A Christmas tail

It's a tradition to don your new Christmas gear and go for a walk pre dinner…isn't it?

To my delight I was lucky enough to receive a monkey onesie. It's even got a tail! The dogs needed a walk, I needed to show off my new outfit - off to the riverside we go. Normally a secluded spot, a very pleasant place for the dogs to run in the adjacent field. We head off…we meet some dogs (and their owner  - known to us) all good so far. Owner familiar with the concept of wearing Christmas gifts - however they are not sporting any wildly unusual outfits themselves. Disappointing.

Then…what seems to be half of Sheffield arrive to partake in a pleasant walk in the country side. I felt like a right narna in my monkey suit! Everyone else it seems, received sensible walking shoes or wooly hats. Oh well, the little dogs santa outfit caused some distraction at least.

Back home for Christmas related traditions, including eating too much, Guess what - no waist on the onesie makes it the perfect stuffing your face outfit - no belt loosening needed for me. On reflection…I'm never taking it off.

Happy Christmas all. 

Peace Love Happiness and Onesies 

Christmas is coming, the dog is getting….as much sleep in as possible!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

It all started a little early for us as we need to raise funds for a Guide trip for offspring in 2015…we have been making felt Christmas decorations for what seems like EVER, as well as bath bombs, stockings and brooches. We did two Christmas Fayres and, although we won't make the next episode of the Apprentice, we did quite well. If you would like to purchase any of said items, or would like your car washing, dog walked or cat fed, please get in touch. (it's like 'bob a job' but much more expensive)

Now it's on to the serious business of what's on the telly, when can we tap and unwrap and how much lemonade are we going to need to keep us in snowballs for the entirety of the Christmas season.

Oh yes - and a bit of shopping.

I don't get Christmassy until I've jostled with loads of people and queued for hours to purchase essential Christmas items. Online shopping doesn't have the same sense of build up of anticipation and excitement. 

Fortunately a trip to Chesterfield provided jostling, a scary looking reindeer ride (I was too tall apparently) and meringue snowmen that looked like they had been in fight. Quality stuff.

The little dog is taking up every opportunity to sleep and dream of sleigh bells and Santa Paws. (sorry).

I'm sure it will be worth the wait, all the paper a dog could wish for to shred and distribute, squeaky toys to de-squeak and nice food sniffs. Doggy bliss.

Luminaire - that’s lighting stuff up, that is

What better way to catch up with old favourite bits of Chatsworth than by dim lighting. Chatsworth at night, by fake candlelight to be exact. The luminaire event was all rather enchanting. The atmosphere was set when we drove up at 7 pm, in the cold and dark and were greeted by the blue frontage - pretty stunning. Teenager proclaims “well, I wont be wanting an ice cream!” 

We saw pots and paintings, flooring and ceilings, sculptures and trinkets, all carefully lit with candlelight. Very atmospheric, giving the idea of what it must have looked like before electricity. The main star of the show, however, was the gardens. The building looked stunning and we liked the lit pathways to take you along the recommended route through the gardens.

The fierce weather held off for our visit but we did shuffle off home for a welcome hot chocolate and to recreate the Chatsworth effect in the comfort of our own sitting room.

French Polish

I have been wondering what to blog about, my father passed away recently after a short illness. It was inevitable at some point, but the sense of loss is very great.

Sorting through his belongings, I found an article he wrote about French Polish. Who better to provide a guest blog than

Alan De Sillery Wilson CChem FRSC

29 December 1925 – 09 September 2013

Read it – you might learn something. It will be particularly interesting for people who grew up believing the French polisher would be able to save the piece of furniture a young man damaged at a house party whilst his parents were away…he would never have done it in time (yellow pages ad c.1989). I’d always had my doubts.

French Polish

By Alan Wilson

I’m unsure of the date

A handsome piece of old furniture attracts by its design and style. The mind is intrigued by the skill involved in its construction. The eye is delighted by the beauty of its timber and veneer and one's hand is drawn to caress the quality of its finish. The patina and beauty will have been brought to perfection by the art in application used by an old time craftsman using French Polish.

The modern craftsman seeking to achieve the same results turns again to these old materials and methods, scorning the ubiquitous spray gun. What then is this magical material? The name is odd as it is known in France as English Polish. It consists of two ingredients, a resin called shellac and industrial methylated spirits and pure alcohol.

Shellac the basic resin comes form India and neighboring areas. It is an exudation of the parasitic lac insect, which feeds on special host trees. The word lac means one hundred thousand and is an indication of the vast number of little workers needed to produce this special resin. The word lac now gives us the modern term lacquer, used to describe many wood finishes. The basic resin is stripped from the trees and, being thermoplastic, is melted then filtered.

