Cooking and craft

Hello there, I hope you are well. The Orchid is still alive, such a beauty and amazing as I'm not very good with houseplants. They're either over watered, or forgotten about. My son and his beloved bought it for me last year. It sat in the spare room for a long time before bursting into flower again. The leaves tend to suffer in direct sunlight, so it's been relocated to the lounge which faces North East. 

I found a delicious herbal tea in Morrison's last week, I don't like the fruit teas so was pleased to see a new selection. Most of the time regular tea is a firm favourite but when cooking, herbal teas make a  refreshing change. Many years ago a Herbalife consultant was trying to sell me some tea powder with cardamom. I was doubly pleased when I found this one with cardamom in it.  

Continuing with re-introducing foods that were avoided for so long due to IBS. A nice midweek Chilli Con Carnie, the dish is simple and satisfying to cook and eat. This cookbook is full of simple cooking and baking recipes. My Mum had one of these and the Stork cookery book too. Naturally I chose the same book as I felt if the recipes work for her, they'll work for me.  The recipe says enough for 4 people but we've always used the large tins and 1lb of mince. There's usually plenty leftover for a jacket potato topping with grated cheese, or a bowl full with some crusty bread. When I worked full time for Waitrose in  Hampshire, we ate it after a Friday or Saturday after work.

A well used copy

I used 1 tsp of dried crushed chillies, I didn't have any cayenne pepper but it was still too hot. I made another one the following day without spices and mixture them together... much better. In future I'll use half the chilli. 

I've been following Sophie's blog called life thymes and her Instagram account. She's been writing  about a month long ration project and her husband has recorded some of it on Youtube. She made a similar bun recipe on her blog, this one uses ginger and dates. These ones have sultanas as I didn't have any dates. They are delicious served warm sliced with butter. I highly recommend these for a snack at work.

I ordered the book from ebay. At the moment I'm avoiding eggs, so I used an alternative. It was easy to mix up with water and use, once made it does need using straight away. 

I started reading this series a long time ago, the book was not only large print but a large book too. I'm trying to make use of the mobile library, so order the books through there. I've noticed that since I'm not being so intentional with my reading eg last year I aimed to read a book a week, I'm only managing to read one book a month. 

A bit more progress crocheting the blanket - Attic 24 Coastal Blanket. 

It's the same with the crochet or knitting, if I've not set a goal or target to either finish by or sit down for 30 minutes or so, it just doesn't get done. Time is wasted scrolling or watching a Youtube videos instead of putting the phone aside and spending time creating something. Many years ago I followed a lady and even joined a colouring group on facebook, all the things were lovely and the artwork was beautiful but... I just wasn't getting anything done. 

Now I don't know if it's just me or if any of this resonates with you, so all I'd say is, if this does in any way sound similar, please put some boundaries in and step away from scrolling etc. I've spoken to several different people in knit & natter groups and they've said the same thing... Facebook! no, I'd never do my crafts. Of course it's not the distractions that are necessarily wrong, it's just that they are distracting me from what I really want to do. 

Anyway, it's not meant to be preachy, just an observation for myself. 
Take care, TTFN
Please leave a comment and let me know how you manage to be more disciplined than me x

Garden in bloom

Hello there! I hope you are well, I'm glad you enjoyed my last post about our family day trip to Beamish. For now we are quietly remembering and planning our next visit. Last week I ordered some war time cookery books from ebay. The plan is to cook something from them over the next few weeks. I was hoping to find some egg free cakes or tea breads, sadly there doesn't seem to be any in them. If you have any suggestions please let me know. 

Isn't it lovely to see so much bloom in the garden at the moment. Last year we had 2 trees removed, one was an apple tree diseased and over grown. It was right in the middle of the garden, with very low tangled branches, it was a nightmare to mow the grass. The other was a crab apple tree, I grew tired of raking them up and as we didn't eat them, I kept taking bags to the outreach in town. I've no idea what they did with them but when I offered more, they agreed. 

There are several hilly bumps in the grass, this one below the beach tree bushes is one of them. When the gardeners came for a one off tidy, they redistributed lots and lots of clay soil. We've put down turfs on the new flattened soil for an instant covering. 

My good friend gave me the bird box as a house warming gift, some birds are already nesting in it. By the way, the small shed above isn't really at a strange angle, it's just the camera pointing upwards. 

There's plenty to do in the outside, obviously lots of weeding and planting. I confess that I'm not much of a gardener but with commitment to getting stuck in, the garden will continue to improve. The garden is on two levels with 2 steps leading to the top half. The higher level sweeps round behind the washing line to a narrow area. This houses a water feature which we've yet to get working. To make it easier for mowing, the narrow strip with the blue bells will have more woodland type plants. 

