The Further Adventures of Betty

 You would think that a small black collie who likes to stay at home would have a quiet and peaceful life, but Betty seems to manage to be involved in all sorts of scrapes.

    For example: last Friday Graham and I were getting ready to go shopping, when suddenly I heard Betty's distinctive distress call in the garden. Not a playful 'Yip!', but a loud and high pitched scream!

    I shouted Graham, who was in the living room, and he galloped out into the back garden to find out what was happening. I was imagining all sorts, from the noise going on - largely involving vast amounts of bloody and possibly limbs hanging off, and definitely an emergency trip to the vet!

    Suddenly, Graham reappeared with both dogs, thrust Betty into my arms and vanished back outside. I examined Betty carefully, she was now quiet and seemed to be in no distress at all. There were no wounds I could see, and definitely no blood.

    I put her down and she trotted happily around the kitchen, no limping and no signs of any injury at all.

    Tallulah was equally unscathed and seemingly unconcerned.

    All rather puzzling.

    Then Graham was back and told me that apparently the dogs had had a close encounter of the rattish kind.

    We are not sure who did what, but by the time Graham reached the dogs, Tallulah was standing between Betty and a large, but very stunned looking rat - possibly with a broken neck (the rat, not Tallulah).

    Graham got the dogs inside, then went back with a shovel to make sure that the rat was definitely deceased and dispose of the body.

    We do live in the countryside with water and dykes around, so even though we very rarely see any rats (twice in the 40 years we've lived here), there is always the possibility one may stray into the garden.

    Anyway, everyone seemed ok, so that was that.

    Now, I've mentioned before that Betty refuses to walk on a lead - despite many attempts. So in the end, Graham gave up and a week or so ago began taking Betty with Tallulah on their morning walks. Betty is quite content to walk without a lead and follow her mother or Graham. She does prefer them both to be together, and does try to herd them if they are not - such as when Tallulah hares off after a squirrel (the squirrels just run up the nearest tree and are in no danger of being caught!).

    The morning walks have been going fine, with no problems, except that Betty would like to chase any bicycles she sees.

    Until yesterday morning.

    When Graham takes the dogs for their walk, I have a bath. It is a nice peaceful time when I can read a book, or sometimes write articles for the Newsletter. Graham sets off around 6.45 and is back around 7.30ish.

    But at 7.05 yesterday morning, suddenly I heard what sounded like Betty's distress screaming outside the front door. I thought I must be mistaken, but just in case, I hurridly got out of the bath and threw on a kaftan. I opened the front door. No dog.

    I tentatively called softly 'Betty?' and round the hedge and into the garden from the public path came a small black collie, who bounded into the house with obvious pleasure.

    I told her she was a clever dog and a good girl for getting home, and could imagine that Graham was going frantic in the woods, trying to find Betty! And dreading coming home to tell me he had lost her.

    If he had a mobile phone I could have let him know that all was well, but instead I had to wait until I saw him and Tallulah heading home.

    We think that Tallulah had chased a squirrel and Betty had chased after her, but somehow had lost sight of her mum. Then she didn't know where Graham was or her mum, so came home.

    We were both rather impressed that she knew the way - and thankful that she was safe!

Why, Betty, Why?!

 Every dog we have ever had, has each had their unique personality. And Betty is proving to be one of the unique est!

    For a start: every other dog or puppy we have had, has loved to find holes and spaces in the fences and hedges around our garden, so they can go and explore further afield.

    Not Betty! Betty likes being at home. She does not want to go outside of our garden at all!

    We have been trying to walk her on a lead, so she can join Graham and Tallulah on their morning walks. But Betty: a) does not want to be on a lead and

b) does not want to walk in any direction which is 'away' from the garden.

    She just stands stubbornly, or sits down.

We have tried taking Tallulah out in the hope that Betty would follow her mum, as anywhere in the house or garden, Tallulah has a little black Betty shadow. But take Betty out onto the footpath and 'NO, NOT GOING ANYWHERE!' seems to be the message, loud and clear.

    We have tried carrying her away from the house, then walking back towards the garden

    We go two steps, then Betty sat down and refused to go any further.

