Socks and other things

As you will know if you read my infrequent posts, I belong to a sock club and am very much a newbie at this.  In December Jacqui, who owns Purlwise where we meet, wanted us to make a pair of socks for someone else.  In other words, a 'Secret Santa' to be completed by our March meeting.

So we met up last weekend and all the socks were on display.  Like a fool I had forgotten to photo mine before I packed them up so had to wait until 'Lorna' wasn't looking and then take a picture.

What an assortment of colours and designs.  The pair I received are rusty coloured ones on the seat at the front and have a percentage of Yak wool in them!!!  Really comfortable and warm.

These are Lorna's; grey with pink heels and toes.  She said she has a new coat that is grey with pink and so these would suit her perfectly.  I hope that they fit!!

We have three months to make a pair using up at least three odds and ends of sock wool.  Interesting.

I haven't been on any 50+ Adventure Club activities since January, but I put that right by doing Indoor Archery.  What fun and though I was really awful at the beginning, by the end I had hit three bullseyes!  Success.

All set up to start

I was so excited to get the first one I had to take a photo!

I haven't been able to volunteer at Chester Farm lately due to the near bankruptcy of our County Council, and everything has gone quiet there.  In the meantime I am volunteering at Nenescape and went to my first meeting of the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS).  The items we were looking at have all been found by members of the public through a variety of methods - metal detecting, digging the garden etc.  All the items belong to the finder but should be entered onto the national database for future research by others.  

On this occasion we were looking at buckles all of which were post medieval up to 1720.  I find this quite fascinating as some were definitely shoe buckles and makes me wonder about the person who made the shoe or who wore it and why was it in the ground.  Had it fallen off and been lost?  Unfortunately PAS meet on a Monday which is already a busy day for me so I can't get to every meeting.

Yesterday I volunteered for Out of Water, into History litter picking and planting trees along the Greenway in Rushden which has been built on an old railway line and which I use frequently either cycling or walking.

This was a small amount of the rubbish we picked up -

and another skip had been requested.  Very well organised with portaloos (thank goodness!), all the tools required, soft drinks provided by Morrisons (who have a distribution centre nearby) and pizza at lunchtime and very welcome it was.  In the morning I picked up rubbish but after lunch I helped to plant hedgerow shrubs working with someone to make the holes and I put in the bare-root plant, heeled it in and then checked with a gentle tug that it was secure.  Being an old railway line the edges were extremely difficult to dig due to stone and clinker, but we managed to clear our bag of bushes.  Meanwhile men had planted large fruit trees with the children planting bulbs and potted shrubs.  In total about 50 people turned up to help.  Let us hope that the vandals leave it alone as the Greenway should look good in the future.

Me, I went home absolutely exhausted and flopped down with a large cup of tea!!!