Flowers

Flowers and plants are such a visually, eye-popping viw when grouped together no? And the colours!

Flowers are one of the few things that make me smile and lift that depression cloud up a bit. I think its the colours and vibrancy they offer and if you're lucky, the lovely heady scents they have too! They are so fragile in this strong, brutal world and last only for a short while so it's nice for me to stop and step back a bit to appreciate them. And flowers are free! They are out there growing by roads, in your gardens and in the wild to enjoy, heralding the seasons as they grow, stand and die down to repeat themselves again the next season.

If I had the money, i would buy myself fresh flowers frequently and put them around my house, something living, something so alive and fresh in my gloomy little world!

The weather here in britain is making everything die and rot from too much rain! So seeing these was a real treat!

hope you enjoy!

A Week

This week...

I saw and heard tales from my parents flying birds of prey on the moors and learnt that there's no such thing as a wise owl as owls are the stupidest of all birds and have very poor memory and awareness.

 

 flowers always look better after a little bit of rain.

 

That sprinkles always makes a girl giddy! Look at the bright sparkly colours...*stares hypnotically*

Local Wines truely does come in all the colours of the rainbow

Going back to your old school for a leaving/reunion party is just weird with all the memories of being a school girl

 

And everyone loves super tiny fairy cakes!

Just call me a spinster...

On sunday, we ventured into the deepest rural part of cornwall to this lovely house in some small, unknown area, down a country lane overgrown with summer weeds. It really is a property tucked away out of sight and with the sun brilliantly shining, the mood was great especially as I was joined by good friends, my even greater friend and my baby godson.

Out in the bright courtyard was a spinning wheel that originally came from new zealand, pulled out so us newbies get a chance later on to give it ...well...a spin!

By the front door were two buckets containing the dregs of whatever natural dying products we were dying with that day. One was a mystery wood chip that was a mystery colour and the other was onion skins that left fabrics golden yellow in colour.

They have been boiling outside in large boilers since the crack of dawn and emitted er..."wonderful" smells...!

We dyed fabrics, I taught a lesson in glossing as a transfer medium to fabrics and under the bright sun, we spun. I watched the smooth settling rhythm the experienced spinners settled into, feeding the wool into the spool and teasing and straightening  the wool as well. 

And then it was my go, sometimes I went too fast and sometimes too slow but eventually I settled into a tempo where I could just about feed the wool, teasing it out straight and controlling the pedal all at the same time and at one point all four of my limbs were doing their own thing!

I can see why people love doing it and the peacefulness people get from it but my inexperienced caused me to be rather tense and even as i write this now, my back hurts from sitting hunched over the wheel, scared to go wrong despite what the elders said reassuring me that its ok to make mistakes!

 

 

I might not be able to do spinning...but tea and cakes in the sun? That I can do!

Tea in a typically english countryside summer garden, surrounded by lovely flowers...perfeck!

 

The grounds of the place was massive and I will share more with you later on as well as my session teaching which was recieved and went down very well with the others!

it was a great day in the country on a rare sunny day in rainy England!

With my Godson Henry, watching his mummy in the garden messing around with Ice dyes! He was a great sparkling cherry on top of what was a great day!

What did you do this weekend just gone? Hope it was a good one for you!

Birdie Love!

xxx

In these past few hours...

It rained and rained heavily. And in the rain I picked wild flowers near my house as I wanted something to brighten up the house and cheer me up a little. 

I took a little and left plants unharmed apart from one stem here and there. The rain made everything clean and fresh and I got home twenty minutes later, I was soaked and the flowers were laid out to dry a little...

Including these daisies. It really was a cool, wet day and dark and miserable and no one would have thought it was summer...!

I now have two small vases filled with local flowers and grasses...so pretty and dainty and given the room a little life and pop of colour. Its the small things that I appreciate like this!

What with the weather being so cold and wintery, I turned to making a summer fruit crumble and such colours bought a little sunshine to the house (and my stomach!) and the air smelt tropical and sticky, it was so very yummy, the fruits caramalised the crumble topping to give that chewiness and the butter and honey  drizzled on top made it even more scrummy! Simple clean tastes worked so well and anticipating dessert was going to heavy and tastey, I kept tea itself small and enjoyed bowls of crumble with cream in the warm dry house with the cold , dark weather outside.

And not forgetting, Indy had his first bath to wash away the sicky smell he had on him. He was so calm and placid about the whole thing,  apart from moments where he shook himself like a tiny little wet dog!  He was given a good towelling, a gentle blast from the hairdryer and  mucho love afterwards! such a sweet little cutie he is!

Today I went for a swim with some deaf friends. I was glad I went in the end otherwise I would have spent the day in the house, stewing in the whole depression mood and upset, that came out of nowhere and aggreviated by small silly things. I ended up swimming in the pool for hours, throwing myself down flumes, diving and playing on inflatables and wallowing in the jacuzzi like some big kid, sniggering at my friends and actually still able to "talk" via sign language and laugh. It was a great experience, the group of us yapping away and making plans to make it a regular thing, forming what was a "micro deaf community" away from others where the past and all that unpleasentness lingered for what ever reasons that haunted us. We ll had our reasons for staying away from the deaf community in the city. Common themes was that we just didnt fit in, we viewed ourselves as "deaf but so what, we're going to get out there and live it as "normally" as we can!"
I'm looking forward to getting out there more and re-exploring my deaf side in the company of those I feel safe with. They don't laugh when my voice slip into my "deaf voice" or my facial expressions being too comical, its apart of the story telling! 
I feel safe in a way, I very rarely let my guard down and go at my own pace. 
It was nice, something I havent felt in a long time.

