Afternoon Tea

Yesterday I made a trip into town to meet Rachel, she had planned to take me for Afternoon Tea in London for Mothers Day, but I had a bad back and with us both being busy it didn't happen until yesterday. I took the opportunity to go up early and take a look in John Lewis, I love that store. There is so much I could buy if only I'd won the Euro Lottery this week, as a consolation prize I treated myself to a knitting book and some buttons.  Tomorrow Rachel and I are invited to a 'Baby Shower' a first for me, when Rachel arrived we looked around the cute baby clothes, Lisa and John (Becky's sister, extended family is so complicated) know the sex of their baby it's a GIRL, we settled on a little romper and some incredibly cute socks, and in case it's a BOY a gift receipt, not forgetting 'Mum To Be' we bought her some luxury bath stuff.

After all that retail therapy we took a stroll through a part of London I don't really know, very posh shops the security guard at this gun shop looked very unimpressed when he saw me taking this photograph, I was expecting him to fly out through the door and snatch my phone!!!!

It was a beautiful afternoon and with time to kill we sat in Grosvenor Square and enjoyed the sun and people watching.

Grosvenor Square

It was a short walk to Park Lane and The Dorchester for Afternoon Tea in The Promenade, a real treat we were thoroughly spoilt and totally full by the end of the afternoon. We started with our choice of tea, I don't drink tea so had a pot of coffee, Rachel selected the blend of tea she wanted, both the tea and coffee pots were refilled during the afternoon. Then they presented the sandwich selection (present is what they did) after this, our pallets were cleansed with a mango puree topped with coconut creme,  it was onto the scones with clotted cream and home made jam next. After a break it was the cakes, by this time we could only manage one cake each!

 I should say that you could have as many refills of sandwiches and scones and probably cake as you wanted, I feel full again just writing about it! We just had one selection of each who could eat more,  as we'd left the cakes we were presented with them in a box to take home and they had added extras (sadly they didn't travel well, too hot on the train). Rachel said I should take the cakes as it was my treat, plus Dave would enjoy them! We both were given a bag containing a tin of blended tea, some jam and various other bits. A truly lovely afternoon, thank you Rachel! We did a bit of celebrity spotting, sadly we knew the faces but not their names, an actress an actor and a TV presenter, (sounds like the start of a joke)

I shouldn't have parked my car outside the Dorchester the tube would have been better!

They didn't travel well, but Dave enjoyed them

When I got home I couldn't eat another thing all evening or face a coffee until about 10 o'clock.

ANLQS6

I've just signed up for 'Another Little Quilt Swap 6' . Yesterday Sharne posted that she's signed up again this year and Diane said she was doing it so I thought I'd join too! I'm a quilt swap virgin, so here goes...... I'm up for the challenge and thanks to Kate I've found it.

Cropping!

A visitor to the veggie patch, he or she (anyone know how you tell?) seems to like the onion patch, I prefer the grasshopper to the slugs and snails that seem to like the whole garden........

We enjoyed a good crop of blueberries at the weekend this was the second large bowl I've collected, Dave made a cage to protect them from the wood pigeons they seemed to take a fancy to them.

This was the crop for Saturday, lettuce to go with lunch, peas, beans our own potatoes and roasted beetroot with stuffed marrow. The marrows are prolific so I need to find another recipe for marrow any ideas?

Today some of The Material Girls met at my house, I feel inspired to get on with the next project sorry, I cant show you much, but here's a taster of my initial ideas, needs refining and tweaking, but its getting there!

And the disasters on the home front well, the ceiling has dried out and it looks as though it will need re-plastering. No flying ants have appeared but if they do I'll be waiting with the ant powder, horrid things.
I've a trip to London planned later in the week with Rachel it's my belated Mother's Day present (belated because I had a bad back), but I'll post about it later in the week.

Big Drip!

I've just spent 7 days in Lanzarote with my family, it was Rachel, James and Becky's first visit, we had a lovely relaxing break lots of sun. On this visit to the island we went to The Caves of Los Verdes, last time we went to the rim of the volcano this time we went under the volcano, brilliant textures, I took lots of images, what I'll do with them I've no idea! 

We all went for lunch in Puerto Calero.

Wall Art in Puerto Calero

Not Lunch

There was lots of reading, 

I also read 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro, I've still got lots of summer reads left!

When we arrived home there was a flying ants nest in the dinning room, lovely start! Wait it gets worse........At 4am I got out of bed it was raining, don't switch off yet...........
I heard a dripping coming from the spare bedroom (my workroom), stupidly I switched on the light water was pouring from the fitting onto the carpet. A shout (more of a scream) to Dave and we quickly removed 3 sewing machines and anything else that we could, then it was hunting for plastic sheets in the shed to cover up the rest of the 'stuff'. Apparently a tile has slipped and water managed to get through, damage has been done, the ceiling in the room has cracked and needs to come down and the room will have to be cleared out. Welcome Home........... I'm just so glad we only went away for one week what would have happened if we'd gone for two?

