The Great Escape!

Hello… It seems AGES since I was here! I keep thinking I’ve got things sussed and then it all goes pear shaped again. I’m still getting kind messages hoping I’m feeling better, and I am, thank you so much. But it’s always the way, just as you think you ought to escape and lift your foot off the pedal several things happen all at once. So much for pacing myself!

Firstly, we’ve been decorating.

I’ve still got most of the contents of downstairs, upstairs but at least the dust sheets have gone. Fortunately it was while the weather was still warm so we could have the doors open and Higgins was happy to have his bed out in the garden during the day. Henry, however, was determined to sleep where he always sleeps come what may… Did you spot him?

I now find I am on the committee of our Village Community shop (not quite sure how that happened but there are some smooth talkers in our village!) doing window display, website and social media stuff. We got off to a good start with a recipe card scheme for the shop. I devised a Croissant Bread and Butter Pudding recipe which is delicious (though I say it myself!) nothing like those dreadful B & B puds we used to be served at school. I’ve put this on the shop website so if you click here you can try it for yourself…

It’s not exactly helping my healthy eating regime though…

Our Open Studios Two Rivers Trail group has decided to get together for a Christmas Fair and Art Exhibition next month so organisation is gathering pace. You can find out all about it on the Two Rivers Trail website. Do go and look at the artists work on the website, there are some beautiful things and a real variety.

This will be the only fair I go to as Planet Penny for the forseeable future, so if you are in the area it would be lovely to see you. I’ve started making a few things but I’m afraid creativity time has been limited lately. I’m quite excited about my crochet Christmas baubles though…

… and look forward to adding new colour combinations. No two alike as usual!

Tomorrow I’m off with my chum Kit for a day out. We’re off to Alexander Palace and the Knitting and Stitching Show which I’m really looking forward to. It’s a long day but it will be worth it.

And then, I’m running away! Look,I even have a running away App on my phone!

escape app

I’m leaving Tim to look after Higgins and Henry – or possibly the other way round? packing my bag and and heading off to spend some time with two of my favourite little boys. I’m not taking the laptop, and although I shall have my phone I am determined not to look at it more than twice a day. What I thought would be fun though would be to make use of Instagram to keep a picture diary of my holiday, so if you want to keep up to date you can follow my escapades right here!

Obviously the Etsy shop will be closed until 18th October when I get back, but I hope to be bright eyed and bushy tailed after my little break.

I’m off now, see you later…x

Thank you…

I’ve got to start this with a great BIG THANK YOU! I’ve been overwhelmed by the the lovely messages, kind thoughts and helpful suggestions after my last post. I’m working my way through a list of things to investigate! I’m feeling much better now I’ve come to the end of the course of antibiotics. I struggle to keep my brain functioning rationally at the best of times, and adding fogginess and gloomy spirits to the mix was not not helpful. However, I’m much brighter now, I’ve just got to keep a tight rein of myself and not go galloping off after the next exciting thing, wear myself out and go SPLAT again.

It’s heart warming to know there is a big supportive network of kind people who really want to help one another, even though we are very often half a world apart. There are plenty of negative things to say about the internet but this can only be a big plus.

We’ve been really lucky here in Norfolk to have had some beautiful weather over the past week or so. It’s very uplifting for the spirits and I’ve tried as much as possible to get outside. Higgins has helped of course although he gets a bit impatient with the pace, and my inclination to stop with the camera or pick blackberries.

Autumn is a lovely time of year, but it’s overlaid with sadness that everything is coming to an end, which is why I prefer the optimism of Spring. But the autumn light is fantastic, misty in the mornings but golden later in the day and the night sky is spectacular. And I never tire of photographing the richness of the hedgerows, and the warm glowing colours of the berries…

It’s been pretty noisy in the early mornings here. Not traffic, although there’s been quite a bit of farm machinery on the move, but Greylag Geese. It’s lovely to see (and hear) them fly overhead, but I’ve never managed to get a reasonable photo with my little camera. The past few days however, they’ve been congregating in the neighbouring field…

And despite the limitations of a compact camera the zoom didn’t let me down…

Worth hanging out of the bedroom window for!

