Basket case...

I am definitely a basket case when it comes to baskets! I can spot a basket a mile off. In fact I did once shout 'stop the car!' when we passed a skip with a huge old basket in it. It was in great shape but had a broken handle which I removed when we got home and have used the basket for the last five years for laundry. It fits nicely underneath the washing machine door and is a lot nicer to have lying around than the plastic type. So M is used to me making a beeline for anything that looks remotely like wicker, whether in skips or junk shops and is even quite supportive of my habit!

Free is good but £2.50 isn't bad either. This latest find reminds me very much of the 70s style we had several of when I was a child. The handles are sturdy and the bottom is actually reinforced with thin metal bars so this is a very good quality one. Having browsed the charity shops first and picked up a few groceries afterwards the bag also passed the food shopping test so I think this one will be much used. It will be holding a few snacks and a little bit of crochet later today when we go over to J's new cricket club and watch his outdoor training session.

Dear Trainspotter...

I hope you have a family that care for you, that you laugh and spend time with when you are not sitting alone on a bench in a smokey train station, writing numbers in your notebook and taking photographs of trains.

I hope you have a little garden or allotment somewhere that you enjoy pottering around in when you are not sitting alone on that bench in a grotty train station in a town which appears to have a record breaking crime rate.

In fact, I hope that your fellow 'spotters' come over and have a chat with you and that later you get home safely because in just two short hours in your town I witnessed more people being bundled into police cars than I have ever seen anywhere before.

...and if you haven't got a family or a garden, or even nice neighbours, I hope you enjoy your train spotting and that the drunks leave you alone.


I watched this lonely man at the station for half an hour. He wasn't like the other trainspotters who were so intent on recording and photographing that they barely noticed the presence of anyone else. The man on the bench discretely wrote down his numbers, took a few quick snaps and sat and watched and smiled at families passing by. I couldn't help but wonder if he had a family. I can't bear to think of older lonely people, especially in a town like the one I visited today. Within ten minutes of getting off the train a violent argument and fight had broken out between two young families. Police were quickly on the scene. A short time later I saw a man being frogmarched down the high street in handcuffs, his jeans barely holding up. He was very drunk. It was ten in the morning. Police were everywhere, and every shop was heavy on the security staff. It was quite an experience.

Cat and mouse...

It is definitely time for M's computer and all it's bits and pieces to be moved away from the corner by the patio doors. Last year this was my armchair spot for sitting just inside the sunlounge on slightly cooler summer days or just plain blustery summer days (we seem to get a lot of windy days in Lincolnshire).

In fact, this year I am going to place two armchairs just inside the doors because my 'spot' was very popular last year. I tried the spot out today, without moving the computer, just to make sure it was still a good spot. It is still a good spot. More to the point it is still a good spot for crochet.

The fluffy stuff is crocheting up much easier than I imagined. It is losing some of its fluffiness as the yarn is woven into stitches though. I have read that this can be rectified by brushing gently with a small cat brush. I have just the thing; it's never been used in Mollie. Ironic that I'll be using a cat brush to fluff up a mouse!

Keeping it simple...

Well the weekend is over but I am still on a mission to keep it simple. Boiled eggs and gluten free soldiers made a nice change from gluten free muesli this morning.

I made my first crochet face cloth at the weekend (an excuse to sit a little longer in the sun). I realise now I should have made dozens of these when I started out in crochet. They are the perfect beginner project. I've had this aran denim cotton kicking around for years. I liked the look of it but it was awkward to knit. Thankfully it is better suited to crochet.

I've never been a flannel sort of person; preferring to rinse soap from my face with cupped hands of water. That may change now that I have tried out this little square of ripple shell stitch. Of course, now everyone else wants one too. Oh dear, making crochet face cloths is a hard job but someone's gotta do it!

Simple pleasures...

Apologies for another cat in the box photo. This was where Mollie spent a large part of today despite the sunshine. I was browsing through my snapshots of Harvey splashing about (he moves so fast they are mostly a black and white blur!) and thought that the cat in the box picture captures how I feel today in a funny kind of way...

I had a bit of an ear problem today (rubbed raw) and had to stay 'switched off' to let it heal. This can sometimes be a problem for those around me but rarely a problem for me. By the middle of the afternoon with M taking E to cricket training and J playing virtual football I realised just what a fabulous silent day I was having. So much more brain space! Without the external hubbub of every day life, which my brain usually has to work overtime to make sense of (kettles boiling sound the same to me as jumbo jets passing overhead) I could actually hear my own thoughts.

All this has probably occurred to me before in some shape or other but today it seemed revolutionary. Life was simple once more, and that is something I constantly strive for in a world of chaos and noise.

Simple pleasures today included;

Line drying the washing
Weeding my herb patch and finding that most of the herbs had survived our nasty winter
Disassembling last years bonfire to check for hedgehogs or mice (I did this last year and found a mouse nest)
Gathering all the wind fall twigs and branches so that they don't go under the lawn mower
Throwing tennis balls into the field for the dog
Dragging out the patio table and treating it with teak oil
Giving the Lloyd Loom chairs a good airing in the sun
Finding a raspberry plant that hadn't been planted and planting it in my herb patch
Having a cup of tea in the sun!
Sewing up a tear in some pyjama trousers
Choosing a left over ball of organic cotton and crocheting a face cloth (more on that later)
Not hearing a single sound all day (oh my goodness, I must be going deaf!)

So how does all that feel like a cat in a box? Well, for all the beds we have bought her; radiator ones, fluffy ones, wicker baskets, you name it... She chose a simple cardboard box. She came out of it to eat, she came out to have a stroll round the garden, she watched Harvey doing idiotic things, she even had five minutes on my lap, but her 'constant' today was her simple box. What a simple but content little life she leads.

Yippee!

Oh yes, this is more like it! Sunshine warm enough to have an excuse for a paddle! Whoopee! What? What do you mean I'll be sleeping in the kitchen tonight? Doh, spoil all my fun they do.

Thank goodness for little brothers...

Classically E left her photography homework until the eleventh hour. That is, having had an entire two week Easter holiday she left it until Sunday to get the camera out! Thank goodness the sun was shining that day and thank goodness for little brothers and pet dogs!

The brief was to recreate photographs by a famous photographer. E chose Herbert List, a photographer with a taste for the young male body. When J looked at some of the examples he decided he would model for E but not with his top off! I can't say I blame him. These photo's may well end up on display in the school they both now attend.

So, with United Nations Peace Keeping Mum (that's me by the way) and props advisor (Dad), bribed models (Jake and Harvey) and chief (or should that read 'diva'?) photographer we managed to get some snaps done...

Bear in mind that these are iPod snapshots of very poor quality print outs from the school photocopier. The originals are fantastic; worth printing out at our local print shop for E's portfolio.

First up, the selection of Herbert List photographs followed by E's recreations. The dog was a star, he posed just long enough with his teddy dangling above his nose!