An odd week

 A very odd week with a thing and everything getting in the way of doing something!!

Anyhow, Pirate is on antibiotics, as I thought he would be..he is not happy and impatient..and his appointment to start treatment proper isn't until the 23rd....I joined him in the tooth department and lost a crown...so I start mid December. At least mine doesn't hurt!!.

At last I have started on a small linocut to make this year's cards...I hope it will work...I am thinking on a different way of printing two colours....we will see. Still a bit of cutting to do.

We managed a short walk before lunch to collect another bag of apples. Half have been juiced and the juice has been filtered through a muslin before standing until tomorrow to clear further.

I am hoping that I have enough bottles!!

Printing

 I am back in the laptop now for design work, and have wrestled with software new to me...plus remembering the old from a couple of years ago....

I have even got the laptop and the printer talking.

However I have been fooled by the printer not seeking to understand custom sizes...yet...

I want to print the back of some square cards....

Meanwhile I will stick with what the printer knows .....for now!!

The square card will have to have hand written backs...for now! 

Then they can go in the Etsy shop. High time I put more stick in there.

Garden progress

 The seedlings look better for having had bubble wrap over them overnight...memories of losing plants when we first got the polytunnel...

And Pirate has finished the sides of the bed by the polytunnel.

Broad beans and parsnips are ready to go in, and I will put black, light , weed suppressing membrane over the rest to keep it weed free and warm ready for peas beans and sweetcorn.

Today is cold wet and windy, so today I will get on with my mended laptop and install photos and suchlike so that hopefully I can print the rear of the linoprinted cards.

There are a couple of new designs brewing in my mind as well...

Meanwhile Pirate is sorting the warmer indoor homeroom instead of a cold shed!!

Cards and greetings and life

 Here it is...most of them sent and still not enough made! Seasonal Greetings to you all, and apologies to those who should have had an actual card but haven't..I am running out of oomph!!

I have a festive stamp design, I will just make some of those for the rest of the cards we need to send.  I have been trying to keep up writing letters and cards, but the inspiration has been low.

eBay sales will no doubt ease off a little, with people not wanting goods to get list in the rush, so maybe I will get a chance to sort out my study and do more drawing, writing, catching up on genealogy research...all sorts of things I promised myself that I would do.

Sometimes ordinary Life steamrollers ones inner spirit.

The solstice draws near and the year will turn..those with  astronomical or astrological interests are watching the heavens with interest.  If it signals a change and a fresh start, as they think, that will be good!!

Slow progress

 I am still not 100% happy with the cards, but they are looking better for colour. I found a good drying rack!!

It is cold and wet and windy here..at least we have more daylight than the six hours a day that Shetland is getting now, but it is not easy getting up in the mornings...and turn around and it is 4pm and dark!!

Pirate found yet another rose in the garden, open enough to pick...

It has opened beautifully.

A lovely sight when we returned from an hour's windy and slow bike ride around the lanes from here.

We crossed the main road twice in our travels...it was surprising how much traffic was moving... can't all be necessary journeys, when we are limited to our council areas...

On sale...at last!

One listed, now the wording has been sorted, the rest shouldn't take too long

next step...

inner papers for each card..

Another wet day....

I've done a bit more work on the cards, done some time on the home trainer (aaargh....but better than getting soaked out on the road bike).
We ventured out for milk, muesli and dark chocolate this morning, essentials of course! The river hasn't come over the banks in the city...yet...an ease in the rain this morning could help matters.
Landslips have closed the state highway 4 through the Paraparas again, just after they celebrated its 100th birthday with a vintage and veteran rally from Whanganui with a horse and cart preceeding them into Raetehi...where the road is also closed.
The river road up by the Whanganui River has also suffered more landslips after recently reopening. The Pirate rode up there with friends last Sunday, fortunately.
Now everyone is arriving home at midday as people leave work early to get over the bridges before they close. The worst shoukd hopefully be over by tomorrow morning, but there are twohigh tides before that. A big problem is the whole trees and huge branches that get brought down the river and get stuck against the bridges.

working!

new handmade business cards...I intended to print, but drawing with a fine pigment pen has worked nicely.

printing...

