The way to me has been barred …

I’m glad to be back.  Unfortunately, my computer has been out of action for the last twenty-four hours or so.  I was using it yesterday when all of a sudden I was attacked by a virus.  I could do nothing to stop it, it totally disabled my computer and kicked me off the net.  Partly my own fault – my computer was not protected against viruses, happily this is now rectified and I am now protected, but it was expensive and worrying to get it fixed.  Fixed it has been however, and Radders is back in action, thankfully.

So now the gates are open to me again, thankfully, and it’s taught me an important lesson, the hard way, about being protected against viruses.  I didn’t think it would happen to me, but I found out the hard way it can happen to anyone.

Hope you are all well.

Love and Hugs Radders xx

Ever fallen so recklessly …

In lust/admiration for a pattern.  I just did, and maybe I am deluding myself that I can actually do this but I am going to have a jolly good go.  I once remember my Gran telling me that the best way to learn to knit is to attempt something that you’re jolly well sure that you can’t knit.  If you’re passionate enough – you’ll do it, you’ll learn the new techniques needed along the way.

Looking at this gorgeous item, and reading the pattern carefully, (of course) the only thing that I think is going to give me trouble is short-row shaping and wrapping stitches, both of which I’ve never done before.  But, Hey, I’ll learn or not,  sink or swim, optimism or sheer stupidity, I’m not sure which.

The only other thing that daunts me about this pattern is the sheer amount of knitting involved – it’s 4ply you see – not something I am going to have done in a week.  Never committed myself to something this big before, not at all.  But, like I said, I am picking up my needles, having a go and going to learn a lot on the way.

The pattern itself came from this book, which seems to be filled with other gems, none quite as big as the dress though.

Ah well, wish me luck, where are me needles  then …

Love and Hugs Radders x

Beautiful, but not exactly sure ….

What these beauties are.  Mr Radders and I inherited them when we bought our house years ago and every spring, without fail, they appear; slightly later this year, though I’m thinking this may be due to the awful winter we’ve had.

I think that they may possibly be some kind of fritillary – possibly Fritillaria meleagris aka Snakeshead Fritillary; a perennial usually to be found on damp meadowland.  This is a distinct possibility as we have a very damp clay-type soil in our garden. Whatever they are, they’re beautiful and it always cheers me so much to see them, I feel like summer is on the way at last! Hopefully!

We have two clumps of these beauties and the photo below is a slightly smaller plant.  Every year they go and every year I worry that winter will kill them off and they wont come back, but every year, miraculously, they return.

A lovely little bit of constancy in an ever-changing world.

Hope you are all well.

BTW If I have wrongly identified this plant and anyone thinks it may be something else  I’d love to hear from you, so please do get in touch.

Bye for now Radders xx

A Small Problem

I seem to be having a small problem. I can see that people have left comments for me, but for some reason I can't seem to access them. I have been trying to access them but no luck. I can see how many comments have been left for me but I can't access them. Please forgive me if you have commented but your comment hasn't appeared. I'd dearly love to read your comments but for some reason at the moment - I just can't. It's a little bit frustrating to say the least ... All I can say is please keep trying and hopefully at some point a backlog of comments will get through to me.

Bye for now Radders x

Little Bit Nervous …

I have an interview tomorrow with one of my local clothes stores.  I haven’t been a sales assistant since before I had my children, which is more than fifteen years.  I fancy a change, because I like working with people, sadly I am lacking in experience in recent years, but I am hoping that a passion for fashion and working with people might take me some of the way.  I have to say, I get nervous about interviews, I say nowt or I can’t shut up; so I am hoping for a happy medium.  Off for an early night now.

Wish me luck please and cross fingers and toes for me  …

Hope you are all well.

Love and Hugs Radders xx

Ideas they are a crystallizin’ …

I’ve long had it in mind to write a book. Trouble is, so far I have not been able to decide on a subject. I have a wide range of interests which I’ve researched quite fully, but for one reason or another, they’ve never quite made it to the stage where I wanted to take them forward into a full length book. Maybe I didn’t know enough or for one reason or another I wasn’t quite passionate enough about the subject in hand. I want to be totally passionate about whatever I write about. So, I’ve kept files of my interests on hand basically to see which one I keep going back to time and time again.

The one that I’ve kept going back to has surprised me the most …

When I was in university the subject that enthralled me most was botany. Now most people might say, plants are such dry and boring things and if all you’re going to do is count petals and classify Latin names – I’d firmly agree with them.

