addicted to rain

It failed to rain today. The weather forecast promised heavy, no torrential, rain, and all day the sky looked heavy and soggy and rain seemed imminent, but not a drop fell. I'm slightly disappointed.

I've probably mentioned before that I find the sound of rainfall very soothing. One of the great pleasures of our stay in St. Andrews was the moderately heavy rain that fell on several evenings. We were staying in a 'lodge' at a caravan park. To all intents and purposes it was a static caravan though it was a bit wider and it felt more like a small house than a big caravan, but the roof was also the ceiling if you follow me, so when the rain was drumming on the roof it was immediately above us. As well as that we could have the window fairly wide open at night which we can't at home for fear the cats will try to jump out. All this meant that when the rain was falling I could lie in bed and really listen to it - all very relaxing if you're a weirdo like me.

It occurred to me a few weeks ago to wonder why I like the rain so much - yes, it's a soothing sound and there's that amazing fresh smell in the air during and after rainfall, but could it be I've lived in the wet west of Scotland too long and I've developed a weird form of Stockholm syndrome? Well there's an unnerving thought!  Eventually I came to the more reassuring  conclusion that growing up on the windswept coast I rarely knew vertical rain, or for that matter rain when it wasn't also cold and miserable, so summer downpours are probably still incredibly exotic to me. The most vivid memory I have of a horribly jet-lagged stopover in Singapore is a half-day trip over the bridge to Johore Bahru in Malaysia and a visit to a mosque on top of a hill and a batik workshop in the middle of a thunderstorm and properly equatorial heavy showers - that's properly exotic. Summer rain in mainland Scotland can come a good second though.

So where was my torrential rain today then? Oh well, it meant the Boy got to commune with the trampoline.

Edited to add: I had just posted this when my meteorologically-minded cousin posted an amusing and very appropriate Daily Mash link on Facebook.

Raindrops keep falling on my pond

At last, after what's felt like days and days of threatening, it has finally rained today. My pond was getting a little low and I was running out of saved rainwater to top it up with. When I say 'saved' that sounds a bit planned - what I mean is that we have a home-brewing bucket standing in the garden that had filled up with rainwater and which has come in very handy.  I can't remember how the home-brewing bucket came to be in the garden but there you go. 

I was getting concerned for the one or more frogs and the taddies, assuming there any left. I know the toad is okay because I heard a bizarre squealing noise from under a plant whenever the Small Cat extended a tentative paw under it. Small Cat looked appalled and disconcerted, and seemed quite relieved to come back into the house.

Wet buddleia

My Beloved is away at a (motor)bike forum barbecue this weekend, so it's just me and the kids at home. Today, naturally then, was the day that the Boy, who is never ill in term time and has three Perfect Attendance medals to show for it, got a sickness bug. As he's so rarely unwell he's completely clueless about illness and looked as appalled as the Small Cat and twice as helpless.  In fact he didn't actually get round to being sick. He clutched an empty washing up bowl for an hour and a half, whimpering occasionally, and eventually took himself off to bed and fell asleep for three-quarters of an hour. Then woke up almost back to normal. Kids are weird.  I'm quite relieved. What has surprised me about being a parent is that I can deal with vomit with remarkably little queasiness or distress of my own. However the Large Cat threw up while sitting on the windowsill the other night - and there is a radiator underneath the windowsill, and I'm sure you can fill in the blanks. Large Cat certainly did. So the less vomit the better this week really.

This evening I am entertaining myself. I have been knitting and watching a West Wing DVD. It's all very retro.

summer term frenzy

Every year it takes me by surprise - the Easter holiday drifts by and then we're into the summer term frenzy and so much happens that I'd like to blog about, but there never seems to be any time. The days get longer, yet somehow shorter, and my to-do list gets ever more unmanageable, and the weeks fly by far too quickly.

At the end of May there was a long weekend and we headed to the Highlands to see Mum and Dad. While we were there we saw an oystercatcher nesting in an overflow carpark at the Highland Wildlife Park. She was very defensive of her nest and the staff had put out traffic cones to protect her well-camouflaged eggs.

And back at Mum and Dad's, the duck who has adopted them and flies in most days for a snack.

As we edged into June we had the school's fun day, for which I did what felt like an epic amount of baking (somehow when you do what feels like an epic amount of baking it only ever amounts to enough to fill a few plastic tubs) and manned the coconut shy. There was a bit of lemon drizzle traybake left. I'd never made it before but it's a very forgiving recipe and turned out perfectly. I'm not really that much of a cake person, but this was quite good.

