A Bug's Eye View.

Wedding fever seems to have subsided a bit and things are getting back to normal here in Carlisle. Young people are back to school, I'm back to work and already looking forward to my day off. Also gearing up for my physics module, It is an essential part of my course and it doesn't fill me with great excitement. I thought you might like to have a look at these pictures that were taken during our days out and about last week. They are how I imagine all the bees and bugs might see their world.....

Reed Forrest

Dandelion Tree

Pink Blossom Carpet

Narcissis Sky Scrapers

It's a Jungle out there.

The Real Wedding Cake.

I know, I know, it's supposed to be a secret. BUT I thought that you bloggy people should be the very first to see the real weddiing cake. All those guests at Westminster Abbey will only be allowed to taste the alternative cake...... (and none of them will know what we know).
I have been invited to watch procedings with friends. I am delighted with this arrangement as hubby and children are being very ba-humbug about the whole affair. They are going off to do their own thing and I am taking the real cake to our tea party. Would you like a peek? look away now if you don't want to see...

Whatever you decide to do tomorrow I hope you have a great day. xx

Easter at Acorn Bank.

We decreed a family outing was required after lots of effort in the garden over the past few days. More of which later.
K and I drove down to Acorn Bank whilst the much more athletic / motivated Y cycled and met us there for tea and cake. D was, of course, much too busy doing his own thing and so didn't come along / missed out.
It was a beautiful day and we wandered around the herb garden which, reputedly is the biggest collection in England. There was also an Easter egg hunt which K took part in (her main reason for wanting to go) and of course came away with a chocolate egg.
The tulips and other early flowers were out in abundance and after fiddling with my camera for ages, I eventually found the macro options, hence today's photo offerings.....

Arachnophobes look away now...

A peek inside this tulip...

Fern fronds just begining to uncurl...

Curled bark....

Yellow poppies..

Spot the pollen..

Blowing in the breeze..

Fennel fronds....

Forget-me-not..

I'm back. K and I had a lovely few days "up north". As you may remember from my last post, one of the reasons that I wanted to go up (apart from seeing family) was to take some pictures. The idea was to create some Moo cards for my Brother-in-law. Actually my sister would like some as well but one set at a time please. With a birthday coming up and the spring light at its best I snapped away in the garage and poked around in the shed. Isn't it amazing what you find in sheds....
I wanted the cards to reflect his interests, hopefully he will agree. Here is a selection of what I came up with. I didn't think you would want to see them all as I took full advantage of the different image on each card offer..... They are displayed pretty much as they will be on the cards as I really like the mini cards, very cute and a bit different.

Spring really does get going a bit later on Royal Deeside which is great as we can see it all again. The displays of daffodils in Aberdeen are ledgendary but these were on the road-side just outside the house....

The garden pond has a real spring in its step too. There were literally hundreds of tadpoles, tiny newts, pond skaters and new plant life abound....

K and I came home "over the top".. past Ballater and Braemar. The roads weren't too busy as the tourists are probably waiting until any chance of snow has gone, there are still wee pockets up on the tops. The weather was fabulous and we stopped a couple of times to admire the view (and visit cafes)...

This cottage is in Braemar, just look at the view....

The burns up this far are still quite high with melt water although further down the rivers looked less full as there hasn't been any rain for quite a while (in Scottish terms I mean).
The last stop on this part of the journey was to call into a house that I stayed in when I was very young. The owners were out but as the gardener was there, no pictures.. I thought it might seem a bit odd. There was no gardener when we stayed there and I have to admit it looks a bit sanitised now. The trees have been replaced by lawn and flower beds. The grass has been taken over by a swimming pool. (In a wooden house, probably a bit chilly for an outdoor one). Don't know what was wrong with the woods and burn personally but there you go....

To pack or not to pack.

Tomorrow K and I are heading over the border. It's a bit of a girly adventure, staying with my sister and just doing stuff. As I have to go to work first we won't be able to leave until about 5pm which means stopping to eat along the way. How does Dundee sound? Have you any idea how long it takes to drive to beautiful Royal Deeside from Carlisle? Nearly forever... well at least long enough to ask "Are we there yet?" about a million times..

What to pack? No I'm not organised!  Here I am blogging away when I should be packing. How about some of these?..
.

They may well be needed. But then we might go shopping... And visit my parents, and be nice to this fellow who is really much more friendly than he looks....

Chester


Perhaps I need to be more organised and should have bought some of these to take....

Actually much as I love my sister she wouldn't  have a hope as I took this photo outside Liberty's in London last week and I was too frightened to look at the price although they were THE most beautiful colour. Still it's the thought that counts.
Must go and put the camera in as I've been asked to do some piccies to use for Moo cards. A project... exciting! Have a good weekend Xxx

That'll be an oops then....

First of all thank you to Susan for my very special blog award. It was waiting for me when I got back from my little break in the BIG SMOKE. I will have to cosider who to pass this on to as the award is to be given to blogs that are either new or have less than 100 followers. I will think about this and post later in the week, watch this space...

What else? ... Agnes has been sick... it all started with a cold kitchen one morning and escalated ino having to do a re-light several times over a few days. Not convenient and quite a lengthy process. Yesterday it all came to a head and the doctor was called...

As you can see this doesn't look good..... However she was rebuilt and looks as good as new, especially as she was much easier to clean when a bit on the cool side. She can be a bit hot and fiesty at times...

