Sunday . . . Sunday . . .

 

"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness . . .  and the little hills rejoice on every side.  The pastures are clothed with flocks; the valleys are also covered over with corn; they shout for joy."
~Psalm 65

I read those words this morning as I was reading my scriptures and I thought to myself . . . this is how I feel about the month of August.  There is so much to love about this month and I begin to appreciate it all the more as it draws to a close . . .  a few more days and it will be gone forever . . .

The apple tree at the end of our garden has boughs grown heavy now with ripening apples . . . an abundance of fruit begins to flush with red as they grow ever larger with each day that passes.



Apple trees, well . . . any fruit tree really . . . seem miraculous to me.   In winter they appear all but dead, sheathed in frost.  Then slowly a flush of green appears, tiny and tender buds, which deepen as each day passes and then . . . a burst of rosy tinted buds appear.  Their delicate beauty holding all the promise of a heavy bough at harvest time.

It is a wonder to me . . .

When we lived down South this was the time of year that the orchards sprouted big wooden crates to hold their bounty, as if by magic.    I never saw them arrive.   They just appeared.  I knew then that the solitude and quietness of the previous weeks would soon be replaced with the laughter and chatter of the fruit pickers as they went about their work to fill those wooden crates.



Change was in the air.

"Aprils promise has come true,
Now against a sky of blue,
Thickly fruited boughs are spread,
Green and russet, gold and red."
~unknown

I've begun to notice the nights are really beginning to draw in now.   It's starting to grow dark about 8 o'clock now and the mornings are not so bright when I get up.   Days are getting shorter again.  It's quite cool and gloomy out there this morning, and hard to tell what the day will bring to us.  I forgot to check the weather yesterday . . . but if I was a betting man I would say rain.

Oh well . . . it had to come sooner or later didn't it?



I was talking to my sister yesterday and she said she had made "Perfection Salad" to have with their supper last night.  (She is a good cooker too!)  It brought back a flood of memories.  It's been a long time since I have tasted "Perfection Salad."   To those of you who are not familiar with it, it is a jellied salad filled with chopped cabbage, celery, peppers, pimento, etc.  I remember as a child spending the weekend with one of my mother's friends and her friend making "Perfection Salad."  I would have loved to be sitting at my mother's table last evening . . . food memories of a family being shared.  How very wonderful.   I can't wait to speak to them later on today and ask them how it was.

A thought to carry with you through today . . .

"Poetry is the silence and speech
between a wet struggling root of a flower
and a sunlit blossom of that flower."
~Carl Sandburg  




Baking in The English Kitchen today . . . Blueberry Cake with a Brown Sugar Sauce.   Good old fashioned deeeeee-licious!!

I wish for you a beautiful day.


 

Willy nilly on a Saturday . . .

 

This is supposed to be the quiet time for the birds . . . the end of August, when all is silent in the woods, shadows laying darkly beneath the heavy foliage of late summer.  That doesn't happen in our garden however as the birds remain as lively and as vocal as ever.  I captured this photo of some of the resident sparrows lined up along the top of our rose arbour and on the top of the feeders.  It was like they were having a meeting of sorts.



They may only be sparrows, and quite common . . .  but God loves them too . . . enough that they are mentioned in the scriptures.  There is hope for us all.  ☺

"Happy is the person who not only sings, but feels God's eye is on the sparrow, and knows He watches over me.  To be simply ensconced in God is true joy.
~Alfred A Montapert  



We began watching our DVD of Cranford again last evening.   We do love it so.   I had read in Susan Branch's book,  A Fine Romance, about the village of Laycock where the series Cranford was filmed and it created a desire in me to watch the series again.   It just never gets old and each time we watch it we see things we did not see the other times we watched it.  I wonder how that works . . . as it is that way with just about everything in life.   Funny how that goes.

I find the characters in it so very delightful.   So delightful that I would be hard pressed to pick a favourite.  I love each equally.  The BBC does these period dramas so very well.  It must be quite fun to act in them I think.    As a girl I had dreams of acting.  I think most young girls do.  I wanted to be Annette Funicello.  What young girl in the sixties didn't want to be Annette or Haley Mills???  

