Super sweet Blogger Award

I'm thrilled to have been nominated for the Super Sweet Blogger Award by Linda Marveng! All I have to do to accept it, is to nominate 12 other Super Sweet Blogs and answer 5 simple questions about myself:

1. Cookies or cake? Sadly, as I'm currently on the candida diet till further notice, neither of these have passed my lips since January.  That's not to say that I don't look forward to to time when I can eat puddings again with impunity, so I would have to say cake, cake, cake for me, especially chocolate, carrot and lemon drizzle cakes, the only biscuits I'm really keen on are McVitie's plain digestives.

2. Chocolate or vanilla? For flavourings I ♥ chocolate and I ♥ vanilla, and most times it's horses for courses, depending on the recipe. But if I absolutely had to choose, it has to be chocolate. Only the dark stuff mind, with a high cocoa content. I've never had a really sweet tooth, so it's the  chocolate hit that does it for me, as opposed  to some milk chocolates that just taste of sugar.  Also as far as I know you can't make a drink from vanilla. 

3. Favorite sweet treat? Gotta be Betty's handmade truffles made with rare wild cocoa beans from Bolivia.

4. When do you get hit with cravings? Having been on this evil diet for the past five months, one good thing is I rarely get cravings. But if I do, it's when I'm deep into pattern-writing and there's something I'm having a problem with - then my mind starts to wander to food. I usually find a quick foray in the kitchen clears the brain and helps solve the issue.

5. Sweet Nickname? My four small grandchildren call me Gigi, which is the sweetest name I can think of.

And so to my 12 nominations, in no particular order:

1  Jen A-C knitwear

2  Just Call Me Ruby

3  Tiny Owl Knits

4  Woolly Wormhead's Ripping Yarns

5  The Panopticon

6  Yarnagogo

7  Zeneedle 

8  Needled

9  This Is Knit

10 Life 'n Knitting

11 Woolly Green

12 Sasha Kagan's World of Textiles

Spring travels!

Hello again, seems like ages, but life has been so full on recently - with ne'er a chink to hunker down with a cuppa and write about it. 

There's been the trip to France chateau-hunting for next year's Knit France, and nice as it was, the chateau we were trying out (P, the resident ghost, et moi) turned out to be more shabby than chic!
So back to the drawing board on that one, with another trip coming up... a designer's life is a hard one!  :)

We'll be opening registration for the tour on Saturday. As all else is in place and the priority list is bulging at the seams, we decided to take the plunge as people seem keen to make plans for next year.  Suffice to say we have booked a new and gorgeous chateau subject to our next visit. This tour will be a tad off piste from our usual accommodation as we're not staying in a hotel.  Of course we've made sure that all the usual comforts are there, but inevitably some rooms are going to be better than others in terms of location and grandeur, so rooms will be allocated democratically - first come, first served.

Here are a few pics, France is SO photogenic, I'm spoilt for choice...

We're looking for something like this?

Close to a town

With lovely gardens nearby

I love all the irises by the roadsides...

...and the peacocks strutting their stuff

...and the glorious markets

...with colourful ingenious ways of covering food

...not to mention the wine, especially in a magenta barrel

...not forgetting the yarn interest at a local angora farm

Gorgeous yarn from the farm...

...scarf knit in Ireland from above ball

We barely touched base at home before setting off for Knit Ireland, two weeks of wandering the highways and byways of the Emerald Isle with twenty fellow travellers. We're getting to know it well as we'd done the same tour last Sept/Oct, and were made to feel like family with a warm Irish welcome wherever we went. 

Prehistoric Poulnabrone dolman on the limestone pavements of the Burren

Session at the Cuckoo Festival in Kinvara

Wild flowers and stones on the Inis Oirr beach

St Kevin's church - the patron saint of Inis Oirr whose
 tomb is also on the site

Aran dry stone walls - every rock is cleared by hand to
make the fields where food is grown and cattle are
 grazed, fertilised by seaweed

Pat and Tom provided the entertainment after Una's workshop

A heron scans the sea for lunch...

...think these two cats have the same idea as the heron, beautiful wild flowers
 - thrift, sea pinks, birdsfoot trefoil, saxifrage and the occasional orchid

Lunch stop at Cashel House, walked around the lovely garden

Colour in class!

View from our hotel room down to the creek

Jo putting Jill, his veteran sheepdog through her paces on his farm in Sligo

Learning to spin

Poster at This Is Knit in Dublin, where I bought
some gorgeous Malabrigo and Scrumptious yarn

Love this big old tree at Muckross House

You're never far away from colour in Ireland,
no matter what the weather

Turf cut for the fire

Slea Head, Dingle Peninsula

Part of our group at the 1300 year old Gallarus Oratory.
The story goes that if you can squeeze yourself through the minute window,
nearly a meter thick at the back of building, you'll be blessed both in this
life and the hereafter.  Andrea was definitely up for the challenge,
so at least one member of our group is saved!

