Purl One, Yarn Over, Purl Two Together, Knit One

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Vacationing at Home...and Baking! A Photo Collage

acationing at home means...

Ice cream! Lobster dinners with friends! Bread baking! Knitting! And getting out in the vineyards on sunny days (which have been rare this summer, sadly, compared with previous summers).

View from our balcony

View from/through a house up on the hill

Local beer!

My landlady's roses!

Donkeys up the road!

Flamingoes at the Botanical Gardens in Geneva

Back to the donkeys!

Hay bale!

Back to the balcony

Vineyards

Cake!

Baking no-knead bread, from the Gimme Some Oven recipe

Making flatbread with the dough that didn't rise...

My first perfect loaf!

It's adorable!

Here's the cake from above, pre-slicing

Crinkle cookies. They tasted great but didn't look right (it's too hot and humid to be baking these; I'll have to wait for winter!)

My view while donating blood

Second perfect loaf!

And third! Swiss flag for Swiss National Day and English plates for Yorkshire Day!

Back to the vineyards

Cake! made from a mix given to me by a friend:

Cake! Brought to the office on my first visit there in a long time

Hat in progress

Finished hat!

Hat while it was in progress. And look: knitters in fiction!

Poor lobsters!

Bread and lobsters and garlic butter...

Nasturtium! Or nasturtian, as in the ones Bilbo's garden!

A house up the road

Our tomato plants!

Rainbow!

Taking a walk

There are deer up there!

What sights and sounds and smells do you love in your neighbourhood?

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

IWSG, ROW80, Lots of Photos, and My Book Review Contest!

nsecure Writer's Support Group Day is coming up!

And my book review contest is running all month!

Mine is going to be a photo post, mainly, as I'm running a contest all month!

This month's question is: What would make you quit writing?

Short answer: Nothing! I once had a serious case of writer's block that last over a year or two, and the idea that I might have lost that vital part of myself really frightened me. I was never so grateful as when I suddenly had a vision of a boy and a cat, walking backward through time, with the Aegean Sea following them to its location c. AD 43... Part of the reason I try to keep up regular writing habits is because I never want the well to dry up ever again!

Speaking of which, it's time for a new round of A Round of Words in 80 Days goals!

I have four main things on my plate:

Edit Druid's Moon (exciting news on this coming soon!)

Edit the new story and submit to SIWC

Copy-edit a short story collection (not mine!) prior to publication

Revise the query letter for The Charm of Time and send it out (I was pulled from a hat to be featured on Nathan Bransford's blog last week! He had a really pertinent critique to make, and I was also really excited by the comments! (I can't help but wonder if Nathan looked up my blog and posted a painting of a Swiss mountain on purpose!))

The awesome co-hosts for the July 7 posting of the IWSG are Pat Garcia, Victoria Marie Lees, and Louise – Fundy Blue!

And now, photos!