Done On Time

Well, I've spent the last couple of weeks reading and stitching on my Easter exchange item. The exchange item, a mini-pillow ornament is done and will be in the mail tomorrow, a couple of days ahead of the deadline. Now that's a bit of an improvement. As you can see by the pictures though, I'm going to have to do some work on my indoor photography skills. Somehow I've managed to make the blue fabric look white on the finished pillow. The picture of the front and back of the stitching is a scan and that shows the colours of the fabric as they really are. I just hope the receiver of my effort likes it.

Have done a fair bit of reading as well. It's been wet and windy here for almost the entire time between my blogs, which is ideal reading weather. Mind you, I'm not complaining when I see what the centre of Canada and the east coast are having to deal with. A bad rain and wind storm is a piece of cake compared to snow and wind. After all, what's the downside of a good book, curling up under an afghan and a cat at your feet? The books have all been mystery short stories and have carried me through 16th century Scotland, Victorian London and 20th century North America and Europe.

And of course, poetry. Found a couple of A.E. Housman poems that stuck with me.

On Wenlock Edge

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;

His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;

The gale, it plies the saplings double,

And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger

When Uricon the city stood:

'Tis the old wind in the old anger,

But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman

At yonder heaving hill would stare:

The blood that warms an English yeoman,

The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,

Through him the gale of life blew high;

The tree of man was never quiet:

Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,

It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:

To-day the Roman and his trouble

Are ashes under Uricon.

Into My Heart An Air That Kills

Into my heart an air that kills

From yon far country blows:

What are those blue remembered hills,

What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,

I see it shining plain,

The happy highways where I went

And cannot come again.