    Sigh, we will persevere with this.

    Anyway, Betty's biggest 'thing' at the moment seems to be taking ANY opportunity to get wet.

    If there is a water bowl to stand in or fall into, Betty will do so.

    She comes for a fuss and the usual cry is "Betty! Why are you wet?!"

    When Graham is watering the garden, she will play with, or stand under the jet coming out of the watering can. So she gets watered.

    If there is the slightest hint of rain, Betty will have been stood out in it.

    If there is any wet undergrowth, Betty will have rolled in it.

    Her favourite place for sleeping is in the living room hearth. It is tiled so probably feels nice and cool in this weather, so fair enough.

    But there is also a ceramic dog water bowl at one end of the hearth, and inevitably Betty will end up sleeping with her head on the edge of the water bowl.

    And equally inevitably, her head will end up in the water .....

A Week in the Life of a Betty

 A week is a long time in the life of a little dog.

    Last week, Betty was introduced to a small part of the Great Outdoors, which proved to be a huge success. The main success, as far as we were concerned was that she quickly picked up that outside is a lovely place to do your toilet stuff, not always, we must admit, and especially not at night (she hasn't yet managed the dog flap), but by far most of the time.

    Now we must also admit that not all of the chicken wire fencing was as taut as it could have been. Particularly the bit into the left hand side of the garden. So it soon became obvious that some of us had learnt to pull the fence down and scramble over it. Still no harm done, Betty and Tallulah were having a great time playing together, and that seems a secure part of the garden.

    Of course we have had to try and keep the fencing at a level which Betty couldn't get over (....) but Tallulah could. That didn't work out very well. Because when Tallulah goes Boing! over the chicken wire fence, she is followed by a small dog who can also go Boing! over the chicken wire fence. 

    We found this out when Graham was collecting dog droppings and found some Betty sized ones near Holda's Hut.

    Then when he went to put some rubbish in the bin in the side garden, he realised that something was chewing his sock - hello Betty. So she could leap all the bits of fencing designed to keep her contained.

    So that was a waste of time.

    Of course the thing is, Betty is growing at a fantastic rate. You can almost see her doing it!

    Each day she seems to be able to scrabble higher up.

    At lunch time (midday meal, dinner time as I know it), Graham brings stuff through from the kitchen into the living room where our table is, loaded on a tray.

    Yesterday he put the tray down on the kitchen chair, while he turned the kettle off. By the time he turned back, a small dog had her head in the cheese and was giving it a good and very enthusiastic nagging. 

    This time last week she couldn't have reached!

And Then There Was One

 Well we knew it was going to happen.

Angela had a hospital appointment in the area last week, so called in to pick up the three sable babies and take them off for new adventures.

    So now we are left with Tallulah and our little Black Betty, or Betty Boo. She is a little sweetie (although not as cuddly as Singer, he will be a lovely and loving companion for some lucky person).

    Angela said all the puppies were pretty, but as soon as she saw Betty, said 'That one is Show quality.' which made me feel a bit guilty for picking her as the one we would keep.

    We took Betty to be microchipped on Monday. Graham carried her into the vets expecting this to be a quick, in-and-out visit, but it was a bit longer than expected, as all the staff had to come and say 'Aaawwww!' to Betty. 

    She was duly microchipped, had a vaccination and was examined by the vet who pronounced her fine.

    To be honest, Angela had seen her and she would have spotted if anything was amiss. In terms of collies I reckon Angela (from Wicani Collies) is the fount of all wisdom, and probably knows more about the breed than a vet would.

    Anyway, now we are down to Betty and Tallulah, things are a bit more settled, and rather a lot less frantic. There is also a heck of a lot less crap and wee everywhere.

    We have rigged up a fenced off area outside the back door, so that Betty can now get outside whenever she fancies (although 'outside' is HUGE to a small puppy, so that is taking a bit of getting used to). We also hope to encourage her to understand that crapping is an outdoor activity - rather than going upstairs to do it under my chair in the office!

    Tallulah is also encouraging Betty to play with her. Tallulah dangles a toy in front of Betty, until Betty gets hold of it, then gently drags Betty round the room, allowing Betty to have a chance at pulling back too.

