can handle exhibits . A  completely knitted room by  Isabel Berglund , Victorian beaded reticules , things knitted with human hair by Chrystel Rijkeboer , Starsky and Hutch sweaters ...

BUT , more to the point , there will be a drop-in knitting area with coffee and resident experts to advise on one's knitting disasters works-in-progress . A sort of 6 day a week Stitch'n'Bitch for nearly a year , just round the corner , in fact !

( Meanwhile , Hermione's slippers are taking shape in a rather more sedate shade of red than planned . It's too early to stock scarlet , I was told ... )

P.S. The exhibition poster stubbornly refuses any of my efforts to hoist it upright . Sorry !

Where's It Gone ?

Vanished .
Sun , boats , ice cold beers , vast salads , picnics and freckles ... All gone overnight .

So it's now time to roll up my sleeves for winter .

Making warming one-pan meals again . This , for instance , from Nikko Amandonico's "Una Bella Spaghettata "

is startlingly simple , involving little more than mixing good Italian canned tomatoes with herbs , olives and capers with olive oil ( lots of olive oil ... to feed 6 she recommends using 500 ml . I didn't . ) , stirring this into some barely cooked pasta , tipping it all into an oven dish and baking it in a hot oven for 20 minutes . Eat a large bowlful and and relax .

Enrol in some class or other ... I've found a craft class which includes crochet ( yes , again ... well even I must get the hang of it eventually ) and lunch .

And start at least one ridiculous frivolous project . This winter's is from an ancient P&B booklet of Senior Knitteds for The Rich In Years .

Since I could hardly cycle while wearing a muff and can't knit gloves  , I thought that I'd have a bash at these slippers

or house shoes as they would have been called when the pattern was written . In scarlet , perhaps , for Christmas ? Perhaps I should arm myself with one of these , too ?

I've got the latest Bryant and May who-dunnit on audiobook .... I'll be rather put out now , if Summer returns .

Summer Colours

Doesn't our weather man look surprised ! As well he might ; summer has taken a while to get going ....

 

Still there has been colour here and there

 

even though it has been more subdued .

 

 

London was very pretty this year .

In An English City Allotment

( with apologies to Percy Grainger ) 

If you stand on tiptoe and squint , you can see John Lewis . The 14 bus rattles past one side and the 34 past the other . Scrawny cats chase magpies who scold back , safely  perched on shed roofs .

 

 You trip over shards of pottery everywhere

 

The bread shop over the road does chunky cheese rolls to eat in the sun or you can pick up a baked potato from the butcher's   ...   or there's a Chinese takeaway a step further .
Bees hover over a banana skin . A little boy brandishes a pink butterfly net .
There's an old swing and a slide the commitee's put up to entertain the growing number of ever younger allotmenteers' children  . 
You flail at nettles and are mesmerised by hoverflies .
Lug water from the standpipe to rescue the pansies .
And take home radishes , beans and glowing , exhausted children .

The Three Kims And Curry Sauce

 

I didn't just venture forth this week . I sallied ! All the way to Assen , about another fifteen minutes on the train . It also has a nice museum and there was an exhibition I didn't want to miss . I have a weakness for propaganda posters ... the more uplifting the better . And there's no doubt about it  , The Kim Utopia was full of pictures of Paradise .

North Korea is officially the Land of Milk and Honey

 

  ... or rather of polished ostrich eggs , noodles and expertly sliced vegetables .  

 

 

Everybody is young and heartbreakingly pretty and brave ... and wearing a uniform .
Everybody laughed  , everyone's hair was lightly tossed , everyone's eyes were raised to an ever more glorious future . Any unpleasantness from The Enemy was faced with resolute nobility .
 It was all perfectly splendid !

I was reluctant to leave but very hungry so wandered up into town and found a cafe that could have been a model for Kim's official artists .
De Brink had comfy sofas and excellent coffee and two kinds of toasted sandwiches ... ham and cheese or "would you prefer one with our own goat's cheese ?" . Of course  . And it was , indeed , delicious . The owner then bustled over to offer more coffee and ask if I'd like some ketchup with my 'tosti' .... or mayonnaise ? ... or curry sauce ? before rushing out to the back to drill a few more holes in the wall .
He seemed to be barista , chef and handyman and partner of the pink haired young woman who ran the adjoining hair salon . He supplied endless coffees for her clients as well . Altogether I felt that Kim would be proud to welcome them onto his team .
A bit of window shopping and then I headed home , determined to go back in September when there's a new exhibition . The Glasgow Boys .

Hailstones Temporarily Discontinued ...

The sun's shining every now and then and one can venture forth without three layers of wool and a vest !  So I've made the odd sortie , slightly further than the shops  .

 And here are some of the things I've admired:

which just goes to show that one doesn't have to live in the country to see things grow

or even some exotic wildlife

 

 

Feeling Liberated !

Faint sound of bagpipes coming over the river ... ?  It must be Liberation Day . 

Well , Leeuwarden was really liberated in 1945 with the rest of Europe but it's still being celebrated with the same enthusiasm each year and veterans from the Royal Canadian Dragoons are always welcome .

To make them feel even more at home a Dutch association of vintage army vehicle enthusiasts have set up camp outside the High school for five days

 

and everyone's wandering through admiring the tiny chaplain's tent , the sandbags , the sleeping arrangements ( "modern conveniences such as beds and fridges only permissible if kept out of view ", according to their website ) , a stage where English singer Lola Lamour and a Barber's Shop Quartet entertain each night

and the camp cook who posts the day's menu every morning on a blackboard and then strides about impatient to start .

The VE day tea waits again for a group of mothers and children like in the town archive's original photo . This years marble cake looks a bit dry though . Someone must have gone the whole hog and used reconsituted egg .

Today when I cycled home there was a group of men sword dancing and even more old codgers mooching about

admiring the tank and small landing craft and doing that man thing of peering in fascination at pistons and handy extras .

And through it all , this woman busily crocheted a wavy blanket .

Perhaps she's facing a long summer of similar reenactment weekends with her husband and , while hoping for good weather , doesn't intend to freeze .