At last a couple of days of warm (even hot!) sunshine. I took my cup of tea out into the garden this morning and spent a couple of hours weeding and cutting back. I am slowly clearing a bed so that I can put in some dwarf apple trees and David Austen roses.



When it got too hot I came in bringing these beauties with me.

I have over the years accumulated a few things that were starting to clutter my kitchen, so I have recently bought a cupboard which fits perfectly behind the back door in the utility room and all my 'stuff' is organised on it. The two recent additions are a new-to-me Kenwood, the previous one blew up trying to knead bread dough! and a Kenwood slicer, I love this! I can bake 4 loaves, slice and bag them and put them in the freezer, or slow cook a ham, slice and freeze for sandwiches, hash or ham with parsley sauce.




Efficient but not pretty! So here is a picture of one of my favourite things. This little dairy cow sat on my mums butter dish until it got smashed.

Second daughter played with her camera today and took these artistic shots.

Clever hen - chewing



And the other two!

They enjoy our company more than anything else, and certainly more than our Marrans did. They are Warrens and we have the three, which I thought would be enough for our needs. They have today each laid an egg for the first time. Second daughter has an affinity with them for some reason, going as far as to proclaim herself 'the hen whisperer'.!!!

We only have a small lawn to keep them on but so far it has not been trashed, we move the ark everyday. I decided on the Boughton Ark from Forsham Cottage Arks - this one:-

http://www.forshamcottagearks.com/poultry-housing/cat-prod-boughton-chicken-housing.htm

It's swish hen housing, a bit pricey but very good.

I decided to have a blogging break and it lasted a little longer than I had anticipated.



Life carried on, children to see to ~(even though teenagers now they still need parents in so many ways) GCSEs and broken hearts. 86 year old mum to ferry to and from hospital and do things for. Paid work to endure (!) and the endless tasks that go with trying to live a simple life.



Such as:-



Growing flowers - beautiful and productive










Knitting - several things, including trying out the extreme variety

Home entertainment - my beloved Jericho, bought for me by my daughter, using money I had given her to go shopping to treat herself.

More photos of bales!!! Taken by husband just over the road from our house. Spending time in our local environment more as petrol costs rise.

Looking after the tomatoes in the greenhouse, polytunnel, veg patch and dotted in and amongst the flower beds. I have never seen so many flowers on my tomato plants before. I am feeding them with Black Jack which is a labour of love as the smell is foul!

Picking fruit, fruit and more fruit. I labelled my jam this morning and have so far made 28lbs this year. It is stored away in a spare coolbox at the back of the pantry, for judicious use over the coming year.

Strawberry jam - my favourite.

Learning to make sausages, this being our first attempt. Plain pork are these but the next will be spiced. This was soooo much fun too, a very good, fun and cheap evening entertainment.

Getting my Warrens, they were bought 4 weeks ago as POLs and this morning one of them laid an egg! They are much smaller than my Marans were and are VERY tame. They have the run of the garden some of each day but spend most of that time trying to get into the house whenever the door is left open.

I have also spent alot of time researching on the internet and reading of text books. I do not like the way that the economic situation is playing out one little bit. I know there have always been economic downturns and cycles but this time it feels different. I read somewhere that this is not the end of the world, but the end of a world. This feels true to me so I am endeavouring to learn and hone my skills so as to be prepared for what life throws our way.

I bought a little frame from the local charity shop, when I took it apart this little watercolour posy came out from the back, I don't think it is that well done but someone took some time over it and I cannot bring myself to get rid of it so there it sits, on a shelf.

No craft work done this past fortnight, instead some minor alterations and some decorating, I always feel like a change at this time of year as I am sure lots of us do. Anyway my lovely fireplace has gone from this:-

To this:-

We have oil fired central heating and the oil is getting far too expensive now. So we decided to have a log burner to help conserve our oil. We can keep it in all day and night, I like the fact that I can go to work and leave the fire in! In case anyone is wondering it is a Clearview Stove - Pioneer 400. Manufactured in Shropshire - yay!! We have decorated the bedroom, but that is for another post!

An exciting (for me!) thing to happen this past week was to 'win' an old kenwood Chef off Freecycle. I had tried twice before so it was third time lucky for me. It came with lots of attachments and is in good working order. I want to make sausages and mill grain as well and I have found a chap who can supply these attachments too. I have passed several things on through Freecycle but this is the first time I have got something for myself.

My good friend Cath has a B&B in a lovely old farmhouse, she does wonderful cooking with her own hens, eggs, pigs etc , sometimes she shares one of her pigs with me, hence the need for a sausage maker and mincer. I have just thought that maybe I will take my camera next time and show you around her place. There are so many things at the moment that I think would make a good post.

Snowdrops galore

I had to work yesterday morning, it was such a lovely day though that I decided to stop by this place to visit. Several people were enjoying the glorious sunshine and 'The Snowdrop' weekend.

