Dementia and Snowdrops

When the snow had melted we found that the snowdrops had come into flower. Florrie, an elderly friend, a true country woman, now long dead, called these 'God's Innocent Children' which is a bit tear-jerking but somehow so very apt.

The photo has absolutely nothing to do with the article which follows, from today's Telegraph, which, as I keep thinking my memory is failing, cheered me up.

Quilting, pottery and computer games 'may cut risk of dementia'

Taking up hobbies such as quilting, pottery and even playing computer games in later life may substantially cut the risk of dementia, a new study suggests.


Crafts and other activities which exercise the brain, including reading novels and computer games, can all have a protective effect on the mind and help prevent memory loss, the study shows.
By contrast, watching television for hours on end significantly increased the chance of suffering problems, the research found.
Previous studies have shown that those with mentally demanding jobs and high levels of education were less likely to suffer the memory problems associated with the condition.
Researchers found that those with stimulating occupations were less at risk, even when they had physical damage to their brain cells.
The latest research will be seen as further proof that so-called "brain training" machines, such as the Nintendo DS advertised by Nicole Kidman, can help to delay brain decline.
Those who kept mentally active in their middle age, through reading, arts and crafts and other pursuits, were about 40 percent less likely to develop memory loss than those who did not.
The scientists found that those who kept mentally active in later years cut their chance of developing memory loss by between 30 and 50 per cent.
But volunteers who watched television programmes for more than seven hours a day in later years were also 50 per cent more likely to have memory problems than those who spent less than seven hours a day in front of the box.

Chasing Rainbows

When I decided to post this picture I thought I would accompany it with a line or two about rainbows from some romantic poem or other. For a country that has a lot of rain there seems to be a singular dearth of positive thoughts about rainbows. It's all about chasing rainbows, rainbow's end, somewhere over the rainbow!

This was the most distinct rainbow photo I have ever taken, and it seemed to end in the field below us. I didn't rush out to look for the pot of gold, maybe I should have done, but the sheer delight of it appearing to be so close was it's own reward.

The Sling Bag

Browsing around on the web a few days ago I found a picture of a sling bag, made from an Amy Butler pattern. I couldn't find a local stockist of this particular pattern, ( not even at Get Knitted, who stock a range of Amy Butler products) evidently it has been out for a while, so I made a sort of look-alike for myself. Not quite the same, I may have another attempt, but I am still pleased with it.

Because of the regular snowfalls we are getting I have spent a lot of time sewing, as well as baking and eating!! A couple of UFOs have even been completed.

Diddy's Quilt

Some quilters give their quilts /work of art a name. I don't but this quilt is an exception- it should be called 'Lucky' - third time lucky! The piecing has been completed and redesigned three times and has been a real learning curve for me. Why? THE COLOUR PURPLE!! After finishing my third quilt I felt I could call myself a quilter and decided that I would do one for my schoolfriend of fifty years. I forgot momentarily after announcing this to her, that she taught A level textiles among other things! However she was delighted but had to wait a few years! She said she wanted pinks and purples in Ohio star (which she seen on one I had done). In excited anticipation we chose some gorgeous fabrics together which I added to over time,and meanwhile busied myself making a cream quilt for my daughter and her husband.
Then three years ago I started - with the Ohio star and fabrics as planned. When the blocks were assembled, it was alright, in fact quite nice -- but that is all. It did not have the WOW factor that I wanted. Remember this was going to be a gift for my dear school friend. SO - I took it all to pieces and started again. I tried larger blocks using pinwheel and abandoned some of the pinks, thinking that that was the problem but as I worked I had my doubts and wondered why. When it was finished I looked at it with utter depression because that was the effect of the fabrics. I would not have liked either to sleep under it or see it in the morning. How was I going to make a pink and purple quilt for Diddy that I actually liked? Answer - call a quilting friend! My mistake was to choose very beautiful COLD tones instead of warm. The fabrics were re-sorted and many abandoned. Then taking one warm purple fabric, I went back to the fabric shop and started again.
This time the fabrics felt right but I didn't know what design to sew. I decided on two blocks of all the ones I'd never tried - eighteen pairs altogether. My friend likes symmetry and I like random so I went for a compromise - several different blocks and an a-symmetrical design.The overall link was one particular fabric in every block. My family were very interested, supportive and encouraging - it became a family enterprise! I loved sewing new blocks and when all thirty-six were completed I laid them out on the dining room floor and started to arrange them. They were swapped around many times over the next week until I had created the design. It was amazing how this came about really. My husband said the quilt was exotic and I knew I thought so too. This was what I had had in my mind's eye in the first place - a quilt that looked jewelled. I sashed them together with a mauve batik looking fabric. I added a half inch dark purple border inside the outside sashing, which framed it and finished off with an inch of the dark purple for the edge.The giving of this quilt just before Christmas was very special for me. To create and make something entirely original , that you really love,and then give it away to someone special---that makes it all worth the effort! My school friend loves it. In fact I can hear her saying ''Imie! I LOVE it!''