One of our knitters on the tour who owns a yarn store in Canada gave me this lovely hand-dyed yarn. I decided to make the Holden Shawl, as it looked interesting but doable on tour. I bought the pattern on Ravelry, and once I'd cast off my angora scarf, I started the new shawl which I reckoned would probably be done in a flash. Best laid plans, too many entertaining distractions on the tour bus meant I must have ripped it out six times at least. By the time I cast off, the pattern was firmly embedded in my brain, I could probably knit this shawl in my sleep now!  

Casting off the Holden Shawl the day I got back.  Don't look too closely!

Here's the finished item, with my fave
cat mug from Roundstone Pottery 

Finally, I have to confess I was sharply reminded about my lack of blogging yesterday when I noticed on Facebook that Linda Marveng had nominated me for the Super Sweet Blogger Award. Many thanks Linda, I'm honoured, although I'm not feeling very sweet right now having been on the Candida diet for four months - no sugar (or barely any at least) has passed my lips! But all I have to do to accept, is nominate 12 other Super Sweet Blogs and answer 5 simple questions. I need some time to think about this so I'll be back with my nominations in next few of days.  Don't go away...

Boston

Words fail me, so I'm knitting for Boston today - sending love and hugs in every stitch to the families and friends of all those affected.

It's a glorious day today, very windy and wild, but it feels good to spend some time in the garden clearing up and making way for the new growth.

While I've been doing this there's been a song going around in my head. I wrote this song many years ago...  and haven't given it a thought in yonks. However, it's playing on a loop right now, so thought I'd share it. I'd like to dedicate this song to the people of Boston, hoping their hurt will heal and hearts can eventually forgive.

A WORD IS A THOUGHT IS A DREAM
Beyond the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal
Further than Arabia or lands of pyramids tall
Across the ancient Bosphorus and over the Persian Gulf
Past Sinkiang and Afghanistan, floating like a dove.

Refrain
Asian winds please take me to your home
Carry me away across the foam
Take me to the place where they know what it means
That a word is a thought is a dream.

The Indian's in his teepee and the Arab's in his tent
Nomad of the Himalayas under heavy load is bent
The sailor sails the ocean in his house that floats
The are English lords in castles protected by their moats.

But could the mountains melt in the rays of the sun?
Could the wind play Hermes over seas where men can't run?
Could you tie a ribbon around a thousand little seeds?
Could you string men together like a necklace of beads?

I certainly wish we could!

Hopefully through understanding, compassion and forgiveness one day our planet will be united in peace.

Ryedale Folk Museum

I spent a wonderful Easter afternoon in Hutton-le-Hole with P and the grandlings, Isabella and Ava, at the Ryedale Folk Museum.

We hadn't been since the boys were little so it was great to see how the place had moved on with a little help from the lottery. Everything in the old village is really well-presented, from the thatched roofs and wattle fences on the outside to the tools and fittings inside the cottages - it was great for the girls to be able to experience life as it used to be lived on the Yorkshire moors. From the grocery store to the wheelwright, the shops and workshops were stuffed with interesting artefacts...

Outside the chemist

Inside the chemist

Peepo!

Outside the grocery store

Inside the grocery store

The blacksmith's anvil

The saddlery

The shoemaker

The story of Elphi who finishes off any unfinished pieces during the night
while the craftspeople are sleeping - reminds me of The Elves & the Shoemaker

The wheelwright

...some of the artefacts were a little more gruesome than others!

Mantrap - must have been horrid to be a poacher in those days

There were homemade textiles...

Crochet, patchwork and rugmaking on display in this living room

Laundry

...and Izzi and Ava had fun in the kitchen of one of the cottages, decorating an Easter bunny and chick...

The finished Easter bunny biscuit

Isabella tried her hand at weaving, but sadly Ava will have to wait a year or two until her legs have grown a little - they just weren't quite long enough to move the heddles

But what the girls liked best was visiting Max the Clydesdale horse. We took lots of carrots, so he was very keen on making friends...

... and afterwards we fed the chickens, lots of beautiful old breeds of bantams and a gorgeously hued rooster...

Chaucer's Chaunticleer

...and the girls were tickled pink by the thought of people throwing bad eggs and tomatoes at P and I, after they persuaded us to take turns in the stocks

Beautiful old signs abound...

... and we all had a great time playing in the maze

Maze

and with the vintage toys like the hoop and stick and skipping rope - although it was P who had the most fun out of the hoop and stick and sadly I can't find the photo... 

Izzi so enjoyed skipping she decided she'd add it to her
ever-growing list of skills and continue to practise later at home

We were all reluctant to leave by the time they were closing up, but after a quick cuppa in the village café, we were winging our way back to York, warm and snug in the car.  We didn't much notice the cold while we were there, too much to explore - but I can tell you our energetic afternoon in the open air made for four very tired but happy peeps.