I think acting must be a really fun job.  You get to prance around pretending to be other people, doing amazing things, and you get paid very well for doing so.  I know it is hard work, to be able to do it all convincingly . . . but still, it must be fun.



The part I wouldn't like would be the becoming famous part.   That seems an awful price to pay for doing something well.   Losing all of your privacy and having the world want to know everything about every aspect of your life and what you are doing.  I think it would be much better to be a character actor, getting to play all sorts . . . you know the type I mean.   People see them and think to themselves . . . hmmm . . . I should know this person from somewhere, but they can't quite put their finger on it, and then decide that they are just someone who looks familiar but who isn't, and go on their merry way.   I would hate to not be able to shop, or eat out or walk down the street without being mobbed or photographed . . .

The mystery is how some manage to do it and do it well, with seemingly no problems . . . and yet others implode and go off the rails.  Built up . . . only to be knocked down.   It's not a profession for the weak of spirit, mind, body or heart I don't think . . .



I bought a new pattern yesterday.  I want to get jump started on Christmas early.  I thought this would be a cute little doll for Maryn.   Apparently she was quite pleased with the last little one I made for her (the one with the Eeyore cap) and so I thought to make her another one.   I bought it from the Ginger Melon Shop on Etsy.   She has the cutest patterns if you like little dolls and such.



I got the pattern for an extra set of clothes as well.   I thought Maryn would be getting to the age now where she would enjoy taking clothes off and putting others on.

I think this is adorable.  It reminds me in a way of the little felt weather person that Miss Nancy used to have on the Romper Room Show.   I always wanted a little felt weather person that I could change the clothes for according to what it was doing outside.  I would have adored a doll like this, and so I hope Maryn will too.



Were you one of those children who would sit patiently while Miss Nancy looked into her magic mirror, just waiting . . . breath held . . . for her to say your name???  I was.   She never did say my name and I was always disappointed.  I was a "Do Bee" and everything, but, it just never happened for me.  Permanently scarred I am.   58 years old and still feeling left out . . . invisible.  (just kidding)



It was kind of an odd time to be growing up actually . . . we believed in Talking Horses, and Genies in Bottles, Witches who could make things happen just with the wiggle of a nose, flying nuns, friendly giants, talking mice . . . and yet we lived in fear of Russian Spies and nuclear annihilation.  I don't think that the Cold War was any less frightening than Terrorism do you?

Speaking of terrorism . . . when my sister moved back to mom's she brought two cats with her along with her partner Dan.   There was some concern on my mother's part about her cat Pumpkin getting along with Cindy's cats.  



This is my mother's cat Pumpkin (the orange one) and one of my sister's cats, Link (the grey one) resting together on my sister's bed.  There is a third cat, Gary, but he's nowhere in sight in this photo.  (He's very shy.)  It's nice to see that everyone has settled in well.  I think Pumpkin is rather enjoying the extra company.  I knew that she would.  Mom seems quite fond of Cindy's cats too.    She is always telling me about the cute things they do.  If you are a cat lover I think three cats are thrice the fun as one! 

Her life has certainly opened up I think . . . speaking of my mom.  I think having people around all the time, and the extra cats, and everything that this life change entails will help to keep mom going for a lot longer than if she had been left on her own.  Life now has purpose and meaning again.  That is always a good thing.  I think she is very blessed and very lucky to have people who love her in this way.  Not everyone does.

And with that I will leave you with a special thought for today . . .

"When we look for the love and greatness in others,
we find it in ourselves."
~ Taylor Hegan

I like to think that inside every person is a  good person trying to find its way out.

 

These may not look very exciting, but I promise you that they are.   Crisp Lemon Cookies, baking today in The English Kitchen.   Crisp little buttery cookies flavoured with lemon and ginger, they are a slice and bake variety of cookie.  You will love them!

