MY FIRST CROCHET!!

Yes, it's badly done, and not technically correct to the pattern I used, but I LOVE it, and am excessively proud.. especially as I finished it after a couple of large glasses of rose!

It's an approximation of Lucy's Summer Garden pattern.. only the first two steps, obviously enough. I must give massive thanks to Lucy for making both a treble, and a bobble stitch seem so achievable!

I'll be attatching this to a brooch fixing, I think. It'll work well with my winter coat, and as and when it gets replaced by another one I can pop it on my curtains, or something. Yay, yay, Yay, YAY YAY!!!!!!!!!!!! I was starting to think I'd never succeed.

Happy Dayses.

This has been a couple of days of simple pleasures.. which are the best kind of pleasures, as they're the easiest to come by. First off, a beautiful flower bed. I don't know where the sunflower came from.. it's hardly the councils usual flower of choice. I can only assume it's a matter of guerrila gardening by the residents of the street in question. I'll go back that way again on Sunday, and take another picture. Hopefully it'll be flowering then. The colours in the flower bed are fabulous, even without that, and they're all pompom flowers of various descriptions, and I love pompom flowers.

Simple Pleasure number 2. Veg box arrived on Thursday, and it was full of the type of goodies I like. Carrots (taste SO much better organic.. one of the few things that truely does), Broccoli, runner beans, salad mix, red peppers, onions, spudatoes.. yeah, think that's it. Oh, no. A pointed cabbage. That's it. The carrots and broccoli got ate on Thursday with faggots.. still got the rest of it, bar one onion. Oh, and I had some salad today for lunch.

Final thing for now, I got my first ever Boden catalogue in the post, and OH! It's beautiful! I'd never had a real look at Boden before.. and now I want it all.. ALL! There is nothing in here I don't want to own. Part of me wishes I hadn't bothered, I have enough problems resisting Joules, without adding this into the equation. But.. daydreaming is a fabulous occupation, and dreaming of Boden is a good way to spend time.

OK, so it wasn't quite the final thing.. I had fun shopping in Sainsburys and Homebase today.. pictures will follow. I bought some fabulous things today, oh yes indeedy I did!

Flower Festival II

I loved these teacups... the mis-matchedness appeals to me. Should have photographed the cakes as well. It's not a great picture, I know, but I was in a bit of a hurry. I'm slowly building a collection like this, but different.

As I posted yesterday, while Mum had a cuppa, Dad and I went for a walk. It's a small village, and the church is slightly on the edge. We walked out of the village, across the bridge over the river. Was a very pretty river, and if you look upstream from the bridge, you can see the back of my Great Aunt Hildas garden.. see? That white plastic garden set? She doesn't live there any more, she died about 20 years ago. Which is a good reason for her not to live there.

Just over the river is the old train line. It's not a train line anymore, it's a brand new footpath, just been done up - the grass hasn't even grown back yet. It'll be far prettier next summer. The old station is still there, complete with a statue of an evacuee. Doreen, her name is. Not the man with the growing bald spot - that's my Daddy. The station was called Donyatt Halt, and Dad remembers catching the train at this station, which is quite an amazing thought to me.

The last thing I really want to share is this.. the signpost. Ilminster is 1 1/4 miles away.. in three different directions. I can get how Ilminster is accessible from three different directions.. but the same distance?? That's odd. You can just see the church in the background too.

It was a very good day all round. A couple of blackberries, eaten fresh from the hedge. Butterflies and bees all over the place. And pretty flowers.

Flower Festival

Hullo again.. it's been a very busy but enjoyable Sunday. We went to St Marys Church in Donyatt for the Flower Festival. It's a good half hour from home, but it's where I was christened, and where a lot of my dads side of the family is buried. Anyhow, it was the Flower Festival this weekend, raising money for the roof. Is it me, or do all churches spend half their time raising money for new roofs? (Roofs, rooves, roofes - how do you spell that??) Anyhow, we pootled across the hills (very pretty drive it is too) and admired the flowers.. wish I could do that picture mosaic thing.. as it is I'll have to post large versions.

I completely forgot to take note of the names of the exhibits, so I apologise for that. The theme of the festival was something like the Wonders Of The Natural World. I took pictures of a few of my favourites.

I remember this one was about the food that the land gives us.. it made me smile, especially the cauliflower. Which you can't see in this picture.

