Gardening

Did you see this?

I think I posted it on Facebook, maybe not here.  But this is what the bottom of our garden looked like a few weeks ago.  Very green, overgrown, and not much space for anything.  The poor old garden has been rather neglected while I was doing my degree (and, if I'm honest, for a while before that, I'm not much of a gardener at the best of times, and the summers have been so miserable for so long I rarely had any desire to go out there... )

Today we have this.

There is still more to do, the buddleia on the right needs to come out along with various other shrubs, and beyond that there is an apple tree that needs a serious haircut once we've picked the apples (a bumper crop again this year!).  Behind me is a pile of hedge trimmings that need to be carted to the tip, but believe me, it is less than a quarter the size of the pile that was there.

Maybe, just maybe, there will be space for a shed...

A beautiful day for a walk

After the snow, the weather has been cold and so bright it has given me a headache.  Today I remembered to take my sunglasses when we went out and felt much better.  The light was so bright and clear that all the colours seemed saturated; I haven't done anything to the colours of these photos.  Apologies if you're getting bored of pictures of the beach!

Icicles

Unusually we have been hit by the recent snowy weather too (snow doesn't usually bother with this little corner, surrounded as we are by so much water).  Not far away there is a lane that often floods; and the combination of the chilly weather and the flooded lane have given us this:

Every time a car drives through the puddle the hedge is sprayed with water; it had a few more soakings as we watched.  Isn't it lovely?

The Island

Beautiful weather and a low tide combined made it an ideal day today to walk out to Hilbre Island. Just a few of the photos I took...

Looking across to Wales

The old lifeboat station (and rainbow)

and slipway.

Looking back to the mainland.

So many mussel shells... they reminded me of Ai Weiwei's sunflower seed installation.

Autumn

Autumn is my favourite season.  Certainly where I live it is often drier (and sunnier) in the autumn than in the summer.  I love the changing colours of the leaves, the autumn wet leaf smell in the air and the dew heavy mornings.

Time off

I've been taking some time off, time off from blogging, time off from making, mulling over the direction I want to take for the final year of my degree (and doing a bit of long overdue decorating!).  Still not sure yet but I have the germ of an idea, a starting point, we shall see where it leads.

We've had gorgeous weather this last week or so.  It looks as though today might have been the last of the really nice days, so I'm glad we took advantage of it and went for a walk along the beach this morning.  It's something I don't do nearly as often as I should.

I love the 'wideness' of the estuary landscape, and the sheer quantity of open sky.  Mountains are beautiful too, but the way they block out the sky makes me feel a little hemmed in.

We met someone on our walk... there is a natterjack toad reserve fenced off on the beach but I've never actually met one before...

...he didn't stay long...

Looking back the way we'd come...

Being so shallow for such a long way out, and being estuary of course rather than 'proper' sea, our beach is not much good for beachcombing.  But today there were piles of tiny pink and white shells collected in the sand ripples, looking a little like sugar sprinkles on a cake.

Now I have some tiles to grout and some decisions to make...

Red sky at night

Warm weather means beautiful western skies.

Summer's End

Summer is definitely over here... I shall be going back to my degree course next week and won't that feel strange after such a long break.  Almost like starting all over again... without having to do fresher's week though, which is a definite advantage... Freshers week: the definition of how to make your mature students feel really really old and out of place!

So, I won't be blogging anywhere near as often.  I am aiming for once or twice a week, we shall see how I do!

For this last week before my life is turned upside down again I am having a last stab at decluttering... of course I haven't finished all of what I had aimed to do over the summer but I've made good inroads, so I won't beat myself up about it.  Plus I've made a useful addition to my uni fees fund by selling my Liberty fabric stash!  The bookcases are coming along but I am going to have to sand down the first one and repaint it having decided that non-drip gloss paint and books are never going to live happily together.  The paint is still sticky after all these weeks.

And as you can see, I am still dealing with apples... I have made apple cake, and stewed blackberry and apple for crumble and the freezer, and blackberry and apple jam, and chutney (with apples in), and today I am stewing plain apple for a change.  Phew!  I am determined not to let so many go to waste this year, usually they rot faster than I can use them.  My task has been made more difficult by the bumper crop though, and it has been difficult to give them away because everyone else has had a bumper crop too!


And for these last few days I shall be trying to spend less time on the computer and a bit more time enjoying the unexpectedly lovely weather.

And cooking apples.

End of the Day

Its been another grey day here but the evening has been an improvement - here's hoping for better tomorrow!

