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Last minute challenge

Custom order for Etsy this morning – so busy, busy, busy……I don’t usually get the dyepots out for a single item, so I got quite a lot done in a lengthy session. Acid dyes only – I usually restrict my natural dyeing (with plants, wood, berries etc) to France where I can do everything outside – so much less messy!

Before I could start the actual dyeing, the work today included carding fleece, soaking all the material, mordanting some of it and mixing and preparing the dyes – some in syringes. I used a variety of techniques, including layering, injecting, hand painting and splattering. Such fun, though the clearing up can be tedious and, as usual, I ended up with multicoloured fingers and nails because I always end up ripping off the rubber gloves after about 10 minutes.

Bulb planting

Didn’t happen.

When I looked more carefully there were not 200-odd bulbs left. More like 400 plus – which makes not far off 1000 in total. So I ran away, daunted. I will have to discipline myself to 50 or so a day this week. And I very much doubt I will be ordering on such an industrial scale next year, even if it is way cheaper to buy in bulk, in 20+ kilo bags.

We escaped to my lovely sister in law’s instead. Officially to help move some furniture (not me!) and to go through some paperwork after a death in the family. That turned into a bit of a family history hunt – some interesting documents, one dating back to 1804.

She lives in an interesting house, too. I especially love that heavy external door and the face on the letter box. The house is old – there is part of an Elizabethan staircase and a beautiful window in the (seriously spooky) bat filled attic that is reputed to have come from Lewes Priory, presumably at the dissolution in 1536.

Much more fun than daffodils.

Tomorrow’s task

Bit odd to be thinking about next spring in the middle of this endless, grey November rain – but it’s now or never. I have a window tomorrow in which to finish planting over 500 daffodils, and I must get it done, whatever the weather! The bed above is the one I adopted in memory of my daughter – originally just for one year, but it seems wrong to stop now. The centre was planted with dozens of bright red tulips, which flowered a couple of weeks later. They did look good, but quite a lot of them got overgrown or dug up by birds and squirrels. I thought I would try something different this time, so tomorrow I have 101 (I know, weird number) aliums to add inside the daffodil planting. I have grubbed up most of those shrubby things (apparently called ‘bear’s breeches’) but I’ve left the little purple crane’s bill geraniums which flower after the bulbs.

That is about the extent of my horticultural efforts! We’ll see what happens.

Everything is selfish

My experience of working with teenagers is that on the whole they are kind, supportive of one another and quite touchingly optimistic. I sat through a secondary school Assembly this morning which I assume was part of an anti-bullying week programme – not sure, because I did miss the beginning. The students were urged to go out and do something kind. The presentation was led by a science teacher, in a lab coat. We were told we had to believe him because 1) he had a white coat on (maybe not too serious!) and 2) because he was a doctor (PhD in physics, I’m pretty sure…)

It was all very interesting. Neurobiology. Not just the hormones oxytocin and dopamine – increased levels of the neurotransmitter serotonin as well. The whole Helpers’ High.

We listened politely. It was certainly well meant. But I began to feel uneasy at the direction we were taking – which was brilliantly expressed by a couple of students in front of me on the way out. “So,” said one of them, “everything is selfish.”

Is that the message then?