    Tallulah has been a fab mum, and still is showing to be so.

                    Ooooo is that 'outdoors'?

                

                    It seems a big place

    

    

                    Can I get over this HUGE step?

                        MUMMY!

This is not an excuse

 Hi folks this is an apology if you have been waiting longer than usual for your order.

    But sometimes stuff happens, and sometimes it happens all at once so here goes:

    When we put a Mail Shot out, everyone gets it at the same time, and because they know that a lot of the stuff we sell is of limited quantities, EVERYBODY orders at the same time, so instead of our normal work load, we may literally have ten times the number of orders.

    This is lovely, and I would not want to put anyone off ordering, but it does mean that we can't get through them all as quickly as we would like to, and therefore some people will end up having to wait longer than usual.

    Now, this last Mail Shot was an update of our own publications, which should have made this very quick to deal with orders. But unfortunately just as we got the Mail Shot in the post, that very week our suppliers decided to deliver our brand new photocopier. Yay!

    Well not quite as Yay! as we were hoping because they brought the new copier, plugged it in and took our old one away. They did not install it on my work pc - which is not attached to the internet for security reasons - nor did they show me how to use it.

    After several phone calls to our supplier and being put through to the IT department several times, where I explained (several times) they could not do anything remotely to the photocopier as it and my pc ARE NOT attached to the Internet. They finally decided that an engineer should be sent out to do the installation and give us a tutorial. That would be 'in the week'.

    Needless to say, no engineer turned up that week, so I rang them again on Monday morning. So it was the Wednesday of the following week when a nice young man arrived and attempted to install the photocopier.

    Eventually he got it going and explained the basics of using it to me. It was working lovely so I was ready to start printing books, fact sheets etc on Thursday. On Thursday, the photocopier refused to speak to my pc, nor did it want to photocopy double sided nor collate (put the pages in order).

    After another phone call the nice young chap turned up again and after consultation with another engineer decided I needed new drivers, which sorted that problem out. But it was now nearly two weeks without a usable printer! And I had a printing list as long as my arm.

    Anyhoo I got most of the printing done over the weekend so I only had to put them together on Monday.

    On Monday the big Heatwave started, and upstairs where my pc and photocopier are, was not somewhere you wanted to be!

    I could only stand it so long, then I had to go downstairs and get in a cool bath. The heat was making me feel quite strange - so I'm afraid that made getting the books together a much longer job than anticipated.

    So if you are still waiting for your order, I do apologise, but we will get it out to you just as quickly as we (me and Graham) are physically able.

Introducing the Babies

 Tallulah's babies are three weeks old today, and are already developing their own personalities.

    First here we have Sun Dancer, known as Dancer. He has very distinctive facial markings and is a little explorer. He is also the puppy who actually sits and howls when he wants his mum, wants to go out of the cage, wants to go into the cage or is just generally bored. Dancer may well become an escape artist.

    Next we have Dawn Singer (Singer) he is the most placid of the pups (at the moment) and seems very good natured and easy going. He has got himself settled and gone to sleep on Graham a couple of times already.

Here we have Morning Glory (Glory) who is the biggest of the puppies and manages to have a feed whenever possible. She seems happy and friendly, but always first to the milk bar! She also seems happy to have a stroke and a cuddle (as long as mum is nowhere about).

Finally we have Black Betty (Betty) who is the only tri-colour of the bunch, the others are all sable (the boys will possibly be shaded sable - having a slightly darker colouring). Betty may well be the weirdo of the bunch also, and probably because we picked her as the one to keep.

    She has learnt to make a very odd, deep rumbly noise, not exactly a growl. The first time she did it, she was mooching about in the back of the cage on her own, and everyone stopped and looked at her in amazement.

As you can see Tallulah got in on this photo and you can see just how much the puppies have grown in only three weeks.

The Joy of Puppies

 Ok puppies are gorgeous, they are sweet. They don't so a lot (at two weeks old) except eat, sleep and crap and pee, which in general their mother deals with.