But plants have another side – a more exciting side, for me anyway. They can cure or they can very definitely KILL! How many of us as little children were shooed quickly away from the plant in the garden from the plant with pretty flowers or even more commonly bright shiny pretty berries?

I remember moving into one of our old houses as a child and seeing a plant at the bottom of the garden with big shiny black berries – I was fascinated and when I pointed it to my Father and asked him what it was – I was dragged away from it quick smart and told that if I ever touched that plant I would die. Said plant was then dug up by the roots and burnt – quick smart. Only when I was much older did I learn that it was deadly nightshade and that my darling dad spoke no less than the truth when he said that it could kill me. It very definitely could!

When I studied botany at university as part of my degree – these were the plants that fascinated me then and still do. The bad boys, the glamour boys, the Lord Byrons of the plant world: “Mad, Bad and Dangerous to know!”

So I think this is where my thoughts are headed and my ideas have been crystallised by a chance discovery of a fantastic site – Mrs Grieve’s Herbal, which can be found here:

www.botanical.com

The illustrations are beautiful (and this site is where the illustration above comes from) and the whole herbal is written from the 1930s (one of my favourite eras), personally I just found it a fascinating read.

I’m off now to immerse myself in a few old botany texts. Hope you are all well.

Love and Hugs Radders xx

Time has run away with me ...

So friends, to those of you who've wondered where I've been the last couple of days. Time has kind of run away with me. I've gone from being at home full-time to working full time. Just temporary work for a company I've worked for before, who've very nicely asked to do some sick leave cover for them. Which is great, but it does mean that I've not had time for Radders' World since the beginning of the week.

I shall return - probably in a couple of days when I've (hopefully) got more time. Really missing blogging and really missing all of you out there. Desperate measures; I'm writing this on my laptop in the staffroom at work on my lunch hour. Hence no photo for today, unfortunately. The photo is the one part I enjoy doing, but I don't want to put a rubbish one on here and then regret it. No way!!

So promise, promise, promise I'll post over the next couple of days, no really I will. You can all hold me to that.

Time marches on ... Bye for now.

Love Radders

Should I tell …?

Maybe not just yet …

I’m so, so, so excited with that kind of excitement that can only come from a new project, I’m not that experienced a knitter but I have decided to take the plunge and create something unique for myself.  No patterns … something from inside my head – designed by little old me …

All I will tell is … for now … oooooh 121 stitches of Stylecraft Special 4-ply in cream, inexpensive and nice – save the expensive stuff for when I am a bit more experienced and know what I am doing … It’ll come …

In the meantime, I’m going away to get on with it.  Show you a little bit more soon.

Take care for now – Radders xx

Roads that lead to …

Call me funny, if you like, but I’ve always had a thing about country lanes that wind off into seemingly nowhere.  Where do they go?  It’s just one thing that I’ve always been curious about; if you started to walk where you get to, where would you go?  Call me sad, if you like, but on Google maps I like to follow isolated roads to see where they go, just something I like to do.

To this slightly weird end, I discovered a book in my local library called Roads and Tracks of Britain by Christopher Taylor.  I’m finding it a fantastically interesting read.  I’ve always wondered about the history of roads.

Who started them and when?  Who decided where they would start and where they would  go and who decided where they would end and why?

Fortunately I know exactly where this lovely road goes because I took the photograph myself.  It’s down by the cathedral and the river in St Davids in Pembrokeshire, a place that is truly beautiful to look at and spiritually refreshing for the soul.  One of my favourite places, I love it here, and hoping to go back soon.

I’m off now to go wandering …

Bye for now Radders xx

Radders Loves Vintage

It all started with this … My Big Bag of Joy.

Which I bought from one of my favourite shops … Here …

It’s a fantastically colourful and cheerful shopping bag that I fell in love with.  So many people have asked where I got it from.  People have stopped me in the street to comment on it and ask where I bought it from.  My Big Bag of Joy came from one of my favourite shops Magpies on King Street in Carmarthen. (Number 11).

Sadly, independent traders in Carmarthen are disappearing at an alarming rate, due to both the recession and the big, brand new shopping centre in the middle of town.

But I like Magpies; it’s one of my favourites, it’s a fantastic shop if you want something unusual and beautiful as a gift or if you just want to treat yourself, then I’d highly recommend it.

