A Trip to the Farm Shop!!!!

This was real neat today . . . Mand and I took a trip to our local farm shop which has sure grown in a good way. Both of us remember it years ago as something and nothing but now it is REALLY something!!!! It is run by a local farming family and supplied locally . . . gourmet pantry goods and deli/fresh meat/dairy as well as Somerset eggs from hens allowed to run and scratch and do what hens do naturally. There were beautiful duck eggs too which are excellent for cake-making as well as a very gourmet fruit & veg section with stuff that you don't see in the regular grocery stores - Jerusalem artichokes and celeriac as well as old variety eating apples, all very fresh and good. The little cafe was doing a roaring trade - everything homemade and its homemade cakes were also available in the store as well as homemade frozen casseroles and pies - I bought a beautiful chicken & mushroom pie which will only need a few veggies to go with it to enliven a dark Winter evening!!!! Mand and I treated ourselves to a full English breakfast AND large mugs of hot chocolate. The cafe's menu covered lunch as well as cakes, muffins and brownies along with scones together with a very good breakfast menu. The food was first class as was the service. This is definitely on our list for a return visit and I know my Big Sis would love it!!!! We're almost at our day countdown now for our Grand Christmas Vacation and our list runs to 2 whole pages!!!!! Right now for meals this week I've made cottage pie from scratch with veggies as well as a rather good rhubarb crumble (or crisp for my US readers). Big Sis and I are also having a stitchalong weekend and stitchy readers do feel free to join us!!!!!!

Stitching and recovery

My recovery from surgery has been way too long, for my liking. I know, I didn't stay home and rest as long as I should have, but I needed to be at work and couldn't do it from home. I'm almost completely healed now though. The other disturbing thing was for the first month I didn't want to stitch. That's never happened in 20 odd years. It was just too uncomfortable to stitch. I finished a little project Sis had started and gotten frustrated with. She asked me if I would complete it. I should take a pic, but it's really not mine to claim, as she did most of it.

Then I started back on The Sistine Chapel Ceiling I'm doing. It was just too much, so I had to let it go. I went back to work on Pompeji Garden. This project is taking forever to get done. It's just beautiful, make no mistake, but every section is repeated 4 times and it gets quite wearing. Well, I've now completed 3 sections totally. I just have the top left portion to do the trees and columns in, along the the scrolls in the corner. Then....all the beading. I can't even count how many beads I have to sew on. Maybe yet this decade I'll be able to post a finish in this one.

A Trip Out on a Soggy Saturday!!!!!

Yes folks it's another soggy Saturday in the UK - cat-on-your-lap and crumpet weather!!!!! Mandy and I braved the rain to visit the Courts Garden at Holt and the wonderful tea room there run by Jackie and Richard. Jackie's food is truly memorable; all homemade from best ingredients and made with care. Yes, it's a tad expensive but then this is a treat and you're paying for the whole experience and service. Although having to pay to get in as it's a National Trust property (£6 per adult entrance charge) does make a trip there expensive but we're lucky in that Mandy has a pass and we get in free!!!! My view is the National Trust tends to overcharge on everything then whines that visitor numbers are down . . . slashing entrance fees to its many properties across the UK by £2/£3 would bring visits into the range of a lot more families but then what do I know!!!! However, a large field mushroom baked with Stilton cheese served with a little salad and granary bread along with a steak & mushroom pie topped with mash and a side plate of carrots, savoy cabbage and leeks went down a treat along with coffee milkshakes, then we managed to save room for chocolate-orange bread pudding and icecream and hot chocolate fudge cake with icecream AND a second round of milkshakes on the house!!!! Our hosts work very hard and deserve their Winter breaks . . . the season finishes next weekend and they are away to Cyprus then spending a month in Antigua before opening up again in mid-February. I've attached a pic of the house and gardens although it was a grey rainy day and does not do the gardens justice. I SOOOOO wish Big Sis was there too - it's the kind of place she would enjoy and not just for the wonderful food!!!! The gardens have little paths that lead into different "rooms" and have quite a number of old-fashioned apple trees as well as a couple of medlar trees which you don't often see now. The medlar is a quaint little fruit, needing to be almost rotten (bletted) before being edible and has a taste quite unique, although it has been likened to apple sauce. I have made medlar jelly years ago and it is equally good on crumpets or to give flavor to stirfries or casseroles. Big Sis and I are having a stitchalong weekend and of course the UK clocks go back tonight, with the US

Summertime ending next Saturday. Happy stitching everyone and stay snug!!!!!

