love those cupcakes

Don't you just love it when...

..... your bedding matches your current book at bedtime?

..... your garden produces the prettiest blooms to fill one of your many vases?

..... your favourite lunch tastes even better when eaten outdoors?

..... your evening walk with the dog takes you past fairies flitting through the trees?

And don't you just hate it when someone mutters something about someone else being very possibly away with the fairies?

 

Weekend in verbs

Watching Jurassic World.  Saturday night, the cinema was busy, the dinosaurs were big and bad, Claire/Bryce Dallas Howard ran though the jungle in pristinely white high heels and the mister noisily chomped his way through a giant bag of salted popcorn. 

Deciding I need a coloured glass vase and buying one for a couple of quid in a charity shop in town.

Baking a batch of cupcakes.  It's ages since I made any (which is odd for someone who named her blog for the love of the finger lickingly sweet treats).  I've fallen out with piping bags and nozzles so went for a dollop of buttercream and topping overload - chopped up Reece's peanut butter cups, Snickers, Crunchies and a bar of chocolate with Malteser bits in it,  a sprinkling of dried raspberry pieces here and there, a drizzle of caramel and a final flourish of melted white chocolate.  The cake version of a Christmas selection box.

Adding to the book pile.  I had no reason to go into Waterstones but I did and, well, you know the rest. Pity I forgot to add to the points on my loyalty card.

Popping into a charity shop on the way to the supermarket to buy the afore mentioned chocolate bars and spying another glass vase.  Seems I now have a new collection.  As I was indulging in a spot of show and tell, someone here asked, 'So what are you getting rid of to fit them in?'  Like someone's some sort of Grand Master of decluttering and sorting.  Which he most definitely is not. (The answer, by the way, was 'Nothing'.  Or something along those lines.)

Wandering along the riverside, looking for ducklings and spotting not a single one.  There are none at the local pond, either.

Visiting the aunt.  She's still in hospital though no longer in isolation (a raft of tests found no evidence of any nasty infections).  Now we're just waiting for the nod for her discharge and transfer to the care home for a couple of weeks of respite which hopefully will establish new habits and routines.

Admiring someone's sartorial style.  Garboesque, I'm thinking.  Well, I suppose if you've got it...........

 

Random snippets from the lakes

After a gap of far too many years, we decided to take a trip up the A66 to the Lake District.

Our base for the week was a gorgeous little cottage (originally housing for gunpowder mill workers) on the riverside in southern Cumbria.

 

With gently flowing water, trees and a bridge just outside the front door, 

it was the perfect location.

Interesting neighbours, too.

There were opportunities galore for filling lungs with fresh air, gazing at stunning scenery, tramping across fells, wandering through woods, sauntering around lakes and just drinking in the peace and quiet.

Throw in picturesque villages to explore, waterfalls to visit,

streams to splodge in,

signs to read,

the home of a poet to investigate, 

and we had the ingredients for a wonderful week.

Motoring up 'The Struggle' and Kirkstone Pass was challenging, 

ditto avoiding the many jaywalking pedestrians,

but the views of Windermere from the summit were worth all the braking and pulling over into hedges.

There were treats, planned (yes, I'm talking shopping) and unexpected.  On the last day, we made our way towards Ullswater

and Pately Bridge

and drove down an increasingly narrow and winding lane, looking for the farm I'd read about which sells yarn produced from the farmer's own sheep and goats.  The timing was ideal as I was roped in (I didn't need asking twice) to help with bottle feeding a pair of Herdwick lambs (oh so very cute). Sadly, their mother is no longer producing milk but one of the lambs hasn't taken easily to being bottle fed and he just hung back (honestly, I was this close to weeping).  Sadly,  there are  no pictures, it was all so spur of the moment,  but they looked pretty much like these youngsters.

So, that yarn I bought.

Along with several balls of Herdwick double knitting, there's the softest angora. 

Want to see it?

Cleaned and spun, of course.

The week away turned out to be the calm before the storm and returning home was a case of coming back to earth with a bang.  The previous day there'd been a full on, break the door down emergency with the aged aunt who is currently in hospital.  Intensive home care services will kick in after a short period of residential care which hopefully will be a change for the better given the escalating difficulties we've been experiencing.

I'm still in the process of arranging what I think is referred to as 'professional trauma cleaning' of Aunty's bedroom whilst the Boy and I have taken advantage of her absence to continue sorting her house (and thankfully there's been no further sign of her four footed tenants).  

I've insisted, given the evidence of 'trauma',  we turn up wearing homemade protective gear.  With no access to hazmat suits, we tie Tesco carrier bags over our shoes, wrap scarves round our faces and wield Fabreze sprays.  Now if only I could remember where the swimming goggles are stored.....

 

Lately

Is there anything better than stumbling on a cracking book from a new-to-you writer?  Well, yes, actually, there is.  It's discovering that the book is part of a whole series of stories.  

When I was younger, I loved  the 'Susan' stories by Jane Shaw (I still have my collection) and reading about the girls at St. Clare's and Malory Towers and life in a boarding school.  Then, one of my school friends loaned me her copy of  Mystery at Wichend which set me on the path of devouring as many Lone Pine adventures as I could get my sticky little mitts on. 

As a teenager, I found Miss Marple and Poirot and worked my way through as many titles as the newsagent's shop (Tunnel's, where I'd also bought my comics and chosen a selections of glittery Christmas cards before those fab ones from Gordon Fraser hit the shelves) at the end of our street offered.  

And these days, Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without a hardback of the latest in the Scarpetta series. I've read every. single. one.

Seems I'm the same with a television series.  I never missed an episode of Bewitched, loved Morse, binged on Deadwood, still watch reruns of Friends and can't bring myself to tune in to the finale of Mad Men (just possibly my all time favourite).

Now there's Alan Bradley's brilliant series of books about Flavia de Luce (I didn't read the first two in order but I don't think that matters particularly).  Eleven years old, living with her distracted philatelist father and two odious older sisters in a crumbling pile somewhere in England in the 1950s.  A bicycle named Gladys, an inherited chemistry lab in the attic, a penchant for poisons and a nose for sniffing out a murderer.  Such larks!

This weekend was also spent enjoying another activity I'm rather partial to - nosing around other people's gardens (right up there with having a neb inside other people's homes).  This is an annual event (which included allotments this year) to raise money for the local hospice and well worth the five quid entry programme.  

The weather wasn't the kindest but at least it didn't rain as we trooped the streets and lanes of the market town up the road, looking for the next garden on the map.  Even the resident ducks joined in.  With homemade cakes and plants ('Haven't a clue what they are so you can have them for 10p') to take home, I can think of no better way of generating ideas and inspiration.  Along with maybe just a teensy bit of garden envy.