Have a great Saturday!  It's raining here, but I feel better than I have in over a week!  Happy days!

Friday Twaddle . . .

 

We here in the UK are proud as peacocks about our weather, or lack thereof.  When I first arrived I didn't quite understand it, but now . . . after almost thirteen years, I understand it fully.  I do believe there is nowhere else in the world which has our weather.

When we have a cold snap in the Winter . . . tis always the coldest Winter on record.  Likewise when we get a rainy patch, or a dry patch.  We give our seasons names . . . and it's not just Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn.  (It's not called Fall here folks!)  We love to keep records and we're always breaking them, or so it seems!

My first year here in the UK was the wettest year on record.  (Up to 2000)  It rained literally every day.   I thought it would never stop.  There was the odd break here and there, but for the most part . . . we were wet.  If it wasn't a deluge . . . it was misting.   Come Winter (the rainy season) there was widespread flooding across the country . . . it was quite devastating.



That was the year I learned that people don't melt in the rain, and that if I was to wait for it to stop to go anywhere or to do anything . . . I'd be stuck in the house permanently.

We also love to talk about our weather.   In fact that is the first thing you will hear come out of people's mouths up here in the North at least.  Right after you hear . . . "Aright?" . . .  you'll hear the words . . . "Ain't it 'ot?"  (wet, cold, etc.) and we are off and running, and the next fifteen minutes will be about the weather.

Come to think of it . . . I don't 'spose that's much different than most people though.  The first question people usually ask you about when you've been away or if you live away is "What was/is the weather like?"  Clearly as a people (humans)  we have a slight obsession with the weather.



Mom is predicting a cold dry Winter back home . . . the bees are said to be building their nests close to the ground this year, which is what that means.   I know some would say that is an old wives tale, but there is a lot to be said about old wives tales.   They can more often than not be quite correct and not totally rooted in superstition as one would deem.  They are often based on years and years of observations, and one can usually find a narrow shred of truth in each of them.

We are having a gorgeous summer this year though.  It's been quite hot actually.  This is the August Bank Holiday weekend coming up.  (Bank Holiday is what we call long weekends over here.)  Traditionally this had been the weekend that most people crack open the old Barbeque and throw some steaks or burgers on the grill . . . that last hurrah before we get down to the business of school beginning and autumn arriving and the temperatures cooling.



I am hoping to go out and buy us a steak today.  We got ourselves a barbeque at the end of the season last year and have only used it once this year.  Not because the weather hasn't been nice, because it has been lovely . . . but because for the most part, we have forgotten that it's there.   My mom talking about my sister's partner Dan barbequing steaks the other night pricked my memory and I thought . . . yeh, that would be nice.  There's no excuse like the present.  I think mom is really enjoying having them there, and for the most part they are enjoying being there.  I know my sister does miss her children.  I know how that feels.

I ended not going in to town at all yesterday.   After I got up and going, I didn't feel up to it at all, and so Todd ended up going in on his own again.  I am hoping that today I will be okay.  I did take a large mayonnaise jar of soup over to our friend Doreen last evening and was fine doing that, so here's hoping I can make it to the  shops today.  I want to pick up that steak . . . and I don't trust Todd to do it.  I know what I want . . . and he doesn't.  It's as simple as that.



It's no reflection on him as a person.  It's just a man thing.   The grocery shops are filled with men, ears glued to their mobiles, wandering like lost sheep up and down the aisles as they seek "exactly" what their wives have sent them for, their wives guiding their steps via the phone.  Been there, done that . . . it works well for things like mustard and sauce . . . not so well for a steak.  You want to see a steak in person.   Well I do.  I'm a bit pedantic when it comes to steaks.   Not too much fat, not too much lean.  No visible gristle.  Just the right thickness and colour, with a nice marbling of creamy fat to help keep it moist and succulent as it is grilled.   See . . . pedantic.  That's me.  But I know what I want.  Steak is not cheap and so easy to ruin.  If you start off with the right one to begin with . . . that's half the battle won.

