With a demanding baby in the house (Little Miss C is teething at just eleven weeks old!) the variety of our evening meals has been somewhat lacking of late. I'm hoping that over the next week I can change this a bit and whilst ordering my groceries online I have also been seeking out some new recipes to try. Earlier in the year I also tried to take part in the 52 in 2010 challenge but as expected my participation eased off somewhat once LMC arrived. May be I can get a bit back on track this next week.Firstly I was drawn in by the Waitrose TV advert featuring Delia's ... read more
Archives for August 2010
Time…
It's strange, but after 11 weeks of having a small person to look after when I suddenly get a few hours to myself I'm not sure what to do. LMC is currently asleep and there are so many possibilities that I almost feel spoilt for choice. Problem is that I have no idea how long I have. Long enough for a chapter of my book? A few rows or knitting? Some sewing? Time to empty the dishwasher? Until the end of a programme on TV?Sometimes you just need to seize what ever time you have and just get on with something. Impulsiveness can be a good thing! ... read more
Harvest
Finally an opportunity to spend some time in the garden today actually doing some gardening. I'm delighted to say that we were also able to harvest all the carrots that I grew from seed. The courgette plants are still producing a few and some of the beetroots are also ready.For anyone interested the courgettes are Black Beauty and the carrots are Royal Chantenay Red. Both of these seeds came from the BBC Dig In campaign. Also in the picture is one of the first beetroots that we've harvested - a Boltardy one.Interestingly there is quite a bit of variety in the sizes of the carrots ... read more
Too much rain?
We've had some monsoon like rain here in St Albans these last few days. After all this hot weather the garden could certainly do with the water and our lawn is looking much greener than it has in months. I'm not too sure that the chilli seedlings that had been put out to harden off are quite as happy though. Their growth had stalled somewhat inside, but I get a funny feeling that they've just drowned now! ... read more
Finding a livelihood
It's funny how you can sometimes read something that just rings so true that you wonder why you didn't realise it before. A eureka moment. In this case I'm talking about this blog post by Nancy, who I had the pleasure of meeting whilst staying with CompostWoman this last weekend. The principle she talks about is that to be truly happy people should look to have a livelihood rather than a job. Putting it into simple term, what this means is finding your niche in life and finding a way to use your skills to provide something useful for those around you. A livelihood is ... read more
West of the Wall – Marcia Preston
Following Little Miss C's arrival I've not had much time for reading, but when my mum recently lent m a copy of West of the Wall and told me how much she'd enjoyed it I thought I'd try to see if I could find the time to read again and I'm delighted to say that I could squeeze in a few pages here and there between feeds and nappy changes.In this Marcia Preston book we follow the fortunes of Trudy who lives in what was then East Berlin with her young son and mother in law. Her husband Rolf is missing, believed to have crossed the wall into West Berlin. The ... read more
Putting faces to names
We've arrived home this evening after a wonderful weekend staying with CompostWoman and her family at their small holding in Herefordshire. It was a wonderful opportunity to meet them (and various other HML forum people) and also get to finally see "Compost Mansions" and in particular their wood. Their hospitality was fantastic (definitely a five star establishment) and I've come back feeling very recharged and determined to make things happen here.Little Miss C loved having new surroundings to look at and different people's faces to study. She seems exhausted ... read more
Potatoes and Tomatoes
It seems that not all our growing efforts are in vain this year after all. Our first attempt at growing potatoes was via a free kit that you could send off for from the BBC Gardeners' World Magazine. The kit contained Vales Emerald seed potatoes and also a patio bag to grow them in. It really was as simple as filling the bag with compost, putting the seed potatoes in and ensuring that they got plenty of water. This afternoon we decided to see what the bag contained and we were pretty content with our results. Hopefully we'll get to eat them some time this ... read more
Not exactly a bountiful harvest…
... but better than nothing! I'm also hopeful that there are more courgettes still to come. ... read more
Escape to River Cottage
Somehow, and I'm not entirely sure how, I realised a while back that I'd never actually seen the original series of River Cottage. I also recently had a birthday - cue a very unsubtle hint to Mr C for a birthday present. Escape To River Cottage covers Hugh's original move to Dorset and his first attempts at self-suficiency. It's amusing looking back and seeing him tackle things in a slightly naive manner when he would do exactly the same things today very confidently. In a way I found that there was actually a lack of information about some of the things ... read more