We also want to make use of the greenhouse that was left, it needs gutting out, glass washing and broken panes replaced. The intention is to plant some tomatoes, carrots and cucumber. Angus eats the last 2 for lunch each day, so he'll be happy. 

Angus looking sweet, sensible and totally innocent. I'm scratching my head wondering why he chews stones and old bits of rubbish that he finds. It's probably just a Goldie thing as I can't remember our previous dog doing anything crazy like that. 

The gardening bug continued inside today with repotting my Christmas Cactus and a Kalanchoe arrangement in a pot. Time will tell if the cactus survives, as the roots can't be seen, the soil was clumped in a tight ball. We tried teasing the cluster open but nothing improved. I'm going to give them  Baby bio once a week in the growing season, we'll hope and see if it thrives. 

Thank you for visiting, please leave a comment.
Ttfn
Cathy x

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A Day Trip to Beamish

Hello there, I'm glad you stopped by. Thank you for visiting and leaving a comment last time, it's good to hear from you. It was my eldest son's birthday last Sunday, he's 22 years old. He decided he wanted to go visit Beamish again, we think the last time we went was 2008. The boys were 8 and 5 years old back then. At the time we lived in Tickhill, South Yorkshire, just 2 hours away. 
So on Saturday morning we drove up North to Beamish in Durham UK, it took nearly 3 hours. With Johnny in our car, we took Angus with us and met my eldest son Nat and his girlfriend Ellis in the Services. Not being able to explain to a dog, he must've thought the beach was a long way that day. 

Tickets still need to be booked online but you get an annual pass, so you can return as many times as you wish that year. Through their Instagram account we discovered that Beamish was hosting the Steam Gala. It was amazing seeing all the vehicles out on the roads bringing the walk between buildings to life. Mark in particular loved seeing the vehicles they tooted, steamed and smoked, trundling heavily along the roads. Volunteers dressed as policemen kept pedestrians out the road and waved on bikes. Just round the corner was the start of the 1950's town, it's in development stage so will grow into a much bigger high street. 

 

There are trams every 20 minutes to take you between buildings, they're all in the ticket price. Only refreshments and the playground has an extra cost.

Edwardian town. 

A huge teapot

I'm not sure about the cold cure - laxatives are involved!

Haberdashery 

Laundry help anyone? 

I love the Victorian wash stands

The crew, my family. I must get in the picture next time. As you can see in the picture, it was a bitter cold day. 

Weardale farm, you may have seen this on the BBC Matt Baker program - On holiday with Mum & Dad. There was a story made about it on the Beamish Instagram account. This particular farm was moved brick by brick from Weardale in Yorkshire. 

Upstairs I was delighted to find Patons Woodcraft book, it's amazing to think that many knitters still have a copy of this.  There are many different covers and variations but still a much treasured collection of patterns. 

I hope you have enjoyed your look around Beamish here today, the map photo above replaces the paper guide. Of course there is more to be seen, the school, church, bank, manor house, many shops and dentist. There are houses that you can wander round including the miners cottages and the Victorian farm. We took a packed lunch and ate in the band stand area. We hope to go again in the summer when it's warmer. It really is a fantastic place to visit. 
Beamish website here.

Thank you for visiting my blog, do leave a comment. 
Ttfn 
Cathy x
 

A tale about yarn

 

Hello there, I hope you are well. On Saturday we packed a picnic and set across the country to Durham. We took Angus with us and had a lovely day out with family. I'll write about it another day, for now the focus is on the yarn. I wanted something small that could be stopped at any moment. I never find knitting easy on car journeys. I don't like to abandon knitting in the middle of a row, as we pull into the services.  

Not wanting to use the cotton aran weight yarn, which is quite thick, I packed these 2 balls of Kartopu yarn in pink and mauve shades. They joined the stash pile a few years ago, fully intending to use them. The ball band says 49% cotton 51% acrylic making them unsuitable for dishcloths. I may use them as mats on a dresser, or under jugs, vases or fruit bowls. 

The next day I checked my stash to find yarn suitable for knitting some wrist warmers. These will be for Mark, his hands suffer with Reynaud's disease. Some say that keeping the wrists warm, helps to keep the fingers warm.  I couldn't find a pattern specific to this yarn weight, most are for DK or Aran. I popped into town on Monday to purchase more yarn, this one is Katia Merino Baby 100% wool. It is extremely soft and doesn't feel at all itchy. I'm knitting a rectangle to fold over and will check it fits before sewing it up. 