School sports day got cancelled at the last minute due to torrential rain and the teachers, PTA (including me) and teenage helpers from the high school, cobbled together an indoor alternative which left us all knackered.

And I caught a cold, which always seems so unfair in summer. Accordingly I treated myself to a copy of Pompom Quarterly  - I ordered last winter's issue, because there's a hat pattern in it I really like and I don't really do summer knitting. Out of season it may be, but it's lovely.

Then the sun came out again and I found this gorgeous bee in my garden:

I think it's a red-tailed bumblebee and is apparently quite common but I've never seen one before.

The sky was so blue I went round the garden taking pictures of the underside of the flowers and plants. My favourite is this poppy - the contrast with the sky is so strong.

The garden's looking quite happy actually. Quite exuberant in fact. And nicely quiet. The school year finishes a week on Wednesday and the frenzy continues until then, so I'm hoping for a few quiet (and dry) spells when I can sit in my deckchair and appreciate it all.

Train trip

The kids and I headed north for a few days with my parents last week. Just for fun (and because I didn't fancy driving), we took the train - I think it was the first time the kids had been on a longish train journey (i.e. more than an hour) and in fact it ended up taking more than an hour longer than it should have done. There were electrical problems "due to the adverse weather conditions", so I'm assuming thunderstorm, and we were stationary in Pitlochry station for 45 minutes, though it didn't actually feel that long. Then we had to stop a few times further north (such as in the pic above, in which the landscape would normally be a bit of a blur) for the same reason. The kids were fine though, not too moany. And I got a free coffee out of it :-D.

 The next day we spent at the Highland Folk Museum, always a favourite.

The following day it bucketed down. So the Boy, my mum and I went for a walk in the rain and discovered it really was nice weather for ducks:

 Especially as Mum nipped back to the house and got bread for them. That made us popular.

It was also nice weather for teeny tiny toads, about as big as my little finger nail. I can't quite believe this picture came out so well! That's a dead leaf it's half under, the stones are just the gravel of the footpath. You might have to click to embiggen, it's obviously a toad to me but the more I look at it the more I wonder if anyone else will see it. *paranoia*

And the last day was glorious! Our train wasn't until mid-afternoon so we spent most of the morning in the garden, before heading off south again. We even had the paddling pool out.

Fantastic wee holiday and it was surprisingly easy to travel with the kids. Though I made sure they carried their fair share of luggage, poor little beasts of burden that they were.

Saw this retweeted this evening: “@oceaneyes Now that we have 12 Doctors I'm going to use them to tell the time, it is currently half past Sylvester McCoy.” Well, it's 12 minutes past Peter Capaldi, so I'm off to bed!

Making Monday and Making Winter - neeps and knives

This is a combined Making Monday and Making Winter post. Making Monday is, I suppose, slightly on hiatus because our glorious leader, Natalie of the Yarn Yard who started it, is away on holiday, snowed-in in Boston last I heard, but it's a good blogging habit now. Making Winter is silverpebble's and thriftyhousehold's idea for this winter, in an attempt to embrace the winter. I don't really have a problem with the winter, which is probably just as well, and Hallowe'en is the first episode of winter fun for me. Anything involving fire is pretty much a good thing in the winter - neepie lanterns at Hallowe'en, bonfires and fireworks on Guy Fawkes night, candles at Christmas, and then the most incandescent of the lot, Up Helly Aa, enjoyed vicariously by webcam!

Yesterday afternoon was spent doing one of my favourite things - making neepie lanterns. I pushed the boat out that this year (at 50p a neep I think I can manage it just this once) and made two. One was for putting in the living-room window and one to take out with us when we went out guising.


A neep is much harder work than a pumpkin and I always have skinned knuckles or blisters or both to show for it, but it's really worth the effort. Hallowe'en isn't Hallowe'en without the smell of singed neep!

This is my preferred method - slice the top off and cross-hatch the flesh with a sharp knife. This makes it easier to start gouging it out.

After that it's a bit of a free-for-all - knife, spoon, swear-words, all have their place. These two didn't actually take all that long to do.