Well, I've twaddled on for long enough about nothing now, so I shall let you go, but not without leaving you with something to think about for the day . . .

The life I touch for good or ill
will touch another life,
and that in turn another,
until who knows where the trembling stops
or in what far place my touch will be felt.
~ Frederick Buechner  




Cooking in The English Kitchen today . . . Clean Out the Bin Vegetable Soup.   A delicious thick vegetable soup stogged with goodness and cheese.  It really is tasty and economical and filling too.

╔══ღ═════╗
• ✿ღℓ σ √ ε ღ✿ܓ
• ╚═════ღ══╝
Every house where love abides
And friendship is a guest,
Is surely home,
and home sweet home
For there the heart can rest.
~Henry Van Dyke

 Have a wonderful Friday!

 

Thursday Randomness . . .

I finished it last night in bed and it's a book I could have written.  Susan has captured beautifully all the things I love about this beautiful country which I am blessed to live in.  We are kindred spirits in this way I believe.   If you haven't gotten a copy of this yet, I suggest you try.   You will fall in love . . . you truly will.



It is completely charming from beginning to end and everywhere in between and it captures the heart.   I am sorry that I have finished it because I never wanted it to end.  That is the sign of a very good book . . . don't you think???

 

The blueberries are all ripening on our bushes now.    I am so excited about that.   Blueberries were one of the things I missed most when I first came over here to the UK.   They were not very easy to find and when you did find them . . . they were very expensive.   They are quite common now, which goes to show you how much things can change in thirteen years.  We have six bushes of them . . . the cultivated ones . . . and we try to add to them each year.   They're very prolific, which is a bonus.  If you love blueberries, and as you know . . . I do!

They're really good for you to.  Filled with anti-oxidants and other good things!



I love this picture of this lovely little family.  I adore that they, too . . . have a cocker spaniel.  I think this is a different royal couple than any we have seen thus far.  More down to earth.   More in touch with the common man.  Wanting to live lives that are real, to experience things which we all take so very much for granted, like changing nappies . . . and having pictures taken with point and shoot cameras and being happy with that.  Driving your own child and wife home from the hospital as a new dad . . . all sorts.  It only makes me love them more.



This bunting made me smile.  I love bunting and yet . . . I don't own a scrap of it.   It's so easy to make and yet, I do not . . . I wonder why that is.   We long for things, admire things . . . some of them such simple things that they are easily within our grasp and yet we hold them away . . . perhaps because it is good to long for something . . . to have something to wish for.   If everything became ours as soon as we wanted it, with no thought or work behind it, perhaps such things would be meaningless . . . just a thought.

 

Lemon Bites my sister Cindy made.   I love lemon.  They are raw . . . that means uncooked.   They look like creamy little truffles and are probably quite good for you.   My sister is into raw food.   She likes to eat healthy . . .



She also made these cinnamon dusted raw donut holes.   They also look very tempting and delicious.  I don't know how anyone could resist.   My mom won't even try these things.   She has decided she does not like raw food.  She is stubborn about things like that.  Once she makes up her mind about something . . . there is no budging her.   That's ok.

I'll have hers!

My sister sent me some raw treats when I was home in the Spring.   Strawberry and Almond Grawnola nuggets and raw fig newtons, and a few other treats.   They were delicious.  I loved them.   I bought the buckwheat to sprout when I got home so I could make some too . . . but it's still in the bag.  I have been too lazy.  I need a kick in the arse!



I would have loved to have had something like this when I was a little girl.  I had a cardboard box which was printed like a stove.  I had gotten a Robin Hood Bake set in the box for Christmas.   I pretended it was a stove/kitchen.  I ate raw cake mixes.   We had a play kitchen at school in kindergarten.  It was my favourite play place during play time . . . that and the puppets.   There was one of Mammy Yokum from Lil Abner.  I coveted that one.  Any child who was fortunate to grow up with things like play kitchens and puppets, and Lite Brite, and Lego, and a multitude of other toys were very lucky indeed.    I devoured the Christmas Wish Catalogue each year, dreaming of Santa Claus bringing me such things, but he never did.   It didn't really matter.  Again it is good to have something to long for, and it is good to be content with what you already have.   We were.  You must take your blessings where you find them.