The appliest Apple Cake

I have a glut of cooking apples. We went out and stripped our tree at the weekend before the gales arrived and this is the result. Actually there was a washing up bowl full as well but I have managed to empty that, giving some away, picking some out for storage and making stewed blackberry and apple.  Still got quite a long way to go though!

So this morning I made my favourite apple cake and thought I might share the recipe with you. You will need...

4oz softened butter    (sorry, I still work in pounds and ounces for cooking...)
4oz demerara sugar
1 egg
6oz wholemeal flour (plain)
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp ground cinnamon
4oz sultanas
1lb (ish) cooking apples (weigh first, then peel, core and grate them)

Beat together the sugar, butter and egg. Sift in the flour, baking powder and cinnamon and beat until just combined.  If you mix too much you will end up with one big blob here so less is more! 

Then fold in the sultanas and grated apple.  The mixture still wants to form itself into a big blob at this stage so a sort of cutting action seems to work best.

Pile the mixture into a 2lb loaf tin and bake for about an hour at 160C-170C (I have a fan oven which runs super hot so I bake this at 140C, adjust to suit your oven).



And there you have it!  The texture is really moist and squdgy, almost like bread pudding, and the flavour is very very appley.  Best eaten when it has cooled, although it is hard to wait I know.  It goes beautifully with a nice piece of cheese, cheddar, or lancashire maybe...  And as cakes go, it's pretty healthy - I'm sure a slice (or two) would count towards one of your 5-a-day...

Weather

The weather is getting me down.  It's cold and grey or, like today, it's warm and humid and still grey.  This time last year it was

lovely.

And I'm sure the humidity is partly to blame for the fact that the paint on my bookcase still isn't properly dry.  I'm going to start priming the shelves for the second one today though and am hoping to persuade the eldest to saw the cutout bit to fit over the skirting tomorrow...  I'm happy to try most things but I'm not keen on too much sawing - a hangover from a nasty experience when I was a teenager I think!

A bookcase and some fabric

For those of you that asked... here is the monster that has been keeping me busy for the last few days (along with all those going-back-to-school shopping sprees of course!)

It's looking a bit patchy, waiting for another coat of paint, but I am very proud of it.  The first time I (with valuable assistance from eldest son) have ever built anything other than flatpack (I'm a dab hand at flatpack).  It fits very nicely into its allotted space and will hopefully house a good chunk of our library.  We had to build as the space between the radiator and the wall is just a little smaller than standard bookcase width, but we have far too many books to go with a slim bookcase and waste nearly half the space.  When it's finished I shall be making another for the other end of the wall...  and then some wall hung shelves for paperbacks in the space in between.  We won't know what to do with all the free space in the rest of the house!

My Liberty fabric destash has proved very popular so I've had another sweep through my fabric boxes looking for Liberty pieces and come up with these...

And these smaller pieces

I think that's the lot!  They'll be making their way into the fabric destash section of my shop over the next week or so.

Autumn

There is definitely a hint of autumn in the air now.  The cotoneaster in the garden is studded with bright red berries like so many shiny beads.  There must be a lot of food around for the birds this year as often the blackbirds strip this bush bare.  It's like watching little berry eating machines as they pick them off and swallow them, one after another after another...

Weeds

My garden has many weeds.  Often they are more interesting than the 'proper' plants.

 

Evening Sun

I'm starting a new project this morning and I wanted some photographs of local views for it. So we took advantage of the lovely evening sun yesterday and went for a walk round the marine lake. I came home slightly dazzled as we were walking towards the low sun most of the time and I forgot my sunglasses... fortunately the camera didn't seem to mind!

I was looking for strong lines and interesting textures - plenty of those round here! I'm off to print them now and start working into them - I'll let you know how it goes.

More views

Another beautiful day today so we went for a walk this afternoon.  This time we went up the hill rather than down to the shoreline.  The gorse is all in bloom and the scent is quite overpowering - am I the only one that thinks it smells just like coconut oil suntan lotion?  Even in Spring it really reminds me of summer holidays.

Happy Easter to all my readers - I hope you're enjoying the break, and the weather!

Late afternoon walk

I don't really think that I live 'by the seaside'.  But people do flock here as soon as the sun comes out, so I guess they think it's the seaside!  It was such a lovely day today we braved the crowds and went for a late afternoon walk around the marine lake.  The low sun meant that I couldn't see what I was taking pictures of, but I think they came out pretty well!

A little snow

We haven't had much snow here - just the merest sprinkle.  My eldest son went out hunting for it the other day and took some lovely pictures...

I told you he was tall!!!