Celebrating the Season

Our niece Jo calls this her credit crunch Christmas tree. She spotted it on the shoreline of her local beach a few weeks ago, part of a tree that had been tossed about by the sea. Although interested in its possibilities she was on foot and left it on the beach. Days later she drove to the beach, not expecting to find it again, but it had been tossed far enough by the waves to keep it dry and shore bound. Here it is, dressed for Christmas in her sitting room. Fantastic!

Our granddaughter has been designing her own Christmas cards since a few months before her fifth birthday. The one above was her first and below is this years card. She creates them while staying over the October half-term holiday, and it is my great pleasure to print them.

And here is one of several quilted Christmas hangings I have made over the years. Each of the trees is decorated with beads and sequins. Happy Christmas, everyone.

Getting Knitted Now

I first caught the sock bug because of Jennifer who attends the same Healthy Back Class that Imogen and I go to. She was wearing a great pair of socks, and after I had admired them she told me she had knitted them herself.

Chris, my husband, is a great fan of hand-knitted woollen socks, having had innumerable pairs knitted for him in the past by his step-mother. Although she died at least five years ago, the socks live on!

I found an amazing shop called Get Knitted near Bristol, and came home with a selection of yarns and a set of 5 needles.

I didn't realise that you could get yarn that would 'self-stripe' so my first socks were, as in the picture below, knitted using seperate colours. This was my third pair from these three balls of yarn, and there is probably enough left for another two pairs.

'Self Striping' yarns make life a lot easier, so I started to make some for Chris, as he wears a size 12 shoe I discovered that one ball was not quite enough to make a complete pair, so I knit the top of the cuffs in a matching plain colour. I've thoroughly enjoyed knitting them, the work is so portable and can be quickly finished.

Also in this photo is my first felted bag, I've now knitted and felted three bags in different patterns, and am always on the lookout for more. This pattern, found on a web site is entitled French Market Bag.

A Trip to the Baltic

Chris and I took our first ever cruise this summer. We absolutely loved the ports we called at but found the actual cruising experience rather limiting. If we do it again, perhaps when we are less fit and energetic, we would choose a larger ship with more opportunities for exercise.

I nearly didn't include this photo on the blog, as every one knows The Little Mermaid. The one below is Nyhavn, also in Copenhagen.

These next two photos are details of images from the Viegland Sculpture Park in Oslo. We took scores of photographs here. There are over 130 sculptures in a large park dedicated to Viegland, who we understood from our tour guide was not a particularly pleasant man. However, his work is exquisite, and the sculptures progress through from childhood to old age.

The site walks you round the park and museum, and Viegland's biography mirrors the conception of the park as 'Man's journey from cradle to grave, through happiness and grief, through fantasy, hope and wishes of eternity'. Viegland made a Mephistophelean pact with the city of Oslo in 1921. He traded all his sculptures, drawings, woodcuts and models for a studio to be converted into a museum after his death.

We took several hundred photographs altogether on this trip, and had to spend ages when we got home sorting through to find the best ones.



St. Petersburg was the high spot of the trip. On the left of the image above is The Church of the Spilled Blood, so called because of the murder of Alexander II, whose blood was spilled here at the time of his assassination. We did not have time to go inside, but are told it is full of mosaics. St Petersburg is one of the places on our list to return to, we were totally surprised by it.

The Winter Palace was the home of the Russian Emperors until 1917, and today is part of the world famous Hermitage Museum. The museum has fascinating and extensive collections of works of art and was still collecting them in the 1950's, much to the incomprehension of Ray, the egalitarian Australian on our tour.

On the second day of our stay in St. Petersburg we visited Peterhof. We understood this to be the Summer Palace of the Imperial Family, a favourite residence of Peter I, after whom it was named. The parkland covers over 1000 hectares, and as well as being splendid inside, has numerous fountains in its grounds. Chris and I got thoroughly soaked by one!

Stockholm's Gramla Stan,(above) in the Medieval part of the city was beautiful, we encountered our only rain of the two weeks away while we were here. We also had a bit of a panic while in Stockholm, as we had set off on our own and got a bit lost trying to find our way back to the ship. Being built on several islands we crossed the wrong bridge and found ourselves on the wrong side of the city, we did make it however with half an hour to spare before sailing time. Chris' usually unerring sense of direction had let us down, and as we were in Sweden we had left our passports on board. Until we realised that we were consoling ourselves that we could fly to the next port if need be.

The photos above and below are Tallin, Estonia

Before we came back to the UK via the Kiel Canal we stopped at Wernemunde, where among other things we took a trip on the Molli train to the site of the last but one (I think, when Blair was still in control) of the G8 summits. We were in the former DDR and were reminded frequently of the restrictions that these people were living under not so very long ago at all.

The Molli being a steam train, virtually every man was wielding his camera!! And it was a 4 am rising to see our entrance into the Kiel Canal the next morning, although I have to admit that when it got light enough to see, it was extremely interesting.