Various types are received in this country of which orange, button and garnet are examples. Processed grades such as white (obtained by bleaching) and transparent where the natural wax has been filtered out are also available.

Orange shellac is used to make the traditional French Polish and is available in flake form. Button shellac, used in button polish, was originally supplied as pats of resin about three inches wide and about one eighth thick. Now it too comes in flake form. Both French and button polish are cloudy due to the natural wax present in the resin. Garnet  shellac, as the name suggests, is a very deep colour and gives a very hard finish.

The polish made by dissolving the resin in the meths is applied by the craftsmen using a specially made pad or fad. This is constructed using about a nine inch square piece of chamois leather or cotton drill that has been washed many times. Well-laundered laboratory coats were much sought after for this purpose. A piece of pear-shaped wadding is placed in the center and the two sides of the leather folded diagonally over it to form a mouse-like shape. The whole is soaked in the polish with the loose ends twisted to squeeze the excess liquid out of the pad as required. 

The pad was then evenly worked over the surface of the piece of furniture, pressure being exerted to bring out more liquid to keep the surface wet. When the entire panel had been adequately covered it was left to dry for at least 24 hours. This operation was then repeated until a good solid coat had been applied. Best results were obtained using a steady circular motion. Finally the fad was used with a very dilute polish or even just meths to even out the final finish.

 

There are, of course, many tricks of the trade used by individual polishers. The most common is to add about 1-2% linseed oil to the polish to act as a lubricant. Alternatively the end of the fad is occasionally dipped into the oil for the same purpose during the application.

The result after many days work was a piece of furniture with a superb finish where the where the natural beauty of the timber had been developed to the full.

Dad was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry from 1956. He worked as a paint chemist most of his life he did a fair amount of research into ‘green’ waxes and polishes.

He lived a full, long life and enjoyed the occasional whiskey.

We didn’t go to Sheffield Pride, although I may have taken similar photos if we had

Yes, it’s that time of year...Pride or a carnival, Pride or a carnival...well this year, a Carnival won out  - Bakewell Carnival to be precise. Maisie and I had been to Bakewell earlier in the week, heard the fair music, seen the very end of the raft race and that was it - we were hooked into the carnival festivities and the all the candy floss of the fair, like a duck!

We squash into the little car (easier to park) pick up a friend of Maisie’s and head off in the sweltering heat to find the fun. First we have to find a car park. Dodging shopping trolleys full of novelty items and oompaloompas wandering around in the streets we head for the large, just out of town car park in Bakewell. Huzzah for the little car, we squeeze quite nicely in-between a car and a camper van. Nice. However, in that Great British tradition, the occupants of the camper van are picnicking inside the van - in the car park. They lean out of the window and say "don't park there, how on earth are we going to get out?" We thought they could maybe get out by simply driving straight forward and driving through the bloody great camper-van-sized gap. Not wanting to cause an argument, we found a lovely spot next to the river. 

Tempting though it was to stay in the car and take refreshments there, we headed out to seek entertainment in carnival and fair form.

We were not disappointed. Child and friend head straight for the candy floss, I head straight for the weapons and attempt to win Leanne a ridiculous stuffed Unicorn. The girls were successful, I was not. All I won was a piece of card with two holes in - only one through the star. Leanne was polite in accepting what I’d ‘won’ and managed to hide her disappointment well. On to the carnival.

It was soooo hot, we wandered through the carnival entrants, we were impressed by the variety of vehicles and avoided the bouncy castles, rodeo bull experience and random toilet queue. When we got to the classic cars we knew we were at the end of the display. I’m sure Leanne liked my suggestion of buying a classic car which would mean we would always get a good parking space at such events. Next year, I may just roll up in my Citroen C2, pop the bonnet and stick a random number and rosette on the front - sorted.

People had been lining the streets for hours to get a good view of the procession. We arrived just at the allocated start time. The Police closed the road as we walked up, so we just wandered along the road, and stood right next to the start, in the road, choice.

We were amazed and delighted by the carnival procession. Men with cans of beer dressed as Mary Poppins, girls (Carnival queens) in frilly dresses stuffed into the back of cars waving (what is that all about?) Men dressed as women, women dressed as gnomes, yep just like Pride.

Leanne and I wandered about hand in hand without a care that we might be stared at strangely or challenged. There was so much weird stuff going on around that no one noticed or minded. So my advise to all, if you are the only gay in the village, just go to the carnival to recreate the Pride experience. There maybe fewer moustaches (and they're mainly on the girls) but that’s all.

Back to the car via a little bit of thrill seeking and a proud sunny day was had. Happy Carnival/Pride one and all.

