while you're ahead...

– 147 – random

Monica Dunkley

September 27, 2017

I’m having one of those weeks.

I’m also worried that this is not actually ‘one of those weeks’ but just a regular week from now on. Scary prospect.

I made a cottage pie last night and tonight I’m going to scoff the left-overs. I just thought you should know.

Since last Saturday I’ve attended three rugby matches and one hockey match. Two more rugby ones this afternoon. The weather has been great so it is admittedly a good excuse to be outside. And we haven’t lost yet. I’m saying ‘we’ very very loosely, I’m sure you know that.

Mr M and I are finally on the last series of ‘House of Cards’. I actually don’t know why I’m saying finally… it’s been a marathon but we’ve been loving it… well, as much as you can possibly love Spacey (oh yes)/Underwood (not really)… DON’T say anything because we’re only a couple of episodes in and I’m having a bad feeling about a couple of characters and don’t want any spoilers. If you have no clue about what I’m talking about… I apologise.

Need suggestions for what to watch next.

Don’t say Breaking bad. Gross.

Don’t say Twin Peaks. Weird.

My car went in for a service and I was given one a little electric car for a few days. Oh what fun! To be honest, No 3 would have been able to drive it… he’s 12… so easy and fun.

I’ve been furiously trying to build stock for this pop up market I signed up for. I’ve been out from it all for so long that I’m not really sure what will sell or not… but it’s fun to be making again.

I’m also reading great books and when I have more than five minutes I’ll tell you all about it.

And I’ve bought three – THREE – things for the boys’ Christmas stockings… BOOM!

And now I need to go and measure walls for wallpaper… exciting stuff… no seriously, it is. Just wait and see.

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– 146 – poetry Monday

Monica Dunkley

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September 25, 2017

Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me (by Mary Oliver)

Last night
the rain
spoke to me
slowly, saying,
what joy
to come falling
out of the brisk cloud,
to be happy again
in a new way
on the earth!
That’s what it said
as it dropped,
smelling of iron,
and vanished
like a dream of the ocean
into the branches
and the grass below.
Then it was over.
The sky cleared.
I was standing
under a tree.
The tree was a tree
with happy leaves,
and I was myself,
and there were stars in the sky
that were also themselves
at the moment
at which moment
my right hand
was holding my left hand
which was holding the tree
which was filled with stars
and the soft rain –
imagine! imagine!
the long and wondrous journeys
still to be ours.

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– 145 – ‘Siv’ socks

Monica Dunkley

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September 22, 2017

Have you come across ‘Laine‘ magazine yet? If you haven’t, click on the link and have a look, it’s full of beautiful photography and great wearable patterns.

Siv is the 2nd pattern I’v knitted from issue 1 and it’s fabulous despite the fact I’ve suffered from a very severe case of 2nd sock syndrome which has caused me guilt trips galore and months went by between socks. Many months. Shame on me.

The cabling is not perfect. I’ve had to learn a lot of new technique and stitches… twice, actually, because by the time I got to the 2nd socks my mind had forgotten it all. My fault.

The yarn is Plucky knitter Primo… don’t ask me the colour way though.. I’ve lost the band. (Thank you Kristina!)

2.25mm needles because I knit very loosely and always need smaller needles than the recommended size.

What else can I say… they were a pleasure to knit and they’ll be a pleasure to wear. My son asked me what’s the point to have a pattern down the foot that will be hidden by the shoes. I told him I’ll wear them with sandals all winter. It might be worth doing just to see his face!

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– 144 – music Wednesday

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

September 20, 2017

When I was 14, still living in Italy and attending highschool, during the days before MTV entered our lives and approximately 6 months before I even knew who Bruce Springsteen was, a new programme appeared on television every lunchtime at 2.00pm. Right after lunch (and didn’t it make us eat quicker or what) and before homework… It was called Deejay Television and all it was was 30 minutes of unadulterated music videos.

BANG.

So cool.

Nowadays videos are not a big thing… at least not amongst my boys, they never talk about it anyway, but back then… videos were huge. It was the only chance to ‘see’ your favourite singers or bands, not just listen to their voices or look at a static photograph on the cover of an LP. (Sigh… remember those?)

Anyway, this programme had also had the genius idea of playing a video every day with the lyrics of the song running along the bottom of the screen, karaoke style. It might not seem a big deal to you if you’ve grown up in an English speaking country, but for us foreigners it was the chance of finally trying to understand what the songs were all about. It also highlighted how the 80s were definitively not a good decades for lyricist… oh dear… (I mean I loved the Spandau Ballet… but ‘we are gold’… it’s not a good line, or Bros, remember them? ‘When will I, will I be famous? I can’t answer that, I can’t answer that’… or Culture Club (Boy George used to terrify my very conservative father by the way) ‘war war is stupid and people are stupid’… sigh… although the latter one is kind of still pertinent nowadays sadly..)

