'January-ing' :: Five on Friday

Hello there, I hope you are all well. The temperature in the UK dipped to frosty again today. We've been lulled by the mild wet days recently, it's nice to see the sunshine though. Yesterday at Knit & Natter, it was roasting hot in the pub's sunny conservatory. Such extremes of temperatures. 

On today's Five on Friday I'm wrapping up the month with an 'ing' post... all the things mixed together and happening this week!

1) Enjoying :: beautiful flowers in my kitchen. A gift from Nat and his fiancée. It's been a while since I got my camera out, note to self - remember the camera. The camera takes much better photos than my phone. Sometimes it's easier to load photos up from my phone during the week before I forget. Either way, natural daylight is definitely better for taking photos. 

2) Cleaning:: and de-cluttering. It's taken a while to settle on a suitable cleaning method for me. With low energy levels, thanks to underactive thyroid and Ibs complications, I also help a few lovely 80yrs ladies to clean and de-clutter their homes as needed. The last thing that I want to do when I get home, is get the cleaning going. However needs must... I heard a podcast by Gemma Bray, The Organised Mum talking about a lady on her Facebook group, she takes 2 weeks to do 1 week of housework. Phew! I can probably manage that. Having a Goldie means that the Hoover is out everyday anyway.

De-cluttering:: I've been following along with Orjenise on Instagram De-clutter One Hundred items for January. I've still got Jewellery and some magazines to sort through but so far I have de-cluttered 

74 items. I'm taking that as a win, whoo hoo! 

These children books were the last 9 that I had stored in the bottom of my wardrobe, I'm pleased to be rid of them. I started selling Usborne books for about 4 or 5 years, when the boys were small. I then dragged them out a few times a year to sell them at half price, it was a slow painful slog. Mark is relieved not to have to attend sales opportunities with me too. 

3) Cooking:: Baking Sourdough & the menu plan for this week. The Sourdough recipe is from Elaine Boddy's  book She's on instagram and her youtube video's are helpful too. There are lots of experts online but this recipe works, so I'm happy with it. I may try another lady's method on instagram, as she uses some Spelt flour in her recipe and it looks good. I've tried baking sourdough with spelt flour and ended up binning it, as it was very flat.  

Monday - Leftover beef joint, mushrooms, spicy creamy coconut milk with rice

Tuesday - Hunters chicken & chips

Wednesday - Crustless cheese & onion quiche, large mushroom and homemade chips
Thursday - Jacket potato, homemade mackerel pate & salad 

Friday - Fish & chips

Saturday - Roast chicken

Sunday - Leftover chicken, chips & salad

4) Knitting:: Flannel / Washcloth for one of my lady's. I gave her a pink one last year, she loved it so much that she's asked for another. She likes green, so as it's my favourite colour, it went to the top of my craft list. I'm also knitting her a shawl, it should've been her Christmas present, oops! Christmas is always hectic and thankfully she wasn't expecting it anyway. 
Before Christmas I was getting up early and taking 20 minutes or so to sit quietly knitting. Nadine Medina Podcast 'Knit Your Stress Away for Beginners (The Knitting Mamas) is on Spotify. It was her idea to carve out some time at the beginning of the day to knit. I need to go to bed earlier and start this 'early habit' again, it's very relaxing.

5) Reading:: Picked up my library books... there was more in the stack but I've decided to return them to the library for another time. The top book is my own book, given to me by a lady at Knit & Natter. I've just finished it, so another for the de-clutter bag. It's part of a series of books I may look out for the others one day. It was a slow gentle read with a dramatic flood, the storyline inspired by the Boscombe flood years ago.
The Agatha Christie Challenge... I've decided to give that a miss this year. I'm keeping the AC The 13 Problems as it sounded interesting. I have a shelf and a half of books on the bookcase that need reading and de-cluttering. That is a far better challenge for me this year. There are 2 non-fiction books to dip into as well but I've not included those here. 
There will be a book for the February book club to add to the pile, it's Verity by Colleen Hoover. 

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How about you, what are you reading or making at the moment? 
Take care and do join me for Five on Friday if you can. 

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Food:: Five on Friday

Hello there, how are you? Last night I sat reading a book, it had several references to food in it. That made me feel hungry. I often feel like eating or drinking all the food mentioned in novels. From crusty bread and oozing ripe brie to Dubonet or Red Bush tea. Sometimes the mentions are dreadful eg Dubonet... never again, other times I'm loving it all. 
How about you, do you want to eat & drink all the things in novels? 

On today's 'Five on Friday' I'm showing you 5 foodie things that have happened recently. Please feel free to join me and link your 'Five on Friday' blog post below. Other's can then visit your blog to read your Five on Friday. It doesn't have to be food related. 

1) Cinnamon Rolls:: For Christmas morning. I made some egg free ones for Christmas 2023 instead of the usual Brioche Rolls from Aldi. Since making Sourdough Bread, I purchased this cookbook to have a go at other things besides bread and pizza. For Christmas 2024 I had a go at these ones, they were a definite hit.  

