2016 a year where nothing died!!

Howdy Folks, blimey it's been a long time since I last popped out a blog! I feel I'd better explain myself.


So what happened to me I hear you say. Well, nothing major exciting like a lottery win were I'd trotted off visiting every city in the world, and, nothing that would incapacitate me (for this I'm fortunate as some blogs I read the bloggers are battling some inner demons I couldn't never imagine).

I purely and simply went on holiday early September with every intention when I came back to resume the blogging I'd let slide through August as I do enjoy telling you all about my discoveries. I also visted lots of places with friends and family, which I will pop into some blogs for you. I also went on a mini hunt for the Sheep below that are now ALL (way more than what I found) sold for charity, and there was a lot of Sheep and Lambs to find.

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Some of you may know I brew beer for Eden Brewery in Penrith in Cumbria, and, as there is only the boss and myself full time (Chris the driver who also rings businesses on Monday is part time) you can image coming out of Summer and into the Christmas period it has been manic!!! Luckily I don't do the blog for the brewery we let Giles do that, else that would have fallen foul of busy times too. We brewed a new beer for Booths (that posh Northern supermarket) called Winter Blonde, but that was hand filled (into 2 litre swing top bottles), hand labelled too. We then had three new beers from our experimental range to hand bottle, cork, wax and label – cause we are just stupid! All sent to the Westmorland services (M6) and Gloucester services (M5) which all went down a storm. But, then Westmorland group needed their own beer stocking up, before Christmas some of which went into 3ltr swing top bottles! Along with our traditional range that seemed to be going out of the door as soon as it had been bottled!

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Thanks to two children (more so to their parents for letting them work for us) I'd worked with at Yanwath Primary School when I was a Playworker, a friend of the bosses wife, a young friend of the bosses daughter and the former manager of George Fisher in Keswick we pulled it all off! I was brewing everyday (except weekends) and pretty much cask washing and filling everyday since I came back off holiday. The boss was also doing pretty much the same as me, as well as his normal business owner duties he was securing a grant and further funding for us to expand in the new year and find premises!
So pretty much every night I came home I'd flop on the sofa and fall asleep. For this I apologise, most of it was pure laziness and lack of structure to when I came home.

The Garden - Covered in weeds

This did fantastic I did not kill anything and my “Is it dead yet” corner which was basically a broken plastic covered mini greenhouse is now a “Wayhey I'm still alive” corner. I am worried however for the Dahlia's we planted in the pots didn't turn brown till at least October and I haven't cut them back as we had had that short cold spell and I thought for sure the bad frosts would come. So their dead leaves and stalks are still showing.

What I was amazed at though was a Rose that the boyfriend had bought me about four/five years ago. He'd bought me a bunch on two separate occasions, me being all sentimental as no-one had ever bought me (or dared) cut flowers before I planted 3 from each of the bunches in the same pot. Four died off and turned to wooden twigs, but two remained, every year looking like they might do something. All I'd done was plonk them in a pot of soil, no fertilizer or fancy growing stuff. Early last year I'd decided to put them in a slightly bigger pot with drainage and to see if the roots had appeared. And then, low and behold a bud appeared and finally flourished, after that had withered away just before summer was over, booom another bud appeared! I had created two Rose bunches! My Granddad would be proud and no doubt my Grandma as she had died before I could tell her what had happened.

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I also won a Twitter competition with this photo and received a massive DK/RHS gardening book! I was well chuffed. I will review this wondrous book at some point over the next month or so.

I also saw my first ever Gold Crest at our favourite place to visit - Lowther Castle and Gardens.

I went to my first ever RHS garden show, which will appear in a blog at some point. Visited many wonderful National Trust places in England and Scotland, seeing some  wonderful gardens, which I will share soon.

I didn't run out of anything to tell you, I just ran out of time in the day.

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Art
I got busy with my own art too along with a lot of others to tell you about in my future blogs in this section. A lovely little gallery in Appleby loved my paintings and took a few. They also like my first attempt at Lino Printing and now sell two lino print cards along with my first Lino Print picture. The owner then asked me to design an animal to print on to a T-shirt. The brief was small ,this is what I did.
I was then asked to do a few more.
I even managed a couple of drawings for the colour collective guys on Twitter – which is purely for fun. I've also managed to create a brand new painting for an exhibition called Twitter Art which is in the UK this year. I'll write more about this on another blog.
My website needs updating, so that is a big task over the next month or so to add all these new pieces I have created, so you guys can have a look.

Musings
2016 was one hell of a busy year! Although I have managed to start doing some sort of exercise in the form of Strong by Zumba. Men take note this is not a namby pamby girlie dance class! It is almost like a circuit class using your own body weight and core. It does have a couple of step moves in it, but these kinda give you a breather from squatting all the time. So guys give it try.
2016's goal was to stop having sugar in my Tea. Well I achieved that, I also don't have milk in it now either. I don't put sugar in my coffee when I'm out on jaunts, but I do when I get home from work. This will be the only time I have a coffee at home.
My goal in 2017 is to have no sugar in Coffee. Whilst cake, Ice Cream and biscuits have plenty of sugar in them I will not give these up so easily as I don't have them all the time. However I may quit the biscuit scene. Watch less TV so I can read more, and painting my paintings a little quicker.


 

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I don't call Goals resolutions, that, word seems so definite. Goal is the word. Goals are achievable (heck if Sheffield United ((my home team)) can achieve a goal, so can you). Goals are moveable and can come in stages. You can start off small and work up to that end goal, or, go the whole hog.

THANKS FOR COMING BACK TO THE BLOG.
I hope you guys had a great year, or, a productive one. May 2017 be a year that you can say at the end, “Wow what a fantastic wonderful year, I didn't want it to end”.
 I will hopefully have something every month for you. I'm not promising every week as the brewery is on the move soon and boy am I going to be busy! But, I you don't want to miss a blog just press the RSS button and it will subscribe you to the blog and refresh when a new one appears.
Comments are always welcome. Enjoy your year.

Tune of the week
This tune has been on in my car. I haven't seen the Buddha of Suburbia for ages. Written by one of my Favourite authors Hanif Kureshi and has in it one of my favourite British actors, Stephen Mackintosh.
David Bowie - Buddha Of Suburbia

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