Peekaboo at the zoo

Today we were going to a book sale at a church hall about 18 miles away. There was a slight problem as the local haulage firms in Cornwall had organised a fuel protest and a convoy of lorries and tractors were to travel very slowly up through the county on the A30 to the place that we were going. We got around this by going through all the windy roads only to find that the sale is next week, oops!! We then decided that as it was nice weather (for a change) to go to the zoo and whizzed down the A30 in the opposite direction to the protest. I am glad we weren't behind them as they were going at a snails pace!

Isn't he cute - this is Dougal one of the smallest sheep in Europe, he's only a week old and is a Breton or Quessant sheep, which are the smallest breed in Europe and until 1990 they only lived on Quessant a small island off the French Brittany coast. Their size is herditary and is because of sparse land and harsh weather. He is so sweet in real life.

It must be lunchtime .......

Time for a cuddle ..........

And finally a rest and ..........

a nap .......................

It's a sloth's life ...................

Baking on a rainy day

Ginger cupcakes

It's raining again so I've been baking as there's not much else to do. I thought I'd use my faithful hand mixer for the last time as on Monday ( my birthday) I will have a new shiny red Kenwood mixer, some people may think it strange to have a kitchen appliance for their birthday but it was the only thing I wanted and as I bake quite a few times a week it will save me a lot of time and enable me to paint a few more bits of furniture lol. So my hand held mixer will be going to live with DD1 Jemma so she can do her own baking rather than pinching all mine!!

Choc cupcakes, banana and date loaf and a bit of comfort food - home made scotch eggs to keep DD2 Tara happy!

The garden in May

It's been an awful week for half term so far, lots of wind and rain but today it eased off a bit so I took some photos of the flowers that haven't been battered. Every year my poor peony comes out in flower and the wind knocks all the blooms off it has survived this year though!

The poppies are adding a splash of colour to the dull days.

Finally my foxglove has opened although some may say it's a weed, I love them and you need them in your garden to encourage fairies. hehe.

Hopefully June will bring some sunshine!

Thrifting again!

I've had a busy few days buying up the charity shops and car boot. I've bought a lovely cupboard to paint probably in Laura Ashley paper white. A glass cake stand as you can never have enough cake stands thats what I tell my OH anyway and I was really pleased to find not one but two glass jelly moulds, the large one was only £1 and the smaller one was 75p, I have been looking for these at the right price for ages. I also bought a Laura Ashley top and a huge new oxford pillowcase to use the fabric, two more flower pictures and some other bits and bobs. Oh and a caravan but more on that later! I'm going to start making the curtains for it now as it's a bit brown for my liking.

Inspirational flowers

After being inspired by Posy's flower picture wall from http://posy.typepad.com/.

I went on a picture hunt at a car boot sale and then some charity shops on Saturday and bought these; the vase of roses was 50p from a car boot, aned from a charity shop I bought two pictures of anemones, which were 50p & £2 but I'll change the frames and lastly a Spring interlude was £3, I really like the frame on this.

I've been triple tagged!

I've been tagged three times by Angel from Shabby Angel, Sharrie from View to the hill and Clare from Dollydollop.


The rules: Answer 5 questions about myself. At the end of the post tag 5 people and post their names, go to their blog and leave them a comment letting them know they have been tagged and asking them to read my blog for the rules. Let the person who tagged me know when I've posted my answers.

1 -What was I doing 10 years ago?

My children were 4, 8 and 11 years old. The youngest had just started school nd the eldest had gone to comprehensive school as she was the only child in Y6 in the village primary she went on her own, but she was fine. I started to work in a school and was doing English Lit with. the OU.
I was also a school governor so school took up a lot of my time! We also went camping for the first time, which was great.

2- Things on my to do list today.

Take 14 year old daughter to stables for a few hours.
Go shopping take the scenic route via charity shops and car boot!
Go and look at caravan to buy, which we didn't have time to do yesterday.
Paint kitchen/dining room wall and replace furniture.
Take dog for a walk on the moors.

3- Snacks I enjoy.

Cheese, melted cheese on crackers, peppers and hummus, revels, minstrels, jelly babies.

4- Things I would do if I was a millionaire.

Buy a farm, camper van, mercedes convertible, few dogs - shitzu, miniature pug, yorkie.
Houses for my children.
Give some money to charity - SIDS as although I have never been affected by this I think it's a worry for any parent and stroke charity as my mum died of a stroke 3 years ago.

5- Places I've lived.

Quick answer - Cornwall - 2 towns and 1 village.

Tag 5 people

Ted and Agnes
Pacific Robin
Poohs abode
The little snug
Vintage Pleasure

Crochet

1/12th scale dress & hat

When I was about 6 or 7 my mum taught me to crochet. I used to make lots of granny square blankets, cushions, tablemats and Barbie clothes. I crocheted a cushion using a variety of stitches as part of my needlework exam.