Crochet, knitting, cooking with a nice cup of tea - my blog in a nut shell. 

I wanted to buy more of this yarn it's somewhere between 4ply and DK. The purchase was made in 2017 and no longer stocked at the yarn store. The owner told me their supplier of Debbie Bliss yarn went bust. An internet sales site took them on but is so obscure that they've become lost in the ether. I'm sure with some digging I'll find her yarn online... it's just that you feel you should support local. Also you can squidge the yarn and it smells lovely!

So how about you, have you bought yarn recently, or are you using up your stash? 
Thank you for visiting, do leave a comment. 
TTFN Cathy x

Happy Friday

Hello there! Happy Friday, it's the weekend.
I hope you've had a good week. I'm not going to forget this week in a hurry, that's for sure. My youngest son Johnny couldn't start his car after work yesterday. I thought I'd try helping by jump starting the car manually... pushing. The trouble is neither of us really knew what we were doing, apart from me pushing the car across the car park. I now have achy arms and pain behind my knee. I felt the muscle go, ouch! 

After collecting him from town and grabbing the jump leads, we drove back into town later and met Mark. Starting in no time and keen to check the lights are off before locking the car for the day, we headed home in convoy. I'm so pleased that there was a Spaghetti Bolognaise waiting for us in the slow cooker. 

Mark's jigsaw puzzle finished, I bought it for his birthday 2 years ago. It has become a tradition around Christmas and New Year to work on a jigsaw puzzle. Though I didn't help, I like to see it finished and I think this one is nice... makes you think of holidays.

Beach walk

Out on a walk with Angus, just Mark and me today. On leaving the car park we walked along the tidal estuary, we met a man who was concerned about a lady in trainers, walking her dog far out towards the sea. We did see her but by then she was just a dot in the distance. 

I posted about this particular walk once before see here May 2017. It's changed quite a bit since then. Gone is the massive expanse of flat sand, now the grasses are taking over, they stretch far into the distance. To walk on them you need sensible waterproof shoes, not trainers. We wore our walking boots but didn't fancy dodging boggy muddy puddles. 

We've not walked this way before, usually we walk further out on the dry part to an island. We used to collect driftwood there but it was a struggle carrying it all back. This way leads to the campsite, these benches will be used a lot by the holiday makers very soon. 

A slim Angus, he's been on a diet. We started reducing his food as soon as we took him home, he was probably over 40 kg. We changed his food with the advice of the vet and pet shop. Sadly the food we chose was discontinued. We then started a long journey trying 2 different brands phasing in the new type. Neither type suited him and the vet warned that his weight was creeping back up again. I went back to the pet shop to find something else. 

Once he was settled, I noticed he was always hungry, thinking he was starving we went back to the vet and then started a proper 6 session weight loss plan. It has taken a long time but I'm pleased to say, he's reduced his weight to 32.8kg. Like Labradors, Goldie's have a tendency to always want food, so he'll always seem hungry.    

The Kennel Club Pedigree recommend 32 - 33Kg for his breed. With the help of the Vet Nurse, his food has been recalculated and this week his food has been raised to maintain his weight. We'll see the nurse next month to assess his weight. The vets are very pleased with his weight, it was slow and steady. He's done well too bless him. 

Thank you for visiting, take care. Do leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you. 
TTFN
Cathy 

Yarn Diary & Reading

Inside my Ottoman. 

Reading my library books, this is the second book of the Ruth Galloway series by Elly Griffiths. If you enjoy detective stories with an archaeology theme, you'll love this. I'm reminded that my degree is made up of Archaeology and Geology, 30 points each out of the 360 points for BA open.

I'm trying hard to clear my stash of yarn and unfinished craft. Downsizing has been wonderful for empowering me to deal with my craft. Many bags of yarn, fabric, kits, craft equipment, books, magazines and patterns have left the building! Now that the decks are clear, I'm left with just the things that I want to make.

I have a box under the bed, a drawer unit, a side table with storage of crochet hooks and knitting needles and this ottoman. My ultimate goal is to keep just the side table, that my FIL made and the ottoman. We'll see as I've remembered the sewing machine and the basket. There are always exceptions that become extras when they won't fit.

If you love crochet, I'm sure you'll recognise this blanket as one of Lucy's attic24 Coastal Blanket designs. This blanket is my favourite... well joint favourite with the Moorland blanket. I love them both equally. 
I was lucky enough to meet Lucy a few years ago at Yarndale, she sat and chatted with our Knit & Natter group at the show. She is a thoroughly lovely lady with an overwhelming passion for both colour and crochet.  