I'm pretty sure this was a representation of fire. My picture of the arrangement itself was pretty naff, so you can see the close-up. The colours were beautiful.
This one was my Grannies. It's a representation of gemstones. You can't quite see the full thing.. it was very long, but very pretty. I love the colours.. and can you see the beaded flowers? She does some beautiful beading. I have a lovely necklace she made me, for my 21st. Must remember to show you that sometime. Me and Dad went for a walk around the village while Mum had a cup of tea, but I'll share that with you tomorrow. This is quite enough for one night, I think!

Lillies

Just wanted to share these beauties with you. I bought them on Thursday, two bunches at 75p each. They've flowered beautifully. One on the mantle piece, and one on the windowsill. Thank you Somerfield!

Other than that, the tiffin is delicious.. thoroughly recommend that recipe! The crochet is coming on slowly. I so nearly succeeded in making the centre of a Granny Square.. but not quite. Dammit. Another try tomorrow.

Todays Joys

Today has been a very good day. Started this morning with a nice lie-in, and a leisurely shower. Cup of tea, pair of biccies and scrambled eggs. Did a lot of cleaning and tidying (and enjoyed it- weird) wandered into town.. found a coat to LUST after.. didn't photograph it, but I will next time I get a chance. I may never own it though. £199. Ouch.

I made tiffin tonight, recipe courtesy of Attic24, which is setting in the fridge now.. ready to go to work with me tomorrow. I tried to make a Jumble Crumble - crumble made with whatever fruit is lying about. It tasted fabulous, but the fruit was much wetter than I realised, and the crumble topping sank under the juice. More of a slop than a crumble. :(

However, it contained plums of two colours, nectarine, greengages and damsons. Was delish.

Snowdrop Valley

This is another post from the past.. I'm bored, y'see. This is from Snowdrop Valley on Exmoor (Wheddon Cross, I think). It was back in early February. There were little bits of snow blowing round in the wind, so it really was cold.. hence the stylish hats. Couldn't find my glubs anywhere though. Had very cold hands that day. After our very nice walk (you can see Dad, and a little of me here) we went to the village hall where we had some very welcome hot vegetable soup, and I bought a jar of chutney (pear and walnut) from the WI there. The flowers were beautiful, and prolific. Am definitely going back this year.

Show & Tell!

Before I write my proper post.. have very important news.. JOULES AUTUMN/WINTER COLLECTION IS OUT!!! The excitement cannot be contained! I want so much of it, and I can't afford it. NOOO!! Have a look.. it's on my links list. Just don't buy what I want and make it sell out, or I may have to kill you.

Anyhow.. this is supposed to be the show and tell from the last few days, including St Ives. Sorry I havn't posted, have had a slightly hectic few days. Anyhoo.. These are (some of) my fabulous recent purchases. From St Ives, the spotty paper napkins, and spotty cake cases to match. I also bought a very nice navy blue skirt in Joules, which I can't show you, as I'm wearing it. It is very lovely indeed, it's quite full and spinning round while wearing it provides endless entertainment. I'm easy to please. :)

Next purchases were the cake cooling rack (havn't had one for over a year.. the old one got left in the garden and went very manky), and the pretty new red pie/cooking/serving dishes. These also match the new napkins, and the tablecloth I made a while back.. I'll show you that one another time. Finally, there's my new napkins.. proper fabric ones. They are gorgeous. Would you like to see the print?

Gorgeous, no? I love the bee's. These came from the National Trust shop at Montacute House in Somerset, which is where we spent part of today. We went to Tintinhull garden first, which was pretty, but small. They had some lovely lemon drizzle cake there. Then we travelled 5 minutes along the road to Montacute. We didn't spend any time in the house there, but had a lovely wander around the garden, and a drink in the tea-room there as well. Was very pleasant indeed. No cake though. One was enough.

On the way out through the gift shop I was accosted by the napkins. A tube of Cath Kidston rose-scented hand cream very nearly came home with me, but assurances of a future purchase meant I was able to leave without. I also Officially Began My Christmas Shopping today. I would say what I bought, but if the intended recipient (Mum) reads this, it will spoil the surprise. It's only a little stocking filler, but that's not the point.

Other news from the last few days.. did I mention I'm trying to learn to crochet? Trying is definitely the operative word.. I'm not doing overly well. I think I have chain stitch and DC under the belt OK, but I'm trying to move ahead too quickly. I really want to succeed at a Granny Square, but am failing muchly. As soon as I succeed, posting will occur.