Planet Penny hasn’t been completely neglected through all this though, I’ve had the crochet hook on the go on and off, and a two very large boxes arrived the other day full of yarn so I’m very well stocked. It’s just as well the nice young man with a van is happy to carry them into the studio because I would never lift them myself. They will sit there now until I’ve found places to stow all the yarn packs and I will treat them like a roundabout!

I’ve added half size packs to the Planet Penny shop, seven balls of either the Sunshine or Shadows shades suitable for smaller projects…

And, and I have a question to ask…Would you like White? Last year I tried a small quantity of white yarn, Snowdrop, which I sold as a Christmas pack with patterns, do you remember?

I tried to buy more because white is such a good background for the rainbow colours…

…but the dye batch was wrong and I wasn’t happy with it.

Now a new batch is available but if it’s the right bright white I will have to buy a whole case of it. Before I completely fill my little cottage with yarn and move into the garden shed I thought I’d better see whether there’s a potential market for it! So do let me know so I can do some forward planning.

And that, for now, is it. I’m off to put my feet up and peruse the weekend papers with a cup of tea, while Higgins and Henry fight over my lap (Henry always wins too, poor Higgins!)

I’m linking up this week with Handmade Harbour for Handmade Monday, do call over to see all the crafty makes there and I’ll be back soon I’ll be back soon…x

An Aside…

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It’s hard to know just how much to share when writing a blog. Planet Penny is meant to be a happy place, and who wants to visit Blogland for a spot of light relief and be confronted by a lot of moaning?

So I usually stick with the highlights, the colourful and the jolly alongside fun things to share, and from all your lovely comments over the years it seems to be a mix which works.

But I’m not super woman, and sometimes it’s a toss up between being less than upbeat and not writing at all. And not writing really bothers me, so for better or worse, here I am.

Occasionally I mention I have M.E. . I’ve had it a long time and I’m one heck of a lot better now than I was in the beginning. Managing it is the key, I’m pretty rubbish at that. If I’m feeling reasonably well and upbeat I’m liable to rush off after the next exciting ‘thing’ and then go SPLAT. Life doesn’t arrive in handy bite sized chunks, and I’m damned if I’m going to turn down any ‘once in a lifetime’ opportunities because of it.

I’m a bit ‘SPLAT’ at the moment I’m afraid. M.E. messes with the immune system so I’ve got various niggly things going on, and topping it off with rather a lot of an antibiotic which hasn’t agreed with me has meant I’ve been very wimpy and snivelly for the past week or so. (Tim is very lucky to be in the middle of the North Sea and missing all this!)

But I’m still here! And that’s good… I’ve got lots of ideas, they’re just going to arrive a bit more slowly for the moment. The shop’s still running and I’ve just taken delivery of 2 enormous boxes of yarn and I can doing the packing sitting down.

So please bear with me!

If anyone out there ‘in the know’ has any tried and trusted recommendations for vitamins or supplements for boosting the immune system it would be great to hear about it. Preferably not of the ‘Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog’ variety though…

Thanks for listening, it’s nice to know you’re out there…x

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Postcards from the Past

One of my dear OH’s pastimes is an interest in history, which mainly keeps him out of mischief, and when he’s home from offshore the television seems to be mainly tuned to ‘Yesterday‘ and Time Team. He also has an Ebay habit, and when he’s not buying shirts (don’t get me started on the shirts!) he’s looking at photos and postcards, military badges and bugles. The photos and postcards are a great resource for interesting stuff about uniforms apparently and on the whole I’ve paid just a passing interest in the odd things which turn up in the post to be squirrelled away in his ‘office’.

But yesterday I was called in to help open a well taped little packet which required the use of fingernails and small sharp things which a crafter would have to hand.

When I eventually got through the wrapping I was confronted by this…
…which stopped me short. These days everything is documented, photographed, passed around, tagged. And yet within living memory one photograph maybe the only record that a mother may have of her not quite grown up son as he is sent off to fight for his country.

