Food First

We are living internet free at the moment. It means that all we think about is food for some reason, what else can we do? I have popped back to our old house to do some cleaning and take full advantage of the internet connection we have in the house we no longer live in!

The fruit and vegetables are still forthcoming from the neighbour's gardens I have been caring for, this week we plundered plums. In all  honesty, I could have done without them during a house moving week but the girls begged me to stop them falling off the trees to the ground.

My big girl learnt how to make jam.

Selecting new places to put kitchen utensils, bowls and tins has been very enjoyable. Megan has set herself up a rather efficient baking zone with the mixer, cookbook stand and useful items in the drawers below.

Today she made white chocolate and cranberry biscuits.

We have been eating mostly homegrown veg over the last month or so; the courgettes are of course overwhelming. It was time for my favourite cake recipe...

Nigella Lawson's courgette cake with lemon curd. It is from her book 'The Domestic Goddess' if you have it or follow the link. She uses pistachio nuts to decorate it but I used toasted flaked almonds. 

I am looking forward to giving you a new house up date soon when the engineer has been and connected our internet. So for now, this is a slightly one sided post because I can not hop over to your blogs for a read but I will do very soon.

Happy Eating. Jo xxxx

What would you pack first?

We are in the very lucky position of being able to move into our new house while our current house is continuing to go through the contract sale stage. It does mean that I am constantly questioning what I can live with or without as I move things to one house while living in another. 

I took all of my baking tins vowing not to make another cake until we moved, then needed some to make my daughters birthday cake.

I took all of my cook books, then needed one to make beetroot chutney.

I carefully packed up all of my best dinner service and put it in the dresser with only one wine glass breakage.

I have taken all of my wool, patterns and knitting regalia and just kept my basket with a sweater and socks to work on in the evenings.

I have kept my sewing machine and some basics with me in case I need to do some school uniform alterations before school starts again but I have packed up all of my fab fabric, vintage patterns, lingerie sewing notions and Ottobre magazines.

The girls have sorted out their huge book collections and have sold surplus to a second hand book shop. Charity shops are mostly not open by us yet so getting rid of stuff is trickier than normal. I have an exciting pre-arranged drop off slot tomorrow at my favourite one.

We are trying to eat down one freezer so we can move it which feels risky if there is another lockdown and shops struggle to supply again but that is the way it is.

We shared steak and chips with our friends as our first official invitation meal in our new house, they are helping us move on Sunday. All of our friends who have trailers and pick ups are entering their busy harvest time so we are grateful to have lured asked them to help us before potato harvesting gets busy.

We were treated to a pastel skyline on Wednesday before we left, then watched the rain pour down with hours of lighting shows when we got back to our current house.

I will spare you the photo of neatly packed matching boxes because it really is not like that here, it is absolute chaos!

But all in all I know we will be just fine, I'm living the moment of moving day by day and enjoying putting our things into our newly built home.

What would you pack first?

Keep you posted. Jo xxxx

August...ing

Making - fleecy PJ's for my girl even though it is August.

Selling - our house! Only showed round one person with it on the market for five weeks. We will be moving to our smallholding very soon.

De cluttering - every cupboard and drawer in the house. The dross, honestly. This is the contents of the pine kitchen dresser drawers.

Building - our carpets are now fitted at the new house. I laid all the underlay and gripper rods myself. The guy said I put a lot of carpet fitters to shame!

Admiring - this local garden. I walk past it every day with the dog and get to peep over the wall. It gets better and better: phlox, hollyhocks, verbascum, mallows and yarrow.

Watering - two neighbours gardens while they are away with permission to pick what we can eat.

Making - beetroot chutney with the above: beetroot, apples and onions.

Eating - down the freezers so we can move them whilst still continuously filling them with courgette soup!

Revamping - my grans Victorian cabinet with Orla Keily gift wrap and PVA glue.

Knitting - the boring grey bit of my alpaca sweater but it is so soft to handle. I probably manage about two rows a night of mindless but comforting knitting. There are always socks when the mood takes me.

Saving - a beautiful quality M&S T-shirt with a vintage doily I bought in France 4 years ago. I got a huge grease stain right in the middle of my top but I've covered it with this little beauty.

Celebrating - having a teenager in the house with this awesome red velvet cake made by her sister. It was a faff but totally worth it even with the ermine icing. She coloured it with beetroot powder and added freeze dried raspberries as a topping with rose petals and fresh raspberries in the layers. Just divine!

  

Feeling - a little bit overwhelmed.

Thanks for dropping by. Enjoy the sunshine. Jo xxx

Easing in

Another little sewing project to ease me back into sewing. I don't have many sewing minutes of late but I still feel the need to sew a little during the light evenings. I have a head full of ideas for the summer holidays but very little time.

As previously mentioned, I had a surprise fabric parcel which arrived on my back doorstep. This beautiful piece of viscose was in the bag and I knew it was enough for a vest style top as soon as I held it up and admired it. 

 

It took me while to find the right pattern. I looked at the free sorbetto top but didn't have enough ink to print it out; a free tunic pattern I had since lost from the GBSB first book and then I found this one in my pattern box: Newlook 6035. I thought I would give it a try.

Just in time for a warm weekend. 

Thank you once again Lady Melchett. I have saved a little piece for one more thing that is on my mind which I will show you soon.

Hope you having a lovely weekend. Jo xxx