Category Archives: Puppy tales

Royal Arcade

Just a short post today. I wanted to share my photos of Norwich’s beautiful Art Nouveau Arcade. I visited my hairdresser, and as I sat there with my hair covered in goo, knitting away, I realised what a lovely view it had of all the tiles in the upper part of the arcade. Jon let me take a couple of shots out of the open window, on condition that I didn’t let any pigeons fly in, or drop my camera on the head of an unsuspecting passerby.
Back on ground level …

Yet again it was a very cold day, so in the interests of not spending any more money, I didn’t dally in town. By the time I got on the Park and Ride bus my hands were far too cold to carry on with my knitting…

…and in fact needed help with photographing it when I got home…

(Henry is more than a little peeved because Higgins, who had been hogging the fireside all morning while Henry was upstairs on our bed, decide that the floor was a little hard and dragged his bed across the floor and pushed it up against the fireguard making quite sure there was no chance of Henry doing his usual bully boy thing and chasing him off the hearth rug.)

Talk about smug…

Valentines Day…

…and it was nearly not cold. Although I have become so lazy I was terribly tempted to curl up on the sofa with the Sunday papers I knew this was a rare chance for some sea air and a mud free walk so we donned warm coats and hats, Higgins too (well I haven’t manage to get him to wear a hat yet, I suppose I could tie his ears under his chin like a head scarf) and set off for Waxham beach. Even there we had to wade through mud to get to nice clean sand. I’m so glad we chose a portable dog who can be popped under an arm and kept clean. It was worth it though…

Although he still has all his puppy playfulness, Higgins is now very much a ‘grown-up’ even if it is in miniature,( but is still a complete ‘Cuddle Sponge’!)

Marking Time…

This is what I feel I’m doing at the moment, marking time, waiting… Waiting for the spring, waiting for my studio to be build, waiting to climb out of the muddle of boxes that surround me in which I have packed all my materials so I can’t find anything…

My sanity has been saved by having some wool and fleece to hand so I have been needle felting pincushions. As well as the two I made as prizes (which I got in the post this morning despite the snow and ice)…

I have made a couple more with a view to selling them when I get my Folksy shop up and running (another ‘Watch this Space’ moment!) It’s a comforting thing to do, needle felting. It’s very tactile, it’s like magic feeling the change from soft fluffiness to springy firmness happening in your hand with just the action of the needle. And the colours are cheerful, just what we need with all this whiteness!

The sun shone yesterday and so Higgins and I managed to go out for a walk. It really hasn’t been that easy in this weather. Higgins is very much a fairweather walker, and any suggestion that we might go out in inclement conditions sends him scuttling behind a chair, or burrowing under his blanket, and I am easily persuaded not to bother myself! However yesterday he was kitted out in his jacket and carried beyond the point of no return so he made the best of it.

I took the steam driven camera along and I’m getting such good results it makes me very frustrated with the Olympus (which is packed up to go back to the shop tomorrow)

As I sit here I am looking out at two very chilly chaps building the studio as the snow blows all around and into the cups of tea I have just taken out. I suppose it concentrates the mind towards getting the roof on, I’m really glad I’m sitting in here at the computer!

The sky looks blue, it isn’t, it’s snowing! I’m looking forward to showing this view in a few months when the sun is shining, the flowers are in bloom and there is a glass of something cool and delicious on the garden table!

Woops, late again…!

I’ve been conspicuous by my absence so far this year and a m only slightly comforted by the fact that most of my favourite bloggers seem to be in much the same boat. I had such good intentions too!

So, an update. Firstly, Higgins is just a little less of a dog this evening having gone to the vets to be modified today. He is rather sleepy and subdued just now but we are assured in a day or so we’ll be struggling to stop him bouncing around while he recouperates.

Thank you for all the guesses for the use of my mystery object in the last post. I have had a lovely time reading them. I’m going to keep it running for a little while longer and see if I can find a couple of prizes, one for the most accurate guess and another for the one that makes me laugh the most so do please keep them coming in.

My final excuse for being a little tardy with my posts is an eye sight problem so I spent this morning while Higgins was safely at the vet with the optician. I’m hoping the amazing space age super duper lens being flown in from Germany in a week or so will do the trick. Judging by the price I should also have Xray vision and be able discover new planets without the aid of a telescope so seeing the computer screen clearly will be a doddle.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible…

Happy feet in hand knitted socks

I’m celebrating the completion of a second pair of socks! Despite my little difficulty about repeating myself, I’ve actually made not one but two pairs of matching socks with Christmas presents in mind. I don’t make them for just anybody. They take too long, and the wool is too expensive to give then to the people who look at them askance and then buy multipacks of sports socks from Matalan (you know who you are!) No my socks are for the appreciative people in my life, and for them I am happy to acknowledge the fact that they have two feet and go that extra mile to produce two socks the same. Although the price of a ball of sock yarn to produce one pair is more than that multi pack, I realised today as I was lining up my personal collection for a photoshoot that I am still wearing the first pair I ever made, in 2004. And they still make me happy…

I had a little help with the photography, Higgins wasn’t sure about the lighting…

Reasons to be cheerful…

Funny how just a little thing can change how you view the day…Getting out in the garden in dressing gown and slippers with the puppy BEFORE the rain starts is always a good start. Higgins hasn’t got the hang of the fact that the more times you make a run for the door without doing what you came out for just prolongs the agony. He is struggling with country life really, too much weather, he should have gone to live with Paris Hilton.

Todays mail was very exciting… firstly, red polka dot cake tins…

So good, I had to do styling…

…and my Spoonflower fabric…

When I first discovered Spoonflower I was too intrigued to go away and come up with a new design, I went for the nearest jpg file, my faithful pink sheep, and like it so much I ordered a fat quarter as a test run. My pink sheep started life on an invitation designed by my son Thomas Taylor for my Graduation party four years ago and was originally wearing a mortar board. I loved her too much to send her off to oblivion, so with the help of Photoshop she hung up her mortar board and joined me here on Planet Penny. I’ve offered to make Thomas a pink sheep bow tie, but strangely, he’s declined…

I was so excited by all this I initially overlooked the fact that my latest copy of ‘Selvedge’ had arrived…Oh. Joy!..

…with this beautiful image on a card inside.

After a wet morning, a band of blue started to spread from the west, and the wind became a breeze, just right for a spot of exercise. I’ve tried to get round the short dog = cold wet tummy problem with a rather smart fleece jumper for Higgins. Apart from the fact that I could have bought myself two fleeces for the cost of a tailor-made miniature dachshund one, getting it on is a bit like putting skin on a sausage. Then you have the problem of persuading him to get out of bed…

We got out there eventually though…

Even the sugar beet looks good in the sunshine, and you can just see home across the field…

All that was left was to make a cake to justify the fact I had bought not just one, but three tins to put cake in. I had some windfall apples, so a quick flip around Google and…Easy Apple Cake? …yes, we like easy. Well, it was easy enough to put together, but who has a 20cm x 30cm tin to hand? And how would the capacity of a tin you haven’t got compare with the one you have got? So, a round cake instead. Fine. But…how does that affect the cooking time? Answer – a lot. After the allotted 40 minutes a gorgeous crispy crust trembled above a completely liquid interior, another twenty minutes, then ten and then another twenty five minutes before the ‘sod it’ moment when I got it out and decided that was IT.

And it was.

Delicious…