2) Cheese Scones:: Recipe from the Be-Ro cookbook. I often make these to go with soup, they are delicious buttered. Basically rolled out into a large circle and divided before baking. 

 3) Gluten Free Lemon Shortbread:: I'm used to baking gluten free cakes and biscuits now, though I do eat gluten wheat products. They are less sticky, though modern recipes call for Xanthan gum to be added. This recipe is free of any gums thankfully. Personally I wouldn't want to eat it with any 'Ultra Processed Food' items in it anyway. It is of course more crumbly as it last the gluten to bind it together but I like it. 

4) A cross between recipe:: ha ha, this was an experiment to use up the last of the leftover turkey. It's basically a meatloaf, combining two recipes. The first recipe combines 'Bang Bang Chicken' by 'A Little Bit Yummy' (low fodmap and suitable for IBS), with Coronation Chicken. It was delicious, however if I baked it again, I'd add another egg to help it bind better. I only used 1 egg.

                                      

5) Christmas meal:: With Mark and Johnny. We're sat with Zoe, the church cleaner and my lovely friend Ann and her good friend Pete. We had a lovely time eating our Christmas Carvery, chatting and pulling crackers with those dreadful jokes. After the meal, we looked around the Garden Centre and purchased some last minute Christmas gifts. 

And that's a wrap for today, all food related today. I hope I've not made you too hungry! 

In other news, I've been knitting more on the shawl that is to be a gift. Also a flannel/washcloth for the same lady. I'd given her a flannel (pink) that I'd made a while ago, she loved it so much that she's asked for another. This flannel will be green as she likes green... apart from her leather 3 piece suite, there's nothing around her house to show that she likes green, so I was surprised. 
I love green a lot and buy lots of green things, from Denby China Crockery to my phone case, some clothes, kitchen cupboard doors etc. My last 2 cars have been green but that's more luck than management! 

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Finish & Start:: Five on Friday

Hello there, a few recent finishes and a walk today. I thought I'd try a Five on Friday post today and see if anyone is interested in joining me. I still remember when Tricky used to host these on Fridays. It was always fun to see who'd joined in and go visiting new blogs. 
The first two photographs were taken at Knit & Natter in the week. I'm knitting a shawl now and reading 'Five Little Pigs' by Agatha Christie for the Read Christie 2025 Challenge  I may not read every month's book choice, just if I can get the book from the library in time. 

1) Finish:: Crochet baby blanket, intended for a charity make but... it's still at my house at the moment!
The bold colours are Rico baby cotton dk Grey blue, Mustard, Red, Plum and Blueberry. The cream is Stylecraft Bambino dk Clotted Cream. 
3.5mm crochet hook
The Ripple pattern is in this book I missed off a few inches in length. The border edging I made up my own, as I didn't fancy the scalloped fussy edge in the pattern. 
My edge has 2 plain cream edges, top and bottom a blue yarn to fill in and straighten the edge. Then 2 rounds in different colours and another round of slip stitch. 

2) Start:: Put the kettle on and make a cuppa. This is the photo that went on the church Facebook page to advertise the coffee morning
(My cat mug, Mark's Land Rover, Johnny's Guitar mug)
This week I started going to 'Movement To Music', it was a lot of fun. There were routines to 'wake up your brain' first, stretch out your muscles, help balance and general just 'move to music'. We finished with a cuppa, chatting with the next group to arrive for Line Dancing.  

3) Finish:: Holy Island by L J Ross - for the December bookclub read. A murder mystery with pagan ritual killings. My copy was on Kindle, generally I go with the cheapest, World of Books or Kindle. 
The reviews on Goodreads were quite poor but as it was for the bookclub, I felt that I should read it. I was hoping that the sisters could've resolved their issues, but overall I thought it was a good story. It's the first in the series of DCI Ryan Mysteries. 

4) Finish:: Another book for the bookclub, this time it was my choice. I borrowed this one from the library. Shay, the main character, cares for her parents and looks out for her adult children, typical of my generation. There are several stories interwoven, unravelling dramatically and resolved at the end. I enjoy reading Milly Johnson's books, there have been several of her books chosen for the bookclub. 

5) Finish:: A walk with Angus, at a local beach. The water is a long way out but thankfully it's not all grassed over with muddy dunes. Angus loved running up and down on the sand. He paddles quite happily without going in the main sea. It was a cold day with plenty of frost about.
Sadly the last two photos, the sun shone through the camera lens. The pathway leads you from the carpark to the sand. The sea is visible to the eye but lost in the glare. 
 

Thank you for visiting today. 

