Happy Christmas

Just popping in very quickly to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a good New Year.

A thrifting show & tell.

Yet another rag doll abandoned & saved :)

1958 Singer book, 260 pages covering practically everything.

This is a metal tray with legs. A man selling old tools was using it to carry them on, I asked him if he'd sell it & he let me have it for a £1. It took a lot of elbow grease to clean it up & still has some rust marks but I like it.

I love this large bowl made in Staffordshire.

A friend of mine sold me this cupboard, which is huge & now houses lots of my fabric.

This is a pink Lloyd loom bedside cabinet. Sadly the fabric is quite water marked as you can see, I cleaned the glass but I haven't attempted the fabric yet. I was sold this for £6 as it didn't have a door knob luckily I already had an old china rose one that fit perfectly. The seller gave me the cot decals too.

Very cute book given to someone on Sept 24th 1955.

And finally some more June rose Pyrex to add to my collection, unused too!

Pumpkin recipes & other Autumn bits

I tried cooking pumpkin years ago & never liked it but this year we have grown quite a few & what we grow we must eat! This is what I made with one pumpkin a similar size to the one in the photo about 4lb. They were all really yummy & I've made the soup 3 times since.

First I washed & dried the seeds then spread them out on a baking tray & baked them for 20 minutes.

Pumpkin Bread (American recipe hence the cup measurements)

2 cups of plain flour, 2tsp cinnamon, 1/4tsp baking powder, 1tsp bicarb, 1/2tsp salt, 1 1/2 cups sugar,3/4 cups vegetable oil, 3 lge eggs, 1tsp vanilla essence, 3 cups shredded pumpkin, 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds.

Mix the dry ingredients then add the wet ingredients keeping back some of the seeds. Put into a loaf tin pushing the saved seeds on top. Bake at 325 for about 1hr 15 mins or put mixture into muffin cases & bake for 30 mins.

Spicy pumpkin teabread.

12oz diced pumpkin boiled for 10 mins, 5 1/2 oz honey, 30z sultanas, 11oz SR flour, 2tsp mixed spice, 5 1/2 oz margarine, 1 tblsp seeds

Mash the boiled pumpkin with the honey then add the sultanas. Put the flour & spice in a bowl then rub in the margarine add pumpkin mix & seeds. Put into a 2lb loaf tin & bake for 50 mins.

Pumpkin soup

When I make soup I tend to make it up as I go along using what I have available so this is a rough guide to my soup!

I sauted in a knob of butter a diced onion, 1/2 diced green pepper, 1 deseeded red chilli, 1 chopped clove garlic. Add 2 diced potatoes and the chopped pumpkin (I used about a half of a 4lb pumpkin) Add roughly a pint of veg stock, a tsp of ground cinnamon, pinch of salt & pepper. Bring to the boil then reduce heat & simmer for 1/2 hr. Blitz with a blender then stir in a little milk.

Some of our Autumn harvest.

I have done some crocheting an Autumn coloured brooch & some Amigurumi pumpkins.

And some fabric pumkins scented with orange & mandarin.

L and I made a Autumn display using some leaves & seed heads collected on our walk through the woods.

It was very sunny & the butterflies were making the most of it, basking in the afternoon sun.

Lots of funghi and the first signs that ........

Christmas is just around the corner :)

Slight Interlude

It's nearly been a month since I last posted. L has started part time school so my life at the moment has become a mad rush. We walk to school everyday and this alone takes up nearly 2 hours and I'm also going in a couple of mornings a week to listen to readers. Hopefully some kind of routine will soon be in place. In the meantime these photos were taken just before L started school. We went for a picnic on Rough Tor, which along with Brown Willy are the highest summits on Bodmin moor. Rough Tor is 1,311 foot high and Brown Willy is 1,375 foot high.

Brown Willy.

The memorial to Charlotte Dymond, murdered on Rough Tor in 1884. Her boyfriend was tried & executed at Bodmin Gaol for her murder.

Normal service will be resumed asap.

Sunny days in Cornwall

The last week of August was holiday time for us. We stayed in Cornwall & went on a few days out we also went down west near the Lizard for a few days.

I've lived here all my life yet never been to Mullion before these are of Mullion cove, a very pretty place.

Then on to Porth Leven another new to me place.

It had been stormy the night before & we'd had torrential rain but as you can see the sun came out as soon as we went away although the sea was rough!

The road to the Lizard.

Sunset at Lizard

The Lizard lighthouse

Kennack sands at 9 in the morning hence the fairly empty beach.

Making our way home we stopped off at Falmouth harbour and scoured the charity shops.

Because of the weather this boat had to detour to Padstow it's a replica of the Dawn Treader from the Chronicles of Narnia and was on a promotional tour.

Over to Summerleaze beach in Bude where L had fun making sand angels.

Ending with a day at Widemouth near Bude.