Incidentally that is how I began to learn English outside school. To these days I haven’t met anybody else who has translated every single Bruce’s song (till Born in the USA album anyway)… I must have been mad. I wished I’d kept those sheets though, they’d probably look hilarious now.

So to cut a long story short I’ve decided that this blog needs a little music and whilst I’m not a huge Keith Urban’s fan (he needs to brush/comb his hair most of the time) this song has been in my head for the past few days.

Incessantly.

I was going to show you the actual video made for the song… but I hate it.. so you get the man himself in all his uncombed glory. The dude can sing alright.

AND if you don’t find yourself … swinging side to side at least… when you listen , there’s something seriously wrong with you and you need to seek help.

Just saying.

– 143 – shall we walk the dog?

Monica Dunkley

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September 19, 2017

You know me by now… I love travelling and exploring new places. I find it most refreshing and invigorating. When life gets a little humdrum… I need to do/go/learn something new.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t envy people that always holiday in the same location (hey I’m a gemini after all it’s my prerogative to be contrary). When a place becomes their own, becomes them, part of the fabric of their lives, memories are woven with a location, a house, a town and year after year they add to this experience till they create this cozy blanket that is incredibly comforting and reassuring and reaffirming of one’s place in the cosmo, I think.

But it’s isn’t me. Even if at times I’d like it to be. There are places I want to go back to to get to know more… but they could never be ‘it’. New places are like a drug almost, the unexpected path, the surprising view, the unknown. I find more comfort in the new and unknown than in the old and familiar. Most of the time anyway. And it’s not that I’m brave or an intrepid explorer of anything… I’ve never really travelled on my own and I don’t like walking around in the dark at night… but the new? It’s intriguing.

Also, whilst I love travelling to far away places I’m a firm believer that one should get to know one’s own hometown which is why I like driving down streets I’ve never driven down before – something that drives the boys and the occasional taxi driver mildly insane, and which is also why I’ve taking Lilli the ferocious beast on some unusual walks lately. I’m so bored of the park by our house… she’s not but… tough… I hold the lead, right? She takes her revenge by barking at every single person walking on the pavement by our house so I’d say we’re even!

On Sunday Lilli and I visited a local car park (stay with me…) because I’d heard that as part of the Street Art Festival a whole wall at the back of it had been painted by different street artists.

You know me and street art… I find it fascinating…

Today we walked part of the Honeybourne line, a path that used to be part of the old railway line connecting Cheltenham (where I live) and Honeybourne, in Worcestershire. It’s now a cycle path and I’m ashamed to say it was my first time on it in 23 years of living here. Shameful, I know.

What a pleasant surprise!

It was green and lush, clean and tidy, full of lunchtime joggers and mums with prams… but not too crowded as you can see. Lilli had a field day with all the new smells and is now collapsed on the sofa with a smile on her face.

I had the pleasant surprise of many more graffiti from the same street art festival so we were both happy.

An urban oasis hidden from the road… with a spot of street art… result.

Aren’t they great?

So the moral of the rambling story is that it’s worth leaving the trodden path because you never know what you’re going to find. I look forward to exploring a little more… near or far.

– 142 – indoor gardening

Monica Dunkley

2 comments

September 18, 2017

I’m not a gardener.

I enjoy being in a garden, I love sitting and reading in the garden, I love waltzing around cutting flowers and then going back inside and put them into vases… but that is the extend of my skills. The fact that I don’t know much (anything) about gardening might be where the problem lies… I can rake leaves… but I don’t know my weeds from my primroses… so no. Gardening is not for me. Once I got told off by my father in law (before he was my father in law) because I was mowing the lawn ‘and not doing the stripes’… what? stripes? Apparently I was mowing the lawn like I was hoovering the carpet.

Lawn stripes, you see, are an English obsession. I’m surprised there wasn’t a mowing the lawn exercise when I took my citizenship test!

But I’m veering off theme here… gardening… yes… no, actually gardening no, but house plants yes. In a big way. I love them. All of them. The weirder the better. It does help that we live in a house with huge windows, of course, but I like to think it’s because of my love towards them and the constant sound of country music that they thrive.

For example the Pileas Peperomoioides are thriving and are having babies all of them, I was told they have babies in the spring, but we’re ‘in season’ right now… I’ve tried re-potting one for now just to see if it survives.

This gorgeous little thing has moved into a new pad 4 days ago and seems to be doing ok in my hand thrown coffee cup…

… there are few others still living with their parents, so fingers crossed.

I have no idea of what type of plant this is (if you do let me know, please) but what I know is that it has virtually doubled the quantity of ‘stems/leaves’ since the beginning of the summer.

Again we shall see if it’ll survive the trauma of separation.

