Tag: winter

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Fabric adventures

The sewing machine and boxes of fabric have been unpacked at last and after a quick dust-off were set up in my study.

It’s been over eight years since I last used my sewing machine. It’s been in boxes in storage all that time. I have missed it.

After installing a fresh needle and new thread I’ve been re-connecting with it, trying to remember settings, thread tension, width and how to spool the bobbins. I used to make tote bags with it as a hobby, and although I’ve never been a confident or expert sewist I do want to learn more.

And oh, the fabric stacks… I am a fabric hoarder. There, I’ve said it.

I have scraps of fabric kept “just in case” for quilting and bigger projects dating back twenty years and more. Someone once said to me that the collection and use of fabrics were in fact two entirely different hobbies, and I can see truth in that.

I’ve started unpacking and sorting the fabric, but there are many boxes more to go through. Everything from Japanese silk remnants to upholstery fabric and all variables between..

I’ve decided to keep it simple this year with some homemade linen napkins and a few small sewn projects as gifts for friends at Christmas.

And yes, you guessed it. One particular napkin project for a friend who loves Scandinavian fabrics did necessitate more fabric to be purchased! This is a beautiful Marimekko linen from Finland.

So, as the temperature outside drops and the snow forecasts threaten, I shall be tucked up in my study happily sewing away.

Let the November shadows gather.

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‘Tis the season

It’s the season of evening fires, big skies, woolly socks, sleeping cats and warming food.

Winter is upon us, and although it’s not that cold yet, the trees are bare and the nights are stretching, dark and long.

It is dark now by 4.30pm and we make sure that the log basket is filled before then and that the woodburner is lit.

It’s a ritual that I love, turning the lights on, lighting candles in the living area and generally making things cosy. The crackling of the logs and the faint scent of woodsmoke are an essential part of winter.

The cats are usually in and sleeping if the weather is wet or windy, and it’s often both.

We bought a couple of extra chairs this week so that we can accommodate eight around the dining table more comfortably at Christmas. We have family staying plus friends and it’ll save us having to wheel office chairs in.

My love affair with old Ercol pieces continues. These are cowhorn chairs, as they’re called, solidly made of English elm, dating back to the 1950s. Elm is a lovely wood. Ercol are still making these today, but they’re no longer made of elm as there’s none left after Dutch Elm Disease ravaged the English forests over the last fifty years.

They join the mismatched crew of chairs from our previous lives around my old French oak dining table, made from trees felled in a French forest after the big storms of 1995.

I like that our furniture has had lives. It may be a bit shabby but it suits us.

We also unpacked my old sewing machine at last, so I’ve had a bit of a rearrange in my study to set it up and make a little space for sewing and another for reading and watching the world go by.

I can’t wait to get my easels in there and a work table so that I can also paint.

And get some art up onto the walls. It’s still all in the shed with the remaining boxes awaiting the walls to be finished. The house looks empty without art.

Soon, soon.

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Snow and seedlings

We’ve had a second bout of very cold weather over the last week, with a good few inches of snowfall, and blizzard conditions.

Friends living in a caravan a few miles away whilst they self-build their house have found their water tank and pipes frozen over these last few days.

Between the snow flurries

It takes me right back to our caravan days in the last really cold snap a few years ago with husband heading out into the snow in his dressing gown and wellies, clutching my hairdryer to try and thaw out our frozen water pipes. Unsuccessfully.

It makes me doubly grateful that we are warm and dry in the house in comfort now. In the evenings we fire up the woodburner and enjoy the sound of it crackling away cosily in the corner.

Some of my seeds have started to germinate. The cucumbers raced up, and we have a few chillies, lettuce, tomatoes and beans starting to show.

I think that they’re all a bit perplexed at the moment though. Bright sunshine through those big windows, lots of solar gain and warmth, but snow flurries just a few feet away!

Confused cucumber seedlings

Winter still has us in its grip. Cottage pies, warming breakfasts and slower days.

Cottage pies

It has to be done. We don’t take any of this for granted.

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Crazy, beautiful ice ferns

When the sun rises and you wake up to your bedroom windows all covered in these exquisite ice ferns.

I’ve never seen such a beautiful natural phenomenon.

As the sun rose these gradually melted and disappeared, leaving a bright, cold blue snowy day.

What a truly remarkable start to the day.

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The cold has come

In the race to get into the house before the highland winter really bit, we’re down to the wire now.

The weather over the last few days has been much colder as the winds have veered to the north east, and snow is forecast.

We are still at least a week away from moving in. Husband is trying to fit a toilet, sink and shower so that we have basic facilities in place, but it’s slow going. We have water to the upstairs bathroom now, we just need the fittings in place!

Mornings in the caravan are painful now. Temperatures drop to a few degrees centigrade overnight and even with the gas fire on full blast the caravan doesn’t reach more than sixteen degrees centigrade all day. I have dug out my fingerless gloves and thermals.

When it’s like this I retreat to the house and sit in the warmth of the bedroom whilst husband gets on with the plumbing. I can’t unpack anything whilst it’s still a building site, but I can sit and imagine. The solar gain from our big windows, combined with the underfloor heating are very efficient, and it’s warm!

Sunshiny day. But cold.

I dream of hot showers and drying off in a warm room without having to do the shivering dance to race into clothes before anything freezes.

Not long now.