    Except on a Sunday morning when we are eating our breakfast and I notice one of the puppies (without eyes open yet) standing near one of its siblings with a sort of look of concentration on its face. A look which every parent of a new baby recognises - with a baby human it is the look they get when you have just put a new nappy on them, and they are concentrating on filling the new one.

    Yes the puppy was having a crap.

    On one of the other puppies!

    I alerted Graham, who scooped up the asleep, but crapped upon puppy (Glory) and hurried off to the bathroom with her to clean her up.

    Of course Glory had no idea what was going on and awoke to find herself, being washed with water, not something she had experienced before, and began screaming as if she was being murdered. Tallulah shot out of the living room after Graham, who was obviously murdering her puppy and also began yapping and screaming in the bathroom. 

    Glory was being extremely loud - I could clearly hear her at the other side of the house, so it must have been bedlam near to. So Graham cleaned her up as best he could then hot footed it back to the living room, where I was handed Glory wrapped in a towel and still screaming. I showed her to Tallulah, who could then see that Glory was alive and began to calm down, as did Glory who could then smell her mum, while I gave her a quick dry and then popped her back in with the others again.

I have no doubt that this scenario will be played out in various ways over the next few weeks and months.

We love puppies.

Some of the time....

Babies!

 We have been waiting, Waiting, WAITING! for our very pregnant Tallulah to have her babies.

    In the last couple of weeks her nipples have got big, and she has even developed some definite boobs! Last week she began to leak milk, so we knew (hoped) things were getting close.

    On Friday morning (10th of June) Tallulah was definitely very restless, moving around the house but not settling. We did wonder when we popped out to do a quick shop, if we would have babies when we got home. 

    But no, just a very pleased to see us Tallulah.

    As the afternoon wore on, she again grew restless and began nesting in various places upstairs and down.

    She tried the sofa, her dog cage, upstairs in every room, downstairs again in various places around the living room. Eventually in the evening she wandered upstairs again and we could here her nesting in the games room (where we have our gaming pc's) under the spare bed.

    Getting on towards 9pm Graham went upstairs, just to check on Tallulah, as things appeared to have calmed down and gone quiet. When I heard him shout 'Chrissie! Babies!'

    I hurried up to join him and saw two squirming puppies, obviously very newly born. But Tallulah was doing all the necessary things she was supposed to do: breaking the birth sacks, washing them to stimulate breathing, chewing through the cord and eating the afterbirth.

    We were gobsmacked and took some photos to send straight to Mike.

    We stayed with her for some time, then went back downstairs as she seemed to be doing fine.

    At about 11pm we went up again, and two more babies had appeared. Again mother and babies all seemed to be doing well, so we left them to it and decided to try going to bed. Even though, like children on christmas eve, we were too excited really to think of sleep. We left the landing light on, so there would be enough light to see by should anything need doing.

    We hadn't been in bed long, when Tallulah decided to change location and appeared in our bedroom, carrying a baby. So Graham went and fetched the other three. We all settled down and things went quiet, and Graham and I managed to fall asleep for an hour or two.

    When we awoke we found that sometime during the night, Tallulah had had another two babies, but saddly at the same time she had laid on two of the puppies and they were dead, when she stood up. I felt so guilty that two of the babies had died, but when I spoke to Angela later, she said it was something that every breeder would experience sooner or later. It is never easy, but it happens.

    So we still had four very vocal live babies.

    In the morning we moved mum and babies downstairs into the puppy cage, so that they can't roll all over the place as they seem to be determined little explorers. I've been surprised how much the puppies move about!

    We thought originally that we had one boy and three girls, but it might be two and two, hopefully we will be able to get a proper look as they grow a bit.

    And from the amount of licking Tallulah does, they are going to be some of the cleanest puppies ever!

Mike took the bottom picture on Sunday when he visited with Cherise and Eden, who had been longing to see the puppies!

Yes I have been Crocheting

 

Yes I have been busy with the crocheting over the last few months, but it has taken me a while to get used to taking photos with the new camera/phone thingy.

I couldn't get the blasted thing to work, no matter how I pressed the button. It would zoom in and out, and when it did deign to take a photo it would be dark or wobbly.

