Colour names

I have been learning crochet over the last few weeks. Well relearning. I could do some but never got into anything clever. I found Lucy at attic24 and loved what she had done and have taught myself how to do ripple blankets and a bag.

Today I got a delivery of some yarn that said it was recommended by Lucy for her granny blanket. It turned out to be acrylic which was a bit of a surprise and not the brand of wool as specified in the pattern I have ended up doing. But hey, never one to be felled at the first hurdle I wrote down the colours required and looked them up on the internet.

OK The colours required are:
eucalyptus, mermaid, sprout, beach glass, periwinkle, twilight, grape, lipstick, geranium, snapdragon, buttercup

and my matching colours are called:
turquoise, cloud blue, spring green, sherbert, lavender, aster, plum, pomegranate, shrimp, fondant and saffron

I'm glad I'm not having to chose the names!

Arts Autobiographical

A fellow blogger has set up an Art Is Autobiographical shop on etsy and is trying to raise awareness of it's existence. Here's the link, why not have a look?

http://www.etsy.com/shop/ArtsAutobiographical

Good luck Carol

The one that got away

Before we came back to England this time, we put an offer in on this house. It's actually two semi-detached cottages, each big enough to live in while you do the other bit and then knock through. The location is lovely which after looking at dozens has become the most important thing.

It is only just on the market and about 50,000 euros over priced.

We decided to put in an offer of about 40,000 under the asking price as a first offer. We then had to come back to England and left wonderful Sally (WS) in charge of the negotiations. She is a fluent french speaking ex estate agent so we felt happy to leave it in her hands.

A few days later we got an email that basically said 'non'. And since then - for the best part of a month - the agent has been avoiding any contact with WS. Always out or unavailable or on holiday or whatever.

On Friday said agent eventually deigns to speak to WS. It's sold. They signed on Monday. Your friends are not in France, they are not real buyers.

Ok......................................

Now this is from the agent that we are renting through. Who knows that we are renting because we have sold our house and are looking for somewhere to buy.

Is there not something called negotiating in France? Is it not better to have two people interested in a house and get them all competing?

Well, dear agent, you aint getting a look at our money now

How doing your best gets you into trouble

Him Outdoors has taken on most of the outside jobs in our rented house in England, including cutting the grass. He's always liked lawns and is happy to walk up and down behind a mower. Here there is a ride on so he can play on a machine too.

The disadvantage of a ride on is that if you leave it too long between cuts (due to the horrible wet weather) then you get left with a cut hay field. We have a private lawn which we have kept raked up but the main grass was a hay field. Eventually his tidiness and boredom got the better of him and he raked it up by the barrowload and dumped it around the property in hidden corners.

BIG MISTAKE, HUGE.

Letter from neighbour asking him to pick it up again from their edge of the bridleway. Visit from landlady asking him to move the pile he had made.

Apparently the neighbour had had a goat eat cut laurel from the bridleway and died and the landlady says that horses die if they eat cut grass. The grass dies if you leave the cut grass on it so could he please spread it out again.................................

My main horror is that I had no idea that horses died of eating cut grass - apparently it ferments in their stomachs - and might easily have given it to them. I know they break their legs just running along which seems daft enough but to not be able to eat grass????

Sunday Rain

Tomorrow we have to spend all day in the car driving up France.

Today we have woken to stillness with steady, pouring rain. Just birds, drips and a cup of tea. We have all day to gather ourselves and nothing particular to do, so just peaceful gazing out at the rain.

Counting my blessings.

Houses

Yesterday we found out that the man who owns the house we sold our house to buy, had died.

In the local town they post the deaths of locals on notice boards around the town, and the friend who lived opposite one of the notice boards said that people had been slowing down their cars all day to check out who it was.

A glimmer of hope.

Co-incidentally my twin brother emailed last night to say that they had at last managed to buy a house they have been waiting for for months in the States..................................

Spooky.

The Lavender Man

Up early this morning for the fosse septique man. Huge tractor and pooh tank arrive at 8am as expected.

The toilet in our little rented house has been doing the 'flush, fill, fill, fill, fill, fill, OMG it's going to go over the top, slow down, slow down, stop, stop, slowly, slowly empty' thing. So lets divert the disaster by getting a man in.

The appointment had been arranged by our letting agent but last night we found a letter in our letterbox from the owners asking if we could get an estimate for spreading the contents of the tanks on the land! Not on my garden thank you, not with children coming to hunt out all the tiny wild strawberries hiding under the trees. But, in France, c'est normale.

Lots more teeth sucking

Much interest in the holes uncovered, something completely interesting about huge vats of pooh and other waste. Lots of shrugging and teeth sucking and mention of problems 4 years ago.

And..................... the whole drainage system is blocked. Fortunately after the tank which is now empty so we are ok until we leave on Monday and then they have 3 months to fix it. Thank heavens we are renting.

PS My parents always used to call the septic tank man The Lavender Man is that familiar to anyone else?