I popped into the polycrub earlier this morning to see how things were faring. The temperature gauge recorded that it had dropped to 0.5C in there last night, but everything seems fine. The kale is looking perky, the slugs are having a bean feast with my pak choi, and the beetroot is looking pretty bulletproof.

I am still awed by the miracle of my winter lettuces.

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Cold, starry nights, and concrete

As we move through November we draw ever closer to the winter solstice and the darkest, longest night of the year. The constellations of Orion and the Plough are clear and bright in the dark night skies, and we start to sense the breath of winter across the croft.

Starry skies

It’s time for warming stews, winter berries, warm spices and the comfort of thick socks and jumpers in the caravan. The fire is on most of the time now.

And time for concrete. After months of let downs, delays, finding new solutions and a new supplier, we at last have a firm date for the arrival of the liquid thermal screed to go over our underfloor heating pipes in the house to make our floor.

Pouring thermal screed

It’s coming next week. It’s taken us a whole year to get to this stage and this is a big milestone for us. Once the floor is hard and dry enough to walk on, some weeks down the line, husband will start the MVHR duct installation and electrical wiring in preparation for plasterboard installation early in the new year.

I try not to wish my life away by focussing upon this time next year when we will be dry and cosy in the house. I’m conscious that although it’s what I want, that every day is precious, and that it’s still a long journey to get to that point.

We may be in a cold and drafty caravan which causes a sharp intake of breath before getting dressed in the mornings (with as many layers as we can) or a leap into the shower squeaking at the exposure of skin to cold air before the hot water hits, but this way of life also has its blessings.

We are very aware of, and very close to nature and the elements. The night skies are remarkable at this time of the year. The storms are elemental. This year has been one of reconnection with the land and weather after many years of numbness caused by urban living, and it’s been remarkable.

Opening the caravan door and listening to the rushing of the burn over the croft on a crisp, starry night, perhaps with the occasional hoot of an owl is a wonderful experience. There are no other sounds. The silence is profound.

When the storms hit and we are tucked up under warm quilts or blankets listening to the wind tearing across the croft, or the rain lashing the windows, it does also instill a very real sense of well-being and cosiness. We are grateful that we’re not out there in the teeth of the storm like so many have to be, and very aware of its power.

We count ourselves as very blessed.

Life is good.

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Good neighbours, first snow and wild skies

I am sitting here in the caravan with my tea watching the rain come down in sheets over the Sound. I love the rain. Seriously.

We have been invited for drinks and supper to a neighbours house. We are taking Cranachan as our contribution, a deceptively innocent sounding blend of raspberries, toasted oatmeal, honey, whisky and cream.

Cranachan – Scottish trifle

It’s one of my favourite Scottish desserts and should just about make it intact in a wrapped bowl as we totter down the long and winding track off the croft and over to their cottage, wrapped up against the squalls and rain.

We are so lucky with our neighbours. We seem to have found a warm and friendly community here. They pop in with gifts of quinces, strawberry plants or spare fleeces for our vegetable beds. I mean, could you ask for more?

The weather has been wild for the past week. Torrential rain and high winds, gusting to around 50 miles per hour. The caravan rocks and sings as the wind vibrates through the webbing straps holding us down.

Yesterday’s snow on Beinn Sgritheall

We had our first snow on the tops last night. Early, but not unexpected. It’s been very cold.

Time to coorie in with pies, hearty soups, stews and big jumpers.

Chicken, mushroom and tarragon pie
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Lambing snows

The islanders call late snows in April Lambing Snows. They’re usually the last gasp of winter and come suddenly, just when the lambs are being born in the fields.

We went from bright, warm days to plummeting temperatures within 24 hours. The wind veered suddenly to the North and before we knew it, there were snow blizzards upon us, sweeping rapidly down the Sound in ominous curtains of grey.

Luckily the only thing in the outdoor raised beds were garlic, onions and perpetual leeks. Listening to local advice I’d held off planting out anything tender, and don’t plan to until May. It seems that this advice was very sound!

Temperatures fell to minus 5 degrees centigrade overnight, and barely struggled to hit 2 degrees during the day. The wind was bitingly cold.

Nothing for it but to hunker down indoors..

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Frozen pipes

We’ve had several nights of temperatures well below freezing, and although these have brought clear, beautiful winter days, they’ve also brought frozen pipes.

We run the water supply to the caravan overground from the house. It’s a temporary measure – we don’t want to have to dig the pipes in under the drive as the caravan won’t be here once the house build is complete.

However, this leaves them very exposed to the weather.

Waking up to a cold caravan, sometimes with ice on the inside of the windows is one thing, but switching on the tap to fill the kettle for coffee and realising that there is no water coming through is an altogether different level of morning discomfort.

On a couple of occasions in the last few weeks we’ve woken to this and husband has had to head out in jumper, dressing gown and wellies to try and thaw them out.

Insulation for the pipe has now been ordered and will be installed as soon as the weather permits..

In the meatime we now store large canisters of water in the caravan so that when this happens next, as it will with the worst of the winter months still to get through, we can at least have a mug of hot coffee before heading out to attempt the defrosting process..

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Ice ice baby

The snow may have stopped falling for now but it’s still cold and very icy out there.

The barrel containing my berry cuttings has frozen with a thick disc of ice.

The steep access track and drive have become an icy slope, and the pools of water on the gravel are solid ice.

I’m not going out until the sun has melted everything a little, but will sit here by the fire and try and stay warm here in the caravan.

I think it’s safe to say that we’re now properly into winter..