Misfits, bonus skirt and nature sightings

Misfits arrived yesterday, with an unexpected bonus. They had accidentally packed hake instead of the cod I'd ordered, so they refunded me. They can't charge for an item I didn't order, so I get bonus fish, which I expect I can use happily.

 Yesterday's walk yielded all kinds of bonuses, including the discovery of a mass of cherry tomato vines tossed into the trees. Does it count as foraging when you come home with a handful of cherry tomatoes from abandoned vines? 

And this little late-season baby blue jay shouting up a storm, not able to get loft to fly away when he saw me

I left quietly, because the parents were probably nearby wanting me to leave so they could feed the baby. He still had the yellow around the beak of a very young bird.

And on to a newly growing fungus, I'm guessing chicken of the woods. Those fallen trees are so rich.

Here's a garden specimen, huge and much redder in real life than seen here

And while I'm waiting for the heddle, I found myself making a pleated skirt, here the first fitting. 

And a closer view of the soft pleats, which I did by guesswork, and the waist fits,  surprisingly. I just made the tie which will thread through the waistband, then I need to hem it and I'll have definitely my last skirt of the summer. Well, after I make a side seam pocket, that is.

Happy bonus-filled day, everyone!

Crowns large and small

Yesterday I got The Crown Part One, very undramatic, thanks to a good dentist and an excellent assistant. Dentistry is complicated for me owing to the occasional laryngeal spasm. 

It's like getting cramp in your airway. It's dangerous, scary, and I avoid triggers. So having equipment and water spraying about my mouth, water hitting my throat being a prime trigger for me, I'm always grateful for expert dentists. It's also why swimming is not a source of joy! 

So that was wonderful, to have it done and only needing the permanent crown in a couple of weeks, much simpler process.

Speaking of crowns, all the talk around yesterday about people who hadn't known any other Queen than Elizabeth II, reminded me that my mom's life was bracketed by queens. 

Born in 1895, she was old enough to read out the newspaper account of Queen Victoria's death to her mother. So she lived through Edward VII, Edward VIII and the abdication -- always was on the side of Edward, thought Prime Minister Baldwin a bitter old man-- then George VI and in to Elizabeth .

She also saw many changes and inventions, from newspaper accounts of events, often days after they'd happened, all the way to live television.  

She remembered newspaper accounts if Bleriot's famous first biplane flight across the Channel, daringly flying over water! And she admired Amy Johnson, pioneer flyer,  whom she always called Amy Mollison, that being her maiden name, under which she first became famous. 

This weekend's viewing, calm, peaceful is

I've probably seen it but a second evening with Mma Ramotswe is fine.

Yesterday's gardening consisted of yanking out the cherry tomato plant which was starting to fail, the nights being too cool for further ripening. 

This is one plant, amazingly productive. I have a couple of hundred tomatoes ripening on the windowsill and on plates.

And you see the spent eggshell I found under it, probably a mourning dove 

The departure of the tomato plant leaves breathing room for the butterfly bush which is going to be spectacular

Happy gardener here. And next year I'll plant tomatoes again now that I know they can grow in that unlikely shady damp spot. Unless the butterfly bush has completely taken over.

Happy day everyone, lovely spell of weather, very typical of this time in September, sunshine, low humidity, cool nights, everyone very cheerful. 

Ukraine has retaken some of their own territory. Slava Ukraini! 

Textiles and Tea, Donna Leon, tomato harvest

Yesterday's Textiles and Tea was a celebration of Nigerian cotton textiles and indigo. It's used for dyeing and medicine in Nigeria where it grows in abundance.

Here's several different dyeing techniques. Adire, a tapioca method, dyes one side only .

There are traditional motifs, such as the gecko, significant to daily experience, and the spiral and other shapes.

Here he's using a sponge to apply motifs to the design

The guest now lives in the US but travels a lot teaching dyeing techniques and a respect for indigo, the magic dye. He loves the community of textile dyers and workers and the mutual respect of dyer and material.

He's a joyful man and a happy artist!

From simple magic to high tech magic

And in the garden this morning, see that lone ripe tomato? 

Yesterday it was a ripening cluster. I see I have to keep ahead of the squirrels here.

Meanwhile I'm reading a Donna Leon

She does great titles. This is not the latest, for which I'm in line.

Happy day everyone, a couple of good election results in, Dems won a special House election in NY,  straw in the wind maybe for the midterms.