Verb: pootle
poo-t(u)l To move in a leisurely unhurried way,
with no real purpose


Thursday 26 September 2013

Five days in pics ...

 

 Sunday...two little puppy blankets finished, ready and waiting.

 
Monday ... frosty cobwebs on the way to work.


Tuesday ... bad news - cut crochet finger !


Wednesday ... finger better,  practiced making a dishcloth.

 
Thursday ...packing to go to Skipton for the weekend.

 
Crochet bag all ready for the 5 hour train journey.


Yippee - off to see my lovely , lovely friend Jane and to go to Yarndale !!
Sooooooo excited.

Monday 23 September 2013

A bit of a marathon cook off...

Now, I'm not an enthusiastic cook by any means, and actually only cook when I really have to - mostly because there's always something else I'd rather be doing instead, but this Saturday the urge suddenly came upon me to get in the kitchen and make stuff !


Lilou was very happy to curl up next to the warm cooker as there was far too much noisy DIY going on in the rest of the house ( and therefore quite a bit of swearing as well ! )
First dish of the day was a great big pot of vegetable soup, so easy to do and plenty to keep us going for the weekend.
Next project was a little more ambitious and a first for me, Apple Chutney.
I used the recipe from Chalky's World, as it was looking through Linda's lovely blog the other day that got me on to this.
So in true Delia style I got all my ingredients weighed out and ready to go.


Surprisingly few ingredients really, mostly just apples -
 all good as we have more than enough of those right now.


Very excited about using my new preserving pan ( quite sad
 really that that's the sort of thing I get excited about these days ..)


Lots of gorgeous smelling spicy things, and a muslin bag full of even more.


Apples ( 6lb's of peeling later ), raisins and soft brown sugar.


Garlic, salt and vinegar.


Basically just all thrown in the pan, and cooked and cooked.


Obviously there was no way I could be peeling apples and not make a quick apple crumble.


And here's the final result. You may have noticed that in this picture the lights are on and the curtains are shut and there is a tale to tell there ... In Linda's recipe it says 2oz mustard seeds but I couldn't get any of these so thought probably pickling spices would be just as good. I carefully weighed them out but was a bit short as the whole pot wasn't quite enough. Never mind I thought, we'll just go with what we've got. After a couple of hours of simmering I had a little taste and WOW - that was some hot and spicy chutney !! Nice, but with a really hearty kick, to say the least. The only solution was to cook another lot of apples ( 6lbs more ! ) with raisins and sugar and vinegar and NO spices, so that I could add the two together as drastic damage limitation measures. So, a whole evening of Saturday telly later the end result was achieved. Still a bit of a bite to it, but actually really pretty good on the whole.


I did ring my mum to see what I'd done wrong and yes, it was the pickling spices - should have used quite considerably less than I did, and actually, looking back at the photo I can see at least 6 little chili's hiding in there ... ooops.


The most fun bit of all was adding all the tops and labels...


...... with a necessary Advisory Notice, that eating said chutney may involve socks being blown off...


and now they all need to be put away for three months, which very conveniently takes us to Christmas..


... so family and friends you haven't seen this, right ?

Wednesday 18 September 2013

Time flies ....

  
Lovely couple of hours spent passing the time with friends this morning at the gorgeous Merkins CafĂ©.

 
 Had to be toast all round ...smelt too good to resist.

 
Got Jayne started on a new project - there's just no stopping the girl .
 
 
Loved the little milk bottle the milk was served in, took us right back to our school days and milk being warmed up next to the radiator - yeuk !
 
 
Lots of tea was drunk, chatting was done and the time just flew.
  

Tuesday 17 September 2013

Here's the pic...

  
Two warm students ...
 
... job done !
  
 

Sunday 15 September 2013

A bit under the weather...

 ♥
All very quiet here this weekend as the lurgy has struck, lots of aches and sneezes and lemsips ...Perfect time for a little bit of crochet, nothing too taxing, just finishing off the teeny tiny blanket...
 