Sunny Fall Saturday

And it's real Fall now both sides of the pond. Today is kind of chilly although bright sunshine and that iceblue sky peculiar to Fall. I was out and about in town today having a haircut then heading to the bank. I see in the High Street there is a new milkshake bar offering all kinds of gourmet shakes . . . not quite sure how well this will do given it's two doors down from Starbucks and hardly the weather for milkshakes but you never know. I'll give it a whirl next time I'm in the High Street although I did have my usual treat this morning - a hotdog from the market lady and a caramel latte from Starbucks. Big Sis and "our" Mom are having a trip out this morning involving lunch which is real nice for them - I don't think Big Sis has had lunch out since recovering from her op and they both work very hard and deserve a treat - LOL!!!!! I plan on stitching this afternoon . . . I have meals for the week done - cauliflower cheese with onion as well as peppers, tomatoes and onions roasted in olive oil with a little thyme and seasoning over couscous AND roast chicken. All this with plenty of fruit and good bread will be meals for the weekend and in the week leaving me plenty of time for stitching!!!!!! Of course we are on countdown to vacation and I bought the first Christmas present today - go me!!!!! My grocery store is already stuffed with Christmas goodies, never mind Halloween!!!!! And at my hair salon today I have only one appointment now at the start of December before vacation - YAAAAAAAYYY!!!!! It is a treat to have a hair trim . . . the salon I go to is very professional yet very friendly and my stylist knows what suits me and doesn't try to make me change from this. Head massages are standard after washing and I could easily drift off to sleep having one of those!!!!! Fortunately I keep to a short style and it only takes my stylist moments to snip and snap this into place. They had Halloween decorations up and it looked really good with bats and ghosties fluttering here and there!!!!! A good professional cut means that when my Big Sis picks me up at the airport I don't look like I've been dragged through a hedge backwards!!!!! Of course some travellers don't seem to care - I've even seen a few arriving at US Visitor Immigration wearing PJs and wrapped around with an airline blankie which I think is a tad excessive but each to their own!!!!! Now back to stitching and hot chocolate!!!!!!

Saturday Greetings!!

A Happy Stitching Saturday to all stitchers out there!!! Big Sis and I have declared this to be a Stitchalong Weekend and I'm just taking five for a snackie, drink and a blog post. It's a real chill damp Fall day outside in Darkest Wiltshire . . . the kind of drizzly rain that gets into your bones if you're not careful!! My friend Mand and I visited an old market town near to where we live and treated ourselves to a full English breakfast in the Polly Tearooms!! Very old-fashioned and wonderful!!!! The town itself is old-fashioned and the stores reflect the fact that the town is in a "moneyed" area and near to racehorse breeding country which means folks who live in and around the town have ooodles of dosh. There's a real nice old-fashioned butcher's shop in the High Street which, although the prices are somewhat eye-watering, the quality of the meat is first-class and a little will go a long way!!!! There's also a high-end grocery store for more treats and quite a few interesting little stores for clothes and other stuff. If you cut through a little alleyway and walk past where I used to work you end up in the watermeadows behind the High Street and can feed lots of ducks, moorhens, cootes and other wildfowl as the River Kennet winds its way leisurely. In many ways it's a timeless place - my parents enjoyed visiting and the Polly Tearooms has been in the High Street forever and its Cream Teas are legendary!!!! Years ago when I was small there was an old-fashioned sweet shop in the High Street which sold the best sugar mice in the world but now this is long gone although you can still get sugar mice in the Polly along with lots of other cookies and cakes and candy - all homemade!!!! However our visit today was short as the drizzly chill rain was not conducive to window shopping or feeding ducks!!! Big Sis has the same weather and we both agree this is cat-on-your-lap weather and just perfect for stitching!!! Dinner tonight was comfort food courtesy of one of Nigel Slater's supper recipies . . . leftover roast chicken with couscous, chives and peas in a dressing of lemon, orange and good olive oil plus a little seasoning. He used pea shoots in his recipe but I had peas and it's all about making use of what you have on paw!!! It was very good and I think some of my sourdough bread would go well another time. It was also quick to put together which is what I wanted . . . sometimes you need something good but which doesn't take ages to make!!! Enjoy the weekend folks and happy stitching!!!!

