Oh what a beautiful morning .......

Saturday morning and I'm up with the larks ..... or rather dogs, cats and chooks!

After a quick coffee I took Molly and Ruby over the fields for a run ..... I love autumn mornings like these with brilliant sunshine and a slight haze in the distance.

There was a really heavy dew and Ruby was soon dripping wet

Then home for a bit of chook house clearance .... I let our first five ladies have free run of the garden while I was mucking out because they have a tendency to get under my feet!

The new girls like to have a bit of space to themselves with these bossy greedy five out of the way.

The Black Orpington .... she is huge and the colours in her feathers are like petrol blue when the sun shines on them

The Silver Cochin (roughly the size of a pigeon) and the Polish Crested

 The Buff Pekin with the Silver Pekin behind her ... the Black Pekin is a bit camera shy and was hiding in the bushes  .... I love these chooks with their feather slippers

These are the bossy crew

...... who are at the moment foraging around making a right flipping mess but getting rid of some unwelcome bugs at the same time so I will forgive them.

The view from my window .....

Yesterday I had the luxury of a couple of hours to myself so it was off to the sewing room ..... really our 2nd bedroom now vacated by grown up offspring .... why is it though that now I only have one at home, and in theory two empty rooms, I still don't seem to have much space????

With good old Ken Bruce playing in the background (I do like to shout out the answers to the pop quiz but would freeze if I was on air) I looked up and out of the window and this is what I see.

 

Across the roof of our extension into our neighbour's garden with the council houses in the background.  This is the estate where I grew up and my parents still live.  I would love to move at some point as I have always said I don't want to end my days looking at these houses!

The adventure playground cum Tom &  Barbara Good's patch .......  we have the luxury of a very long garden so the chooks are down in the bottom left and to their left is our fruit and veg patch.

Six Car Boots and a Recipe ......

Oh deep joy I have had the weekend all to myself to indulge in some serious car boot scavenging .... I haven't had a weekend like this for months and it was bliss to wander around in the sunshine with no distractions from small people.

Yesterday I went to two in Hertfordshire and today managed four in a row in Hitchin and just over the border into Bedfordshire.  Would you like to see my haul???   Well here we go .....

These are vintage linen tea cosy covers with beautiful cut work and embroidery .... I shall be lining these with some pretty fabrics and some wadding to make proper tea cosies.

A pine corner shelf which is to be painted and used for display at the Vintage & Handmade fairs .... hopefully it will be ready for this coming Saturday's first event at Market Harborough.

On it are three cute Windy Miller preserve pots from the Camberwick Green series .... a jam pot, honey pot and one for marmalade.  A set of six Babycham glasses and four blue utility ware soup bowls which are impressed Made in England but no maker (I am 99% sure they are Wood's ware) and a set of Cath Kidston vintage florals badges.

The largest jug I have ever seen standing just under 12" tall and is made by the Eastgate Pottery which was part of the Hornsea stable hence its resemblance .... it is from the fauna range and was made in the 1960s.

A Sylvac planter in the Hyacinth design ... it has the original wire 'oasis' in which to arrange flowers

An Art Deco peach glass dressing table tray

A James Kent cruet stand

Six Royal Albert bone china cups and saucers and two stoneware bed warmers ..... I'd spotted them on a stall but wandered off only to be tapped on the shoulder by my cousin.  I tend to be blinkered when booting with head down and don't take much notice of stall holders unless I want to buy something ..... I'd walked straight past her and it turns out she was selling a load of stuff from her ex's old aunt's estate and had a shed load of stuff.  She hates doing car boots and said she was going to dump the rest of it!!  Hold on there says I and you guessed ..... I'll be hot footing it to her place to rescue what I can.

I am dividing my haul between the fair, Ebay and my little country Aladdin's Cave.

Do you have time for the recipe ???

We have some onions in the garden and a workmate of my husband's had given us potatoes, carrots and turnips so I had a flick through my recipe file and found this which is delicious

Sausage. Black Pudding & Potato Bake

2 onions

cooking oil

3 good size potatoes (I added a couple of turnips too or any root veg could be used)

6 sausages (I used Cumberland)

1/2 ring of black pudding (skin removed)

500ml chicken stock

S & P

Cut the onions and potatoes into large chunks and fry in the cooking oil until coloured ... keep the skins on the spuds for extra flavour

Place the above into a roasting tin

Cut the black pudding into 1" chunks and cut the sausages in half.  Add a little more oil to the pan previously used for the onion mix and fry them.

When nicely coloured add the chicken stock and season.  Bring to boil and then add to roasting tin.