Jumble sale etiquette

Stage one Sorting

• Never put your hand into a bin/carrier bag of clothes, ALWAYS empty out onto the floor. There could be anything in that bag. Nobody wants to handle second hand undies
• Always check biscuit/cake tins for contents and no matter how edible the contents may look do not consume
• Never judge a box by it’s cover
• If it's sticky use protection
• If it a good quality coat which you wouldn't mind secretly putting to one side and donating a fiver for...it belongs to another helper

Stage two Setting out the Display

It is crucial to ensure all the spouts of the novelty teapots which have been donated, are aligned pointing away from the door, or is that elephants always need to be pointed towards the door? All chips and cracks face the back or obscure by taller object.  Vases can be used to display the ever present fake flowers, I'm sure we saw them last year.

Stage three Selling

Have the float in the middle, start high, ask the purchaser their best offer, end up accepting 20p because you know you need to get rid of as much stuff as possible at the end of the day. Do not critisise the merchandise or peoples decision to buy broken crockery under any circumstances. 

Example One

 “Elderly woman struggles in with a donated stool for us the sell. Stool has three legs, when it should have four. Missing leg is attached by string. Woman suggests it would be a lovely project to re-attach the as it’s a lovely antique stool. Unfortunately hundreds of wood worm agreed the stool was desirable.  Anyway, we accept the donation, left it on the floor in front of the display. Some time later, guide leader approaches and says what’s with this stool? I start a sentence with “some old lady came in” stop sentence immediately as she is still stood in front of our table considering chipped novelty ornaments. Co-bric-a-brac attendant is waiving arms around pointing to lady, indicating it may be inappropriate to be disparaging about the goods we have for sale. Guide leader however continues and says, well I suppose we can take it round the back for burning! Eventually I manage to convey “Stop talking” using the art of mime and identify woman as donator. The woman was, fortunately for us, completely oblivious. Guide leader has the luxury of being able to walk away and piss herself laughing. Our penance was to be trapped behind the counter faced will selling very nearly offended donator of broken stool some broken crockery for 50 p. We have learnt our lesson.”

Stage four Bagging Up

When bagging up, when the guy will only take clothing it is important to learn the art of secreting non clothing objects in the bags to ensure he will take as much away as possible. Also be very flexible of the definition clothing, for example lamp shade could be clothing because you can wear them on your head right?

Count up the takings and relax, jumble had been redistributed around the village for another year, children have increased their immune systems and the rag and bone man is now the proud owner of a couple of jigsaws and a photo album. 

Dances with Squirrels

Quiz night at work - a fundraiser for Macmillan Cancer Support charity is an annual event which, until now I’ve not been able to attend. (a spin off from the Water bombing fundraising event). How hard can it be to sit at a table with work mates, answer a few questions and partake of the buffet. It appears I completely underestimated the complexity and organisation which goes into such an evening.

We arrive and have drinks at the bar (At the Leopald Hotel in Sheffield - a bit posh), all good so far. We trundle into the room for the quiz, laid out with big tables - 10 per table - novelty hats and balloons on the tables. That’s all OK, quite within my capabilities to try on the hat in a comedy manner and bash the balloons around.

There were however, quiz sheets on the table...loads of them. It was like attending an exam - except there was wine. beer, chatting and did I mention balloons. The only question I could answer was related to the Sound of Music. One of the series of questions was ‘name the missing animal form the film title’. It turns out, there doesn't seem to be any films with squirrel in the title, which was unfortunately the only animal that I could think of. It’s a shame because the film “The Squirrel Pit” is just shouting out to be made - I’ll write a letter,  maybe Peter Jackson would be interested.

The room was also wired up with projector, screen, pc and we had interactive clicker things for answering questions. Our allocated team name was scrubbers - with a picture of the tv show Scrubs, could have been worse I guess. 

We had a bit of a quiz, used our clicker and waited our turn for the buffet. As we were furthest away form the door to the food, we did need to take matters into our own hands and perhaps go out of turn to get our food. Unfortunately by the time we got to the buffet there were no sausages left...aaaarg what no sausages. Prawns and chicken and chips had to satisfy. After replenishing our brain cells with carbs and protein, there was a rumour that more sausages were arriving, so we hung around in the buffet room in anticipation, like you do. There was a bit of a tussle but - yes, sausages were acquired for our team. Nobody mentioned the quiz would be exactly like the Hunger Games!

Back to work. More quizzing, a bizarre game of heads and tails which involved pretending to be rabbits and aardvarks, a ‘live’ hook up to Hull football club to hear the results of the picture round, a game of playing card bingo, more questions, the raffle and that was all...phew. Now the only question remains is - what do I do with the bottle of Peach Schnapps I won in the raffle?

A great evening, excellent organisation, challenging questions (we just missed out on the win) and over £1000 raised for an excellent charity. Up next - water bombing...water bombing squirrels? I hope not!

Here's the link for Waterbombing We are Macmillan. Cancer Support.

