Life is quiet and peaceful

I'm in a bit of a lull at the moment, no road trips recently although we have some planned. I'm keeping busy doing routine jobs around the house and slowly beginning to destash unwanted items.

I'm slowly working through the fleece stash, ditched some oddments, prepped even more.

 This must be the dustiest fleece of the year, Isla of Skye black cheviot. Shook it well before washing and this is the fall out from just transferring into a pillowslip. I spun a couple of skeins last month and I'm so glad that I have lino on the floor, almost like a layer of coal dust once I'd combed it :-)

I've ordered just one more fleece, a bit of a curiosity buy. Breed named highlander and I must admit the name and the description of the fleece as being soft, shinny and heavily based on romney had me curious. Apparently the average fleece is 4/5 kilo so one fleece would give me plenty of dyeing opportunity. I will photo etc when it arrives.

After four years of having my old computer sat in my workroom taking up space. I took the side off, had a ferret around inside and removed the hard drive. The rest of it is now in the tip run pile.

Yesterday (Monday) turned into a shopping day as I needed to pop into the asian supermarket near town and Aldi for bits and pieces to take away in the van. One of the reasons ( one of many) for getting the van was to overcome the problem of having to eat out most of the time when travelling and staying in hotels. I generally cook all our meals in the van through choice so always have a small supply of noodles, sauces, pasta and rice along with part baked bread packed when we are on the move. This means that when we spot a market we just have to buy the fresh ingredients.

Also I am slowly getting addicted to chai and the supermarket sells several different ones in sachets so perfect for travelling. My favorite so far is ginger chai.

Since I was already in town, I wandered down to St Marys Church in the Lacemarket area. I had heard about a memorial to Heroes with Grimy Faces and wanted to check it out.

I also noticed that the church was open so I had a look inside, first though, I love doors with interesting hinges etc.

and interesting carvings.

The inside is beautiful, I always find churches interesting architecturally and aesthetically rather than for any religious reason.

and from the outside 

My red stitching is coming along nicely, especially the French pattern that I am working on. I'm not quite halfway but very nearly.

I'm trying to resist the urge to start another until I've finished at least one of the two redwork pieces! Although, having watched a few floss tube vids recently, it seems that having 20 plus projects is about normal with some folks even having 100 plus on the go. I have two that I'm really stitching on, one that may go in the bin, a couple in deep hibernation and one finished that needs to be made into another small pillow.

I have plans to stitch a band sampler using the patterns from my Bristol sampler at some point but I will need to work out the placement of everything.

speak soon xx