Making seasonal cards using a photo from our working visit to Skye last January. Funny how it can be easier to see the value in an image after a while...
must put some on Etsy tonight.

day out, but not day off

We started today slowly...gently does it for the Pirate...another side effect of his treatment is feeling sad, and worse, depression...the counter-attack is enough work and enough bike.....

Today was work, and we found new roads for us to a nice wee village that neither of us had visited...to a house called Inglewood...where we had good coffee and nice cake...and tidied a lawn and woodland area.

Many thanks !!  It is good to meet a fellow blogger at last !

We had hoped that our other local job would continue today, but someone was fencing there today, so no lawn bed preparation.

Instead we had a relaxing lunch at The Mad Hatter in Castle Douglas, a town that we really love. Then a little light shopping, buying mitts and saying hello to Axle the Dog in Castle Douglas Bikes.

We had hoped to see other friends too, but they were busy...so on to Kircudbright down a pleasant and wiggly road.  At last I found a reasonably local shop to buy card ....Kircudbright Working Print Studio !!

Then home along more wiggly roads,both small and large, with much achieved.

A working day out...can't fault it!

infuriating

I'm working on some new cards-and I'm wasting time getting the images right in one system (gimp) and saving them...that does in in something called xcf....
I can't find a way of opening and printing that.....
so I get them to a pdf file..great, better than a jpeg....
unfortunately the system I use (shotwell viewer) which lets me produce cards easily...HAS to have a jpeg file.

Right, convert one....and before I note how I did it, get called away to do something completely different....

Now can I remember or even re-find how I did it? No.

Nearly an hour wasted on top of the time spent editing the original images to the right contrast and clarity....ok, should have taken better images to start with..but at a party, with limited light, you do what you can....

chilling out....

 On Thursday we headed out by car, calling past the memorial to Davy Bell, a cyclist who wrote about many roads and tracks under the name  "The Highwayman"

We parked at Newton Stewart, and after lunch at the Belted Galloway cafe (to be recommended!) rode our bikes along the lanes to Wigtown, then headed inland a little to Spittal before hitting the lanes again back to the coast road and the bike path back into Newton Stewart.

Our route home was up the other side of the Cree Valley,so that I could see this....print inspiration?  Thankyou,Pirate!

 then on to Glen Trool...but the centre was closed

 chainsaw art...a red squirrel..

 and his habitat....crop being logged....

 then on Friday, after the Pirate's latest three monthly injection ( only six to go!) we had a little time to spare between things we needed to do....and headed for Maybole Shore....

 where the mist lifted a little

 evidence of early morning runs in the sand...

 then we returned to Maybole in time to see the mist darken and then reveal the almost full eclipse.
We both felt a little disorientated and queasy for a while...a common effect we found out later.

The living room is being sorted and tidied....one room at a time...and we are expecting our first guest of several on Monday!!

Today the sun shone brightly, making bikes the order of the day once more...and Southwards again, this time past Girvan to meet a friend on the beach for lunch...

About 40 miles ridden today....the housework and bike cleaning can wait till tomorrow!

new linoprint and Spring

 I cut so far, then take a pencil rubbing, cut some more....
and this is the first proof print.

Kirkmichael Road,Maybole...looking towards the Ayrshire Hills.

Now to get printing..the cards are selling at £3 each,plus P+P.  The next step is to cost a mount and packing and P+P for a print on A5 paper.

Today is the first day that it has really felt like Spring...the honeysuckle leaves are just opening in the hedgerows and the dog's mercury at the hedge base is almost flowering. The birds are all "twitterpated" and rooks are carrying sticks almost longer than themselves!