 
...tiny picot edging for the tiny teeny blanket.

 
So, the blankets finished , the dog basket has been bought..
 

Lilou got straight in it, so funny, she turned round and round trying to make herself fit in it...

 
but this is who it's for !
 ♥

Thursday 12 September 2013

Just in time...


  Just in time, the chunky stripy blanket is finished - ready to be packed up and taken to Uni on Monday, along with the entire contents of a bedroom and the kitchen sink. It's definitely the quickest blanket I have made - probably just as well as I picked the hottest summer in ages to decide to make a super large blanket , with super chunky wool !

 


 I really enjoyed working with something a bit different to my normal choice of a nice small needle and DK wool.
Beth is very happy as she is planning to save on her heating bills and just snuggle under the blanket instead.

 
 
I think there's something very satisfying about big bold stripes.
 
 
I finished the blanket off with a little ribbon label stitched on to the corner.
  
From the ludicrously large I have gone in one fell swoop straight to tiddly tiny...
 
 
... the same pattern as before, coloured stripes in half trebles and white stripes in double crochets..
 
 
I have used one ball of red and one ball of white for the entire blanket ...
 
 
.. this blanket is going to be for one very titchy little dog of a Mexican variety that will be moving in to Megs house in a couple of weeks !
  

Monday 9 September 2013

Whoosh - where did that weekend go ?

 

There was quite a lot going on this weekend all in all, starting with the arrival of the hired digger on Friday = one happy husband.


We have a beautiful little church in our village and a group of us take it in turns to do the flowers each week.This weekend it was my turn and whilst this is a little scary, as I am not a natural flower arranger, it is also a really peaceful way to spend an hour.


 The church looked really beautiful with the sun streaming in through the windows and it was just me there, quietly doing my thing. ( Certainly a lot quieter here than in our garden right now.. )



I'd bought a few flowers, adding to it with bits from the garden and the churchyard. I didn't really have any plans or colour scheme in mind, just kind of winging it and going with what I liked !







Thankfully there's always a few things that you can keep from the week before -because frankly starting from scratch really would be beyond me.
So, taking out all the things that were past their best this is what I was left with... actually, the pedestal one looked pretty good even without adding anything else ! Lots of teasels , greenery and a few autumn berries.There's two little wall boxes in the porch to be done and a large pedestal arrangement up by the altar - this being the most scary one.



I'd love to be really clever here and tell you what the flowers were that I put in - but I truly have no idea and I forgot to read the label! But basically they were red and white.






The porch boxes are fun to do because they're quite small and pretty much anything goes !

                  ♥ 


After a quick sweep up I headed home to this ....


 ....so I didn't really look too closely at the chaos, just quickly headed inside ....
Time for a quick bit of Ebay packing, a trip to Wickes ( far too dull to photograph ), more cups of coffee made and delivered to the garden work party ...


 and a dog walk.


Garden now looking like this on my return ....


Back inside to changing the beds and I can't tell you how much I would have loved to just crawl under the covers for a quick 40 winks...




and I'm sure there used to be a garden path here ..
  ♥ 


Sunday was pretty much more of the same.. starting with another trip to WICKES because I bought the wrong *!**!ing plumbing bits yesterday, grrrrr


and yes, that is said husband actually in the hole now !
Interesting dog walks this weekend ... what with Lilou deciding to roll in badger poo on Saturday and eat cow poo on Sunday. This did make me quite mad and in the ensuing grabbing of the dog my phone must have fallen out of my pocket *!***!!!


Now, ideally I would have noticed this at the time - but no.... it wasn't until I'd walked all the way back home that I realised my pocket was a lot emptier than when I'd started the walk...
...so after leaving one disgraced dog at home back off I went ...


 .... and there it was hiding in among the brambles and ivy. Could have been worse I guess, could have been in the cow poo ... always look for the silver lining !

 

More Ebay packaging , more coffee and sandwiches to the handyman...


who was definitely there somewhere, 
and finally finally
breathe and relax !

   ♥