Hope you are well and having a nice day, where ever you are!
 Birdie love. xxx

A cake for nan

Today is my nan's 85th birthday. My nan as well as my grandad are the two most favourite people to me in this whole wide world. To me they are the matriarch of this family and with all their knowledge and history they have between them, I treat them with the upmost respect and fiercely protective of them and love them with every bone in my body. My grandad is a WW2 veteran in the Royal Auxiliary and was apart of the D-Day landing himself, coming abroad on either Sword or Juno beach (I forget) where the British forces landed. He even remembers Field Marshall Montgomery  in his tent headquarters, waving the forces onto the beach and into battle.  They are full of stories and knowledge from their travels across the world and each moment I spend with them, I’m still amazed at the vibrancy and youth they posses, they are still incredibly active and there is no stopping them!

I was asked to make a cake and I haven’t a clue which of the many recipes out there to use. Cake as we all know comes in variety of flavours, sizes, colours, textures, ingredients, decorations etc.... I wanted to give something a little different and so I came across Nigella Lawson’s Autumnal Birthday Cake. A cake loaded in flavour but simple to achieve... I hoped!

 

The cake’s main ingredient is maple syrup hence the autumn connection but the cake looked and sounded so good in the book than I decided it would still work! Maple syrup, I shall warn you is now  - like honey- EXPENSIVE! For 250g I paid nearly a fiver! So I have done my duty to warn you people, you wont be in for a nasty surprise here the next time you see the stuff and then the price!

The cake calls for a maple meringue icing...something very different to what I’ve made in the past.  I had to use the double boiler method (bowl over a hot water filled saucepan)and first whisk it until it becomes fluffy and then to help speed up time (and save my poor wrists!) I put it into a mixer.

  The stuff became this wonderful white fluffy icing that held its shape beautifully.

I worked until the end result came together to look something like this...

Impressive no? To get that wonderful ripple in the icing, ditch the spatulars and fancy cake stuff...use a fork!

You probably can't see in the crappy photo but there is also a tiny sprinkle of turquoise edible glitter blown onto the cake from dipping a brush into the glitter pot. Every birthday deserves a little sparkle no?

We went for a family suprise birthday meal at Kitley house, a popular wedding venue on the outskirts of Plymouth as it's a huge georgian (?) mansion in the middle of beautiful countryside. (and indeed when we turned up, there was a wedding there, the grand staircase all lit up in fairylights and the bride waltzing down the stairs slight worst for wear...It was half seven in the evening to be fair!)

The cake tucked away in the boot of the car, despite my insistent demands to have it in my lap, we took the 20 minute drive out to the wild and wet countryside thanks to the impeccable reputation of British weather. And every bump in the road had me biting my hand in the sheer horror of the poor cake being thrown around in the back!

But never mind the cake for a moment...I had no choice but to leave it and head inside to have what was a nice meal to follow, despite the head injury-related migraine I started to get.

To start I had flash fried breast of pigeon on a bed of spicy tomatoes and lentils. I like to order things I don't normally get a chance to eat at home or unusually things. I've had pigeon before and this isn't the best to be honest. The skin on the meat wasnt pleasant and rubbery and I think they could have done with frying it a little longer to crisp it up a bit more or remove it altogether. The tomatoes and lentils were on the other hand, really really nice! I'm not a huge tomato fan but I really enjoyed this, it held the right level of spice and the layers of flavour in it combined with the pigeon worked better than I thought. 

I had the steak Sirloin to follow. It was offered in replacement of what was essentially a beef wellington that I would certainly have had if they hadn’t ran out. The gravy sauce was rich and moorish and I would have really enjoyed it more if I was feeling better. It came with the usual vegetables and a really nice potato dauphinoise I enjoyed very much but as the dish as a whole was rich and it unsettled my poor tummy, I couldn’t eat all of it as I wanted.

I mainly avoided dessert but I had to take a snap of the sticky toffee and date pudding other people in my party received...I mean look at the presentation!  The biscuit work is amazing!

Remember the cake? By the time we got it to my grandparents it looked like this...

My dad's driving style hasnt helped it a bit! (thanks dad - I'm only joking!) -_-
so "Operation emergency cake-restoration ASAP now!" occured and with a knife I salvaged what I could whilst resisting the temptation to put my head in the oven in the misery of it all!
I even added some handmade real flowers that been sugared, hoping these would maybe detract from the little mess that occured...

...Its like putting make-up on a pig....it just doesnt hide anything!

But in the spirit of things, this is why we are all here...

Happy birthday Nan! 85 today! I hope to be as beautiful and amazing as you are if I ever get to live that long!

Fin

-X-