Happier Outside

Every now and again I crack. When all the bits of things I'm trying to juggle come crashing down and I don't know how to pick them all up again. What's most ridiculous (and I've given myself a good talking to about it) is that these things aren't life threatening or damaging. Just stressful. I'm not very good with stress.

And with me it's always work stress that brings things crashing down and it did for me again this week. Working fewer hours (not through choice), with more and more demands and yet again lots more change, has proved rather too much.

I find it hard to switch off and keep thinking of what there is to do and how to do it. Again, not through choice. I'm not a workaholic or a career mad type. I just want to do a good job. When I'm there.

There have been tears and sleepless nights this week but I've had enough of that. Other people have real problems, at least I've still got a job, or part of one. So today I'm at home with my precious boys and I knew just what would help. Getting out. I wanted to feel the wind blow, kick leaves about and hear them laugh.

Bless them. It never fails. How can you be distracted by anything else when you have such joyful, funny inquisitive souls for company.

We laughed, visited the pigs who live in the wood, found colourful leaves and played see saws on fallen logs.

And when we came home we brought a little of the outside in and made leaf bunting and some lovely stained glass leaves for the windows, inspired by Lou.

As usual improvisation was the name of the day (I never seem to have the right crafty things at the right time) but it turned out that colouring in waxed discs for jam pots works pretty well instead of tissue paper. Not sure where my boys have seen pink and purple leaves but I think they're pretty marvellous.

So I'm feeling much better, calmer and rational. It's only work. I can only do my best. Onwards and upwards as they say. Tomorrow is another day and it's autumn after all. So I will smile x

Last and First

This is usually the week when the first autumn frost blackens the foliage of tender plants in my garden. Even though the sun shone the air was sharp this morning and my breath rose in clouds as I pottered about with the hens.

Almost time for the garden to go to sleep. Each time I look at the borders there are more gaps and more brown stems as it fades away.

Picking my final bunch of flowers for the house has become an annual ritual, a marker of the seasons that I have come to love. I don't feel sad, thankful rather to my little garden that has given so much through spring, summer and early autumn and it jolly well deserves a rest.

This is my final hurrah posy that celebrates another colourful growing season. There are a few odd blooms left but gradually everything is fading and I'll leave those last ones in place for the bees and insects to enjoy while they can.

Our garden falls away from the house and as the season moves on and the leaves fall from the hedge and trees, the view across the valley really opens up so we get to enjoy the hills and the visiting wildlife while the garden slumbers under the frost and snow.

Inside, the lamps go on earlier and I love to close the curtains and light the house as the sun goes down sooner and sooner each evening. This little corner of the kitchen is a favourite cosy spot and I'm enjoying what I suppose are the last bunch of dahlias from the greengrocer this year too.

Chrysanthamums are still going strong of course. Mine are almost, almost ready so I'm bringing them into the greenhouse to keep Jack Frost's nippy fingers off them.

So these are the last but what is the first?

Well, today was the fist time I got that flippy, excited tummy feeling when I cast my mind to thinking of what I might be preparing and cooking at Christmas.

Too early to plan I know - but never too early to imagine!

P.S. Thank you, thank you so very much for all your wonderful messages of support for my little vintage venture. Every word of good wishes and encouragement has been really, really appreciated this week. And to everyone who has purchased thank you so much again. I've certainly kept the village post office busy this week! More lovely things coming soon. Xxxx

A Little Vintage Venture

Well I've been meaning to do this for a long time and finally I've conquered (sort of) the technology and I have a little vintage web shop open for business.

Curlew Vintage is a small virtual shop stocking treasures that I find on my travels and haven't space at home to display or imagine someone else may want to give a home to. From 1940s Christmas decorations to crochet blankets for cosying up with, there's plenty to choose from.

My aim is to keep things affordable as anything vintage seems to have rocketed through the roof recently but things are becoming harder to find.

