Holidays

We've been off work all week and as it draws to an end, I'm going to recap what we've been up to.

The first think I had to do was some baking and decided on a cherry cake my other halves favourite, especially as this one has some almond in it.

I've started a collection of the river cottage handbooks, and the cakes No 8 is my favourite, followed closely by the bread No 3. So far I've baked the chocolate cake, bounty cake, Welsh cakes, and anzac biscuits lots of times. Later today I'll be tryin out the carrot cake. Another family favourite.

Foooood

We couldn't wait any longer the potatoes from the garden needed using and so I had to cut the first of the courgettes and a few sprigs of rosemary as well as some other ingredients and dah-duh

Courgette bake, we borrowed the recipe from somebody's Nigel Slater book, we then thought we'd brought the said book only it must have been in another. We've now got his vol I vegetable and vol II fruit, they are both great for us growers for new ideas on how to cook fruit and vegetables you might have

Disaster with acrylics

Art class for the last couple of weeks have been about naive or abstract art. We've not had much direction so the first week we struggled to think of any idea's, until we went through our phone's and found this lovely photo of a bluebell walk we went on back in May.

I painted my paper blue and well... I had bit of a strop, like a two year old would when they don't get their own way. I struggled I tells ya, but I tried again this week and I managed to get the trees ok but when I tried to do the bluebell's it all went grey, literally.

So that's why it's a bit of an acrylic disaster. I'm not a fan of abstract art either, but I did see a lovely painting of some trees in lovely warm colours and it was made by painting small blobs of paint in shades of yellow, oranges and browns. But I found it very hard to just place lots of blobs, I suppose I expected it to be easy when in reality you have to think about it and understand how to not mix the paint too much so you end up with a grey blob, yet mix them enough so they make a beautiful picture.

I wonder if I can bring myself to finish it off next week.

Watercolour rose

We've joined an art group, and we're having fun !

What's really good about it is - we have a tutor setting us task and guiding us, but it changes every third week. We only need to pay weekly, when we go rather than annually. So far we've had a go at watercolours and this is my rose.




I do have to say that I cheated a little, the rose is a step-by-step taken from 'ready-to-paint watercolour flowers' by Wendy Tait. Because we were concentrating on watercolours the book gives you the image to trace over, then it gives you step-by-step guide on how to paint it.

I'm quite pleased for my first attempt, although the colours are a little funny, because I started the painting at art group but then finished it at home. Anyway I'm hoping to get it framed and I'll give to my mum as a bleated 60th Birthday present.

Greenfingers

Courgette's are doing well and the beans are full of flowers if a little short in size.

I've finally gone and brought a new hose with fancy gun, after having enough of getting soaking wet everytime I use the old one. I'm officially sad because I hot so excited at the no leak hose with 5 way spray gun lol !

Well here's to growing your own, fresh produce, and leak free hosepipes

Right I'm going to enjoy my Friday and the weekend x

Purple gems

I couldn't wait any longer and instead of watering them I decided to tip the bag upside down. At first I thought there was nothing inside until ... ripping apart the soil and roots out popped a purple gem, a potato that goes by the name of edgecote something or other. You see see I did label them but the label is no where to be seen.

They are tasty, the only word we thought described them was 'Fresh'

Proudest moment

This is one of my proudest moments designing this book.  It was so much fun !

The book started with the three of us trying to illustrate and design the book, but I was left with guidance to complete it by myself.  I think that's why I'm so proud of the book because it feels like mine. 

This is a picture of the re-print cover, (changed ready for the print of the next one - you'll have to wait for that one) the copy you might find in teh shops is called The usborne Patterns colouring book.

Although the insides are good.  not only is it a colouring book, there are some pages that give you ideas on how to colour in the page by suggesting different colours to use.  There's usually a pattern per page, but some are split into two or four or there's a couple of double page patterns.

Garden time

I've decided it's time to tip my bags upside down to find out if there were any potatoes inside.

There was in these two bags, on the left I think we have charlottes and on the right I'm guessing its peach bloom. I've changed my mind I think the ones on the left are anya's.
There are five more bags to tip up, but thought we'd eat these first.

