Whenever I go in a supermarket I'm always on the look out for free recipe cards that they often have available. I'm not so good at actually using said recipe cards when it comes to deciding what to have for dinner.After being amazed at just how many of these I had collected last week I made a real effort to actually make some meals from the various recipes I had collected and I have to say that so far I have been very impressed with the results. One very simple dinner came from a Waitrose recipe for Mushroom and bacon tarts which are served with creamy ... read more
Archives for September 2009
V&A Knitting for Victory
I always look forward to receiving e-mails from the London Stitch and Bitch group. They're normally funny and have useful likes in to various knitting resources or other knitting related things that are going on in and around London. Today's e-mail was very much the same and one particular thing caught my attention.When I initially read the title V&A Knitting for Victory it sounded like the sort of thing that would be right up my street. Something that combines knitting with my interest for all things war-time. I clicked through and was even more excited to see that it was a ... read more
Surprise crocuses
Do you remember my initial work on my veg plot when we moved in? Well, I'm afraid that on a first glance it doesn't look much different now. The dark pile on top is "compost" that Mr C extracted from the compost bin that was at the house when we moved in. I use the term "compost" loosely though as having looked at it there seems to be quite a bit of non-compostable stuff in there including some plastic. I need to get my gloves on and have a good sort before digging it in to the bed.In the foreground though something is actually growing in there. By the time I'd ... read more
Housewife, 49
A day off work sick gave me the opportunity to pamper myself and catch up with a few things off our magic TV box. Quite a few people I know are currently enjoying Nella Last's War and it reminded me that I had the TV adaptation, Housewife 49, which I still hadn't got round to watching. I had thoroughly enjoyed both Nella Last's War and Nella Last's Peace, so I was a tad worried that the film version would not live up to how I had pictured everything in my head. I shouldn't have worried though as Victoria Wood had done a fantastic job with the script and playing ... read more
Victorian Farm
I was delighted to notice in the TV listings that BBC2 are repeating the Victorian Farm series starting tonight. I missed some of this when it was originally on, so it was great to start filling in some of the gaps. The first episode is still available on BBC iplayer and I believe that the rest is being shown over various evenings this week, although the listings on the BBC website are a bit confusing as they seem to split things into regions and repeat themselves a lot.If you have an interest in seeing how people lived and worked the land in Victorian times then this is the ... read more
Bulbs for spring
Friday night's Gardeners' World reminded us that this is the time of year to plant bulbs for next Spring. Mr C and I made the most of a recent special offer at B&Q to buy some bulbs, but we hadn't yet got round to actually putting them in the ground yet.We only had a short time available on Saturday morning in the garden, but we made the most of it to make a start planting the bulbs we had brought. We made a start with some snowdrops that we planted in the grass around the base of a couple of what we believe to be damson trees in the garden. There are ... read more
Planned excitement
Still feeling rough from a cold that I seem to have picked up, but to cheer myself up I've this morning booked tickets for a couple of things that I'm planning to do over the next couple of months.Firstly I'm going along to the annual Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. This is an event that I've been along to many times over the last few years. I normally spend most of my time going round the stalls, but this year their theme is make do and mend, something that I'm always interested in. The demonstration parts of the day may therefore be of ... read more
The Divide – Nicholas Evans
When I received the latest pile of books from my mother in law, S, I was pretty sure that I recognised the name Nicholas Evans but it took me quite a while to place exactly why I knew it. It's quite a few years since I read his first novel, The Horse Whisperer, but I do clearly recall that it was one of those books that everyone at school was desperate to read. Since then I have to admit that I've not see anything else he's written, until now. The back cover and first chapter of The Divide made me think that I was going to be reading a ... read more
St Pancras Farmers’ Market
It's been a while since I've been through St Pancras station and there are certainly a few changes since my last visit. One of the most obvious, to me at least, is the Sourced Market that has opened near the Thameslink platforms. A quick look tonight whilst waiting for my train home suggested a nice range of yummy things, including a good selection of fruit and veg. It wasn't exactly cheap, but not as prohibitively priced as I initially feared. It was also good to see some clear labelling as to where things had come from allowing the consumer to keep track of the food miles behind their lunch ... read more
A Polish interlude…
I have a much more exciting reason behind the latest blogging interlude. Mr C and I have just returned from a fantastic long weekend in Poland where we saw our dear friends C & D marry.There are many tales to tell of a beautiful wedding, delightful Polish countryside and a journey on a red London bus. At the moment though there's a pile of washing to tackle and work to prepare for tomorrow morning. I promise I will return to fill in the gaps and hopefully share some pictures. ... read more