So eventually I asked Mike (feeling an idiot for not being able to get the damn thing to work when 'it is sooo easy!') It turned out I was stabbing the button too quickly! You have to let your finger rest a tad.

    So here we have the first offering, which is a yellow shrug/shawl using a 'pineapple' pattern which I really wanted to try. Graham had bought me several enormous balls of this bright yellow wool, so it seemed appropriate to try. 

    This is a pattern I found at The Spruce Crafts called Pineapple Doily Shawl. Now I went wrong a few times when I was trying this. There was much swearing and pulling back of the pattern. 

    I suspect I still didn't get it right as it seems much fuller than the illustration on the web site, but I think it turned out ok, and is definitely wearable.

This next one is a variant on a Boho style 'vest'. It is basically a round shawl with a couple of holes in you can poke your arms through. I couldn't find exactly the pattern I wanted, so I decided to have a go and see what happened.

One of the problems I have with most patterns is they are designed for skinny little lasses, and I am of generous proportions, so they are never going to be wide enough. But this one (modelled here by Graham) does fit and I am chuffed with it. It is mainly a sort of 'fishing net' pattern, lots of loops of chains, with the next row of chains joined to the middle of the previous row loop. Increasing was a bit of an experiment, but seems to have worked out ok.

This is one of my latest projects, a fun shopping bag, and is based on free patterns found at Attic 24.

There is a pattern for a Crochet Bag, which is lovely, but for me was a bit too big diameter at the bottom - and I think I might have been using too thick wool as well which made it even bigger. So I used the idea and made my variation on it. 

The bottom is nine concentric circles, then to make the sides, when you have got the bottom the right size for you, just crochet round without increasing, and you will make a tubular shape. I did increase slightly on a few rows as I wanted the top to flare out a little bit. The two handles are just strips 5 stitches wide, make them as long as suits you, and make them the same length (obviously).

I have decorated the bag with flowers which is another pattern from Attic 24, Triple Layer Flower. I made some flowers with just one layer, some with two and some with the full three layers of petals.

I found it surprisingly quick to make.

And just in time for the Platinum Jubilee I have been crocheting some decorations. So here we have a string of bunting made in red, white and blue. These are a very simple Granny Triangle and it took no time at all to make a pile of them which I joined together with a chain stitch ribbon

Finally I decided to have a go at a sort of Union Flag. Which actually turned out to be more fiddly than I expected. The central bit is Attic 24's Triple Layer Flower again, with the four arms made up of single colour flowers. For the triangular pieces I used the central part of a Triangle Motif from thechillydog.com The 45 degree red and white bands are my own bits of 4 stitch wide red ribbons, bordered by double crochet (English treble) on all sides

I know it isn't exactly oblong, but I think it gives a recognisable impression of the flag, which is what I was after.

So there you have it, a variety of crochet things, which were all fun to do - and I have loads more I want to have a go at!

The Joy of a Letter

 A couple of months back, just after my birthday actually, I received a parcel of a couple of books.

    A friend of ours (originally a customer, but now friend too) had sent me them, as she knew that I study and collect folklore, particularly connected to flowers, plants and trees.

    She didn't know it had been my birthday, but I noticed on the enclosed paperwork, that she had ordered the books on the date of my birthday.

    I was really surprised and delighted to receive the unexpected and thoughtful gift, so obviously I wanted to thank her. However I knew that she had been going through a time of particularly bad health, linked to an ongoing medical condition, and was therefore in and out of hospital. So rather than try and catch her on the phone, I decided to send her a card, with a 'Thank you' message inside, which I duly did, and thought no more of it.

    Then yesterday the lady rang up and the first thing she said was how nice it had been to receive my 'thank you' letter. 'It was so nice,' she said, 'That I read it over and over again!'

    I, of course, said that she was welcome and felt very touched that my simple note had meant so much to her.

    When I thought about it afterwards though, I realised how letter writing and sending notes, had become far less common than it was only a few years ago.

    Although Graham and I do write regularly to several friends and also send out a Newsletter to all our current customers whenever we send out a Mail Shot. I also try to make sure that anyone who puts a note in with their order will also get a little hand written note in reply.