It has beautiful surprises in every corner – at the back there is a nursery department/ toyshop – selling all those old-fashioned much-loved toys you thought had disappeared with your childhood as well as a few more modern toys.  The best thing is they’re all extremely high quality and well made, and come with quite a reasonable price-tag.  Moulin Roty teddy bears and soft toys are a speciality. (Sorry, I’m a big softie and I had to have a teddy bear too – oops! there goes my secret – please promise me you won’t tell anyone).

 

Which brings me to my next passion – handbags.  Love, love, love these. Magpies has a fantastic selection including Troop, Charlotte Reid and Zandra Rhodes handbags – no wonder I love this shop.  Magpies also boasts cabinets of the most beautiful costume jewellery I have ever seen – a fantastic ever-changing selection as new designers are sourced.  Kitchen ware and home-wares are also catered for in abundance – again things you loved that your granny had in her kitchen that you never thought you’d see again.

I could stay in here all day – if the owners would let me of course (if there’s anything you can’t get or you want to see, just say and I’m sure they would be more than willing to accommodate you).  If you have any queries – 01267  234401.

Spent some time in their today, warm welcome out of the rain, but sadly had to come away empty handed – next pay day come quickly please.

Well worth a visit.

Magpies 11 King Street, Carmarthen, SA31 1BH

Bye for now Radders xx

So, So, So Yummy …

 

I have to say that unfortunately I’m on quite a restricted diet – there are a few things I sadly cannot tolerate – dairy being one of them.  When I realised I would have to go on a dairy-free diet, I was quite daunted at the thought of what I would and wouldn’t be able to eat.  Enter the above – this stuff is seriously delicious, you wouldn’t know that it was dairy-free at all.  It tastes like the richest creamiest milk chocolate imaginable – very rarely can I stop at one pot (Naughty! Naughty! Radders! Put the spoon down and back away from that pot! )  I would honestly say worth a try even if you are not dairy intolerant. 

I’m hungry – where’s my spoon gone.

Bye for now Radders x

Yep, I Fess Up; It’s a Mess

Yep, as the title says, I gotta fess up; my study, where Radder’s World is created is a mess.  It’s been this way for several days now, much to the consternation of Mr Radders who is very tidy.

It’s not always this way – it does get tidied occasionally – not as often as it should, but I am messy – there I’ve said it.

I’m shaming myself into tidying it up – specially the bit below, which is kind of a dumping ground for anything and everything.

Trouble is – I kinda like it this way sometimes – it’s not perfect, not like one of those studies that you see in 25 Beautiful Homes magazine, but it’s mine.  It wraps itself around me like a warm cosy blanket on days when I need it to.

These pics capture the mess, but what they don’t capture is the fact that it’s always warm – usually the warmest room in the house; I love playing beautiful music here (tell you what type some other day); I love to burn scented candles and incense.  It’s where I create, but it’s where I relax too; I knit here, I watch films here; my daughters spend time here with me (we laugh here – a lot).

So, although it doesn’t look perfect, it’s my world and I love it lots.

Still might benefit from a tidy, I suppose.

Now, where’s me duster, polish and bin bag …

Bye for now Radders xx

I am inspired …

I am feeling positively inspired and excited. Having decided to apply to do a postgraduate degree in history (a subject I’ve always loved) ; I decided to reacquaint myself with the county archives, with a view to researching writing a couple of papers on historical subjects that interest me. I met one of the people who works there, I’m not going to embarrass him by naming him, and all I can say is that it’s so great to meet someone who is so obviously inspired and passionate about their subject – I’m inspired, I love history and I want to be that passionate and enthralled by the subject as well. It’s making me look at my subject in a whole new light, I’m positive, I can do this. Away I go … I’m so excited.

Something else that’s inspired me: I found this in one of my books today -

On some island I long to be

A rocky promontory, Looking on

The coiling surface of the sea.

To see the waves, crest on crest

Of the great shining ocean, composing

A hymn to the creator, without rest.

Collumcille

Thanks for reading.

Also check out this - it's lovely

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82L8AaqA-Dc

Radders

I want to escape to here …

 

I discovered this fabulous looking place this morning.  Sadly, not literally, but found the picture on Pinterest.  (Well worth a Google if you love photography and amazing and beautiful things by the bucket load!!) Apparently it’s Cataluna in Spain.  I could just see myself here; walking along this lovely street with a basket full of scrumptious fresh food and wine … 

Here’s another photo again from Pinterest, these flowers look divine, I just love the colours …

Hope you enjoy …

Bye for now Radders x