What are you making at the moment? 
What are you reading? 
Until next time, have a good weekend x

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Christmas Break part 2

Hello there, thank you for visiting me in blogland last week. It's been lovely to visit your blogs and read comments left here too. Today I'm sharing a few photos of our walk over the Christmas break. On New Years Eve, after lunch, we drove to Lincoln with Angus. It was cold but dry, perfect for a nice crisp walk. Bundled up with warm hats and gloves, we met Johnny and his girlfriend at Hartsholme Country Park. We kept Angus on a lead as he would've been in the river on one side of the path, or the boggy stagnant water the other side. Both would've been muddy... why do beautiful fluffy Goldies like to get muddy and look a right mess? 

We'd been there two years ago, meeting Nat and his Fiancée for a walk. It was Summer back then, so it looked completely different. Apart from the glorious warm sunshine, there had been wide open grassland to walk on, alongside the water. Everything looks different in warm sunny weather. I remember we were waiting for their car to be MOT and some parts replaced.
After that walk we'd taken a brief trip to Hobbycraft, I'm not sure that I've been to a hobbycraft shop before. In typical yarn lover fashion, I headed straight to the yarn section and purchased 3 balls of Women's Institute DK yarn. I found it a quite thick, course yarn. I crocheted with some of the yellow yarn to make a scarf but later donated all 3 balls to my Mum. Since then I've been better at not buying random balls of yarn. I'm trying to stay focussed on using up yarn that I have in my stash and only buying what I need to make something specific.  

Back to the New Years Eve walk, we kept to the paths, along the lake and woods. At one point we took a turn that took us back onto the main road. Without a map we decided to go back the way that we came... we were not lost! Ha ha. 

We had a nice afternoon talking about birds, ducks and swans. Johnny's girlfriend has done some studies on the feeding habits of the swans. It's shocking that people still feed ducks with bread, despite being asked not to. You may remember that I talked about feeding ducks on this post. The duck food recipe that I took back then, was from the Canel & River Trust website. 
It's simple to make: Oats, birdseed, sweetcorn (or peas) and lettuce (shredded). Mix it all up together and feed the ducks crowding around you. I usually carry some birdseed in the car, though I need to buy  more as it's all gone. 
I once fed some ducks in a car park walking through to the shops. People were queuing to pay at the ticket machine. Suddenly the bridge area over the river was swarming with ducks eating birdseed. A man and his dog waited patiently to cross the bridge, oops!
The ducks were very happy as I disappeared, it didn't feel right that day to stand and watch. 

I'll leave you with some swans in cold water, Brr!!
Cold water swimming, or Wild Swimming is all the rage at the moment. It's good for circulation, mood and skin health etc. But it's not for me. 
How about you, do you like cold weather days? 

Take care and have a lovely weekend x
 

Christmas catch up

Hello there, dusting off my blog with a little update of recent activities. Happy New Year to you all. 

I don't really do New Year Resolutions, however if I were to, I'd aim to be more present with less scrolling. I'd list plans to read, bake and craft more with some home organisation thrown in too. 

Crochet Baby Blanket:: using up colours (purchased with birthday money). I've enjoyed using Rico baby cotton yarn. I purchased some cream acrylic yarn, to separate the bold colours. Just crocheting the border now. 

Photos from Instagram::  celebrating my anniversary last year, library books to read - some for the Summer Reading Challenge - I do this every year (six books over six weeks). Knitting all the greens. Birthday card poster from my parents. Covid back in January, first time. Baking for the WI Horticultural show. 

Finishing Books:: the last book in the Fairacre series by Miss Read. I'm taking a break this year from the Miss Read books. 2025 I'll will be reading the Monthly Book Club choice and one Agatha Christie book - either from the 'Read Christie 2025' challenge on social media, or one of my own AC books. Plus either library books or my own books.  

Family games:: Buzzer round challenges on the PS 2 
The system is old now for modern digital TV's, so it freezes a bit. 

2024 Advent Knit-a-long:: with the Victoria Methodist church - found on Facebook. A Star Table Mat.

2023 Advent Knit-a-long:: Noel table mat. The plan is the same as above, a short reflection and instructions for 4 rows of pattern. 

Reindeer Plant Holder:: A Christmas gift from younger son.

Reindeer thought lost:: found in the loft. Both on the kitchen windowsill.

Christmas Jigsaw:: Mark is busy with this one.

Rainbow Cardigan:: Knitted for the WI charity donation for Rainbow Babies.

Crochet Dog Paws:: crocheted for the WI Christmas Tree, part of the tree festival in the village church. 
The paw prints are stiffened with PVA glue.

Angus:: with his noisy squeaky Giraffe, don't be fooled by the cute face... it's a noisy toy! 

Church Nativity Scene:: knitted by one of the members. This is on display each year, it's a lovely tradition. 

Church Advent Calendar:: children take turns each week to light one of the 4 candles. The centre candle is lit on Christmas Day.

Church Christmas Tree:: beautifully decorated at the coffee morning.

Town Christmas Tree:: in the Market Square.

Mini Christmas Tree:: in the Bathroom

Off to do a little crochet now, this time is important to me. Daily knitting or crochet, time to unwind and relax. Until next time, bye for now. Thank you for reading, I'll be visiting your blogs this week.