Hare print progress

The first print run with oil based ink!...took ages to dry. I must learn how to thin the ink a little ..there is a thing called linseed reducing jelly...probably easier to use than straight linseed oil.
 I'd started folding and packing the cards, when we had a power cut yesterday afternoon. After a cuppa brewed on the camping stove we ventured out for a two mile walk 'round the block'...still no power as we returned to a beautifully quiet house. 
No freezer and fridge noise, no boiler or central heating pipe noise....

We sat in front of the woodburner, having turned appliances off as one is directed...and relaxed....and only realized that the kitchen light was on when we went to make supper..and had been on for half an hour!

cycling in the sun!!!!

Eventually....the bikes were ready before 10am....several showers later, at 12.40 we started out!!
It was chilly, the roads damp, the wind strong but at last the sun was shining for more than five minutes!

We were both road rusty, having just been riding our bikes on the turbo trainers...set up his and hers together in the living room!

The first four miles took us over 20 minutes...The Pirate was considering turning for home....but then he thought "it's a lovely sunny day......"
We hadn't realized that the main road to Stranraer, A77, was closed in Maybole...and the diversion was past Culzean, just the way we were taking!!
All the A77 traffic, the coach trips out,the Sunday drivers, the lorries...
We had thought of turning right off this road for a short diversion.. plans changed with all this traffic.Straight down to the cafe in Maidens village.

Sitting in the cafe we looked across the green to the harbour, where  we could see the waves were breaking high across the bar.  They have been over the harbour cob wall on previous visits....

We turned back,but not along the A road but by the road near the beach, through a caravan park to the western end of the Culzean Estate.
Through the estate in the shelter of the trees , forgoing another cafe stop, and up to the main road at the main entrance.   A short hop of a mile along the road to look at something down a side lane...then the bright idea of heading along the coast road to avoid the traffic...

Unfortunately much of the diverted traffic was coming the same way.....at least less than had been heading West...
Still,it was good to have an amount of wind assistance for a change!

Just before the edge of Alloway we transferred to the cycle / footpath,a nice wide smooth clean route...an ex-railway thanks to Mr Beeching.
Through tunnels and over a river bridge to come up by the Burns Experience Museum in Alloway.   Then a quick hop over the bypass to the lanes to Dalrymple.
The shorter way was over Ballycoach and Guiltree Hill...but the longer valley route was chosen for the last five miles home and we were very glad to be going with the wind for the last three...

A steady ride of just over 40 miles, but all in the sun.

A great change to this morning when at 6.45 am it was chilly,the car lightly frosted,the air still and the sky red.
Within an hour it was back to blowing a hoolie, with rain and snow thrown in for good measure .We're even having to keep our house door locked to stop the wind blowing in!

Back to coffee and Hawthorn's luscious malt loaf in front of the fire before a session on the turbo.

Then some more linoprinting, of which more later.....

printing progress

Hare we go!! 

  Thanks to yeractual...another use for the fruit pulp pusher through sieves....a baren for rubbing the back of the paper to ensure a good print.     Just trying with water based ink to start with.

getting ready

More cards in production, looking forwards to the Craft Fair at Ballantrae on 28 March...

The Black & White images are coming along...but they are from Girvan!.
I'm only happy so far with three of those from Ballantrae.

We're suffering a bit from "Cabin Fever"...life is getting us down a bit, especially The Pirate.
What better reason then to go out in what sunshine we have, NOW !!!!

Hormone Therapy can bring depression....and influenza...and getting older....
The Pirate feels Sad.     Giving him plenty of hugs and getting him away from The Cabin !!
So, get the firewood in for later on (stove is ticking over nicely already), pack a bike in the car to give to a friend near Ballantrae and be off....and even if it rains, we'll get good photos!!

Keep thinking positive...In two weeks we'll be at the Scottish Potters' weekend get together.....I've just booked for the Kirkmichael Gala Day on May 30th.....  and a young friend of ours from New Zealand will be here for a few days on his travels as a WOOFer at Eastertide.