Country Stinks and Patchwork Progress!

Today inside the house looks like a mad Midsummer Hallowe’en party. The farmer down the road is spreading slurry and as our land is plonk in the middle of his fields we are surrounded by spread upon-ed fields. One of the hazards of country living but the stink is AMAZING! Not that it’s new to us, but it must be extra-ordinarily potent this season. All the windows are open, since there’s no point in trying to keep it out, and I’ve lit candles here and there to try and speed up the deponkification.

We seem to have some random potatoes growing in amongst the carrots, not to mention some weeds. Guess it was peelings which hadn’t rotted properly when we used the next batch of compost. The carrots, spring onions and onions have shot up this week; I hope there is just as much going on underground!

Yesterday evening I planted out a tray of tomato seedlings, two trays of rocket which were too shallow, and transplanted those bolshy beans. It seemed everything was twice the height this morning. I’ve a problem with what to plant in the middle as I won’t be able to reach to pick veg once everything gets big. Actually I’m thinking of just putting a row of sunflowers in the middle for decoration!

Returning from town earlier there was a traffic jam on the lane, a tractor filling his slurry tank (in front of the blue barn), then a tractor and trailer, then me. It was a bit of a wait but there was a lovely section of old stone wall beside me so…

My Asiatic Lily has just begun flowering and it’s lovely. It’s actually got more of a black sheen to the petals, but I couldn’t get that on the camera.

This is the little quilt I’m working on at present. I’ve got the blocks from an old Better Homes and Gardens book-‘ 501 Quilt Blocks’ , which I’ve had for donkey’s years and used a lot. These are the first nine blocks, and another which needs a brighter border but I haven’t found the right shade yet. Two more blocks: a snowdrop and a Church. Then we’ll see how it should go together. I’m particularly impressed that I put the daffodil together without any ripping or swearing as I haven’t done such fiddly appliqué before. The snowdrop will be an equal ‘challenge’…please be keeping your hands over your ears!

I’ve seen photos of other folk’s work- spaces so here is mine, if you can make it out, complete with Ben-dog. It’s in the kitchen, like almost everything belonging to this family, including the animals, which is why we so often have to eat meals from our knees in the sitting room!! If I’ve a big project on, or trying to get something finished to a deadline, I’ve even served the girls friends’ by spreading a tablecloth on the sitting room floor and laying it like a table. Whilst Sos was studying for and doing her Leaving Cert this last few months she’s had a table covered in books in the kitchen too!
I’ve got used now to having the house and particularly the kitchen to ourselves, but in Kenya only cooking was done in the kitchen. Just about everyone has indoor and outdoor workers and a kitchen is as much their space as the family’s. In my Father-in-law’s kitchen particularly there was always some sort of hooley happening, and it was more like a Club really, especially when he was entertaining and all hands were called in to help. One time I walked in before a Dinner to see the Cook at the stove, the syce and house-man making pasta with strings churning out of the pasta machine in all directions, the ayah chopping vegetables and the gardener having hysterics in between doing something else, setting the table I think. Anyhow it was pandemonium, but not unusual. Sometimes I miss that here.

This morning I was changing all the bath towels, but despite having folded the clean ones off the drying rack earlier in the week I couldn’t find them anywhere. After hunting through the linen press and various possible places, I started on the irregular places…They were in with the Hub’s jeans…Hmm…in what way exactly do the bath towels resemble his jeans I wonder? I noticed (while going through the press) that a number of the hand towels are very grey looking although with plenty of wear yet, and I wondered whether I should dye them bright colours- like yellow maybe?