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Your Hobbies, Collections, and Obsessions


Brian.

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18 minutes ago, Hayley said:

 

Hey! :giggle2: I will have you know we have very strong teeth here in Birmingham because our water has extra flouride...

 

 

Your drinking water has ground wheat in it?  Your taps must be one hellva mess!

 

18 minutes ago, Hayley said:

 

It might just be because I was a weird child though :lol:

 

 

My, how you've changed!

 

*runs away*

 

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On 15/03/2021 at 1:49 AM, poppy said:

There's some great hobbies here and very talented people!

I've done zentangles in the past, I found them very relaxing (I guess that's what the name implies.)

image.png.f515fde92ebc0b32672082730ecdc6de.png

 

Lovely Zentangle poppy 🙂. Strangely, I find Zentangle difficult and not that relaxing. I just seem to make then messy and not attractive to the eye. But I really enjoy them when I do mono-tangles. 

 

The excitement of sowing the Tomato ‘Gardener’s Delight’ seeds this week. This always makes me feel good doing this, the thought of spring really starting. We  grow in a greenhouse, and we had a real bumper crop last year, so I made purée/passata with the glut. 

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12 hours ago, Marie H said:

Lovely Zentangle poppy 🙂. Strangely, I find Zentangle difficult and not that relaxing. I just seem to make then messy and not attractive to the eye. But I really enjoy them when I do mono-tangles. 

 

The excitement of sowing the Tomato ‘Gardener’s Delight’ seeds this week. This always makes me feel good doing this, the thought of spring really starting. We  grow in a greenhouse, and we had a real bumper crop last year, so I made purée/passata with the glut. 

 

I'm not at all artistic, Marie, but I attended a little local art group and she was teaching zentangles. It was quite surprising how much we improved with practice. If I tried them again now I'm sure they'd be hopeless :lol:

But your monotangle is amazing!  They're kind of like optical illusions.

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On 13/03/2021 at 1:43 AM, Hux said:

I write (obviously).

 

And I obsessively agree to the demands of three dachshunds. 

 

 

daxies-pitfodels-54.jpg

 

They look so happy! :wub:

I have the following Dachshund related memorabilia (if it can be called that) :- notebooks, pens, keyring, cards, coaster, folder. I follow about 5 or 6 Dachshund related pages on facebook. I do not however own an actual real life sausage dog. 

I can only dream... 

 

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On 17/03/2021 at 8:37 PM, Raven said:

My, how you've changed!

 

*runs away*

I do not know what you're suggesting here:giggle2:.

 

On 18/03/2021 at 1:38 AM, muggle not said:

Fairy Bread!!

That actually looks very appealing! I'm finding it hard to imagine butter, rather than icing, under the sprinkles though...

 

32 minutes ago, Lau_Lou said:

I have the following Dachshund related memorabilia (if it can be called that) :- notebooks, pens, keyring, cards, coaster, folder. I follow about 5 or 6 Dachshund related pages on facebook. I do not however own an actual real life sausage dog. 

I can only dream... 

That's brilliant :lol:. Speaking of dachshund dreams, once, when I went camping, I was wondering around trying to find the person I was meant to pay (it was on a working farm) when, out of a side door, a whole pack of tiny dachshund puppies just flooded around my legs. It was the cutest chaos. This just reminded me of it!

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those pups must have been so cute.....

 

Gardeners' Delight is one of the best types of tomato I plant, I usually use those, but not having a greenhouse it'll have to wait for a while.  Bought some hollyhock bulbs today, haven't had much luck with hollyhocks in the past though.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Quote

That's brilliant :lol:. Speaking of dachshund dreams, once, when I went camping, I was wondering around trying to find the person I was meant to pay (it was on a working farm) when, out of a side door, a whole pack of tiny dachshund puppies just flooded around my legs. It was the cutest chaos. This just reminded me of it!

  •  

God love 'em! :D That is such a sweet story.

 

My latest obsession has been an app called Happy Colour. It is  paint by number app, with many different pictures. I have been in a reading slump for the most part of March and this month so it has really helped me.

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On 19/03/2021 at 5:00 PM, Madeleine said:

those pups must have been so cute.....

 

Gardeners' Delight is one of the best types of tomato I plant, I usually use those, but not having a greenhouse it'll have to wait for a while.  Bought some hollyhock bulbs today, haven't had much luck with hollyhocks in the past though.

 Hope you manage with the hollyhocks, they are beautiful.

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I planted the hollyhocks a couple of weeks ago, they weren't bulbs, I assumed they were as the box had notes on bulb care..... instead I found 3 rather sorry looking bits of stick which I assume are the root plants though they didn't have any roots, anyway I planted them but no sign of progress so far.  I've been keeping them in the shed overnight and on cold days, although they've been out in the sun for the last few days so hopefully that will give them a boost.