Showing the boys a good time

We had visitors from France. Old family friends. How were we to entertain them? Here for one night, interested in art and eating...options included the Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield and good old Chatsworth. We did both.

We picked the boys up from Sheffield station, straight to the Millennium gallery Cafe for a very acceptable coffee. Then it was onto the Graves Art gallery, The Power of the Print: Leonard Beaumont. Such a great space, I'd forgotten, lovely images and a peruse of the impressive eclectic permanent collection. Mental note - go there more often.

Then into town to forage for food. We were met by troupes of Morris Dancers, a lovely sunny (although cold) afternoon. A perfect spectacle to entertain our boys. I think Leanne even found a new friend. The food foraging  was less successful, we ended up in Wagamama, which was OK but we could have been anywhere in the world. Everywhere else was full, thanks to the men and women with bells on their knees.

Back home, we gathered up the dogs and went up to Curbar Edge to catch the last of the light.

Up the next day for a stroll around Chatsworth and say "ey up" to a duck.

Just a one-a light-a bulb-o...Give it to me?

We were excited, we were just about packed, we had sorted out pet care, we had googled things to do...we didn't anticipate the 6 inches of show that fell, onto the existing snow - overnight before a carefully calculated 5.40 am drive to the airport for a weekend away in Venice.

Ho hum, I woke, I drank coffee, I dug out the car and swept off the all new 6 inches of snow from the car roof. Then loaded up the car and walked the dogs...what's missing? Oh yes, the shower had to go. Pity anyone sat next to me on the plane...oh, it's just family, that's ok!

A bit sweaty, but relieved we arrive to sunshine and a warm welcome from the Italian border control. Although I suspect border control people from all over the world go to the same training course. Training day 2: "No matter how much the visitors try to engage you with their very bad attempts at saying hello in your spoken language, do not smile or respond under any circumstances" It's a finely honed skill I've developed to see through the training to recognise the glimmer of warm welcome.

I purchase a 'plastic map' and some vaparetto tickets from a newspaper stand. Leanne has admitted that my Italian is better than hers (thanks to an iphone app) but I think this is a ruse to make me do all the transactions. The vaparetto is fun and we arrive at St Marks, equipped with a map and a desire to check in quickly and find food, it was getting on and breakfast was ages ago in a different country.

However, our destination appeared not to have an actual street name, just a proximity. It's 100 meters from this theatre, if you see this shop, you are quite close...a little like a treasure hunt really. Quite exciting UNLESS you are three fairly strong minded individuals with very low blood sugar and one has a desire to pee. We were a little frantic, careering up and down tiny streets, being accosted by people trying to sell us handbags, reaching dead ends...eventually a lone gondolier driver (?) seemed to appear and offer us assistance. It seemed we had been unknowingly circumnavigating our destination a few times, it was quite obvious where it was when we got there.

It was all worth it, the light fitting in our room was well worth the hike, stress, low blood sugar and mild bickering experienced to get there. We were all mesmerised. One bulb was out, but 9 out of 10 ain't bad.

Snow cat

Snowwwwwwwww

Time for sledging and a family trip out into the fields. Me:  “Maisie what are you doing?” Maisie “I’m just putting on my third pair of socks” Needless to say it took us a little while to get out the door, fortunately we could still fit out of the door. Suitable attired as michelin men, the family, the dogs and the cat headed for the hills, sledge in tow, mission, to slide. 

The cat frequently accompanies us on walks round the village, today she decided to venture further and follow us into the fields. She was hilarious, attempting to avoid the snow by mainly traveling by wall. The puppy however transformed herself into a snow attracting ball of woolliness, she has developed a passion for bulldozing the snow along with her nose. Such talented pets, I’m sure we should be on the next relevant TV show.

We arrive, we sedately, graciously, expertly slide down the hill. Not that easy it turned out as it was virgin snow, after a little bit of compacting the going was fair to good. The cat was a little perplexed at our activities. She spent quite sometime sitting on the wall meowing. The puppy spent the entire time running up and down the hill, tirelessly monitoring the sledge, the big dog, and the occasional dash after the cat. 

By this time, the wind was biting, the snow was increasing in it’s intensity and there was a general consensus that it was time to return to the gas fire. The cat seems relieved, and leads the way, her tail made as fluffy as was cattily possible.

In the front door, the hopping around on one leg trying to disentangle dog leads wellies, scarves, hats and the cat. We eventually strip down to a single layer of clothing. The puppy bagged a spot by the fire (not before leaving a trail of slightly fluffy balls of snow in her wake), the big dog flopped onto his bed. There’s a knock on the door...does Maisie want to come sledging says a friend..Oh yes please - I’ll just get dressed, now where did I put my socks. 

The cat stayed home.