ERTF Exhibition

For more information go to the ERTF website

Feast

Yesterday afternoon we went to the 'Feast and Fayre' at Horndon on the Hill, James and Becky's brother in law, Jon played his guitar and sang. It was lovely sitting in the sun and watching the world go by, as the fayre wound down we strolled through the village to Jon's parents house for a BBQ. Sadly the cheesecake didn't make it, it cracked across the top and I wanted to make a good impression, well you do don't you? (note to self, need to practise) It was a dash to the supermarket yesterday morning and the purchase of strawberries, cream and meringues and an Eton Mess was taken to the BBQ,  it went down very well! We still have the cheesecake in our fridge, would you like a slice?

This afternoon I took time out and sat on a sunbed in the garden and read a book...... not me at all, there's always something else to do. Well, I deserved a treat I had spent the morning deadheading, and weeding, I was serenaded  by a blackbird that sang almost continually from mid day until 4pm without a break it was beautiful, what with that and a perfect blue sky, a great day.  A few photos of my garden taken this afternoon.

Thalictrum 'Elin'

Bottle Brush

Why the image above has a line through it I don't know, it must be a blogger thing. I've uploaded it on flickr without any problems. http://www.flickr.com/photos/77belle/5873691182/

Aubergine

Beetroot

Marrow

The marrow will be tomorrow's dinner, the little veg patch is doing well. Last week we emptied the first bag of early potatoes, it is enough for us for a week, the spinach and chard is providing enough for us with enough to give some away. As for the lettuce I've given some to my neighbour a few times and Dave took some to his Dad today. During the week we'll also be eating peas and courgettes, I can't believe how much a little patch provides. Oh yes, on Friday we had a bowl of blueberries after dinner, brilliant, next year I'm going to try growing strawberries.

New Neighbours and New Books

Since my last post I have met my new neighbours, 6 girls have taken up residence with Bert who is an elderly gentleman living across the road. He took me into his garden to show me his new friends something that he said he'd wanted for years, I think he's 82 so it's taken him a while to get around to it! (sorry it's not a brilliant photograph, but I'll be visiting again soon)

Then there are the 7 new books I bought to see me through the summer, but after all the reading planned I thought a treat was in order, two Christmas's ago I gave Rachel and Becky the Hummingbird Bakery book, they both have been using it a lot  and saying how good it is. Occasionally Rachel sends home a cake for me, so it had to be the new Hummingbird book, was it a mistake?

Apple and Oat Cookie

Honey and Walnut Loaf

Baked Strawberry Cheesecake, a Fathers Day special

Today I'm  making a Berry Baked Cheesecake to take as our contribution to the BBQ we've been invited to tomorrow. The favorite cake so far has been the Orange and Almond Loaf but it went so fast there was no time for a photo. I've really got back into baking, sadly it's not doing my waist line any good!

Between all that baking there's  been creativity going on too, I've finished a Material Girls project, sorry no images until the exhibition, now I'm working on the next piece.  I can show the two baby quilts that are completed, both quilts are waiting for the 'Happy Events' so I can sew the labels on, both babies are due at the end of July, so I'm ready! To make my life easy I used the same fabrics and design for both.   To preserve my sanity and keep me from getting bored, I appliqued circles on one,  although with the bright colours and jazzy patterns I don't think that would have happened. My only problem will be which Mum to give which quilt to, they don't know each other so that's not a problem.

Puppy update, two weeks ago I went to visit a lady that has Miniature Schnauzer's, and guess what, one of her bitches is expecting pups, they are due on Sunday, soooo we will be having a new addition to the family in September, fingers crossed.

Apart from that, not much else has happened apart from having a verruca blasted, I've never had one before, painful is all I can say!  And we had a wasps nest take up residence in our roof, hopefully the 'Wasp Killers' will be coming this afternoon to remove them, sadly it's in the flat part of the roof so there wont be a lovely nest for me to see, it will have to stay where it is without the wasps hopefully.
 Just a moan here, trying to keep things local I telephoned a company in the area I live in, they could come the next day, I waited and waited, then I phoned 'sorry the van had broken down, and they were so glad I'd called they had mislaid my number' MMmm! They would be there the next day, did they turn up, did they call? NO.   Today I phoned another company so we'll see what happens. At this time when financially times are tough and every day there's news of businesses going to the wall, why would you let a customer down,  I know it's only one small job but it would have been £65.00 earned in about 30 minutes.