The doorbell rang yesterday.  Todd said . . . "Oh no, what did you order now?"  It was a flower delivery.   This beautiful basket of flowers had arrived from the people who sponsored our trip to the farm last week.  It was such a lovely gesture of thanks.

 

They're just gorgeous and I was so surprised.   What a beautiful little bit of excitement they added to my day, which was already pretty special due to me feeling a lot better than I had been.  They have invited us to go on another farm day on the 30th of August, this time in North Sommerset . . . YeoValley farm.   It will be a dairy experience, which Todd is particularly interested in as he used to be a cow man.

Again blessings.   We could not afford a holiday this year, and yet God has been providing us with all these lovely days out to places in this beautiful country that I had not yet seen.   God is indeed very good.  Plus I got flowers.  ☺



I feel it in the air.  Or is that wishful thinking.  It is my favourite season of all.  I love, LOVE the autumn and everything it brings to the table.  The colours, the smells, the tastes . . .

I am not wishing summer away.   Everything in it's time and it's season.  I am just anticipating with pleasure what is to come, and soon now . . .

Yes, I listen to Christmas carols in July.

A thought to carry with you through today . . . wisdom from half pint . . .

The true way to live
is to enjoy every moment as it passes,
and surely it is in the everyday things around us
that the beauty of life lies.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder

 

If you think this was random, wait til you check out  The English Kitchen today . . . they be a whole LOT of randomness going on there!  There's lots of tastiness to sink your teeth into!


Have a wonderful Thursday!


 

Doing what you love and loving what you do . . .

 

I got to thinking about hobbies the other day, and I realized that I am a very "hobbied" person.   It seems that most of what I do is a hobby of some sort . . . the important, and the unimportant, but all important to me.

I looked up the meaning of the word and came up with a very interesting find indeed.   Did you know that a hobby can also be . . .

Hobby:

noun, plural hob·bies.

a small Old World falcon, Falco subbuteo,  formerly flown at such small game as larks.

Origin:
1400–50; late Middle English hoby  < Middle French hobé,  suffixal variant of Middle French, Old French hobel  (compare French hobereau ), probably noun derivative of hobeler  to skirmish, harass, perhaps < Middle Dutch hob ( b ) elen  to turn, roll; compare Dutch hobbelen  to rock, jolt

I didn't and had never heard of this . . . you learn something new very day.   I love that about life, don't you?  

The type of hobby I am speaking of is the pleasure one however . . . an indulgence of sorts . . .

Hobby:
noun, plural hob·bies.

an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation: Her hobbies include stamp-collecting and woodcarving.  

I am quite an expert at hobbies it seems.     

First there is my love of painting and drawing.   It has been ever so since I was a small child and was given a crayon to colour with.  I have been creating ever since.  Paper dolls always got a fresh set of clothing, designed by me of course.   If I wanted a board game I would simply make my own, painstakingly re-creating the board and cards from ones owned by friends.   The first one I remembered doing thusly, was Clue.  (It worked for me!  And it was free!)  

  

I used to do the paint by numbers and gradually got bored with them, and got so expert at them that I would blend all the edges so that you could not tell it was a paint by number, or so I thought in any case.   One year for Christmas I asked for a Jon Gnagy Art set and I was thrilled when I received it.  I learned a lot from that set, in a multitude of mediums.  It was probably the single most impressive and wonderful gift I had ever received, and showed me that my parents believed in me.   

Not enough to allow me to go to Art School however . . . but that's a different story.  

Then there is my love of writing.  I LOVE writing.  I have a little notebook that I keep all of my ideas written in.   I would never have enough time, should I live to be a hundred, to bring to life all of my words and thoughts.   I often think in prose, and jot it down.   I may be looking at something simple and a turn of phrase comes to mind, like a melody . . . and I just have to put it in writing.   Things like . . .