The Oxalis Triangularis seems very settled in a much bigger vase…

Have you ever tried propagating an Oxalis?? It’s definitively one of my favourite, but don’t tell the others.

This type of gardening is fun!

Also I’m very fond of pottery and am always on the look out for different pots.

– 141 – how many is too many?

Monica Dunkley

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September 14, 2017

Houston we have a problem.

It’s the scarves. There’s too many.

I did a half Mary Kondo… I collected them all and dumped the big pile on the table

Quite a frightening sight to be honest, things had obviously gone completely out of hand, but with the help of a few baskets and a rubbish bag I tamed the beasts.

So now we have a basket of summer scarves in the wardrobe, a box of woven scarves, a basket for hats and gloves and a big one for all the hand knit shawls.

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I haven’t been terribly ruthless. Not all of the summer scarves ‘sparked’ a huge amount of joy… but I had years of my mother’s voice in the back of my head saying ‘never throw away anything at the end of a season, wait till next year when you get stuff out again…’ . And in the context between my mother and Marie Kondo… Marie, frankly doesn’t stand a chance.

Horrible job, but glad it’s over.

Now I can plan my next knitting project… I’m sure I can squeeze another one in the basket… right?

– 140 – poetry Monday

Monica Dunkley

1 comment

September 11, 2017

Morning Poem (by Billy Collins)

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,
the swale of the afternoon,
the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,
his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—
throwing off the light covers,
feet on the cold floor,
and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,
a palmful of vitamins—
but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,
the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,
a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—
trees fifty, a hundred years old
out there,
heavy clouds on the way
and the lawn steaming like a horse
in the early morning.

– 139 – apple cake

Monica Dunkley

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September 8, 2017

Not an apple pie, not an apple tart… just a simple, old fashioned apple cake.

Delicious.

In my old and tattered cookery book there’s the copy of an email that my mother sent me on Nov 18, 2000. Seeing the delivery address makes me feel funny… a month later I would say goodbye to my colleague to go to maternity leave for the first time… and I never returned. Seventeen years later the little boy I was carrying is 6’2” and has just started his penultimate year at school. Scary.

Back to the cake, here’s the list of ingredients. You can use a mixer, but I just mix all the ingredients by hand, it really doesn’t take long.

2 large eggs

200gr caster sugar

200gr self raising flower

1tsp vanilla extract

1tsp butter (melted)

1 pinch of salt

(you can also add the rind of one lemon.. if you like)

1kg of cooking apples (weighted when whole)

Milk

Mix all the ingredients (it helps if you mix the eggs and the sugar first and add the rest a little at a time later) and then add milk to make it into a sauce like consistency…’ but not too runny’. (These are exactly the ‘helpful’ words my mother used… you don’t want it to be liquid, but equally you need the stuff to slide off your spoon easily)

At this point you add your apples cut into thin slices or small pieces (the thinner you slice them the softer they get when cooked. This time I did them in chunks because I wanted to feel the apple pieces. It’s totally your preference…

Bake at 180C till the top is golden (30min ish… keep an eye on it, ‘when the top is looks cooked is cooked’ (another of my mother’s gems)

This is what it looks before it goes into the oven

ta daaaaahhh…. and after!

It’s soft and moist with a sugary crunchy, sticky top… which is why soon after this picture was taken, this happened.

Sigh…

Mr M likes it warm with vanilla ice-cream. I like it cold ,the day after for breakfast.

– 138 – giant knitting

Monica Dunkley

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September 7, 2017

I’m probably the last person to jump on the giant knitting bandwagon… but better late than never, right? I’ve always admired the oversized wool from afar but it was only when I saw one first hand at The Village Haberdashery than I really understood. I literally saw the light in between the giant stitches.

Giant knitting blankets are awesome. Stupendous. Maybe a little silly but oh so so so irresistible.

I wished I had taken a picture of the huge ball of 1.1Kg of yarn.. alas (love that word… over the top and totally befitting of the subject, me thinks)… alas I was too excited to start knitting.

I bought the kit because let’s face it… this size knitting needles it’s not in my collection!

huge!

And check the size of the yarn… sigh… so soft too… ( incidentally this is all that’s left)

So anyway, three episodes of House of Cards later (we’re still on series 4, love it) and we have a blanket. How cool is that?

(dog spam… she’s so cute)

Perfect for snuggling under during chilly Autumn afternoons with a good book… or a cup of tea and a black and white movie…

These fashions come and go, I’m aware of that, and probably when the kids will empty my attic after they ship me to an assisted living facility and find this baby they’ll laugh and roll their eyes … but who knows, they might have become trendy again by then (look at the resurgence of macrame…) and will be sold for a fortune. Or not. Most likely it will end up a dog blanket in a rescue dog kennel.

Sigh.

In the meantime… it’s mine. All mine.

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