Lockdown – something from seaview

Winter lockdown

This last lockdown – a winter lockdown for those of us in the northern hemisphere – has been hard. I don’t know any that haven’t found it so. The cold weather, the limited activities feasible given the weather conditions, and, of course, the terrible loss of life and health as covid raged through our hospitals.

We were ready to welcome visitors at Christmas – and then disaster struck with a mutated and highly-infectious virus rampaging through London. Planned visits from London family were cancelled. There were still Christmas celebrations at Seaview – and nature was as glorious as ever – but it didn’t quite feel the same …However, there was time for lots of Christmas music …This year the Christmas decorations were a feast of felties … Family presence was distinctly modern …Like so many others, for us it was a Zoom Christmas …The toilet roll Holy Family joined with my father’s Buddha and the Iranian prayer clothes to keep watch over us all …There was a surfeit of Christmas goodies when we got to January since we had not had the expected visitors …Warming food …Which was a good thing as there were chilly wintry sunrises … Icy wet fields …Floods threatened in Berwick …But there were still good walks. The Covid restrictions have driven us to explore our locality as never before. One fascinating walk took us to the old Scremerston mine buildings. Our walk started in Scremerston where a fine Victorian bridge crosses the old wagonway ..Down along the track …Which has been imaginatively customised for children …Still a bit wet in places …To the old buildings of the Scremerston mine …The old water tower is a magnificent affair!The entrance bolted tight shut …Then we walked back via Scremerston church, warmly benign in the wintery sunlight …And paid our respects to one John Harbottle who was accidentally killed at Scremerston Colliery on 2nd November 1865 aged only 45 …We picnicked in the churchyard …

Our route home took us past the local rugby club. It has a couple of old coal wagons on show – a nice touch to remember how involved this area was with the colliery …And then we followed the wagonway back home down the Scremerston Incline. On a good day you can still make out the stones which would have supported the rails on which the coal wagons travelled down to Spittal docks …February brought me up with a jolt! We set out to walk down the track to explore Cargies limekilns, just north of Seahouse …The limekilns sit atop a ridge of rock right on the seashore …Magnificent buildings – still appearing to be in very good condition …But we hadn’t bargained on the low winter sun and the sliminess of the rocks we were clambering over. I slipped and fell, hitting the bridge of my nose hard on an upturned rock. A bloody nose and a real jarring shock to the system …Luckily we had cool bottles to help stem the nose bleed. (It’s always good to travel with a decent picnic) …Back at home, I surveyed the damage. Didn’t look too bad …But the next day I looked as though Stephen had beaten me up!Luckily I had no other injuries apart from a few bruises over the rest of my body. And the advantage of lockdown had to be that I wasn’t going anywhere – until the snow came …Hauntingly beautiful …
Lots of very hungry birds …My nose was healing, and I had new knits from my enforced days stuck inside …So we set out round the local fields …An extraordinarily fast-changing world …But I hadn’t reckoned on a loss of confidence from my fall. Just walking down the hill to the sea – a walk I do so often! – filled me with terror. So many people had walked down here in snowy lockdown, the snow had compacted and the track was icily treacherous …Later in February we walked from Norham churchyard and its enchanting snowdrops …Down to the very muddy Tweed – the river in spate …Walking these muddy banks – slippery where the river had overflowed – was almost as scary as negotiating the ice …My beginning of March birthday was a disappointingly quiet affair, but the cats made a party of breakfast for me … And Stephen made a delicious Ras El-Hanout cake with lemon and rose petal icing for my birthday tea – yum!March saw us walking the old railway tracks from Cornhill again – a very familiar walk now, and this March was full of spring promise with primroses …Purple violets …And masses and masses of white ones too …Just a couple of weeks later, in the garden, the yellow exploded! Daffodils (of course), primroses, cowslips, my yellow knits, some yellow very nice mice (an Ann Wood pattern) – and that’s our resident yellowhammer in the centre … March brought a different but very wonderful sign of hope with our first covid vaccinations …So although April’s Easter was again a visitor-free event for us – just cats! – life felt different, optimistic even …What a winter! what a difficult chilly spring! Through all the upsets – and alas, there have been those – we have been sustained by warm contacts with family and friends through social media, our cats, books, knits – and walks.

We invested in a groundsheet when winter set in …And through the season we have picnicked every week bar two when the weather was too foul to even contemplate a walk. On two occasions we went out, but it was too wet or cold to think of sitting outside. So we sat in the car and contemplated the Cheviots in a little warmth …But there were many many occasions when – like here on Holy Island in November – we sat outside in balmy sun. How glorious Northumberland is …Here’s to better times then!

Of course, although England starts to relax its lockdown today with the reopening of many shops and facilities, we are not out of the woods yet. But I fervently hope that we are drawing to the beginning of the end of this very difficult time. There is optimism in the spring air. But stay safe.

Alabama Chanin Style

I started my Alabama Chanin style dress well over two years ago – though it had been bubbling away in my mind for much much longer. Now I will always think of it as a Lockdown project because it is over these last few weeks that I have worked with most dedication and enthusiasm.

Way, way back in 2016 I was looking carefully at two little Japanese books I’d inherited from my father’s family. Nobody in the family today seemed to know very much about them. These pictures below show the covers, frontispieces and a couple of content pages …There were pages and pages of wonderful illustrations and designs …I can’t read Japanese, and my father (who had been able to read Japanese) died in 2015, so I decided to put these illustrations up on my Instagram account in search of a translator …And I got one! Apparently these two little books were published in Tokyo in 1884 and 1881 respectively. The top book contains arabesque patterns for kimonos and the lower book shows crests and symbols of Japanese clans and families.