 

My sweetpea seeds have done really well though, I potted them on yesterday so hopefully they will continue to progress.  No sign of any cosmos or zinnias though, and I had to plant some more cosmos seeds as a squirrel dug a big hole in the seed tray the other day!  I also planted some scabious seeds yesterday.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Spring crops are being harvested now. Spring Onions, radishes, lettuce and spinach.

 

Need to brag a little on my spinach salads:

 

Large bowl filled with fresh spinach from the garden (sometimes I will add fresh lettuce to it.

Add fresh strawberries

Add mandarin orange slices

Add walnuts

Add croutons

Top with Paul Newmans Raspberry Walnut vinaigrette

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Still too cold to plant anything out.  I now have 2 tiny cosmos seedlings, sweet peas  still doing well, possibly a few zinnia seedlings though some seem to have disappeared, still no scabious, something is growing in the hollyhock pot but not sure what it is yet!  I did buy some dahlias over the weekend which look nice, and hope to plant a large tub with all wildflower seeds, to encourage bees.  But it still gets quite chilly at night, and is very damp.

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Planted the 6 Gardener’s Delight Tomato plants in the greenhouse now. They have been difficult this year to harden off, so they are a bit leggy, with unusual late frosts in May.

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On 5/12/2021 at 10:05 AM, muggle not said:

Spring crops are being harvested now. Spring Onions, radishes, lettuce and spinach.

 

Need to brag a little on my spinach salads:

 

Large bowl filled with fresh spinach from the garden (sometimes I will add fresh lettuce to it.

Add fresh strawberries

Add mandarin orange slices

Add walnuts

Add croutons

Top with Paul Newmans Raspberry Walnut vinaigrette

 

That sounds delicious,  Muggle! :character0104:

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Actually it's a lot easier because card is stiffer than paper and holds the folds and thus shape better. If that was made of paper it would collapse under it's own weight - it's difficult to tell the size there.

 

 

E8D3DACD-2A5E-4EA0-9994-84F6DDC323F4.thumb.jpeg.4d5c7d1baa0e2c316bcff8a26ce4d1c3.jpeg


You can see the alarm clock behind it here (using that to help it stand for the photo) and that might give a better idea of size

Edited by lunababymoonchild
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On 5/15/2021 at 6:16 AM, poppy said:

 

That sounds delicious,  Muggle! :character0104:

It really is. :) We have it with dinner at least 5 times a week since the spinach and strawberries are in season. My garden is doing well. Everything is now planted. I planted 14 tomato plants. Also, 6 or 7 pepper plants including bell pepper, jalapeno, banana pepper, and a habanero. The cucumbers are starting to germinate but the cool weather is holding them back but the cool weather is helping the spinach and some of the other stuff. :)

 

21 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

This is what I built todayB2A9F7FF-39EB-45AA-A84B-EA2CC370E251.thumb.jpeg.3784f3a28814a1607e511539ccbe8c69.jpeg

 

That is very good. Amazing!

Edited by muggle not
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  • 3 weeks later...

Looks like we have a few birds have chicks in our nest boxes now :)

House sparrows, blue and great tits, and you can listen the chicks cheeping when parents arrive with food.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have, since the age of about five, been interested in musical instruments,particularly stringed ones! I had a toy violin when I was about ten, and I could actually coax a tune from it, although it was realistically a toy, rather than a real instrument. I spent almost fifty years finding out the intricacies of guitars, six string, 12 string,acoustic and electric. I learned the (to me) wonderful mysteries of the blues slide guitar; along the way I had played or toyed with bass guitar, double bass, sitar, harp, dulcimer, mandolin, violin, cello, auto-harp, ukulele and Banjo. Following a major illness, I gave away all my guitars and lost any interest in them. After about eighteen months, I got hold of a cheap ukulele and started to tinker with that. I now own five such instruments, two of them luthier built by craftsmen; one cheap and cheerful one to take anywhere with me, one B/U (Banjo-ukulele) and one Resonator ukulele which I built myself. I also run a small uke group, and we amuse ourselves playing music from anytime in the past eighty years or so.And then, trying to work out a particular piece, that  I used to play on guitar*, I asked a friend for a loan of one of his guitars, for an hour or so; He gifted me a wonderful classical guitar, hand made in Spain, so I have almost come full circle! I quickly worked out the piece that had been bugging me,and still consider myself mainly a ukulele player now; who also owns one guitar!

 

*Struggled to work out the piece as it involved transposing key(s) and fingering as Uke and Guitar vary in many ways,and I do not read music!

