love those cupcakes

Love story......kind of

It just sort of happened.

When I least expected it.

I fell in love.

                                                                                           (Source:  http://www.primelocation.com)

With a little cottage in an attractive village not too far away.

It's currently for sale.

I'm up for a change and can just imagine living there. 

I'm sure we could easily manage with less space.  (After a bit of serious sorting and  decluttering and furniture downsizing.)  

The name is perfect.  (If I did any less, I'd be comatose.)

Boo would thoroughly enjoy the easy access to the countryside.

The cats would soon adapt.

But the Man from Del Monte, he says no.

Ah well, as love affairs go it was short.

But sweet.

 

What's for dinner?

I'm in the process of changing (ordered but not yet delivered) our everyday plates and dishes.  The mister here wonders if other people do this as frequently as we seem to do. 

For daily useage I don't choose anything expensive so that they can be replaced when the inevitable chips appear or changed quite easily when I get sick of the sight of them.  This time round I've gone for this design. (The smaller plates and bowls have an all-over pattern.)

We have other sets (sadly nothing in the way of family heirlooms) which have changed over the years, just not so frequently, and which come out for different occasions along with mix and match serving bowls and dishes. 

One I'll keep forever is the first one we ever used, the one my late brother bought us as a wedding present and which always comes out at Christmas as it doesn't matter what the table colour scheme is.  I've had to replace a few items which have been broken over the years but the range has been discontinued so I suspect that's not going to be quite so straightforward for any future breakages.

Then we have one from this range which is used for New Year and when we have people round for dinner.  (This replaced a rather brown Denby service.)

For summer dining there's one like this

 

or some plates in this pattern which I bought last year for those rare occasions we have dinner in the garden.

Then there's the collection of tea cups, saucers and plates which deserves a post of it's own. 

So, tell me, do you have different dinnerware for different occasions?  And do you like to spring clean your place settings and make changes? 

 

Same old, same old

Our weekends (and therefore blog posts about the weekend) seem to be following a pattern, seem to be a bit samey - beach, Boo, baking, buying.   Anyway, here are a few photographs from this one.

Perfect kite flying weather at the beach.

A knackered Boo.

Liberty for Comic Relief bag, a present from the Gorgeous Girlie.

A bit of Spring cleaning inspiration.  Yeah, right.

Spring-in-a-vase to brighten the hall.

Banana nut muffins with still runny passionfruit icing. 

That was the week that was

1. Having a new central heating boiler (a condensing one, I'm told) fitted.  And, I'd have to say, fitted badly so that what was supposed to be a job completed on Monday is still ongoing as various problems surface. ("We've never actually fitted one of these before" doesn't fill a customer with confidence, I can tell you).

There was nothing wrong with the old boiler apart from the fact that it was, well, old and probably not too efficient. Our heating bills have been bringing the mister out in a cold sweat of late though I have a feeling that the habit of some people here (and yes, I'm holding my hands up) of opening the windows wide because the bedrooms are too hot has been part of the problem.  But no more.  We now have thermosatically controlled radiators in all the rooms upstairs.  We've also discovered a leak where the boiler has been fitted in the kitchen and the pipework on the outside wall is diabolical (how I can make a feature of it, I wonder?) but some of that is hopefully going to be sorted next week.

2. Working on a lengthy report and presentations to meet pressing deadlines.  Usually there's a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment once a significant piece of work is finished but I haven't enjoyed any part of this week's.  It's meant being stuck in front of the laptop into the early hours and all in all it's been a bit of a drag.

3. Spotting a little splash of yellow as I collected the milk from the doorstep this morning.  I've been looking for signs of life in the pots at the back of the house and had forgotten I'd planted these tete a tete at the front.

4. A bit of baking.  Our now almost daily no-knead bread, a batch of very cheesy scones with a sesame seed topping and a coconut and lime cake were turned out yesterday as I took some welcome time out from all of that report writing.

5. Searching high and low for the TV remote control which had disappeared without trace after inexplicably pressing it's own buttons to change channels (who knew there was a Horse and Country channel?) and mute the volume.