Oh and don't forget those yummy raspberries and what's left of the strawberries.

Time for a cup of tea me thinks.

Testing

This will be my first post from my smart phone.

Exciting stuff, more to follow!

2nd

1st list

My home

4 bedroom terraced house for sale in Spring Cottage, Bron Berwyn, Corwen, LL21, LL21

A home to go ...

I just wanted to remind you about these two as I some hoe deleted the post.

The first the four bedroom cottage with excellent views over the welsh countryside. This is what I call my childhood home, where I sat at the window ledge of my shared bedroom with the window wide open looking out onto the hills and fields, occasionally seeing my friends coming up to meet me. This was before I grew to old toshare and got my own room all to myself with the privacy of the mountain behind me, where I tried to get my kitten to climb the plank from my room to the mountainside so I didn’t have to share her (it didn’t work).

In this house we learnt about frogs, newts, ducklings, adders every spring as they needed rescuing from our small sun trap of a backyard. We ate in the big kitchen with plenty of morning light, and cozied up by one of the two open fires (mum kept changing her mind and one fire was always blocked up only to be discovered the next winter while boarding up the other).


I then remember the other house where our parents now live, only a 100yds down the hill from are cottage, where we had to carry our belongings by wheelbarrow and hand from one to the other when we moved. Even the Piano. Here my sister and I took over the three attic rooms once the servants rooms with a landing big enough we used it as our living room (until the demon rabbit took over). Each room had a different use and we swapped them around until they suited our use, and if inside wasn’t enough, there’s the apple trees pear and plum and the biggest gooseberry bush I’ve ever seen, there’s rhubarb too.


So if you have forgotten or not seen them before here are the two I call home.

A Cottage and a Large house

One year on and another wedding

Eggy eggy

We seem to have a problem, we hope it might sort it's self out, it's soft shelled eggs.  It's a bit like some one was having a practiccal joke one morning leaving a water balloon type egg in the hen house, but no it's a real egg.  So far I've discvoered that it can be quite common for chickens to lay a soft egg every now and then, but if it continues it means there's a problem, either not enough calcium (which they should be having and most the other eggs are ok) or a poorly chicken.  What makes it harder is how to work out who's is who's egg. 

 

So while we woke up early to sit and watch the chickens to find out who laid when and what egg, drinking tea, I decided to leave Jo and make some scotch pancakes for breakfast.  Using my griddle pan which fits beautifully on the new oven and has two nice gas burners burning equally underneath.  The first time I've cooked on it with out burning the food at some point.  What a yummy breakfast and so far no signs of wobbly eggs.

Chick chick chicken

We have some new additions to our family... chickens. We rescued them with the help of these people from a battery farm who no longer needed them. Boy were they in a state, these photo's have been taken four weeks later as they explore there freedom in the garden, acess all areas including the carrots which may no longer be growing thanks to the fact that the feathery tops have been eaten by the chicks.

Let me introduce you to them Egwina (the boss), Chickpea (the noisey one and so named because her head was bold), Poulet, the rather sickly one but by no means at the bottom of the pecking order) and my favourite because she stayed near me to get away from the pecking Henreitta (the darkest and featherest of them all).

Thier fluffy white feathers haven't taken long to come back, in fact it was about a week that we noticed that they looked a little bit more plump, they still have bold patches. Poulets neck was the best seeing the feathers grow starting with the quills poking out of her neck almost prehistoric looking, and then waiting as the feathers poked out from within the quill getting longer and longer bit by bit.

RIP Tobias

Sadly our much loved family dog was put to sleep yesterday evening. Old man Toby was suffering from a cough for a few months and as the weeks went by he stopped eating and stopped jumping before it was decided that his heart wasn't strong enough to cope.

We'll never forget you jumping up at the kitchen window to see if we were still inside while you went out. Even how you reclaimed your youth when the youngster pups came to play at your feet and all you could do was jump up and down and bark. How you sat at the bottom of the stairs to make sure you weren't forgotten as we all talked and laughed upstairs. How your snoring became as loud as dad's. How you grew old gracefully with your silver beard.

