Right now..

I am moving swiftly from sewing machine

to the ironing board

while drinking coffee,

listening to my new favourite music

and waiting for an opportunity to photograph my latest quilt because I'd like to enter it into the Bloggers Quilt Festival.

October gardening...

Still full of inspiration from the cutting garden course, I got planning for my spring bulbs a few weeks ago.

This weekend was perfect for pottering and planting in the garden. It felt so good to be out there in a fleece and wellies. I ordered bulbs from here, here and here. Tulips, muscari, ranunculus for the garden and amaryllis and paperwhites for indoors.

They don't look very attractive at the moment on the windowsill, but hopefully will start producing some green leaves soon. My amaryllis last year were a great success and this year I went for something a little less obvious -- Lima.

Photo credit Parkers Wholesale

Helping me out in the garden are my three pretty new hens. I bought them last weekend and for the last couple of days they have been slowly exploring the garden. 

I lost my two new girls to a fox in the summer, which was a bit traumatic and I vowed not to get another white chicken for gory reasons that I won't elaborate on here. However, I was convinced otherwise by the very knowledgable chicken man at Thornes that I would love having a bowl of pinky white eggs laid by the Coral hen on the left there, who I have named Daphne. When they all start to lay, I should have eggs of different colours from each of them. Things like that make me very happy indeed!

Anyway, back to the bulb planting.  Protective measures have been implemented to stop all my promise of a colourful spring being ruined. Again, not particularly attractive...

... but necessary because if it's not squirrels stashing acorns, it's the ever curious new girls on the block.

Still a couple of hundred bulbs still to plant in my raised beds that will purely be for cutting, along with the seedlings I have got from the course. Just a bit of leaf raking and a bonfire or two to put the garden to bed for the winter and I'm done for the year I reckon. 

Handing over...

I am ready. I am finished. It is all on this memory stick. I am delivering it tomorrow morning. I can't wait.

Eleven chapters. Four images. A resource list. A marketing form. The best and worst bits of my life.

I am travelling by train because there is champagne to follow.

Who knows? I may find time to blog again. I have a pile (actually, make that a mountain) of WIP's to finish...

Photo Scavenger Hunt 2011 - September

:: back to school ::
No2's tie, found again after a summer spent languishing at the bottom of his bag.

:: the football season ::
goalposts put up again in the park where I walk with Pippin 

:: what's in your bag? ::
not very much, although I have taken to having a bag-within-a-bag for all those annoying small items that clog up the bottom of my handbag. 

:: relaxation ::
this could have been a number of things, but I decided on walking with Pippin as I find it really clears my head.

:: Harvest ::
my own, from my tomato plants. I've been making Jamie Oliver's tomato soup, it's delish.

:: a pile of things ::
offcuts from my quilting project

:: your desk/workspace ::
Hmmm, may need a bit of a sort out ... lots of things on the go here ...

:: a public telephone box ::
quite difficult to find an old-fashioned red one around now

:: something taller than you ::
the oak trees along the footpath I walk with Pippin

:: apples ::
in the orchard at Upton House

:: a road sign ::
in the New Forest

:: a view from above ::
from the terrace at Cliveden, looking down towards the Thames

The Great Outdoors...

The tent has had its first outing and I couldn't have hoped for a better weekend considering it is late September.  First stop, Roundhill camp site in the New Forest.

The local animals were completely comfortable with sharing their space with us and Pippin was quite fascinated.

Seeing the ponies roll about joyfully, you just couldn't help but smile.  Seeing them galloping in line, wild and free, made me cry.  I'm daft like that.

For supper, it was a red pepper and chorizo stew with home-baked bread and some regional cheese.  Hearty and warm and very do-able in one pot on the stove.

Waking up to the perfect sunrise, the grass heavy with dew and a quiet that I am quite unused to in London.

Driving just a few miles and finding rivers that remind me of my childhood.  I am too used to seeing just the Thames.

Watching these cygnets gliding up the river after deciding it may be a better option while there is a chocolate brown snout nosing about around their nest.

Coming back and lighting the bucket bbq for a bit of extra warmth and to make hot dogs for supper.

Which were eaten by the light of the lanterns.  Then, tumbler of wine in hand, sitting back to be stunned by the stars.  The sky was full and the constellations were so much more visible than I am used to at home.


I have a wanderlust.  I am making plans to escape London.  I want it all now but know that I am going to need to exercise more patience.  I will get outdoors more in the meantime...

That sinking feeling...

For a treat with our morning coffee at the flower course last week, we got served a delicious cake which Rachel said was a River Cottage recipe and she was thrilled to tell us it used honey from her own hives.  I always bake for my craft ladies on a Tuesday evening and so having the book decided to give them a honey wholemeal cake too.

Looks nicely risen in the photo above, doesn't it? Not the case... as soon as I took it from the oven it sank before my very eyes and dramatically at that!

It was almost as if it got sucked down!  After the suggested cooking time, I thought it still looked a little wobbly, but having four eggs in it I wasn't that surprised.  Nevertheless I gave it another 10 minutes.  Very frustrating, especially when you are all set to share with what are now almost professional cake-tasters!

The recipe said that the middle would be a dense, honey-filled sensation but I would say it was a soggy mess.  I wasn't too proud to offer a trimmed cake and it was delicious.

I'm curious though, as to what went wrong.  The recipe link above is from an article in The Guardian and I have noticed that there are a few dissimilarities from the recipe in the book.  It uses more butter  (and I thought 300g of butter was a lot, but this version says 350g!), more sugar and the oven temperature is 10 degrees lower.  Oh, and the tin size is 1cm bigger!  I'm tempted to try out this version and see what happens.

Any thoughts on that sinking feeling?  Answers in the comment box please.

Sunday stroll...

My plans changed unexpectedly today and so I took Pippin for a long walk along one of my favourite local footpaths.

I forgot to take my camera and so used my phone along the way to record it in photos.  Sometimes I get a bit nervous of walking through the footpaths on my own but thought there were bound to be other people out and about on a Sunday.  I was wrong... I didn't see a single person the whole way.


I love walking along this particular footpath and I really ought to try and do it more often.  I also need to change the setting on the phone not to change the 'film' by shaking the phone!  It was obviously uneven ground because when I got home and looked at my pictures, nearly all of them were taken on a different setting!

It doesn't have quite the same effect in black and white as it did in real life with the sun coming through the gaps in the hedgerow.

The sky was heavy with clouds and the wind was strong and head-clearing.  I'm so glad I made the effort.  It beats pounding the pavements and being tugged along by Pip on his lead.

As it turns out, my unexpected day at home was just what I needed.  Funny how that happens some times.