This year I managed to convince the Boy to come out guising with us - it's not usually his cup of tea but I pointed out that he only gets few years to do this as a kid so he should enjoy it while he can. And actually he got quite into the spirit of it once we'd cobbled together a hobbit costume for him (brown Jedi robe that My Beloved had made for him from a bit of scrap brown material ages ago, One Ring on a bit of leather, wooden sword). We were going out with my friend and her kids and we all dressed up. I was a pirate, nicking the waistcoat and velvet jacket my husband wore at our wedding and the Jacobite shirt he wears with his kilt. Miss Mouse was a fairy, my friend was a rather slinky red devil and my husband dug out his re-enactment kit and was a mediaeval knight. Last year it was a beautiful night - clear, not too cold, dry and not windy but this year unfortunately it was bucketing down, so Frodo and the fairy had to wear raincoats on top of their costumes. We had a great time though! Much silliness..


The one on the left, with the handle, is the one that came out with us, though unfortunately it was so rainy I couldn't keep the candle alight, even with the neep's 'lid' on. I like his cheery expression - I don't like to make them too scarey!

cosiness

Oddly enough I haven't done much knitting with the results of my dyeing efforts. I do plan to do some Fair Isle mitts with them, so really the more shades I have to work with the more fun it'll be - I tell myself I'm building up a decent palette! But actually it's mostly that I have various other things to finish first - 'I've started so I'll finish' is not a phrase associated with me, more like 'I've started so, oooh, look, something shiny..'! I did break into my own colours though to do a couple of squares for the Ursula's Donegal blanket project organised by Antje (of the Yarn Cake) - she wanted colours associated with the countryside of Donegal and though the nearest I've been to Donegal is Connemara (i.e. not particularly near at all) Antje had done a mood-board to give people an idea of colours. I thought the onion dye and the blackberry one might suit so knitted up a couple of squares, and very enjoyable they were too. I hope the colours fit in with all the others she received - apparently she got enough squares for two blankets so that's brilliant!

On the subject of dyeing I'm really excited that the anthemis tinctoria I've been growing from seed have survived been chucked around in a gale and now they've been planted out in various places they're thriving - the ones in the pot are doing particularly well:


Yesterday was the longest day in the northern hemisphere - it also had a bloody good try at being the wettest day in my neck of the woods.


I went out to my knitting group and get Quite Wet on the way and Thoroughly Drenched on the way back.


I know it doesn't look much, but believe me it was bucketing down. But, hey! Still light!
My shoes and bag are still drying out, and my jeans are in the wash. So I didn't feel too silly working on the thick cosy sock after all!

Oooh, I've just noticed the 'labels' thing on blogger. I'll give it a try - bet I get bored with it quickly though!

On an Adventure - part three

Heron! I love herons! And oyster-catchers, but I couldn't get close enough to get pics of those.

Fortunately seaweedy rocks don't move so I could get a misty loch shot. We went to Dunoon that day and it poured the whole time so no photos of that. But I went to the wool-shop I went to last time and got some more King Cole Riot for the blanket I'm knitting, so not a wash-out. And I got the kids some books in a charity-shop :-). We've done very well for kids books in charity shops recently.

And finally we headed home the following day in even more torrential rain. This was at the Rest and Be Thankful again - where the warning signs were flashing as there was a higher risk of landslides and falling rocks. Unnerving!

So.. between rain and falling into burns and splashing along the shore and what have you, our soggiest adventure yet. Come to the West of Scotland in the Spring!

On an Adventure - part two

Rain rain rain rain rain rain. Rain.

We went to Inveraray Castle (which looked a bit green, most odd) in the rain. Photography isn't allowed inside so I only have a few pictures of outside, but they're good fun - love the windows!


The unfortunate thing about visiting such a place with my kids however is that I can't tell you a thing about the history of the place. No idea how old it is or anything. Fortunately it's all there on the website so I can read it leisure without an impatient four-year-old person saying 'Come on.. this way.. hurry up..'

It really did absolutely bucket down the whole time we were there. We'd had to stop in Inveraray to buy new wellies for Miss Mouse as she'd fallen in the burn the previous afternoon and her boots were sodden on the inside. Those new boots ended up being the icon of our little break yet I don't have a picture of them. I should have a close-up of them in their gorgeous pink brightness.

Anyway, just as we got back to where we were staying the sun came out, so the Boy and I went out for a wander to take some pictures and find some treasures on the beach. As I grew up close to the sea (and I'm talking metres) it was lovely to spend some time pottering around the shore with the Boy. Last time we were there we saw some huge starfish from the jetty but this time the sea was too choppy and the seaweed too thick to see as much.




Ah, a bit of gorgeous colour!