How did they come to my family, we wondered? Luckily my mother remembered the answer to that. Apparently my paternal great-grandmother had been an enthusiastic patron of all things Japanese, and is believed to have acquired these little books for her library … what treasure … I couldn’t really believe it …Anyhow – jumping forward to me and my humble little stitching plans, I found myself with a most fabulous resource of illustrations just made for embroidery and other designs ..

What I’d always wanted to do was to stitch myself a dress using the Alabama Chanin style of embroidery. This involves working with a double layer of fabric. Cutaways and very simple embroidery stitches make the pattern …I started with a practice piece using a variation of the leaf pattern above and working with old cotton t-shirts (as recommended in the book). And yes, I got a little bit carried away with the embroidery, but most importantly what I discovered was that I hated sewing cotton knit fabric. My needle struggled to pierce the fabric …As it happened, I had found a double layer dress of very light woven cotton on Ebay … Just perfect, so now to find my pattern. I went back to my little Japanese pattern books, and selected a beautiful and quite simple design of falling maple leaves …I particularly associate maple trees with my father. He was always trying to make little bonsai trees with them during my childhood …With the image scanned from the little Japanese book, I then enlarged it and printed it out on stiff paper. That’s my template sorted. Now to cut the leaves out …I worked very slowly at first, sometimes adding pattern by tracing through the template …And sometimes building up the design by placing the maples leaves cut out from the template where I thought they might be effective …Either way, there was always that tricky moment of cutting the fabric …But then the fun starts and I could start stitching! Very basic running stitch round the leaves …Using a washable marker to ink in the maple leaf details …Stitching the details in with stem stitch …The stalks were stitched in chain stitch. Adding more colour …I’d completed the front of the dress …And moved the pattern over the shoulder and round to the back of the neck …When I came to a halt. Not really sure why. But the project sat unloved for a year or so …

Until the virus struck this summer. I came back to the project like a madwoman – I guess Lockdown has a strange effect on us all. I found myself stitching madly and enthusiastically …Adding pattern to the sides of the dress …So that the maple leaves moved down the back, and round the body …Producing this trailing effect …I love this pic of the dress held up to the light so you can see all the little maple leaves silhouetted through the body …Finally just to hem it … and ta-dah! It’s finished! I am so pleased with the way it spirals round the sides …Under the arm …And, of course, down the back …What a fascinating mix of cultures and times and history are worked into it – the historic Japanese prints, the South-Eastern American techniques of Alabama Chanin, and me, at the vortex as it were, with a family connection to Japan, stitching away in the very north of England in the early 21st century Coronavirus Lockdown …

Lockdown Life

Well, the banner pic really says it all – it is glorious as ever at our Seaview home, even in these Lockdown times. How very lucky we are.

We continue to potter round in our garden with the help of our funny feline friends, Eggy and Ilsa …Who are eager to help with almost everything …Especially anything wheelbarrow …And of course the planting out of sweet-pea seedlings …In the greenhouse there has been sowing and growing of seeds …Which has necessitated some energetic digging to prepare veg beds for the new seedlings …Stephen has got the once-weekly shop down to a fine art, no longer arriving to find a long queue …Being second in the queue is much more manageable …We celebrated Easter with tradition. I found this enchanting tablecloth in a local second hand shop, and it is my special Easter treat. I don’t allow it to be used for long less somebody spill something on it … And I have been busy making Face Masks for family and friends …I was given this fabulous butterfly fabric by an internet friend, and thought it just right for a Face Mask – but on second thoughts, perhaps it’s a little too extreme Silence of the Lambs for me … I’ve sent it to my daughter in London and she loves it …Still making more …We have the local beach in Spittal almost to ourselves …As the car parks are closed off …But very best of all are our weekly walks along the sea cliffs to the limekilns on Cocklawburn beach …On some trips the weather has been just a little challenging ..Especially if – like me – you wear glasses …But, even in the damp sea mist, Cocklawburn is very very lovely …No problems with social distancing here! Just the odd ghost train …Cattle huddled together …Most of our trips to Cocklawburn are more promising …The sea cliffs along the way are at their very best right now, sprinkled with tiny primroses and heavily scented with gorse …You can barely make out that powdering of primroses as you look down to the sea …But if you climb down a bit, why – that’s heaven on a plate! Primroses interspersed with violets …The cattle are a lot more friendly these days …We were amused to see on our return walk that this nursery encourages a post-prandial nap for the young!There is so much of fascination on this beach – never a dull moment. Sometimes visitors leave their own marks …Sometimes there are sad reminders of the harsh world outside …Always there are miracles in the sand like these beautiful ephemeral sandtrees …Often we find Cuddy Bead (those little circular crinoid fossils) treasure …And there is ancient as well as relatively modern history at the limekilns sitting above the prehistoric stone formations …An occasion for a birthday drink (we walked down here on Stephen’s birthday) before setting home … More likely a drink to the end of Lockdown …Like most of you, we miss our friends and family so very much, and the hardship and sadness of this difficult time is creeping ever closer to our Seaview sanctuary with loss and separation. Beautiful it may be, but the heart can be very heavy. Stay safe.