Holidays

We've been off work all week and as it draws to an end, I'm going to recap what we've been up to.

The first think I had to do was some baking and decided on a cherry cake my other halves favourite, especially as this one has some almond in it.

I've started a collection of the river cottage handbooks, and the cakes No 8 is my favourite, followed closely by the bread No 3. So far I've baked the chocolate cake, bounty cake, Welsh cakes, and anzac biscuits lots of times. Later today I'll be tryin out the carrot cake. Another family favourite.

Foooood

We couldn't wait any longer the potatoes from the garden needed using and so I had to cut the first of the courgettes and a few sprigs of rosemary as well as some other ingredients and dah-duh

Courgette bake, we borrowed the recipe from somebody's Nigel Slater book, we then thought we'd brought the said book only it must have been in another. We've now got his vol I vegetable and vol II fruit, they are both great for us growers for new ideas on how to cook fruit and vegetables you might have

Disaster with acrylics

Art class for the last couple of weeks have been about naive or abstract art. We've not had much direction so the first week we struggled to think of any idea's, until we went through our phone's and found this lovely photo of a bluebell walk we went on back in May.

I painted my paper blue and well... I had bit of a strop, like a two year old would when they don't get their own way. I struggled I tells ya, but I tried again this week and I managed to get the trees ok but when I tried to do the bluebell's it all went grey, literally.

So that's why it's a bit of an acrylic disaster. I'm not a fan of abstract art either, but I did see a lovely painting of some trees in lovely warm colours and it was made by painting small blobs of paint in shades of yellow, oranges and browns. But I found it very hard to just place lots of blobs, I suppose I expected it to be easy when in reality you have to think about it and understand how to not mix the paint too much so you end up with a grey blob, yet mix them enough so they make a beautiful picture.

I wonder if I can bring myself to finish it off next week.

Watercolour rose

We've joined an art group, and we're having fun !

What's really good about it is - we have a tutor setting us task and guiding us, but it changes every third week. We only need to pay weekly, when we go rather than annually. So far we've had a go at watercolours and this is my rose.




I do have to say that I cheated a little, the rose is a step-by-step taken from 'ready-to-paint watercolour flowers' by Wendy Tait. Because we were concentrating on watercolours the book gives you the image to trace over, then it gives you step-by-step guide on how to paint it.

I'm quite pleased for my first attempt, although the colours are a little funny, because I started the painting at art group but then finished it at home. Anyway I'm hoping to get it framed and I'll give to my mum as a bleated 60th Birthday present.

Greenfingers

Courgette's are doing well and the beans are full of flowers if a little short in size.

I've finally gone and brought a new hose with fancy gun, after having enough of getting soaking wet everytime I use the old one. I'm officially sad because I hot so excited at the no leak hose with 5 way spray gun lol !

Well here's to growing your own, fresh produce, and leak free hosepipes

Right I'm going to enjoy my Friday and the weekend x

Purple gems

I couldn't wait any longer and instead of watering them I decided to tip the bag upside down. At first I thought there was nothing inside until ... ripping apart the soil and roots out popped a purple gem, a potato that goes by the name of edgecote something or other. You see see I did label them but the label is no where to be seen.

They are tasty, the only word we thought described them was 'Fresh'

Proudest moment

This is one of my proudest moments designing this book.  It was so much fun !

The book started with the three of us trying to illustrate and design the book, but I was left with guidance to complete it by myself.  I think that's why I'm so proud of the book because it feels like mine. 

This is a picture of the re-print cover, (changed ready for the print of the next one - you'll have to wait for that one) the copy you might find in teh shops is called The usborne Patterns colouring book.

Although the insides are good.  not only is it a colouring book, there are some pages that give you ideas on how to colour in the page by suggesting different colours to use.  There's usually a pattern per page, but some are split into two or four or there's a couple of double page patterns.