"it sat on the branch of the budlea , wings poised just so . . . as if to spring up in flight any second, wings moving ever so slightly.  I was mesmerized by it's beautiful colours, falling in love immediately, so spellbound I could scarce move from the beauty of it all, for I knew that if I did . . . in a flash it would be gone and I might never see it again . . . "  

 

That sort of thing . . . words play around my head constantly.   I jokingly told my sister the other day that I was going to look for some soap crayons because a lot of my inspiration comes to me in the shower and had I some soap crayons I could write the inspiration down on the wall  to keep it safe . . . and then I would not sound to anyone standing outside the door . . . like a raving lunatic repeating words to myself over and over again while I showered, which I do so as not to forget them . . . bounding out of the shower half naked and wet down the hall at the end, towel flying . . . just to get my thoughts down on paper as soon as possible.

I do some of my best work in the shower.

It is even better when words and art meld together and I am able to do the little drawings I do, sometimes inspired by a quote and odd times even whole stories . . . I am working on one now, but more about that later.



Cooking has always been a hobby for me, one that I was able to turn into a vocation of sorts as well.  If you can do what you love for a job, then you are twice blessed I think.   I hated to give it up vocationally . . . but am quite happily pursuing it otherwise.   I have loved to cook since I was a girl, even though my first few experiments were not very tasty in the least and entirely not successful at all.   If you love doing something, you can't help but be good at it eventually   Those are my thoughts at any rate, and I would say I am a good cook.  Unfortunately I am also a good eater . . . which, once again . . . is a whole different story.

Bird watching is also something which I have always enjoyed and a love which Todd and I share together.   We loved it when we were living in the cottage.  Surrounded by Orchards and woodland there was no end to the wildlife which visited our garden, not the least of which was an abundance of birds.  One season we clocked over eighteen different species of bird, my favourite of which was the song thrush which perched early morning and at dusk on the crest of the chimney block of the neighbouring cottage and thrilled us with his varying melodies.  I often watched him through the skylight in the spare bedroom, silhouetted against either a darkening or lightening sky (depending on the time of day) . . . singing his little heart out.  It was beautiful.  Here now in the city, we basically only get sparrows, but they thrill us all the same.  I love to look out early in the morning and see the little heads popping up through the hedgerow to greet the warming sun.  It cheers my heart . . .



I guess I love nature of all sorts . . . country walks, animals . . . flora and fauna . . . babbling brooks.  It is a love both Todd and I share as well.

It's nice to share such a love with your partner, and to enjoy these things together.  It's part of the glue which helps to keep a good thing together, and to eke out the joy there is to be found in lives which are bound together with cords of love and respect . . . caring.

I am sure there are other things which I love, which could be considered hobbies . . . sewing, needlework, reading, photography . . .  and a myriad of other light things, pleasurable things, sometime affairs which bring me much joy in my life.  How about you?   Do you have hobbies?   How do you feel about them?  What brings you joy?   What gilds your lily?

I'd love to hear about them!

A thought to carry with you through the day . . .

"The moment when you first wake up in the morning
is the most wonderful of the twenty-four hours.
No matter how weary or dreary you may feel,
you possess the certainty that,
during the day that lies before you,
absolutely anything may happen.
And the fact that it practically always doesn't,
does not matter.
The possibility is always there." 
~Monica Baldwin 

There are two things cooking up in The English Kitchen today  . . . 




Creamy Macaroni Pudding.   An old school dinner favorite of Todds.  I know!  I was surprised too.  He had TWO helpings!  It's not so unusual . . . think rice pudding but with macaroni.   Delicious!



Macaroni with Tomatoes and Cheese.   My choice of comfort food.   Something which I truly love and I hope you will too!


 ☆`•.¸¸.✻Hope your day is filled´´¯`•.¸¸.٭✻.☆
♪. ♫ with the beautiful music of
♪ ☆`•.¸life!¸.✻´´¯`•.¸¸.٭✻.☆ ♫