A Few Things

I had several ideas for what to post today, and I couldn’t decide which to do – so I thought I would do a little mention of a few of them, and then later I can write more fully about the ones I think deserve their own posts :)

First up I wanted to mention my volunteer work with BBOWT at College Lake Nature Reserve. I went along again on Wednesday, I still can’t do much actual work because of my neck injury, but I like to go along and be outside in the countryside in good company. The staff also like to have photos that they can use for different things, so while I can’t do heavy work I take photos of those who can! This week the main job was to clear a few areas from nettles, brambles and other undergrowth ready for ‘Nature Tots’. This is a group for really small children, and we were clearing the patches so that they can safely have a go at planting trees at their next meet. While out taking photos of the work, I also decided to take a few of the wildflowers that are blossoming around the nature reserve.

Marsh Marigold - like a giant buttercup!

Pretty Violets

Lovely little Forget me nots

I think this lovely blossom belongs to an apple tree - please let me know if it's something else!

There were lots of Cowslips around here - I took this one with workers in the background to prove that work was actually being done!

I had to leave College Lake early as I got a phone call that my car was ready from the garage (it was being fixed after the crash a few weeks ago) and they needed to collect the courtesy car. I’d had to wait a couple of weeks for my own appointment while they waited for a courtesy car to come available, so I understood them wanting it back again quickly. Coming home at a time when few other cars come down the drive to the area where I live often leads to wildlife spotting! As I had my camera with me on Wednesday this meant I was able to get shots of these lovely birdies:

I had to look this one up - it turns out that this is an Egyptian Goose. Originally brought here to be ornamental, some escaped and they are now fairly successful in the South East of England

Look at the Red Kite flying across in the background! I love Red Kites, they quite often land in this field.

Then I saw a Green Woodpecker. I often see them here, but they are quite shy and fly off when you go by. I had to use maximum zoom and then crop further for this picture, hence the poor quality. Although it's in a tree here, these woodpeckers mostly feed on the ground.

On Thursday I was in Norwich all day at a study day at the University of East Anglia. Coming home from the train station in the dark I saw another hedgehog – I don’t see them every day, but you can see them pretty regularly round here. It’s such a shame this place has been sold off for development, I don’t expect so much wildlife habitat will be left once developers begin work.

Today I’ve had to stay in all day for various workmen to come and fix things in the house. We will be moving out of this house in a few weeks’ time and have to make sure everything is ship-shape before we hand it back (it’s a military quarter, so the process is a little different from when you live in a private house).

So it was another day of crocheting (it's such a hard life...) Since last Friday I’ve done 14 more stripes on the Mumbles Ripple, which means I’ve stuck to my 2 a day pledge. Therefore I gave myself a little ripple-break this morning, and had a go at remaking something with this. 

I had started to make a shawl with it, but ran out of yarn while it was still very much scarf-shaped. So I decided to make a sort of scarf with it. I think this one will deserve its own post actually - I will add a link in when I do so :)

And Finally...

I got a little something exciting in the post – look at what the lovely people at Stylecraft have sent to me!

L-R: Azure, Sunflower, Soft Lime, Hot Pink

The colours are much nicer in real life, the Sunflower (the yellow one) and the Soft Lime (the green) are really lovely and Spring-like, while the Azure (much more turquoisey than it looks in the picture, and pretty much my favourite colour!) and the Hot Pink are nice vibrant colours, but not over-the-top bright. I haven’t done anything with them yet, but as they are they feel nice and soft too!

Now I need to find a project to use them for… The yellow and green are shouting "daffodils!" to me, so I might think about doing something decorative with them? And I just love the bright Azure. And the Azure and Hot Pink together... I fancy making something for myself with one / both of those, but I'm not sure what yet... (these will obviously get their own posts too!)

How exciting!

Inca Jungle Trek, Peru ~ Day 3

Continued from here

Of course all good things must come to an end, and it was time to get out of the wonderful hot springs, get dressed back into our cold wet clothes, and get to our accommodation for the night and dinner. The accommodation was very basic – one bathroom between about 20-something people, and my room was crammed full with 7 beds and barely enough room to walk between them.

Santa Teresa, our town for this night, while small still had a lot more going on than had Santa Helena. There were bars and discos to enjoy after dinner, but most of us were too tired to contemplate this and so we chatted with each other when we got back to our hostel before going to bed. Some people did go out however, and I don’t think they enjoyed the next early start one bit!

At dinner we had been given a presentation by a representative from a zipline activity centre. So for Day 3 of the trek we had the option to trek for a full day, or to go ziplining – including a 1000m zipline, claimed to be the longest in the world – then just trek for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Grace and me all geared-up at the start

Although an extra expense, it wasn’t too much (equivalent to £20 or US$30) and so I opted for this easier option. There was some steep uphill walking involved in getting to the high point to start ziplining, but not hours of it by any means. 