Roast in the oven at 170 degrees C (Gas 5) for 30-40 minutes  or until the stock has reduced to a syrupy glaze.

We had ours with some boiled carrots followed by Apple & Blackberry Crumble .... apples and blackberries from the garden of course.  I love being able to wander down the garden and pick what I need to make a meal .... closely followed by my fan club who live in hope of a treat ;-)

The girls will be getting ready to greet some new arrivals this week ... we have half a dozen bantams coming from a friend of ours.

Hope you have all had a glorious weekend x

Jewels in the Crown

We seem to have gone jam crazy in our little corner of blogland and to follow up last week's Strawberry Jam today we have been picking redcurrants from the garden.  My redcurrant bushes are somewhat of a family heirloom .... they were originally on my dad's allotment but when he had to give that up some 15 years ago following a stroke, we dug them up and transplanted them to the bottom of our garden.  This year has seen a bumper crop and just over 4lb was picked this morning and they have now been stewed, pulped and drained and the liquid is waiting to be turned into jelly tomorrow.  The children thoroughly enjoyed doing this and one of them even arrived this morning with a tub of blackcurrants that she had picked from her own garden last night .... we now have six jars of blackcurrant jam to add to the collection.

While the littlies were busy picking the fruit I did a little weeding in the veg patch and pulled our first onions and baby beetroot.

and one large lonesome courgette!

We have a little sea of sunflowers in the veg patch which weren't intentionally planted ..... these must have been scratched in by my dear chooks before Mr Fox arrived.

I have also had a lovely lavender bush for years but alas Mr Lala was let loose with some secateurs last year which is always a bad move.  He has a nasty habit of snipping off all the new growth and leaving the dry woody bits underneath and this proved too tempting for one naughty spaniel last year .... she chewed it to bits!

So a dilemma .... I like to make lavender bags for the Christmas markets later in the year but with no lavender to harvest what was a girls to do???  Then the brain cell leapt into action and I posted a wanted on my local Freecycle group and received a tremendous response.  This is what I have so far and there is more to come.

It smells heavenly and should keep me going for a while.  One lovely lady also let me harvest some seeds from her lupins and said I can go back again for more lavender if I need it.  This got me thinking that there are gardens out there with an abundance of fruit growing this year, most of which will be left to the birds so what better way of food thrifting ..... join your local Freecycle group and see what you can find.

On the subject of thrifting I will end with some of my car boot goodies from last weekend.

Total spend = £12.50

Easter Holidays Week One

Well I promised myself that I was going to make the most of my week off and I certainly have!  It was all made so much easier by having some lovely dry sunny days to give me the get up and go that I thought had got up and gone.  My bedroom has been cleaned from top to bottom and de-cluttered (slightly) and I was collecting such a pile of bits and pieces I decided to take a pitch at my favourite local boot today.  I love this one because it is so well organised, I don't have to get there till ten and it is only £4 per pitch.  I left at two o'clock some £130 richer and have gained a few more square feet of empty space in the house.  What's left is going to the charity shop or on Freecycle

The view from my pitch .... it was slightly cooler today and a little breezy and I feel so much better for getting a lung full of fresh air.  I was very good too and didn't buy too much ..... a large bag of buttons (left on Jack's buggy so I haven't been able to sort thru them yet) ... some lovely first readers for Ellie .... a bubble machine (so handy because I went to Toys R Us on Friday and bought a large bottle of bubble mix and batteries for mine and the damn thing wouldn't work) which has saved me around £15 on buying a brand new one ..... ten wooden coat hangers for just a £1.

I even took along my crochet bag and managed to get a few rows done when the mad rush died down .... I've been working on these this week

The garden is coming to life too with a bit of colour emerging here and there ..... the patio is tidied and an old wooden bench that was no longer safe to sit on is now making a very handy plant pot holder.

The first Camelia flower

I've also been receiving from Freecycle this week .... a carrier bag full with sewing patterns from Prima and ME magazines dating to 1988-1992 .... some of them I remember buying all that time ago .... here are a few snippets which wouldn't look out of place today

My other find was a pile of knitting patterns ..... there are some gems in here

Don't you just love that trike!!

and Sindy ..... what a classy chick!!

Now for a quiet Sunday evening in preparation for the onslaught tomorrow ... I have six little darlings to care for and had better start thinking about how we are to spend the day which starts at 8.00 am with the arrival of the first ones and won't end till around 6.00 pm when the last one goes.  My friends think I am totally mad but I'd much rather be here with them than sitting in a traffic jam and stuffy office all day.

Hope everyone else had a lovely sunny weekend x