Now we are all set, except not quite, as her thermostat is gone and a new one needs to be ordered. At the moment we are on manual control, a bit of a dodgy business.
The BIG SMOKE was fabulous.. no children, lots of good food including a visit to Maze. no photos though as  I thought it wasn't quite the done thing. We went for the early evening Wine -Flight menu. A safe option perhaps considering that the most expensive bottle cost a mere £1600. Needless to say we didn't try that one.

Oggled all the mad shoes in Harrods and agreed that even if we had the money we would probably give them a miss....

This pair was mild, honestly....
Hope you are all enjoying the beautiful weather....Speak soon love Helen xx

It's not quite right....

How many times have you read a recipe through, gathered the ingredients, read through again and something doesn't sit quite right?
Yesterday K was very keen to bake. It had to be chocolate cake and it had to be just the right one, the cake of her dreams.
She decided upon this one. Brooklyn Blackout cake from the hummingbird Bakery.
The cake went well, very well and I would certainly make it again. BUT I'm not so sure about the chocolate custard filling. The recipe says to add 200g of cornflour to the cocoa, sugar, syrup and water mix and then to cook until very thick. We got to very, very thick almost immediately and I hadn't added all of the cornflour. It tastes just a little bit bland as if it needs a little something.....

We only used about 1/2 of the custard mix but the cake still went down really well both at home and at work where a lot of my 'testing" takes place. It looks good but, I think needs some more work. Watch this space....

It seems like quite a while since I last posted. Work seems to have got in the way. I still haven't decided about a colour scheme but no doubt it will all come together in the end.
I have been off work today. Well in the sense that I didn't leave the house at 8am. K has to provide cake for a sale at school this evening to help raise money for a connecting schools project. I'm sure most of you will understand that this means I have been baking......
Requests were made, but this is also an opportunity to try out something new......

I've attempted Martha Stewart's Hummingbird cupcakes with pineapple flowers and......

My own version of Nutella cakes with candied hazlenuts.....

Chocolate cake is always popular.....

And a grown up lemon sponge... just hope it all goes well and doesn't come back home!

Decisions, decisions.

As of last month, we have lived here for 13 years. When we first moved in we were a bit overwhelmed by the sheer size of the place and, with two very small children we rattled around a bit. Quite quickly we got used to the space but not the very 1970's decor. For a long time we had to live with it, swirly carpets and all.
Then slowly, slowly we started to change things. We have done our best to keep the original features of what was a Victorian rectory. This wasn't easy as the family that were here before us had strived to remove all evidence of the Victorians and indeed those that followed. To be fair, the fashion at the time was to modernise whatever the cost. All of the bedroom fireplaces had been removed and it was only good luck and the determination of one builder that stopped the beautiful staircase frome being boxed in.
We reach 2011 with only two rooms left to tackle as things had been put on a back-burner a bit when I was having treatment. Feeling well now, I really want to get going again and perhaps get all the work finished over the next year or so.
The window people are booked to restore the sashes and we can finally take the last bits of secondary glazing to the tip. We'll even be able to open the windows in the lounge or perhaps I should say Drawing Room.
Our bedroom is the only other remaining room and I won't be sorry to see the pink blown vinyl wallpaper being stripped off and replaced. Interestingly this was the only room not painted in a shade of magnolia but it isn't good, not good at all.
So what about THE room? Let me show you what we have now. All suggestions are really welcome because I am well and truly stuck with this one... The room is big, about 17 x 17 feet with south and west facing windows. The shutters will be sorted so that they can actually be used and stripped to a warm pine colour.

I have just started stripping the fireplace which is yellow sandstone under the paint. (what possessed them to paint all the fireplaces I really don't know but  this is the last one to show its true colours). We will also take away the 70's style slate and open up the fireplace a bit. Either a stove or Spanish basket arrangement will be put in depending on what we find when excavations are started.....

The little scrap of paper was just peeking ot when I took a piece of paper off today...

The table has been moved to what will become the dining room but the piano will have to stay, it's just too big to move and although bought originally to take up a bit of space is now well used by no. one son.
Looking forward to your suggestions.

The Power of Water

Another favourite walk tok K and I to Gelt Wood today. It has been very wet here recently and as you can imagine the river is running high. Over the years visiting here I have been amazed by the way the water has carved out a course for itself through the valley.

Man too has spent some time here carving away at the sandstone in the old quarry...

We stopped at what has become a favourite spot for a rest, a picnic and in the summer at least a bit of a paddle. Can you spot the stolen / borrowed wellies?

We spotted this beautiful bracket fungus along the way...

Before heading home for a piece of almond pear tart.....

In Search of Spring.

Some of you have written about the signs of Spring and posted beautiful photos. Up here however things are a bit slower, more considered or perhaps still feeling the chill. I set out to see if i could find any evidence.... yes there are snowdrops in the garden and I should probably have photographed them but I wanted to be a bit more adventurous and so set off to Talkin Tarn . The walk around the Tarn is just over a mile and we used to go quite a bit when the children were small. A promise of icecream or hot chocolate usually made sure of a winge free excursion. Today though, I was on my own, no cafe stop needed. 

It was absolutely freezing and I was glad of my down jacket and hat as I met up with this fellow... his rather shy new wife refused to have her photo taken or perhaps it was the other way around...

There were signs though....

and this....

the council have taken over the upkeep of the Tarn and apart from starting to charge for parking, not much else seems to have been done. Perhaps it's too early to see what they have been up to but at least they've left the special seat that looks out over the choppy water...

And the old tree that fell down in the winter storms....

Time to head home and inject my own little bit of spring with some orange sponge...

Which, turned out like this....Spring blossoms.......