We whizzed down several ziplines, and although they involved being suspended by a single cable above the ground far below, they seemed much more enjoyable than the plywood crate of the previous day! I can sometimes be pretty scared of heights – earlier in the trip I’d got really anxious just climbing up the tower of a church in Quito – but on this occasion I was feeling pretty brave and took it all in my stride. 

The first zipline - about 400m long

One of the ziplines was said to be the longest in South America, and I've even seen some claims that it's the longest in the World! At 1000m (1km) long, you can barely even see the person on it as they near the end. You need to tuck-in as you zip along to keep enough speed to make it to the end. I managed to zip all the way to the end of the line, but several people - either because they were enjoying the ride and taking photos, or simply because they couldn't hold the 'tuck' position the whole way - had to haul themselves up the final bit. Although the ziplines are taut and on a slight decline, there is still enough weight in the cable that they have a curve in them, meaning the last bit is slightly uphill. Of course you could make the cable downhill all the way, but this would be really dangerous as you would go so fast!

The kilometre-long zipline

The kilometre-long zipline - less than half-way and see how small she looks already?

The final zipline had a platform attached to it before you reached the end, from where you transferred from the zipline itself to a rope dropping to the ground, down which you abseiled back to the start point. A very neat finish!

The final zipline - you can't really see the platform but it is there!

From here the plan was to get a minibus to meet the rest of the group – those who had chosen to hike all morning – and go for lunch at a spot near the railway line at Hidroelectrica, the hydroelectric plant. This plan came unstuck as the rainy season causes the rivers to swell, and meant that the road we needed to take was impassable for the minibus as the bridge had gone down. We therefore had a short hike before lunch, over a makeshift bridge and on to Hidroelectrica for lunch. 

 

Crossing the makeshift bridge, you can see the diggers and things in the background clearing away the damage ready to rebuild.

As we hiked towards the lunch stop we had views of Machu Picchu Mountain, and it was heart-flutteringly amazing to know that nestled up there, the other side of that mountain peak, was the fabled site of Machu Picchu.

Pointing to Machu Picchu Mountain. And looking chubby thanks to lack of exercise in the previous 10 months!

As we ate our lunch we were told that we had the option afterwards of either hiking 2 hours to the town of Aguas Calientes, or taking the train. No-one else opted for the train, and so my competitive spirit dictated that I didn’t either. I wasn’t too worried as the following day I could take the bus up the mountain to Machu Picchu. So after lunch we set off to trek along the railway line to its termination at Aguas Calientes.

This was a long trudge, but 2 hours didn’t seem like too much. Of course 2 hours was actually more like 4, and I was getting pretty tired. This was NOT helped by finding out, at the point that it was too late to do anything about it, that landslides on the road up to Machu Picchu meant that in actual fact, I would not be able to get the bus the following morning. This kind of annoyed me, and I was pretty anxious about how my hip (and fitness levels) would hold up. Luckily, being South America there was plenty to keep me interested and distracted along the way. Flocks of parrots in the trees (silhouetted with the branches so I still couldn’t get photos), colourful butterflies everywhere. 

Grace is a geology graduate and was pointing out interesting rock formations, and I even spotted some leaf-cutter ants carrying out their work. They cut the leaves and carry them back to their colony as sustenance for the nutritious funghi that they cultivate for food. You don’t think of ants carrying out agriculture do you? We had only ever seen them on TV before, so we stopped to watch them for a while as they carried their heavy loads.

We eventually reached the point where we could leave the railway track, pass the bridge we would cross tomorrow on our way to Machu Picchu, and follow the river into the town. Here, a beautiful rainbow appeared in the mountains, as though it was rewarding us for the long slog we had just endured.

A massage, a dinner, and a beer with Grace later, and I was more than ready to hit the sack for a few hours of sleep - before our hideous-sounding 4am wake-up call the next day.

Yet More New Stylecraft...

I wrote here about my new Stylecraft stash. Well, that wasn't quite the whole story...

As well as wanting a new blankety project for myself, I also fancied another go at the Granny Shrug. 

This was so simple to make yet really effective, and I've worn it quite a lot since it was finished. This has earned me a few nice comments from people, and I fancied having another go at it in a different yarn.

I decided I would try it out in a chunky yarn this time, to get a slightly different effect - you just keep going with the granny rounds until the shrug is the right size, so adjusting for different yarn weights is no problem. I went for the Stylecraft Life Chunky in Rose for this next version.

Do you remember me mentioning these huge 400g balls of Stylecraft Special Aran with Wool too? And how much I like them? 

Well, I couldn't resist getting another one of those too, in another new colour: Orchard. I plan to make myself a cardi or shrug with this one too, but I think I will try out a different pattern for this yarn (I have my eye on a couple to choose from).

You can't really tell how big and smooshy this ball is from this photo, but I took a photo of these yarns all together so you can see how cute it is :)

It's so exciting!!!!!  But for now I must remain focussed. I need to be doing at least two rippley stripes a day on the Mumbles Ripple to get it ready in good time for its presentation to its new owners, and I'll be busy all day tomorrow on another university study day so I'd best get cracking! :)

My Guilty Secret...