    But perhaps we are becoming the exception rather than the rule.

    I thought about how nice it is to receive a letter, note or card. Anything, to be honest, which is a bit of personal contact through the post, rather than the normal bills or adverts. And also how nice it is to be able to re-read a note or letter, and keep a really good one to be savoured several times. We always put cards that we receive up on the mantlepiece, so they can be seen and also give us a warm glow when we look at them.

    Judging from our friend's reaction, it made me think that I ought to make the effort to drop a note to more people.

    I know we may feel in constant contact with people through social media, but there is nothing like opening an envelope and handling a letter or card. An email card just doesn't have the same effect - to be honest a written note and a card whether bought or home made, looks like a bit more thought and effort has gone into it.

    It doesn't cost a lot, but it does feel nice to receive one and know that someone, somewhere has taken the time and trouble to think of us.

To Everything There is a Season

 And is had come to that time in a certain lady dog's life when she was in season.

    Tallulah was (we hoped) ready for mating (again)! So we were going to visit Angela at Wicani Collies to see if this time we might end up having some puppies.

    Of course this kind of thing always happens at the wrong time.

    Angela was really busy as her current litter of puppies was just at the point of being ready to leave for their new homes, so Angela had visitors arriving all week to collect their special puppies and take them off on their new adventures, but she made time for us to visit twice, to be sure that Tallulah was well and truly mated.

    We visited first on Thursday, then went back on Saturday afternoon for the second mating.

    Graham had told out butcher that we were visiting our collie breeder friend and the butcher had immediately gone to his freezer and presented Graham with a sack of bones, 'Oh' said Graham a bit surprised by the quantity, 'I was just hoping for a carrier bag or two.' 

    'I haven't finished yet ...' said the butcher vanishing out freezerwards again.

    So we went to Angela's this time with a sack and a half of good butcher's bones.

    Angela had warned us that she might have a visitor from Northern Ireland picking up a puppy, so we weren't that surprised to be greeted with a kitchen heaving with activity when we got there.

    As we opened the door a puppy tried to escape and had to be gently propelled backwards. We made it inside to find two puppies, their mum, Angela, the visitor, us and Tallulah (on a lead) all milling about. Keith greeted us from behind the door into the next room (staying out of the bedlam while he could, I think.)

    As soon as possible, Angela, Graham and Tallulah vanished outside for the mating, but Angela was soon back as she had brought Sigil, Tallulah's boyfriend, for me to see. Sigil is absolutely beautiful (well, all Angela's dogs are beautiful!). He is a dark sable colour, with a lovely, friendly personality. He came for a cuddle and a kiss, then off he went with Angela to go and do his duty.

    When Angela had gone, and there were just me, Keith the dogs and the visitor, in my head (as I didn't know her name) the visitor immediately became 'Talky Woman'.

    She needed no help to make conversation, well it wasn't exactly conversation, as you only had a chance to get a word in when she paused for breath - Keith tried a few times, as did I. But Talky Woman needed no help filling in any silence either talking to herself, to her phone or to her puppy (a pretty little tricolour girl).

    Talky Woman went on for some time. It appeared that she was hoping to say 'Goodbye.' to Angela before she left, but whatever was going on in the mating area, was going on a looooong time.

    This was a mating of epic proportions.

    Poor Keith kept desperately saying, 'I'm sure Angela won't be long.' and gazing hopefully out of the kitchen window.

    Oh then mother dog decided to be noisily sick. This is the way wolves feed their weaned puppies, and she felt her weaned babies needed dinner.

    Keith looked at me, as he knows I can't do sick - I would just join in - but I was carefully examining a photo collage of lots of lovely Wicani collies on the wall away from the sick. Keith was trying to keep the puppies away from the sick, while looking for something to clean it up with, until mum dog got fed up and decided to re-eat it herself.

    Those photos were really good, so many lovely dogs, none of which are here, la la la la la, I sang in my head.

    Keith fastened mum dog into the puppy cage, to try and avoid a re-run of the sick scenario, and said 'I'll just see what's going on.' and made a break for the freedom of the outdoors.

