Staying dry

We ventured out for Pirate to get a tooth mended...but apart from that we have stayed indoors out of the cold and wet!
I'm now working on the study.....three empty boxes and a bagful of paper recycling so far. I must really sort all of my printing work..hand printing and printer printing....
I have a bagful of ideas and tryouts for cards and prints, so organising these will be sensible!

Indoors and politics

We are busy cleaning and tidying indoors. Outside it's busy getting wet..showers interspersed with rain..and windy, but nothing to compare to Hurricane Dorian.

I'm not commenting about politics....we feel despair at what is happening. It would be good to join in any of the marches, but Pirate is stressing enough about what is going on as it is. I've had to ration the amount of "news" we hear.
Both "remainers" and "leavers" are aghast at the abuse of the system.

We would emigrate like a shot..but every country has its problems.

The first day of Autumn

We did get out for a bike ride today...and also got soaked with some very hard cold rain, at times even harder hail!
Home again the sun came out, I got several washes on the line, Pirate battled with an ancient mower. Despite having a new belt and spark plug, there is a microswitch malfunction and it is reluctant to start.
Meanwhile I got busy in the kitchen, evicting wasps and making chutney!

It is surprising how ingredients reduce....those three small jars came from a kilo of onions!
Just to prove that this is the first day of Autumn....

The first fungus in the lawn.

Waste not...

The pulp from making blackberry cordial...joined with a kilo and a half of Japonica Quinces from the freezer....

The rain thrashed against the house last night and the wind was checking all our belongings in the garden!

No bike ride today , just a walk around Hannahston reserve..with a 2 litre ice cream box and two carrier bags..just in case...

We nearly filled the box with blackberries, half filled one bag with elderberries and rowanberries and found a kilo of windfall apples for the second bag.  

At least now I know a good local clean source of blackberries! 

Rain stopped play so we returned for lunch and Pirate rode his bike on the turbo trainer indoors and I made fruit cheese.

Now we are watching the Vuelta on TV..and trying to find inspiration for supper!

First Autumn cordial

Mainly blackberry and a handful or two of elderberries.
Not enough to last a year, but a start on the job...now for more picking!

Back home again

Pirate with Zola....she is a sweetie!

Now we are back home catching up on all the ordinary jobs..bread and yoghurt making, washing, gardening,. reducing stuff.
Pirate is finding the latter difficult and I find that is stretching my patience at times! Trouble is that his stuff is blocking access to my stack of things to be sorted!

The laptop is now showing signs of impending doom..and I haven't had a chance to find out what's the matter with the camera yet..
It would be lovely to be able just to get things good enough to rely on, without a second thought..

Grumble over..I must get on with re-stocking my Etsy shop and working on some new prints!

Autumn in August?

It really feels like Autumn..and the last image is rain and wind damage on a wheat field.
We picked blackberries and even a few elderberries...time for the first batch of cordial this year!