RIP old man, Tobias, Toby, Thank you for all your laughs and love x

Day 7

An early start one that begins with the twitter of the chatting birds. To full from yesterdays meal we manage to eat our last egg from Casta Bellavista with some freshly home baked bread. Our suitcases packed and the bill paid (all I can say is Happy Honeymoon and it's breadsticks fort he rest of the week), we make our drive down the motorway to Florence.

This is the part were my mind will now be blanked, but before it is may i warn you DO NOT DRIVE INTO FLORENCE it's worse than London, well maybe not but lets say the stress levels were high. We managed to drive into Florence fairly straightforward only one wrong turn, but lots of Arrrrrggggghhhh's. With the car checked we decided to walk to the train station as it was just around the corner, we had an hours wait and on top of that the train was delayed.

The train from Florence to Rome was a eurostar non stop direct route, with booked seats, a very nice train journey that made the 1hour 15 mins go quickly.

At Rome we were greeted by our chauffeur who was waiting to take us to our hotel, through the hustle and bustle of the main roads to squeezing through the narrow cobbled ones.

Our hotel is off the main shopping street so we have easy access to a lot of areas, it's tucked away amongst lots of other buildings and is very basic but nice. We check in feeling exhausted and sit back and make our selves a brew (good old English for Jo and lemon and honey for me) before we brave the busy outside.

Fruity strawberry and peach – Day 6

We went for a drive to Pienze, Jo’s second favourite place. It’s not very built up, a little bigger than Cortona, but the little ‘old’ part is built up on the corner of a road, drive to fast and you might miss it.

Down pedestrian streets, passed little shops, lazily soaking up the sun gazing up at the variety of buildings, walking to the end to be hit by an open landscape of rolling hills, green fields the best we’ve seen and here we enjoy our Ice cream (more like sorbet for Jo (my) lemon and cherry flavour).

From here we move onto Montepulchino diverting via La foce to see if Jo can find her rows of tree’s she’s seen on many a postcard. We think we’ve found the spot miles down a dirt track road to an old castle no one loves and sitting in the shade of an Italian rooted tree we stop to look out on our view that includes a path of her cypress tree. It’s here that we sit to take our lunch, bit’s and pieces we gathered on our way. Half a cheese and tomatoes sandwich (so much better than home) with tomato and herb style pizza only the toppings in the middle, followed by a cake, more like a biscuit base with a thick layer of cherry jam and more biscuit on top sprinkled with almonds.

We continue on our drive but there is a change of plan now we are heading to Montepulciano. On the way Jo isn’t satisfied with her road of those tall tress to guide her way and as we drive discussing it’s authenticity we realise the twisting, sharp down hill bends, we’re meandering down are lined with those dark tall cypress tress, may be this is the one. Shortly after we find Monticchiello and park in it’s lonely car park, with the guide books advice of an hours tour we enter and leave in 10 (10mins) to venture of to our original plan of Montepulciano. There's something about this place I don't like. Maybe it's the tall towers leaving narrow corridors of cold and darkness it seems busy but with so many paths it soon becomes eerily quiet.

They charge you a fortune for a lemon soda and an cold espresso shaken over ice and served with a frothy head and a grunt from the waitress. So it's time to go home and on the way just by chance in one of the archways we find a little biscuit shop, we enter empty handed and leave with a mix of the most delightful yummy local biscuits.

Tonight Simonetta is cooking for us. We don't know what, or how much (food or money) just that it's at 8. We arrive downstairs and are seated at our private restaurant for 2. We start with a Rose wine at E25 but it's very nice. We're served with our 1st course, a local dish of fish, capers, potatoes, sun dried tomatoes and a lot of Tuscany with every mouthful. This is followed by Primipatti of Ragu, which we discover is made with pork, veal and liver and tastes full of deliciousness. Our Secondi patti is chicken stuffed with ricotta and spinach served alongside a type of runner bean that's tastes sweeter and chopped roast potatoes (but oh so much nicer). If that wasn't enough we have to finish a delicate dessert from the French border, a chocolate kind of egg custard with a biscuit cake type top, that just melts in the mouth. Almost gone in one. Before the night is over we invite Simonette to drink coffee with us and we chat over Italian coffee and a helping of Tuscan sweets, before taking our glutenous bellies to bed.