Today we went to.. St Ives!

It started (far t'wirly) at 7am, when the alarm went off. Skies were grey, and miserable.. not holding much hope for weather. By the time we got on the coach at 8.20am it was much brighter and looking hopeful for good weather. We were off! Driving southwards on the M5, then the A30, until we got to Jamaica Inn. Here, we stopped for tea; a Cornish cream tea, actually. When in Rome..

The building of the Jamaica Inn is beautiful. Some lovely stained glass, and lots of beams with pretty china. The service was (in my opinion) less impressive. A tad cafeteria-esque with a long bank of pre-cooked food. The fried eggs looked vile. Our cream tea however was quite impressive.. Homebaked scones, Roddas clotted cream and a decent strawberry jam. Mmmm.. We were there for about an hour, then back on the road to St Ives.. it was possibly the longest, most tortuous route to St Ives known to man. We passed the turning, went down into Penzance, along to St Just, and then back into St Ives via the coast road. I can understand why.. that stretch of coast road is GORGEOUS.. recommend it to anyone in that part of the world. However, it's not a wide road, and going down there in a 49 seater coach, meeting tractors and double decker buses coming the other way was.. interesting. But amusing at times. Anyhow.. into St Ives.. yay! Off coach (be back at 4.45) s-t-r-e-t-c-h legs, and de-numb the bum. Bums get very numb after four hours on a coach, let me tell you!

Into the town.. get dropped off by local bus service (is quite a walk from the coach park).. where on earth are we? Don't know St Ives well. I've only been there once before today, but I do remember.. yep, there's Subway where we had a mediocre coffee last year. Excellent, a navigation point! Find Joules - first priority - nearly walked past it. Thanks go to Mum for pointing it out.. it's strange, normally it has a magnetic attraction. Don't know how I missed it! I bought a nice something, but that can wait til 'Show & Tell' post in a little while.

From there, wander around aimlessly - which is the main point of the day - until we find Cath Kidston.. *drool*. I was so indecisive in there, I came out with nothing :( but I think I've found Mums birthday/christmas present. I'll show you the rest later. One thing - I've managed to obtain a negative strap mark. Most strap marks are a white bit in the red/brown. Mine is the other way around. I have a perfect red line where my bra strap was when I suncreamed my shoulders! Oopsie. We had a lovely paddle in the harbour, tooties looking all clean and pink, as you can see. I have many photos of our feets. I'll post again in a while with my 'Show & Tell'. Right now I've got fish & chips to eat in the back garden, and shooting stars to watch for.

Nope, this picture wasn't taken today. It's from Lulworth Cove, and was taken back in.. April I think? But I love the photo, and I don't have one from today so I'll share it with you now.

Today work has been rather busy. Everything is moving around, and I mean EVERYTHING. Looks rather fab where it's been done, but it's made for a rather hectic day. I'm currently drinking a cup of tea, and munching hobnobs. Then I'll go and change out of uniform and go to rehearsal. Oh, yeah, havn't mentioned that before have I? I'm currently rehearsing for a song & dance show called 'Mayors Musical Extravaganza' that the Mayor has asked us to do. Is going quite well.

Lastly, I'm very excited, coz tomorrow I'm going to St Ives for a day! Me and Mum are taking a coach trip down there.. and I'm going to Joules, and Cath Kidston, and it's going to be brilliant and WOO!! :D

Byesies.

Hi all,

Once again, I went out to pick the sweetpeas. And once again, I found wildlife. Today, it was a caterpillar. I think Norbert suits him, so Norbert he shall be.

Next item of note.. my fingers are green. They got a little dyed while cleaning the art easel at work. Some delightful child (or ten) had scribbled all over it in felt pen. Cleaning it was effective, but messy.

Finally, having been inspired by other peoples fabulous creations of fabulousness I am learning to crochet! It's not going overly well. I've more or less got the hang of chain stitch, but am struggling with double crochet. Any hints or tips would be greatfully appreciated!