    Talky woman seemed to dry up without a full audience and started playing with her phone, while the little tricolour girl played with my fingers.

    Keith came back with instructions that the carrier bag on the table was full of the paperwork and puppy accoutrements that Talky Woman needed and Talky Woman announced that wherever she had left her husband it was now snowing, so maybe she ought to get off and pick him up.

    It was around then that Angela, Graham and Tallulah came back, and Talky Woman and her puppy,  eventually went so she could get back to wherever she had to catch the ferry to Northern Ireland from.

    Keith said afterwards that often the husbands don't like to be involved in any of the doggy stuff and especially any mating, they will go off for a walk or stay in the car, or in this case be dropped off miles away to wait in the snow!

    We promised Angela that any questions or worries we had, we were to ring her - so I suspect she may well regret that as this is a brand new adventure for us all - before we went off to the car.

    Then Graham quickly ran back just to ask how long a dog is pregnant for. Angela told us it is around 60 days, but her dogs are often a few days early.

    So I have counted the weeks on the calendar, and a possible due date is marked in.

    

    

Why Do We Change the Clocks?

 On the 27th of March this year we put our clocks forward one hour for British Summer Time (BST).

    We don't question this, we just do it. But I started to wonder: why do we do it? Is there an advantage to getting up an hour earlier and having a longer light evening?

    I know we are told it is because you can do more stuff in the evening. But you haven't lengthened the day, there are still the same amounts of daylight available whether it runs from 6 am to 8 pm, or 5 am to 7 pm.

    Our ancestors didn't change their clocks - they didn't have any clocks to start with. They got up when it was light and went to bed when it was dark. So what o'clock you called it wouldn't make any difference.

    So it is pretty obvious that putting the clocks forward in Spring and back again in Autumn must be a fairly recent thing. Oh and incidentally, why do we have the clocks forward longer than back? As we put the clocks forward in March, logically they should go back in September, but no! we have to wait until the last Sunday in October!

    Personally I love the longer nights. I can't wait for the clocks to go back in October, because that means the magical nights are back, and Samhain is upon us!

    So I had a look on the internet and what I found really surprised me.

    It was in 1916, only just over 100 years ago, that Germany changed their clocks during the first World War, in order 'to save energy'. Europe and the UK followed this within weeks. WHY!?

    This means that until 1916 Britain ran continually on Greenwich Mean Time, and obviously had no problems doing so.

    Actually changing the time by an hour only gives an 'advantage' for a very brief time and only in certain latitudes. Go further North and in Summer the sun never sets (this is very much the case in Scotland - not that much further North) where the Simmer Dim gives twilight nights during the Summer. And go towards the Equator and there is very little difference between day lengths in Summer and Winter, so no point in changing the clocks.

    I remember when I was at school we stuck to BST for a couple of years as an experiment, but the Government found that there was little if any advantage to this. 

    Also these days we often live 24 hour lives, so BST really is irrelevant.

    Personally I blame Ben Franklin.

    In 1784 Benjamin Franklin was staying in Paris and was fed up with the way the Parisians took ages to get going in the morning. So he wrote a joke to a friend about changing the clocks to try and get the Parisians up a bit earlier, and suggested this should be enforced by ringing church bells and setting off cannons in the streets.

    Saddly it seemed someone took his suggestion seriously!

Witches and Gamers

 There are two subjects which always make me prick up my ears when they crop up in the media and they are Witches and Witchcraft and computer gaming and gamers.

    And the main reason is because both subjects are dear to my heart, and both seem to be treated like pariahs. Very often the casual references to 'Witches' seems to be as a pejorative term, usually of a woman - 'Oh, she's a right witch!' which seems to be both a humorous and acceptable comment.

    Let me tell you here and now, this is not acceptable, and would not be seen as such if you were to substitute the word 'witch' for any other religion or race.

    You cannot make these remarks casually these days without being seen as prejudiced in your outlook - but apparently the memo about this also being the case for Witches, hasn't got passed around yet.

    And so to computer games and gamers. This is another subject where casual prejudice still seems to be the norm, and yet the vast majority of people in the UK use a mobile phone - yes, this is a form of computer - and use computers in their work and at school, college and university.