I didn't do any after that until I was pregnant and crocheted baby clothes.

Again I stopped crocheting until I started making things for my dollshouses, this was totally different as you have to use very small hooks and fine cotton but it gave me something to do when I was last pregnant and resting!

I've started crocheting again in the last couple of months as I came across a new (to me) type of crochet, amigurumi - roughly translated from Japanese as 'knitted stuffed toys', I bought a book Amigurumi world which is great and I got addicted straight away. Here's a few of the ones I've done.

I've stopped the amigurumi invasion for the moment as I'm revisiting my childhood and making a multicoloured granny square blanket so far I have 86 squares only 34 to go!

A Few Bits and Bobs

I bought a few things on Sunday, only one charity shop open but I managed to buy 4 cups, saucers and tea plates in a rose design for £2.25 these match a large plate I bought a while back. In QS I bought 2 rose fabric lined baskets for £3 each, a fabric lined laundry basket for £5, an apron, oven gloves + pot holder and 3 tea towels I think they were £3 each. In a garden centre I got 3 hanging citronella candle holders for 99p each. Then in TK Maxx a blue Typhoon biscuit tin and a blue heart shaped lidded Le Creusset dish for £5 each. Finally Woolies a tea for one pot and cup for £2. So I was quite happy with my goodies even

though I didn't get to a car boot.

Lemon Meringue Cake

Ingredients

Cake -

Zest of 1 lemon

8oz soft marg

8oz caster sugar

3 eggs

9oz SR flour

6 tblsp's milk

Meringue -

2 egg whites

4oz caster sugar

Filling -

250g marscapone

2 tblsp's icing sugar

Half jar lemon curd.

Mix all cake ingredients together. Put into 2 20cm cake tins.

Make meringue pour on top of each cake.

Cook 40 mins at 160 c

Meanwhile make filling by mixing marscapone with the icing sugar. Swirl in lemon curd. Keep in the fridge until needed.

Cool cakes, sandwich together with the filling.


Note - I smoothed my meringue flat but I think it should have been peaked. Tastes yummy but probably has quite a few calories!!

Cooking

One thing I do have more time for, since leaving work, is baking albeit with a child on my hip lol. I love cooking and I collect cookery books and have 913 at the present time. The trouble is most of them are packed away as we are re-doing the kitchen/dining area. The new kitchen doesn't arrive until the middle of June but OH has removed artex, plastered and re-painted the ceiling and is now ripping up the floor and laying ceramic tiles. (luckily it is his trade) Hence many of my books are out of the way and you can guarantee that the recipe I want is always in the books that are packed, even though I made sure that I kept out the books that I use the most.

So this afternoon I have made a cake from a recipe that I found on the web - lemon meringue cake, which at the moment looks lush but it isn't finished yet if it tastes ok I'll post the recipe later.

Just a few of my cookery books I love the titles of the old ones the best ; To Love and to Nourish a cookery book for brides; Dear Housewives; Darling you Shouldn't Have Gone to so Much Trouble. Obviously cooking was womens work!

Flying the nest

My eldest daughter is in the midst of leaving home, Hurrah, (only joking Jemma). For the moment she's moving in with her bf'and his parents until they find a place to rent in July/August. They are going on holiday first then saving their pennies for the deposit. It's very expensive to rent houses in Cornwall and very hard for young people to manage to find somewhere to live as many places are now used as holiday homes. Anyway this means that we should have a bit more room in the house and my youngest Lily May can have her own room and hopefully room for all her toys! We only have a 3 bed terrace house so there isn't even room to swing a cat, luckily we don't have a cat and if we did I wouldn't swing it. (she hastens to add.) We do have a menagerie of animals though :

Dog- Tess; Lovebird - Oberon; Hamster -Dangergface; Red Bellied Newt - Stumpy; Tropical fish; Cold water fish; 4 Giant African land snails; and finally a red 3 foot corn snake - Snakie that Jemma has kindly(not) let us foster until she has a home for it!

Well thats enough rambling for today bye.

More painting etc..

Can't believe the change in the weather here, it was really hot and sunny until Wednesday evening when we had a thunderstorm and it tipped it down with rain. Today it's quite cold and I have just lit the fire! after spending ages trying to put a picture in my blog header, got there in the end although I did want it more like a banner anyway it's a photo of the poppies at Eden last summer. I've completed some more makeovers- a wooden chair which was stained green and I have now painted in aged white and made a simple seat pad from Cath Kidston's blue ottoman rose fabric on one side and Globatex pale blue heart on the other.

I've also painted and covered the stool (before photo in a previous post). I used Cath's antique rose blue oilcloth for the seat pad. And finally I painted and lined the lid of a wooden box that I paid £1 for at a car boot. This was painted with aged white and inset with Cath's gingham blue oilcloth.