The most notable piece of information I have found about St Mary's, Burford, is that it is the resting place of Elizabeth Plantagenet. She was the third child of John of Gaunt the 1st Duke of Lancaster and was born in Burford in 1363. She had three husbands:- John Hastings, 3rd Earl of Pembroke; John Holland, 1st Duke of Exeter; John Cornwall, 1st Baron Fanhope and Milbroke. She had 5 children with John Holland and 2 children with John Cornwall. There is a monument to her at the Church which I couldn't get a photo of this time, she was buried there in 1426.

Burford itself is a tiny parish of 1108 souls according to the 2001 census. It is the southern most place in Shropshire, and furthest from Shrewsbury the county town. This Church is next to my favourite Garden Centre - Burford Gardens, which deserves a post all of its own soon. Luckily for me it is only about 3 minutes from my place of work so nice to go there during my lunch break occasionally.

Every year the friends of the Church have 'Snowdrop' weekends where they welcome visitors to see the carpets of flowers, and offer refreshments in the Church to fund raise. These photos give an indication of the prettiness and peacefulness of the place, but what is missing is the sound of the birds. They are certain it is Spring and were singing as if their lives depended on it. I only hope they are not too far down the nesting/producing phase as there is still plenty of time for Winter to bite back and remind us it has not finished with us yet.

It was one thing to go and see the snowdrops, many different varieties, but it was quite another to see primroses, daffodils, periwinkle and tree blossom out - not to mention these shy and gently lovelies flowering away to their hearts content under an ancient yew.

I took HPC with me too!

I hope you are having a peaceful weekend.

Today seemed like a spring day so we decided to take a ride and pick up mum for lunch. The sun was shining, the birds singing - but the wind still had a sting in it.

We lunched at The Stiperstones Inn, we could all only manage one course, I would recommend anyone walking in the area to have a meal there, very good portions at a very reasonable price.




StiperstonesInn-ShropshireStar

Afterwards we bimbled along through Snailbeach, The Bog, Hyssington and ended up at the independent supermarket in Churchstoke that is 'Harry Tuffins'. Whilst I chaperoned mum around the shop ~(first time out in ages and still a little fragile) Ian and daughter 2 went around the animals. How many supermarkets do you know that have a 'country park' tagged onto the side of it for the amusement of bored children and surplus husbands?

I found some lovely paper - it looks ideal for craftwork but I don't know what yet!

And a final photo for Anna, HPC's eyes were out on stalks in wonderment of the beauty of this county of mine!!! - I wonder where the next visit will be?

Well I have taken a slightly longer than anticipated Christmas break. Was it a good one? Well it had its good moments for which I am thankful, but an 86 year old mum having a mishap (a freezer drawer accident), and a 64 year old big sister breaking her back in two places (actually did this at the end of November but obviously still incapacitated), together with tooooo many shifts at work and I didn't know which way was up!

Thank goodness for a return to something like normality, although I think the new normality will involve lots more driving to and from mum.

One bright moment was the arrival of Hillary P Cushion. Thank you! thank you! thank you Anna! He has settled in well, although we are having lots more rain again and he didn't look impressed this morning whilst gazing out at a very soggy garden.

Together with HPC came the most gorgeous little quilt, some lovely Christmas stickers and......posh chocolate! I had had a particularly bad day at work and came home to this!! I hope that the PIF parcel I sent off gave someone a lift too!

I promise I will treasure my goodies Anna, and I can honestly say that your handiwork really is as wonderful as it looks in your photos.

The sunrise was spectacular this morning, as was the amount of sparkly ice over our cars!

This was the view from our bedroom window, the farm over the way is where we currently get our free range eggs from. I hope to re-introduce chooks to the garden in 2008.

A non crafty day in this household today, instead I attempted to get my Christmas cards done, and made apple sauce with the last of the apples from our ancient tree.

I had a visitor too. We have plenty of pheasants around the garden at the moment, I wonder if they know it is safer in my garden than out in the 'firing line'

Christmas - The countdown begins!

1st December - the day of our Christmas fete. Lots of the stalls were inside the church and it was too dim and far too crowded for photos. I did manage to get a photo of my lovely friend Rachel striking a very silly pose, she makes 100's of wreaths every year and she had a table in the entrance taking orders.

The Bell Inn Brass Band played jolly festive music, Cath (in the Christmas hat) played and then had to do a quick change in the ladies loo to join in the Crooked Steeple slot. It was sooo cold today!

Poor Rob could hardly play, his hands were numb with cold!

Santa was in his grotto, and was going to turn the lights on at 4pm, we didn't stay this year though. We needed to get in to the warmth.

Here is the view down the street to the Market Hall and church, past the local butchers.

Punch & Judy and various stalls were in the Market Hall, but again I didn't take photos. However, here are a couple of photos of our Millennium Embroidery - isn't it fab? Every organisation in the town took part in supplying something for this piece and it hangs in the Market Hall. I did the black and white paper shop in freestyle cross stitch. Soon afterwards the owners retired and it closed, so it is already a little piece of history. I love the Church and the view underneath.

Did I mention it was cold today? So glad we got a fire in, and just as we got home it started to rain.

And finally, I saw the lady who organized the Christmas box wrapping - she told me the final number we managed to ship was 1,325!!!!!!!

Hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend.