New Shoes

After losing my wallet, I needed something to cheer myself up.

Shoe therapy has helped.

 

They called to me .....

and whispered "buy me"

How could I refuse?

Mmmm, I love my new shoes.

Loganberries

Lots of lovely frozen homegrown Loganberries.  

 They have been waiting patiently in my mother's freezer until I had time to make them into jam.

 

Which I did on Sunday morning.

More homemade gifts ready for Christmas!

Autumn

Yesterday evening, when I went out to tuck up the chickens for the night, it smelt like Autumn.

And going out this morning, it looked like Autumn too.

There are masses of berries on the Pyracantha, - which should make the garden birds happy.

Are the leaves starting to turn earlier this year?

My husband has started the seasonal ritual of bringing home logs, ready for cold evenings which require the fire to be lit. 

I love it - Autumn is my favourite time of year.

Harvest

If I am really honest, I have to admit that I have neglected the vegetable plot this year.  So I can't blame anyone else for my rather small harvest so far!

The crop of runner beans was modest at best, although delicious.

At last I have a few tomatoes that are ready to use.  And there are lots still unripe ones waiting to be picked.

This is about one and half lbs - just enough to make a batch of passata sauce.

They were slow roasted for an hour or so, with:

 olive oil, 

basil,

sugar,

salt,

pepper,

balsamic vinegar.

 

The kitchen smelt lovely!

Once they had cooled down, I pushed the pulp through a sieve to remove the skin and pips.

The finished product is not quite as colourful as other varieties of passata sauce, but in my opinion is a million miles better.

Are you a man or a mouse?

 Who did this to the cheese?

I'll give you a clue - it wasn't me, either daughter or indeed the dog.  When I quizzed my husband, he simply said he wanted some cheese ....

Not amused.

South Downs

Already, the Summer holidays seem such a long time ago. Way back at the beginning of August, we took a walk along the South Downs.  It was such a beautiful, hot, sunny day.

I had hoped to photograph some of the wild flowers that are being encouraged to grow in the hedgerows, but a lot of them had faded already.  Next year, I must remember to search them out earlier in the season.

 

This is a tendril of wild honeysuckle. It was everywhere!

 

I didn't recognise this plant, but have since looked it up and I think it is a Chicory. The blue flowers were striking.

The harvest had started already.  We didn't see another person but were able to watch a pair buzzards that were flying really high.  My camera just wasn't able to capture them, unfortunately.

I can almost feel the heat ...

and hear the buzzing of the insects.

 

The art of gratitude

 It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and the girls gave me this embroidered heart.  We had been perusing the art that was on show as part of the Arundel Festival Gallery Trail, when I spied these little handmade hearts, which were for sale to fund raise for a particular charity.  Some were lavender bags and some had hand-stitched messages on them. 

This one made me smile. 

And I agree with the sentiment.

However, it is not an easy thing to do on the day you discover you have lost your wallet, containing your credit cards, bank cards, driving licence and £100 in cash.  Hey ho.

Plum jam and art

My mother phoned me the other day to let me know that her neighbour had harvested some plums from the tree in their garden and they had a few leftover, if I'd like them.  When I say a few, I actually mean 8 lbs!

That's a lot of jam .... even for me!

Fortunately, plum jam is one of my favorites.

I believe this is called a rolling boil.

 

The children felt the need to represent the family using the medium of fruit and veg:

This is my husband - can you see the likeness?

This is our eldest daughter - long and thin.

This is me - not sure I like the shrivelled lemon metaphor.

Not sure why our youngest daughter is an avocado. Her sister says it's because she is an acquired taste - sibling love?

Our dog - with his broken tail (now mended but with a permanent kink)

Gwen - with longish legs

Pam - fat and round, with short legs.



And here is some of the finished product.

 

I really must apologise ....

.... for being rubbish at blogging recently.  I don't have an excuse, I just haven't felt like posting anything over the last two weeks.  I am led to believe that this is a very bad way of behaving in the blogging world, as regular, consistent posting is the way to keep your audience happy - whoops!

So here is a picture of a sweetpea, by way of compensation and apology.

They are one of my most favourite flowers.

I have come to realise that I have two speeds. The first being 'frantic' where I rush around and get lots of things done and the other being 'stop' where I do absolutely nothing at all. I must admit that by week 5 of the Summer holidays I slip into the later. I sometimes alternate this with 'faff' mode, whereby I wander around starting things, wasting time and just slipping back into stop-mode again after successfully wasting an entire morning/afternoon/day.  Drives my husband mad!!

So, as I get ready to go back to school on Monday, I am gearing up to 'frantic' speed again.  There's nothing like a deadline or a bit of pressure to get me back on track....