Welcome to Wool on Sundays!

I sometimes think I really am going to wrack and ruin! Wool on Sundays used to be weekly with a linky party and everything, then monthly. Now, apparently, it’s become an annual event!

And I don’t even have much to show! I now have two new little grandchildren – a boy and a girl born, days apart, in June. The baby girl, having a two year old big sister, is is in want of nothing knitted (except a Christmas stocking!) but, for the baby boy, I began knitting a jumper before he was born. After a while I starting increasing the intended size but eventually, the other day, I thought I would just frog and start a 6 month size in different yarn.

Meanwhile, in the garden, something almost magical has happened.

in July, we had a brutally hot couple of days when it was 39° (centigrade – 102 fahrenheit) and it’s anyone’s guess what it was in the sun or the kitchen (where the thermometer ran out of space to register). The coolest parts of the house were in the mid-high 30s, It was cooler in India, Greece, parts of Africa…and I was genuinely concerned for the pets and my two new grandchildren.

Outside, the air was literally like being in front of a fan heater and it was eerily silent with no sign or sound of life and it reminded me of an eclipse when all the all the birds and wildlife fall motionless and silent. I took Poppy to try to get her to drink from the pond because I was worried she wasn’t really drinking enough inside and we found Fiona looking at a snake – I assume a grass snake. It seemed very limp and almost motionless but there was nowhere to move it to because, everywhere, the ground was scorched dry and you could crumble the grass in your fingers. I didn’t know if it would be ok if I put it in the pond and I was not over keen to pick it up so I tipped a bucket of water over it and left the bucket covering, it to provide a little shade, with room for it to slither out into undergrowth. When I went back a bit later it had gone (and the bucket was undisturbed) so I think the poor creature must have been ok or at least managed to get to better shelter…

It was a massive relief when the wind came.

It got very hot again in August but getting dark earlier helped cool the air a bit in the evenings and I found myself thinking that up to about 30° outside is manageable for normal life, which would have been unimaginable to me only last year! The supermarkets played Italian songs over their tannoys and I could almost imagine I was on holiday in my local, usually grey and rain-drenched, town. Then some of the trees started dropping their leaves, great cracks opened in the ground and it continued hot and dry, day and night. For days, there was no spot of rain, no dew in the mornings and all the countryside languished brown and laid to waste.

And then we had a little warm rain and after a week or so a little more. And fragile weeds and fresh blades of grass appeared and the dew came again and the fallen leaves and cracks in the earth held what little moisture there was and, suddenly, our world was green again with grass, weeds, flowers, bulbs pushing through the hard ground. For all who made it through – and I have no doubt that wildlife suffered heavy losses – it was an incredible regeneration. A second Spring.

Then came torrential rains and the fungi. Mushrooms, toadstools mottled and various sprung up overnight and, out of nowhere, we had a fairy ring!

I spent a good deal of my childhood lost in stories of magic and enchantment, where chancing upon such a thing was commonplace but, despite searching, I’ve never before seen one in real life and I certainly never expected to come upon one just outside my window.

I’d like to say it was the start of a magical adventure but immediately Mr RH discovered he had covid (mercifully, without symptoms) and there ensued a succession of minor mishaps and life continued in a very ordinary, everyday fashion, which, I suppose, was only to be expected.

But now it is Autumn proper and the world, with its fresh Spring growth, has made a spectacular recovery.

Last month I made a very little progress on the miniature shops and now I am knitting again. I have a quilt to make by the beginning of November and my daughter is on maternity leave until March so perhaps, after this long makingless time, I’m might even start to make a spectacular recovery myself!

I wish you a happy October :)

Janine @ Rainbow Hare