1 – In my personal Springwatch – the bulbs in the garden continue to flourish – the Daffodils are out, including some Soleil D’Ors and somewhere in the middle of this picture, a shy, Snakeshead Fritillary is about to open…
2 – on the subject of flowers, the local florist has a nice sign and a well-dressed shop..
3 – but not a patch on the wedding dress shop whose windows are framed by a mass of flowers on the outside and a cornucopia of ornamentation inside, between the wedding dresses…
4 – I have completed 10 out of 26 A to Z entries but I shall have some time this week to get seriously stuck in – I want to be free on holiday to read other peoples posts and not be writing mine lol!
5 – Barbara was finally persuaded that we should buy her a mobility scooter – as she said to her daughter, half the problem was not being able to accept that she was actually 79 years old, and such a device is entirely appropriate! I shall be picking it up tomorrow…
6 – Only 3 full working days before the holiday!
7 – It is my local town ‘s- Keighley Library live poetry group meeting tonight…
8 – I will make homemade Corned -Beef Hash when I get home – a new favourite of both of us…
9 – Planning to do some painting in the Netherlands…
Immediately after the accident the woman in the car behind me came up to my driver’s door and asked if I was alright I wound down the window answered that I was and so it seemed to me… I couldn’t move my right leg and I couldn’t see why not but I was still sitting upright in my seat belt there was no blood but this woman knew differently she saw I was in shock and before I had even properly registered her face she opened the van door behind me climbed in, and kneeling reached her arm around my headrest to cradle my head with her arm holding it upright.
The farmer had backed off his tractor stood a little way away phoning the emergency services.
It seemed the most natural thing in the world to feel the soft bare arm of this woman, now invisible to me her disembodied voice near to my ear reassuring me that it would be alright and I should relax, keep still – she was a nurse she said. Could there have been a more fortuitous person to be following me, I thought as I gave myself up to her gentle, minimal ministration of simply holding me – talking to me showing me how to put myself in others’ hands, as I was now to do for the next few months then fire brigade and ambulance arrived and she slipped away passing me on as it were and I think of her kindness which though professionally practised ambushed us both on a remote road outside of work, and created a moment of intimacy that took away the trauma…
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, sanaarizvi in OpenLinkNight, invites us to the live meeting on Saturday and to post a poem to read (if we successfully navigate the temporarily out-of-sync time zones – we Brits don’t put the clocks forward till 29th March!). This is a recent poem from my writers group and was written ITSO The Kindness by Jan Beatty
“Choose any subject you would like to write about…” that is the object of the A to Z Challenge, and thinking of things that interest me is not a problem for me, but choosing a subject not only to write about, but to write in a way that other people will catch my interest – that is the real challenge! When I chose to write about Commodities in 2024, I was more than a little trepidatious, would it be too dry a subject, would it only be of interest to economists, mostly men, nerds? As it happened, I found much to interest me, and, I think, those who read the abecedarium. Last year was more personal – a kind of memoir told in topics rather than chronologically, but this year I return to a subject, close to our skin if not our hearts, and yet, again, I wonder if this subject will get some people past the title on the list – dismissed as niche? For this year, my theme is What We Wear – Fabrics and Fibres
For this year, my theme is What We Wear – Fabrics and Fibres
Both men and women are involved with Fabrics on a professional level – manufacturing first the Fibres and then the cloth, by weaving, knitting or more arcane processes and then there are those who make things out of cloth – clothes, fashionable and functional, bags, art, bandages and all manner of things. On a craft level, I suspect that women still outnumber men, despite the Tom Daley’s and Kaffe Fassett disciples of this world. Yet anybody who reads books must surely have a moment’s curiosity upon encountering such names as grosgrain, huckaback and hair cloth. Who is even sure about more common names such as flannel [nighties or draws], what is English about Broderie Anglaise or Dutch about Holland Cloth.
We all wear clothes and for some people, reading the little labels that give the fibre mix is a matter of life or itch whilst for others, it’s all an irrelevance they skip over on the way to the How to Care label which tells them whether to wash (hot or cold), tumble or drip-dry, or that dire warning Dry Clean Only! For some, the choice of fabric and constituent fibre, is an ethical one – “I only wear “natural” fibres, but what makes for genuine sustainability? Sheep caused much of Great Britain, even unto the Scottish Highlands, to be stripped of trees (with their oxygen replenishing bounty) and the sheep still keep the mountains free of saplings. Does wood count as a “natural” fibre source (Viscose, Rayon, Acetate) and why is Lyocell more environmentally friendly?