Another Sunday . . .

And here we are dear readers at another Sunday . . . as I write it's getting dark in the wilds of Wiltshire and Fall has well and truly arrived. Beautiful blue-sky Fall days - the sunshine having that peculiar Autumn quality about it along with a smokey mushroomy scent that follows you as you crunch your way through the already drifting leaves on the sidewalk. Big Sis and I are just over 10 weeks to vacation and we can't wait!!!!! I'm very happy to report that Big Sis is almost fully recovered now and for that I am SOOOOO thankful!!! No sourdough breadmaking this weekend as I had to sign up with a new opticians in town yesterday for contact lens supply and today I had a new fridge/freezer delivered as my old one was due for replacement. Over here these appliances seem to have a life of around 7-8 years and I wanted to replace mine before it died on me!!!!! Of course what I really wanted was a proper half-and-half fridge freezer but have had to settle for a little less than that as I was told half-and-half ones "aren't made any more madam" - what utter tosh!!!! The icing on the cake was the delivery time I paid for (paid for note!!!!) wasn't met and the thing was delivered almost an hour late with no apology. However when I raised hell with the store's customer services I was grudgingly informed I could get a refund of the delivery charge (a whopping £25) by trolling back to the store and presenting my receipt. It nearly didn't get through my front door till one of the delivery guys had the bright idea of turning it on its side and jiggling it through - don't they train these guys before they let them loose on an unsuspecting public????!!!! The store's delivery paperwork refers to our highly trained delivery staff which really is stretching a point!!!!! OK - rant over but I fear we'll have to go through this all again when I replace my little under-the-counter size freezer in a couple of weeks' time!!!!!! Sourdough breadmaking will recommence in a couple of weeks' time. I managed some stitching today but could really have done with a restorative in the spiritous liquor line - cheers!!!!!! One of my adopted stepfather's killer G&Ts would go down a real treat right now . . . he makes the best G&Ts going you know - stuffs the glass (tall, it's no good having a G&T in a tumber!!!!) with ice, proper slices of lime and generous measures of good gin and tonic - bliss!!!!!! Of course anything is much nicer when it's made for you and presented on a tray!!!! He is a generous host and I recall one time he kindly gave me a glass of Irish whiskey - I'm not keen on whiskey as a rule but Irish whiskey has a certain smokey something about it. It was a generous measure and for the rest of the evening I could feel myself getting comfier and comfier in the chair, while knowing I had to make it out to Big Sis's car when it was Time To Go Home!!!!! Big Sis says I was smashed but even though it was a shock when the cold air hit me (it was Winter and slippery underfoot from snow) I could still walk unaided and didn't require pouring into her car!!!!!! Here's to our readers *raises glass of fizzy mineral water* and check back next week for updates!!!!

The Bread is Done!!!!

Now I'm here to tell you dear readers that I had another go at sourdough breadmaking today and what a difference!!! I made one loaf with my own starter and the other with a bought San Francisco culture - just check out the pix!!! Very satisfying crisp crust and a YUMMMM taste!!!! I did tweak the recipe to make it my own and this is Little Sis's Coldwater Canyon Sourdough Bread!!! Big Sis and I are definitely making this over our December vacation and it will be SOOOOO good with chicken noodle soup and casseroles. She's making bean soup tomorrow and I wish I could send her some of my bread for real to have with that. We both find it real satisfying to cook from scratch although we find it strange that a whole generation seems to have lost the skill and knowledge of turning leftovers into tasty meals and cooking from scratch generally. There's a cookery program on over here right now - Nigel Slater is showing how to make the most of suppers using what he grows in his small garden and also leftovers. It's all common sense that my mom and grandma did almost in their sleep and Big Sis's mom did too but it seems hardly anyone these days knows how to either shop on a budget or possess basic cooking skills. I don't write this in a big-headed way but rather sadly as it seems to us that a lot of illnesses could be alleviated by less junk food and more good homecooked stuff. And yes before you start throwing rocks dear readers and complaining you work all day and don't have time, etc, etc I do know ready meals have their place but just ONCE a week maybe make something - for me it's a great stressbuster!!!! And on to stitching now - it's a stitchalong weekend and both Big Sis and I plan to stitch up a storm!!! Have a great weekend folks and make the most of the nice Fall weather!!!!