The Coastal blanket nestles in perfectly with the Moorland and Woodland blankets. After crocheting the Moorland blanket for myself, I crocheted the Woodland blanket for my MIL. Though I'm not a lover of orange, it was a privilege to make it for her. She showed it off to visitors and remembered woodland walks with my FIL who'd sadly passed away a few years before. She asked for the crochet leaves along the bottom and after she passed away, it returned home with us, a real labour of love.   

With just over a quarter left to do, I'm off to put in a few more stitches. 
TTFN & stay well. 
Thank you for visiting my blog, do leave a comment, I love to hear from you. 
Cathy x

 

Friday round up

Hello there, grab a cuppa and pull up a chair.
What a week of weather we've had, from sunny to snow, hailstones and then sunny again. These gorgeous Primulas aren't they just bursting with colour! They were from my Sons for Mother's Day last weekend. I'm not very good with inside plants, I forget to water them. I think plants need more care than I give to feed and freshen their soil. Thankfully these can go outside after flowering.

I've been reading through a couple of book series from the library. Alexander McCall Smith - No.1 Ladies Detective series is one of them. This book followed in the list, it's really a collection of short stories including the detective ladies. Whenever I read a book, I find myself totally absorbed in either the characters or the setting. I guess that's the craft of the author to draw you into the world they've created. In this series the 2 ladies are constantly stopping for tea, Mma Ramotswe in particular loves her Red Bush tea. She makes the ritual of  tea seem the most important thing ever.
Do you find yourself lost and completely absorbed in a book? Do you like to try some of the food mentioned? eg Rosamunde Pilcher's books evoke images of nice crusty bread, with thick Brie on top.

I can't remember if I showed you the Crochet Amigarumi that I made. The 2 Star Wars characters, Storm Trooper and Yoda were from a kit online. The small knitted Haggis chap was from a Jean Greenhowe Scottish Scarecrow pattern book. The haggis was part of a Knit & Natter display for a festival for the C of E village church.

Many years ago I talked about diet issues, FODMAPS and IBS. I'm much better than I was, though I still have bad days for no apparent reason. Anyway before I was discharged from the NHS Dietician, bless her she worked so hard to help me, she wanted me to broaden my diet again. I'd cut it right back and hardly ate any fruit or vegetables. This is Sweet & Sour pork with peppers and high fibre foods such as aubergine with skins on. So far all is good, last weekend we had Spanish Chicken, a Hairy Biker's recipe. It contained lots of spicy chorizo peppers and tomatoes. Having avoided all those food types for so long, it was a delight to eat them again.

A before photo of our kitchen, the oven needed replacing before Christmas so the kitchen re-fit started earlier than intended. We bought the cupboards from a company called Furniture Nation. They can make them specific to your requirements if you ask. They had several options in solid wood, the free standing cupboards would've been amazing in a massive farmhouse kitchen. These are fitted ones, with kick boards and feet. We opted to Danish oil the cupboards ourselves and paint the doors. You could pay them to paint, oil or wax them. All the cupboard come ready assembled, you just fit the doors. It may sound expensive but for the cupboards needed, it was much less than the equivalent posh Wickes Kitchens. We just need to order the worktops, then the tiles can be fitted behind the sink.

After (nearly done) As you can see I love green, the doors are painted in English Sage furniture paint, the walls are Chalk white. There will be a worktop over the fridge, for tea making. For now, an old towel has taken residence. The sink is the old fashioned type that sits on top of the base unit, that was hard to source online as most sinks are set inside the worktop. The blind was from B & Q and fits in well without adjusting. They all seem to be blackout blinds now, so it can go from bright warm sunshine to darkness in seconds.

There's no utility room here, however this end of the kitchen has room for a small chest freezer, washing machine and tumble dryer plus food cupboards. Our previous house had 2 porches, pantry and a utility as well as the living rooms, bathrooms and bedrooms. With much less to clean and organise, I'm very happy with the move. 

A few cookery books in the kitchen, at this stage I've not rushed to bring all the books back. The Be-Ro book is a definite favourite of mine at the moment, the chocolate chip cookies recipe is amazing and easy.

Liking the open shelves for cups and glasses.

Angus at 2 years old. His first Summer with us and on his first beach visit, he was delighted to find an old rope. He still gets very excited going to the beach.

Angus will be 3 years this Summer. Nat bought him a new toy, a very soft stuffed branch.

Thank you for stopping by for a visit, please leave a comment before you go. I've been visiting your blogs this week and though there doesn't seem as many as before, it's nice to catch up with you all again. We had fish & chips for dinner tonight, with crocheting and reading to catch up with, I wish you a lovely relaxing weekend. 
TTFN 
Cathy