Edited by timebug
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On 12/06/2021 at 5:52 PM, timebug said:

I now own five such instruments, two of them luthier built by craftsmen;

Wow

On 12/06/2021 at 5:52 PM, timebug said:

He gifted me a wonderful classical guitar, hand made in Spain

And wow again! 
It sounds like you have some amazing instruments! 
 

On 12/06/2021 at 5:52 PM, timebug said:

Struggled to work out the piece as it involved transposing key(s) and fingering as Uke and Guitar vary in many ways,and I do not read music!

It’s never occurred to me before but do you use tab or sheet music for ukulele? 
 

On 16/05/2021 at 3:15 PM, muggle not said:

Also, 6 or 7 pepper plants including bell pepper, jalapeno, banana pepper, and a habanero.

Are peppers difficult to grow? 

I was talking to some of the neighbours at my new house and they told me the garden here used to be really lovely (there are some beautiful plants still but it’s very overgrown). So I’m determined to make it as lovely again :lol:. I also want to make it a good space for wildlife. This might be the start of a new hobby!

 

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Hayley, I cannot read sheet music,although I can work through tablature, given time! Most of our group sheets are just the lyrics with the chords written above the words to show where and when to change. I played every instrument I have ever used 'by ear' and intuition,I guess.My brother in law is a classical pianist, and over the past three or four decades has tried to teach me to read sheet music. I can't. Some form of musical dyslexia I suppose, I start off okay and then it just goes to white noise in my head! Rather like 'A Brief History of Time' which I have started umpteen times,and it begins okay, but suddenly I find Hawking is speaking a foreign tongue to me. There are 'connections' both in that book , and in sheet music, that my brain just fails to grasp. I have been a solo folk singer, a band member of a couple of folk groups, and then a  band member in various 'rock' bands over the years. Rock and roll is something (like the blues...my favourite!) that can't be written down or passed on...you either 'get it' or you don't! I suppose to many people of my generation, the Beatles (and the sixties) ruined a passive outlook on music, and made us committed musical fanatics? I love many kinds of music, and a lot of what we play in our group now, I would have considered 'rubbish' as a younger man. But to paraphrase Louis Armstrong, there are only two kinds of music; Good music and bad music! We are what we are, and I am a music lover.

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9 hours ago, Hayley said:

 

Are peppers difficult to grow? 

I was talking to some of the neighbours at my new house and they told me the garden here used to be really lovely (there are some beautiful plants still but it’s very overgrown). So I’m determined to make it as lovely again :lol:. I also want to make it a good space for wildlife. This might be the start of a new hobby!

 

No, peppers are not difficult to grow but they are basically a slow grower compared to tomato. I usually get a few peppers early in the growing season and a heavier yield later on in late August and September. I took a few photos of my garden and will post them later. I prune my tomatoes heavy and try to keep only 2 or 3 main stems getting rid of all the "suckers". It is difficult though to keep up as the plants grow fast. To preserve space I grow my cucumbers on a trellis made of netting.

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On 15/06/2021 at 2:19 PM, timebug said:

Hayley, I cannot read sheet music,although I can work through tablature, given time! Most of our group sheets are just the lyrics with the chords written above the words to show where and when to change. I played every instrument I have ever used 'by ear' and intuition,I guess.

I can read tab but not sheet music. Like you, I can work out bits of sheet music but if I try to read a whole chunk it just becomes a muddle. I definitely couldn't play a song from it. A friend told me once (when I got my first guitar) that if you lie your guitar down on your lap, your strings are now the lines of the tab. That's how I learnt :lol:.

 

On 15/06/2021 at 2:19 PM, timebug said:

I have been a solo folk singer, a band member of a couple of folk groups, and then a  band member in various 'rock' bands over the years.

That's very cool, I bet you've had some great experiences! 

 

On 15/06/2021 at 8:59 PM, muggle not said:

No, peppers are not difficult to grow but they are basically a slow grower compared to tomato. I usually get a few peppers early in the growing season and a heavier yield later on in late August and September.

I very nearly bought a pepper plant the other day but decided I should do some more research first (for things like should I leave it in a pot, does it need to be in direct sun etc.). We've started cutting back all the overgrown things and weeds at my new house and there is space to plant things now. I'd really like to grow edible things, I'm just not quite sure what yet, or where they should go!

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Another part of my stationary obsession is pens and pencils. I love using fountain pens, and the huge range of fountain pen inks. Usually I prefer dark inks, burgundy or chocolate shades, but I have branched out with dark greens. My favourite is Diamine Teal, then a slightly blue/grey of J. Herbin’s Vert de Gris (which translated as green of grey = verdigris). I hardly ever write letters, but I’m a fiendish of making lists, so it is lovely with different colour notes. 

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