Ah, mystery solved.  In case you're wondering, Boo isn't in prison.  He sleeps in a dog crate which is a recommended method for puppy training and which he now treats as his den. 

His expression reminds me of something I heard in court when I was working in the probation service years ago.  When asked how he wished to plead, one defendant replied tearfully  "I'm not guilty but I promise I won't do it again".

Shhh!

Whilst the pup was sleeping I managed to plonk a bunch of supermarket flowers that had been languishing in their wrapper in a vase,

make a little batch of chocolate topped fairy cakes (of course I won't be eating any)

and bake some bread. OK, so Boo wasn't asleep for the whole of the breadmaking process.

I have a machine but much prefer making bread the traditional way.  Apart from achieving better results (in my view), all that kneading and proving and knocking back is so relaxing and satisfying.  Especially after doing the night shift which had Boo and I in the garden at 4 a.m and 5:25 a.m. (He widdled so much yesterday we thought he'd sprung a leak).

There are other signs of progress.  The cats are slowly (very slowly) coming round, we're mastering (sort of) the "Sit" command and periods of frantic activity (what is this fascination with sockets, plugs and wires?) always end with a pup keen to climb into his bed. 

Ah yes, we ALWAYS let the sleeping Boo lie.

Enjoying the new month

Finding a little spot of sunshine in the garden.

Browsing new magazines.

Making soup.

Lighting pumpkin spice candles.

Stocking up at the charity shop.

Working from home (with a new laptop).

Buying new polo necks (oh, how I've missed you!) from here.

Ah, November.  You are so welcome.

Going green(er)

I've never been one for the colour green and have always thought it was best left to the garden and countryside.  My dad wasn't a fan either though his dislike was linked to a belief that green was unlucky.  For instance, he would never have considered buying a green car. 

I did buy one.  It was a used Ford Escort estate, my third car and the colour was a sort of metallic British Racing Green, a re-spray job by the previous owner.  I used to park it in a car park over the road from where we lived at the time as we had no garage.  One morning, I went to get into it to go to work but it wasn't there.  The police found it later that day, unharmed and parked outside the house of the bloke who'd TWOC'd it.  Apparently, he just hadn't fancied the walk home after a night in the pub.

Looking around me, though, I've been surprised to find evidence of the once avoided colour in various places:

On the kitchen wall.

 

On the floor.

  

In my mug.

It's been creeping into my jewellery box.

 

Even finding its way onto my feet.

Teamed, of course, with that old favourite of mine, black.

Tempus fugit

Time is certainly flying and there's still plenty to do before the 25th. (I think I'll just issue instructions from the sofa).   The redecorating is almost finished, though.  Well, finished in terms of what was planned for the run up to Christmas. The rest can wait until the new year. (Says she who has never lifted a paint roller in her life).   The hall is now this colour.

"Carnaby".  A sort of light teal.  Probably a bit darker than in the photograph and not bad. 

Luckily, the new doormat has arrived and just needs to be put into place.

But enough of that.  Now that another roll of sellotape has appeared I need to go and scale Mount Wrapping.

Kitchen reveal

You've had the words so here are the pictures. Our little kitchen is now more or less finished apart from some final titivating. (I quite fancy some of those stainless steel letters for one of the walls but can't decide on the wording.  Bon appetit?  Eat?  Drink?  Be merry?).   I know the end result is not to everyone's taste, but then what is?  And a bonus is that it's so sleek and shiny, it makes me want to keep everything pristine. Well, so far it does.

Before (at the start of dismantling):

 

   

 

 

After (with some new gadgets including a temperature controlled wine cooler.  To keep the 28 botles of Krug at just the right degree of coolness.  Yeah, right):

 

 

 

 

The room is a backwards "L" shape and I haven't included a picture of the bit to the right as there are just a couple of cupboards (same black doors) where we keep the waste bin (now a big fancy stainless steel number) and cleaning materials.

So that's that.  Now onto the next project.

The last one

This was the last of the mince pies from the freezer.  Devoured yesterday.  So delicious.

 

Today I started Eating Like A Normal Person again.

These paperwhites have grown splendidly in a pot on the kitchen window sill. 

 

 But they don't half pong!