I was debating with myself on the train home whether or not to write about this…

I was anxious because firstly, most of my current readership is for my crochet posts, so I wasn’t sure if anyone would be interested. Secondly, this is kind of like a little guilty secret I have that very few people know about…

Then I thought: firstly, it’s my blog about my things, so I’m being silly if I think I shouldn’t write about it – and there’s plenty more crochet to come, so if this particular post is not that interesting to you you can always pop back again later to see something else to interest you! :) And secondly, it’s pretty daft to be so shy about something that is kind of bold, and these days is even kind of normal!

So my ‘big’ confession? I really like tattoos! And today I got a new one. It’s not really a big deal is it? I feel quite silly that I’ve been so secretive about it for so long!!

I have several tattoos – today’s addition brings the total up to 7, although some are quite small. They are all in very discreet placements and are not visible when I’m dressed; most people don’t even know I have any tattoos, and are normally quite surprised if they find out!

Today’s tattoo has some lovely meaning behind it for me. I’ve known my best friend from school now for over 20 years (eek - where on earth has all that time gone???) We don’t get to see too much of each other since I moved away for University, and this will become even less if the visa is approved and I emigrate to Australia! We therefore decided that we would design and get matching ‘friendship’ tattoos together.  

This friend has 2 sons, and although they’re not mine I love them so much! I didn’t feel right about getting a tattoo for my friend without getting something to represent her boys too, so I also set about looking for a design for them. I thought flowers would be nice, so I looked up what the boys’ birth month flowers were. I went by the UK style ones, but for these months they are also the US style ones.

So the flowers are:

March, the Daffodil, representing “spring, rebirth, domestic happiness, respect, regard and friendship” 

June, the Rose, representing “love and appreciation”

The roses should be red, but I wanted to use my own photos and this is my only one of roses!

These are lovely flowers and lovely meanings anyway, but I was very happy that in addition they happen to be the national flowers of Wales and England respectively: I am from Wales, now living in England, while my one of parents was born in Wales from English descent, and the other born in England from Welsh descent. So these flowers had another layer of relevance – I love it when one image has multiple layers of meaning and significance :)

 

I hadn’t seen many daffodil tattoos, and many that I have seen do not look that great. I therefore did lots of looking for reference material – and came across this very brilliant artwork:

Source

Fully expecting the artist to be either untraceable or unfeasibly far away, I was delighted to discover that she was indeed traceable, and is called Jessi James – and that she is in England! Plymouth is quite far for me, but I thought it would be worth the journey in order to get the artwork I wanted. So I was even MORE delighted to find that she had left Plymouth and was moving to Newbury, to open her own studio!! Newbury is much closer and easier to get to! And it became even more brilliant, as during our planning for the joint friendship tattoos I discovered that my friend loves watercolour-style tattoos, which Jessi does beautifully. So my tattoo for the boys could be by the same artist as the one for their mum! Perfect :) 

I booked in with Jessi, and we emailed back and forth a little to arrange everything. Yesterday she sent me the watercolour painting she had done for my tattoo:

I really liked it, I liked the bold simplicity of it, while at the same time it still looked delicate. I liked that she had added a ribbon to tie the two together, not only because it made the composition make sense – the flowers wouldn’t grow like that, but you could make a posy like that – but also I thought that the dash of contrasting colour really worked.

I just asked for a couple of minor changes. I asked for the daffodil’s trumpet to face the other way, as I felt that’s how it would sit if the flowers were really together like that. I also asked for the daffodil to be in front of the rose, I wanted the Welsh flower to be most prominent! 

Today was the day, and I went to Newbury by train. That’s not really relevant; I just mention the train as I had to go through Paddington station, and while I was there I couldn’t resist seeking out the Paddington statue and getting a picture! There was a man there taking a picture at the same time as me, and we had a little embarrassed moment together as we each indulged our inner child! 

Please look after this bear - thank you

I made my way to Black Rabbit Tattoo Collective, I was feeling sooooo nervous! But a lovely chap there made me a nice cuppa, and when I met Jessi she was really really lovely. She had made the changes I’d asked for in the design, she made up the stencil to the size I wanted and then we got started. Her studio is really lovely, the staff were really friendly, her music was really fun. It was a really friendly relaxed place and I was very soon feeling much more relaxed. I also liked that the tattooing is done in private rooms rather than having you ‘on display’ in a shop floor set-up.

We chatted throughout the tattoo – at least when I wasn’t gritting my teeth too hard, or the particularly sensitive bit where I went “aaaaaAAAAA!!!” and she said I sounded like I was practising to be an opera singer! With the friendly chatter the tattooing seemed to go by pretty quickly (I only had to ask for one wimp break), and while it had been lovely talking to her I was pretty relieved the tattooing was over…

I looked in the mirror to see the finished result, and apart from some unwanted muffin top I was very pleased with what I saw! I’m now quite looking forward to going back for our friendship tattoo at the end of next month :)

A bit red and swollen, but I think it will look great when it heals :)