>Old, New and Unfamiliar
>The unfamiliar first…This is the view from the saddle of my lovely old bike. Yep, that’s right, me, sworn off cycling for life due to the unspeakable horrors of any kind of incline has actually started to ride voluntarily and even (gasp!) enjoy it. Even with hills. Wonders will never cease.
Not only can old dogs learn new tricks, but they can acquire new old treasure. This is another find from the farm (a seemingly endless trove of undiscovered goodies). Like the jam pan and chest of drawers before it, my Father in Law was quite happy for me to have this, which he would term ‘kelter’ (junk to the non-Lancastrian famers among us) on permanent loan. The only proviso was a share of the cakes I’m going to create with it. There’s a reason Kenwood has the good reputation it does, as this old Chef may have been grubby with years of neglect and maybe shows its age in the styling department but switch it on and it still goes- whether whisking, mixing, dough hooking or liquidising. I’m delighted.
New new treasure arrived in the post this week, in the form of this heavenly bundle of Manos Wool Clasica in ‘Ganges’. Mindful of my habit of running out of yarn before the end of a project I bought all nine skeins that were in the sale at Meadow Yarn . At the moment it looks like I’ll be using it to make a grown up version of Queen Bess but we’ll see.
Finally, new and unfamiliar yet somehow old too…M had some chunky coloured pencils among her birthday present and today she had her first try with them. Seeing her being so grown up is new and unfamiliar, yet babies picking up the tools of other family members and copying what they’ve seen is surely as old as the human race. 
>Wet weekend
>
Well, we’ve probably been fairly lucky with the amount of good weather we’ve had this autumn, but now the rain is here, it’s really here! We went up to Grizedale Forest today and managed a long time in the (very nice) coffee shop and a short time outside in the pouring rain.
It’s always been something of a habit for us to end up having a pub lunch of a Sunday, although before P came along we usually didn’t end up eating until mid-afternoon. Today though we continued the habit, but at the right time of day. The Eagle’s Head had all that you want from a country pub on a wet day- open fires, locally brewed beer (for him), lovely food and surely the hardest working landlord in Cumbria- he was serving at the bar, taking and serving food orders and setting up for a band that night simultaneously. With a smile on his face!
We retreated back home and soon I was faced with what I think will be a familiar sight as time goes on- my husband and my son completely engrossed in fiddling about with a bike wheel. I’m not entirely convinced that P was exactly helping this time, but as I’ve mentioned before he definitely seems to have inherited the grease-monkey gene so I don’t think it’ll be long.