Various stuff

Hello multitudinous followers,

I really must look into ways of (slowly!) increasing the number of people reading my blog, particularly given that 50% of my followers are my one sister, who gets to hear probably more than enough about my coming and going on the phone anyway!.  Blogging is quite satisfying for its own sake, it’s good to have a record of the stuff I’ve been up to, but I can’t help feeling envious when I see all the comments which other bloggers have from all their followers.

I’ve been to Knit Club this morning; it was such fun, a perfect way to spend a rainy Saturday morning.  I spent quite a lot of time in the kitchen laughing at some of the ridiculous designs in the new Rowan magazine.  It was almost worth buying it for the comedy.  You just cannot believe that anyone would ever even consider making these things.  There was also some slightly childish giggling at the use of the word “gusset” (again) – it’s that naughty Suzie, she starts me off.  

 It was lovely to see Cuckoo again too, she was crocheting a very cute goauuuurrrrt (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQd5Ieprung) for her husband for Father’s Day and had it nearly finished by the end of the session. 

 I was unable to resist buying some yarn for my next pair of socks.  I’d picked out some rather faffy pastel colours, but I was the others staged an intervention to save me from myself and made me buy these instead.  Scary.  The bottom one is actually a dark purple.

 When I got home the weather had dried up so I went and checked the garden.  One of the things which caught my eye was this flower:

Lovely, isn’t it?  Looks quite exotic, you’d think it was from some special ornamental plant… Wrong!  I’m growing potatoes in bags and the flower is on one of those plants.  Who’d have thought that something so ordinary would have such a glamorous flower!

This is my patio rose.  When my lovely sister got married she bought one of these for herself, Mum and me.  The name of the rose is Patricia, which was our Nan’s name; she died when we were small and didn’t have a headstone so this is a nice way to remember her.  As you can see the flowers always droop over so you can’t see them, but they are so beautiful.  A bit like people really, sometimes the most beautiful aren’t the most obvious.

This courgette is nearly ready to be picked… mmmm, I love courgettes, looking forward to eating the home-grown ones.

Very kind of my neighbour to grow the yellow thing which looks so pretty with my blue and pink things!

 Lupin progress:

My mum came up this week and we did some sewing.  We made some pink and blue gingham curtains for my niece and nephew’s room.   

I haven’t used my sewing machine for ages and ages and I really enjoyed it. I’ve left it out on the table and if I can drag myself away from blogging and knitting I might try and make something tomorrow.

The other big news this week is the inaugural committee meeting of the Women of Weston WI.  Well it's big news for me, maybe not in the grand scheme of things. I am involved in setting up a WI for Weston with some of the girls from Knit Club.  It is going to be brilliant – we want it to be a modern, fun group and we’re all bursting with ideas for events.  Apparently there is a group in Worle which sings Jerusalem, God Save the Queen and Land of Hope and Glory!  I don’t think we’ll be doing that.  

Recently I have been working my way through the BBC Good Food magazine website’s Top 20 recipes (http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/content/recipes/favourites/all-time-top-20/).  I made the biryani and it was gorgeous; in fact I am making it again tonight.  Last time I did it on a Sunday night and followed their suggestion of stirring mayonnaise through it to make coronation chicken salad for the following day’s lunch.  I also did the almond raspberry cake which was equally good and would be a great dessert, served with some whipped cream or ice-cream.  These photos are from when I was making the courgette lasagne.  You have to grate 6 courgettes so I used the grater attachment on my food processor.  I just thought the colours and patterns looked really cool.  The meal was pretty good too!  Even better the next day actually.

I have got really into the American tv programme Big Love recently.  It’s a drama based around the lives of a polygamous Mormon family.  I don’t think I’d like to be in a plural marriage and I certainly couldn’t be doing with the religious aspect, but I can’t help thinking at least one of those “sister wives” would be kinda handy to do the housework and leave me free to get on with my crafting!!

On that slightly ridiculous note I am going to sign off and deal with the glass of red wine which is calling to me…..

A day in the garden

It's been a beautiful day today and I've spent more or less all of it in the garden.  When we moved down to Weston 7 years ago our garden was a scruffy lawn with some tatty flower beds.  I was delighted with it though as the previous owner of our old house had concreted the entire garden and painted it red!  So just having soil was a welcome change.

Since then we've done lots to it, particularly over the last couple of years when I've been working part time. I was really inspired by Alys Fowler's Edible Garden on BBC2 last year and since then I have copied her idea of mixing vegetables and flowers in the same beds.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00s1lc8

This is a photo illustrating a perfect day for me - knitting, BBC6 music and a sunny garden!

One thing I have never been able to grow successfully is lupins.  Every year I plant them, only for slugs to come a long and om nom nom them.  Then every year I say never again until I see them growing in someone else's garden and I go and buy some.  This year, a momentous event has occurred - one of my lupins has a flower!

Fingers crossed if I maintain my slug pellet regime (sorry I am not very good at being organic/cruelty free!) the rest will do the same soon and I will get that lovely cottage garden effect.

Today I have had a whimsical moment and I made a little plum slate fairy path to the fairy door which I had for Christmas.  I love fairies and have quite a few in my garden.  Unfortunately it is difficult to get a good photo of them as they just look like ornaments when you point a camera at them!

This is my hydrangea.  It's a white one which I think is nicer than the bright blue and shocking pink ones you see in old ladies' gardens.  This one starts off pale green, then turns white and at the end of the season it goes to a dark reddish pink.  Last year I put some into a vase in the living room and felt very smug at having home-grown cut flowers!

    

The courgettes in the mini-greenhouse are looking good and it won't be long until some of them are big enough to eat.  Last year my courgettes didn't do too well and succumbed to mildew so I only had a few edible ones.  This year I have used a mildew-resistant variety (Tuscany); however there is still a bit of it on some of the leaves, but I am brushing it off regularly and it doesn't seem to be affecting the plants too much.

 This is a variegated jasmine plant.  I've had it for a few years and it was getting a bit overgrown so I hacked it back quite harshly earlier this year but it seems to have recovered quite well.

This is a mimulus flower.  It's a bedding plant.  I had never seen them until last year but I looked out for them specially this year as they are so pretty.

I'm not generally a fan of lilies as I don't like the cloying smell  but I love the colour of this one and it is unscented.

Beetroot, leek and swiss chard all doing quite nicely

The view from my sun lounger!

As well as all the planting and weeding I managed a little nap in the sunshine and a few chapters of my book - bliss!