And this is the photograph. Regimental cooks with their ladles and pots, striking a pose and some of them looking so young… How many survived? And if they survived what injuries, both mental and physical, did they carry with them? We don’t even know who wrote the words on the back. Was it the young man at the back, hand on hip looking defiantly at the camera, or the slightly nervous lad on his right who looks barely old enough to shave?

And this one….

postcards c1914

…sent. I presume to a sweetheart. from B. E. F. France on Monday 12th November 1917…

…which says:

My Dear G,

….as promised it is a photo of a group of Signallers we had taken here. I hope you will survive the shock of looking at it. Many thanks for your letter here received quite safely today. I am pleased you are well as I am in the pink at present. Kindest regards to Eileen, with love from your (I think) Frank xxx

I hope Frank returned to Miss G Rogers and they had a long and happy life together, ‘in the pink’…

But who knows?

Planet Penny isn’t usually a sad place, but sometimes we need to stop and think.

I can’t imagine how it must have felt to wave goodbye to a son, a husband, a sweetheart, a brother and send them off to war. For a short while yesterday, looking at those photos from nearly 100 years ago, it seemed very real and I wanted to share them with you.

I hope these postcards from the past move you too….x

Almond Macaroons

Sometimes there just has to be a sweet treat with the afternoon cuppa, don’t you think? It’s a time when a piece of fruit doesn’t quite hit the spot. So I’m going to share this recipe for Almond Macaroons from my notebook, which you can nearly imagine is a healthy choice. It’s certainly vegetarian and gluten and dairy free. No added fat, no flour, and lovely healthy almonds. Sugar, well… sssssh… look the other way! It is a treat after all…

And we need it today, what a change in the weather! The temperature has dropped, the rain is hammering on the roof and a spot of baking in a cosy kitchen is just thing to cheer us up!

So, start off with a couple of baking sheets lined with baking parchment, you’ll need to give the macaroons room to spread as they cook. Preheat the oven to 180 deg C (160 deg C – fan oven)

Ingredients

2 medium eggs,whites only

125g (4oz) caster sugar

125g (4oz) ground Almonds

1/4 tsp almond extract

blanched almonds

Put the egg whites in a large grease free bowl and whisk into stiff peaks. Add the caster sugar a little at a time, whisking after each addition until the mixture is stiff and glossy. Gently stir in the almond essence and ground almonds so it’s well mixed, taking care not to knock out all that air you’ve just beaten in!

Spoon teaspoons of the mixture on to the prepared baking sheets spacing them slightly apart. top each one with a blanched almond, pressing in lightly, and bake in the centre of the oven for 12 – 15 minutes until lightly golden and firm to the touch.

Allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes or so before moving to a wire cooling tray. When they are completely cold transfer to an airtight tin or jar.

They will keep for about a week (if they last that long!) Lovely with that cuppa, but also adds a delicious crunch to good vanilla icecream…

The End of the Summer – A New Term…

The sun might be shining, the sky might be blue, but there is a definite ‘end of the summer’ feel as soon as the long school holidays are over, even when you are not actively involved in the school run any more. And even though its ever so many years since I was last at school, the ‘new term’ feeling has far more resonance for me than New Year for fresh starts, new ideas and new leaves turned over.

I still get a thrill from an unsullied notebook, and a new pen to write in it with, and possibly even a pencil case! It isn’t just me, is it?

But before we get down to business, there’s the ‘What I Did in the Holidays’ essay to write, and Higgins is just getting over the excitement of having his ‘boys’ to stay.

There was the beach…

…and swimming…

…camping…

…tennis…

… more swimming…

…and birthday celebrations…

So all in all it’s been a pretty active summer!

But now it’s time to get to grips with some new projects. I’ve already tantalised you a little with my last post, I’ve had the sewing machine on the go in between the fun, and I’ve a Rainbow Ripple on the crochet hook for when I’m on the sofa in the evenings…

Now I’m looking forward to getting back into my blog routine with the new projects, I hope you’ll come along with me!

I’ll be back very soon….x