Hello Chaps (and Chapesses). I do so like it when Monday's over. Although to be fair, it has been quite a nice Monday. I bought myself a nice magazine and a coffee and I sat in Sainsburys cafe for about and hour and a half. For those who don't know I can't drive, and I work about 9 miles away from home. Some days I don't start until 11.30, but my lift still drops me off at about 8.30, leaving me with quite a bit of time to kill. I spend a LOT of time in sainsburys cafe on these days. It was a good coffee today (large latte, as it happens) with shortbread biscuits. I think it's one of the first times I've bought Country Homes.. I buy Country Living every month, but it's not out until next week, and I needed something. This looked inspiring, as indeed it was. I particularly liked the feature on Cottage Style - very heavy on the roses. Once again, I need to aquire a house of my own. Don't think The Parents would approve if I filled the house with any more clutter than it already has!

After enjoying the coffee and biscuits, I took myself across to Homebase, specifically the Laura Ashley department. I was determined to treat myself on some small scale.. and I did. I bought a Box File to keep my CL magazines in. It's very pretty. I'll show you sometime, once I've had a chance to photograph it.. preferably once my bedroom is good and tidy as well. (That'll be the day!) I also aquired a catalogue, which is thoroughly drool worthy, and I've chosen my Christmas present. For anyone interested it's http://www.lauraashley.com/Casual-Dining/RED-CERAMIC-3-TIER-CAKESTAND/invt/3438564

Pretty Please??

Cookies!

I'm baking cookies! Chocolate Chip ones. The recipe came from Attic24, (see my list of sites) and I am very grateful! Above, you see the dough in its final stages of preparation, and below that, the balls of dough ready to go in the oven.

Of course, the best bit of the making was The Licking Of The Bowl. Seeing as I have no children, this arduous duty falls to me. :)

They are in the oven as I type, and will hopefully be out, lightly golden and beautiful in a minute or two. To be taken with a mug of delicious hot chocolate just before bed. Fabulous.

Edit: I can confirm that they are indeed delicious! I made 18 and have had 5 of my 6. I'll definitely make these again soon.

I just went out to pick the sweetpeas, as I said I would, and I found this little chappie. Thought you might like to see him.

Sunny Day and Pretty Flowers

I bought some sweet pea plants from Stourhead, on the aforementioned outing. They didn't do much for ages.. I have finally got flowers! Will pick them later. Love sweet peas. They smell beautiful :)

A few years ago, we bought some lillies. We had three varieties, five of each. They did fantastically well the first year, moderately the second, and have been decidedly mediocre since then. This year I have ONE flower. On the plus side, I think it's rather a beauty.

Last year they were decimated by Scarlet Lilly Beetle, as I didn't recognise what the problem was. Havn't seen hide or hair of any this year. Probably because I only have one lily left.

In October 08, we (Parents and I) went on holiday to Evesham. We were aiming for the Cotswolds, and overshot a little, but no worries! This is a picture of a Winter Cobble, (recipe aquired from Something For The Weekend) that I cooked with the contents of my Riverford organic veg box, plus a bit. It was fab, and have made it a few times since then.

We visited Witley Court, which is a very nice ruin with a fabulous fountain, and also Blenheim palace, which was very nice indeed, but slightly over Churchill-ed. It also snowed, while we were in Ashby-de-la-zouch visiting an Auntie of mine. This was bizarre for October, and very worth commenting on. It was very pretty next morning, for the drive to Blenheim now I think of it. The maze at Blenheim is well worth visiting.

On to June..

Have been drinking cider, so please excuse me..

On 1st June we went to Stourhead garden, for those who don't know this is a fabulous HUGE garden. It was my Daddies 60th Birthday, and this was his activity of choice. I Love Stourhead. It's incredibly beautiful, with brilliant follies (many many of them) and some brilliantly framed views.. as you can see through my amateur photography.

We had icecreams, and Dads birthday cake was a date and walnut cake. I'll post the recipe sometime, or you can find it at BBC goodfood website.

Signing off. x

Snow!

Yes, OK, so it's a little old and out of sequence, but I'm uploading things as they occur to me, or feel inspiring. This is me and our snowman - I've forgotten what we named him.. think it was Bob. He has a carrot for a nose, and dried apricots for eyes. The dye from the scarf ran as the snow started melting.. we had some purple ice. It looked really odd.

Just before this photo was taken, I made my first ever snow angel, in the middle of the road.

It was about midnight. I believe this excursion was followed by hot chocolate :)

I couldn't get to work the next day.

Hi All,

It's been a long time, no?

I say 'Hi All' but I don't think there is an 'all' to talk to. I am GOING to make this blog an expression of everything I love in life. And it will be fabulous.

The picture you see here was taken at Knightshayes Court.