    They will happily spend hours playing with a mobile phone, or at their desk doing work, or homework. Yet the time you spend computer gaming is somehow seen as 'wasted' time.

    When we were stuffing envelopes for our latest mail shot we had the radio on and a woman was be-moaning the fact that her teenage son preferred to play computer games, than go outside and ride his bike etc. She then said that he was restricted to 90mins computer gaming at the weekend - and she wondered why the kid didn't want to give up any of his precious gaming minutes to do something else?!

    How many minutes is Eastenders on the TV during the week? How many minutes do people 'waste' watching news reports when surely once a day is more than enough?

    When I told Graham about the remarks, he said 'It might be a generational thing.' Implying that the parents didn't understand computer games as the youngsters did.

    I gave him a look.

    I will soon be 65 (on the 17th of March if anyone is interested ) and Graham is older, and we both regularly play computer games.

    In fact we have been playing computer games for years. At first on the old Sinclair Spectrums, with games that came on audio tapes and took upwards of 15 minutes to donwnload.

    Our son, a civil engineer, plays computer games with his mates.

    Our daughter-in-law, a business woman, plays computer games with her mates.

    They also do lots of other things, as do me and Graham, but computer gaming is something we all do for relaxation, for fun and to keep up with mates who we may or may not see at other times.

    The computer gaming industry is one of the largest industries in the world. It is bigger than the film/movie industry.

    It generates more revenue for the UK than any other industry including tourism.

    In fact Dundee is the biggest computer gaming area in the world. Bigger than silicon valley in the USA. There they produce some of the top computer games in the world and companies there are full of bright, intelligent people playing, devising, creating, making and selling computer games.

    It has been found that playing computer games keeps your reflexes sharp. Working out puzzles keeps your brain active and learning anything new including computer games, will also stimulate your brain to keep making new connections.

    And also many computer games include a social aspect. People are encouraged to work co-operatively, to work through special areas in groups, or to join communities where they can find others to talk to and play with.

    Graham and I work from home, and like many other home workers a whole week can pass when we see nobody. 

    But we can go online at any time of the day or night and play World of Warcraft and there is always somebody there to talk to.

    I would suggest for anyone who is feeling isolated or lonely, or who wants to visit worlds of the imagination and have their own imagination stimulated - get a computer, get online and go gaming!

    Lok'tar ogar! As we say.

Happy New Year!

 Well I have had a busy time crocheting stuff for various friends and relatives for Christmas, and I must admit I have loved every minute!

    The only down side was that I couldn't share pictures of what I had been up to, in case the recipients saw something they would later get as a pressy.

    So for a start, I found a lovely pattern for a HUGE flower*, which I decided was ideal to make into a cushion cover. And I used the same colours to make a flat back to the cover. I loved making it so much that I made LOADS of different colour ways, and tried to pick ones I hoped the recipient would like. 

    For example I made one for our friend Angela, who breeds Wicani Collies and I picked colours which are all found in her lovely dogs. Including a sparkling white which reminded me of Bridie's beautiful shining mane/neck ruff.

These pictures show the fronts and backs of just some of the cushion covers I made. Of course they were all sent out with a nice plump cushion inside.

This is an octopus hat I made for Cherise, Mike's wife. It was very complicated as I had a picture from the internet and just a few hints and tips to go on. So I decided the only way to do it was to have a go.

    Happily Cherise is really pleased with it.

    Then a couple of weeks before christmas I asked our grandson if he would like me to make him a bedspread. He said yes and drew me a picture of what he wanted and told me the colours he wanted too. Then asked if it would be ready for christmas ... I had to tell him no it wouldn't.

    However I wanted him to have it as soon after christmas as possible, so my christmas 'holiday' was spent mainly crocheting squares. 

As you can see from the finished article, I used the circle to square pattern, as that is nice and easy, but can give a good variety of colour variations. I got the bedspread finished on New Year's Eve, so it was ready to give Eden as a New Year gift.

*HUGE Flower can be found at Bianca's Crochet Palace, Crochet Flower 3D Granny Square