Looking For a Cross Stitch Kit

I've finished another little cross stitch picture for a card

Koalas with googly eyes.

I have a request..........do you do cross stitch or know people who do. Please could you ask around and see if anyone has a chart for the little owl on the right. It would have been a free kit on Cross Stitcher Magazine but no idea how long ago -I'm guessing within in the last 10 years.

The  kit made a scissor case which, with the scissors in the case, made the handles look like the owls eyes. I don't need the kit - just the chart.
I saw these 3 kits on ebay and they sold for.........wait for it................. £19!!!

This is probably a vain hope but while I keep fingers crossed I'll start another little picture for a card.
Purple Irises this time I think

Back Tomorrow
Sue

Strange Times, End of Week 7

What have I been doing all week?
Much the same as the week before and the one before that.................. except this week it rained.

I had to search out some photos for something and re-found an old one taken at ICI (Imperial Chemical Industries) in Stowmarket from perhaps the 1950's? I put it on the Stowmarket Past and Present Facebook page and almost straight away there was a comment from someone who I was at Stowmarket Grammar School with in the late 1960's.(now living overseas). From my grandad's surname he had wondered if it was me writing? A while later another person commented to say the man on the left was their late father - How brilliant to have a name! The power of Facebook!
My family had lots of connections with ICI, my Mum worked there as a paint colour tester and met my Dad, a machine operator there. My Dad's sister met her husband there through my Dad. Then my first husband was a apprentice machinist there when I met him in the 1970's.
 The man on the right in the photo is my grandad, perhaps he worked there too although I didn't know he had. My cousin might know.  ICI in Stowmarket was a huge employer back in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and 1980s. Producing the famous Dulux paint. The factory is still there- even bigger but was taken over in the 90's I think, it's probably still a big employer.

I'm sure the rain this week has done the garden a lot of good - hopefully it will have helped the fruit trees and bushes. The cooler weather was good for the young plants in the greenhouse........... until they get a good root system they tend to flag in hot sunshine. Years ago I used to paint the greenhouse with some white stuff specially made to keep the heat down but then on dull days not enough light gets through.
I've planted the cascade tomato plants into the baskets on the garage wall. Hope it's not to early but the bricks of the wall hold a lot of heat so hopefully that will keep them warm and today I have to venture out to deliver the remaining tomato plants to my BiL . The first lot of Climbing French Bean plants are now outside. I always put a little  fence round them made from sacking stapled to stakes, to protect from wind and frosts and animals. I'll leave sowing runner beans as late as possible in the hope they'll keep producing right up to the first frosts.
There were only 2 spears of asparagus this week but I pulled and cooked lots of rhubarb.

According to something I came across on a local facebook page, the Post Office are stopping Saturday deliveries of letters supposedly to "ease the burden on postal workers". Although they are still delivering parcels and collecting from letter boxes.


This week I am grateful for

• Rain for the garden
• Food in the cupboards
• My greenhouse 

Hope everyone has a good weekend. As well as dropping tomato plants at BiL's house, I'm picking up a bag of compost from a company who've just started to  run a fruit and veg stall in a village hall car park (with social distancing of course) and posting a birthday card - that's my excitement for the weekend!

Back Monday
Sue

PS - One day next week I get to the 1,000th  post - with giveaways!!

May Country Days

From The Nature Notes of an Edwardian Lady.

The name of this month is of doubtful origin. Ovid suggests the goddess Maia, the mother of Mercury. In the Roman Catholic Church May is known as the 'Month of Mary.' 
 Or perhaps from the word maiores (meaning Elders) as this was the month when the Romans celebrated the older members of their families

So many weather sayings for May, everyone desperate to know what the weather would be like during the main growing season.

Best known, although no one has ever decided for definite if it means May the month or may the flower of the hawthorn.

Ne'er cast a clout 'til May is out.

                                  Most old sayings prefer a wet and cold month (hope it isn't!)

May damp and cool fills the barns and wine vats

Water in May is bread all the year

A cold May is kindly,
 And fills the barn nicely.

A wet May

Makes a big load of hay.

In the middle of May comes the tail of the winter

A Page from The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady by Edith Holden.

For ancient Celtic people May 1st was Beltane( Bel's Fire). The first day of summer and bonfires were lit to help the sun regain it's strength. A day of feasting and in many places there are still traditional events on this day, involving dancing round maypoles, May Queens, Garland dancers and Morris men and hobby horses.

The Maypole Pub in Wetherden, a village in Mid Suffolk.

I don't know how many pubs in England are called The Maypole but in the village where I went to primary school there is a one and a very old building it is too...... circa 1530. The maypole in the middle of the front yard wasn't there until a few years ago.

 

This is my vase of flowers for the first week of May. The last of my tulips from the cutting garden and some invasive bluebells - not native.

I won't be bringing in May blossom or Elder flowers because...........

Hawthorn blossom and Elder flowers

Fill the house with evil powers.

Watch out for late frosts around the third week of May. These are attributed to Saint Dunstan (or St. Franklin in some versions). Apparently he made a pact with the devil in order to obtain good sales of his beer. In return for his soul the devil promised to attack the blossoms of the  apple trees in the orchards so that the cider makers would have less cider to sell.




Back Tomorrow
Sue