These are just some of the questions thrown up by my deep dive into Fabrics and Fibres and they take us to History, Economics, Chemistry and Craft to find answers – come along for the ride and find out more about the clothes you inhabit and the stuff they are made of…
I compiled a list of as many fabrics, fibres and related items as possible (278 items), from several sources, the most comprehensive of which was Wikipedia. Since there ar only 26 letters in the alphabet, I could not write in detail about every instance so I have taken snippets of text for the brief descriptions and linked to the source in the name of the item. I am indebted to all the contributors to those Wikipedia pages and the depth of knowledge to be found there…
If you are also participating in the A to Z this year – I look forward to seeing you on the road…
Ever wanted to look like a head-to-toe marshmallow? No? Well, Giambattista Valli is here to quickly change your mind. The designer (and tulle fanatic) showcased several on-point millennial pink gowns, which looked like something straight out of a fairytale. (Getty Images) (Elle)
1 – I give thanks today for another years juant around the sun, and at the youthful age of 71, I wonder at the Beatles imagining that 64 (Will you still love me, When I’m sixty-four) was old…
2 – Glad that I checked Barbara’s Passport which, it turns out, expired last March! So on Monday, we have to drive to Liverpool for a ten-minute face to face interview as part of the one-week fast-track passport renewal process so that we mat go on holiday in the Netherlands…
3 – grateful that training on the computer and other processes at the Storage Warehouse that my bosses have opened, turned out to be pretty simple – since they, and all the staff, are Moslem, I will be manning the facility on my own on the 20th March whilst they celebrate Eid. This in fact, the little Eid that marks the end of Ramadan and there is a separate, main Eid celebration at a different time of year.
4 – All local family ar coming over this afternoon for a birthday tea, I am going to serve Skordalia – chickpeas and vegetables, prepared in different ways, boiled, fried etc. and brought together with a sauce comprising Aioli (garlic mayonnaise) enriched with ground almonds and lemon – a treasured recipe from one of the earliest cookbooks I bought whilst still a student – Elizabeth David’s Mediterranean Cookery – I fell in love with her food, herw riting and her…
5 – An American poet friend, Akua Lezli Hope, suggested a collaborative poem idea – to both ask the online I Ching the same question and write a poem based on the answer – done and dusted in under 24 hours – if they get published in my friend Melissa’s online poetry journal Collaborature, I will link you in…
6 – The A to Z writing about Fabrics and Fibres proceeds though I still need to speed up to avoid pantsing it in April…
7 – a photograph taken at the supermarket car par, where the sunset always highlights the Winter tree skeletons…
8 – Melissa asked me to play Crossplay (Scrabble) and we seem to be evenly matched which is always a relief between friends…
9 – Grat for this community…
10 – Dropped an ear-bud right here next to my desk – still not found it, very strange – but glad to discover, through moving things around, that some microscopic creatures are eating the carpet so glad to have caught it before it spreads… Perhaps they ate the ear-bud too…
Have a great week everyone, and don’t forget – this is International Women’s Day…
1 – Here in England, on the BBC, we have a programme called Springwatch – which does what it says on the tin! In my own personal Springwatch, the picture below shows the progress of the daffodils…
These ones must be self-seeded, because I certainly didn’t plant them in this pot of Stargazer Lillies – just beginning to show…
2 – The downside of Spring advancing is that the weeds are also demanding attention – still, Spring is sprung and that’s a grat!
3 – I found time to stop and photograph this elaborate gateway that leads into the lower grounds of Castle Farm ( a Victorian folly castle) and for the poets amongst us, this is of course, a liminal opportunity…
4 – Further along the road, I am grateful to see evidence of the stuff I learned at school and at university – evidence of glaciation – these boulders were plucked from the crag above to become erratics, had they not fallen where they are when the ice melted…
5 – There is a delicate shade of mauve in the trees at the centre of this picture, which is never the colour one imagines naked trees to be…
6 – On my walk to the Doctor’s surgery this morning, I noticed these original railings – fortunate to survive the Second World War when most of their ilk were taken away to melt down for the war effort…
7 – Somehow, the moon seen during the daytime seems to show that we are on a celestial body even more than the nighttime view of it…
8 – Continuing my A to Z writing and research, I came across a blog by a Hawaiian-born, New Zealand Resident – The Dreamstress – who writes about historical fabrics and fashion and even designs historical patterns for you to try – who could resist a design called The Barbara Bum Roll and Support Petticoat…
9 – We have booked a holiday towards the end of March, whence we will drive to Hull, take the night ferry to Rotterdam and spend just over a week on this houseboat which is in the “green heart” of the Netherlands, between Rotterdam, Amsterdam and the Hague… “
10 – The A to Z has reached “I” – I need to speed up but progress is being made…