I'll be adding a new selection every few weeks so keep checking back and I'll put up reminders on the blog.

I hope you enjoy having a browse and if you notice any problems or things that need fixing please let me know! This just a little hobby for me, not a big business but I promise to make sure I'm top notch for service and will get anything to you as quick as a flash.

So here goes... Curlew Vintage is online!

Golden Garden

It definitely feels like summer outside this week, but there are plenty of signs that we're already well into the season to follow. It was hot and balmy this afternoon but while I got some gardening jobs done I realised that the sky was rather still and very quiet. All this dreary summer long the housemartins, who nested above our bedroom window, have flitted in and out as they raised their four broods and every sunny day the skies over the meadows were thick with birds chattering and calling to each other.

But now they've gone. Off again for another year, maybe heading out across the Channel or pausing down south for a pit stop while the sun shines again. Driving past the farm yesterday there wasn't a swallow left sitting on the telegraph wires. Susan Hill likens the arrival and the departure of the swifts as "hidden apostrophes around the summer" as most are gone by the second week in August. The housemartins though stretch the season on and it seems strange that the week summer finally reappearred, they have not.

My Sarah Raven sweet peas have been a roaring success this year. The scent from this dark mix I planted in a half barrel on the patio are so heady that it carries on the breeze and into the house. My only problem with them is that once they're in a jug they can look rather sombre without all the greenery. I've mixed mine in with other flowers but next year I think I shall plump for the brights mix instead.

Another sign of Autumn despite the tempreatures. I've spent the afternoon potting up crocus and narcissi for a lovely show by the doors early in the spring. While I was at it I put these sweet cyclamen and a pretty heather in a planter for some colour for this season. I'll add a few more I think and in a month or so I'll pile up some gourds we've been growing and a pumpkin or two on the doorstep.

Florence in the garden 

The hens have really matured now and we're finding two or three eggs a day, the boys are besides themselves! Plenty of arguing goes on everyday about who's turn it is to check.

Autumn flowers are filling the garden with late colour and the bees are having a field day. Helianthus Lemon Queen (I think, it came from the WI with no label!) is a real favourite of mine. I should have staked it really I suppose but I do enjoy the way it weaves and waves around. Last Autumn I split it and now it bookends my patio border and I get a lovely view of it from the kitchen window with pots of dhalias behind.

I've added lots of asters to the garden this year. I think ideally, if I had the space, I'd indugle in a big prairie scheme but with fewer grasses (not so mad about those) but in our little patch I'm adding asters and rudbekias where ever I can manage to fit them.

This lovely plant is Aster Little Carlow, I've been wishing for it for a long time and found one at the Chatsworth Plant Fair a couple of weeks ago on an afternoon out with my sister.

Not sure which this is, it was the only flowering plant in our garden when we arrived and its a very lovely thing. There's something so simple but perfect about asters. I love the colours and the way they wave in the breeze and look fantastic in this low, golden late September light.

 

Talking of which, the sun has just set. 7 o'clock and dusk outside already. I can hear a tawny owl calling from the wood. Must go and fetch that washing in and put the hens to bed. Night night.

Thrifty Autumn Outfit

Now I know summer is supposed to rocket back in later this week and bring us the sort of temperatures we haven't seen around here since April, but that's a blip as far as I'm concerned. There is a bowl full of conkers on the kitchen table, asters in a jug on the mantelpiece and I've cooked a crumble already.

All this means that it is most definitely autumn and therefore perfectly fine to wear my pumpkin coloured cardigan. So I have. With my new frock. Both fairly recent charity shop finds (cardi = Per Una, dress = Florence & Fred at Tesco), I've been waiting and waiting for the temperature to drop so that I can team these two with my faithful brown boots and some delicious looking, rusty orange tights I found in New Look last week.

Oh I do like wearing frocks with tights and boots. There is a cosiness to this sort of outfit that I can't describe. I am just so much more comfortable in this attire than thin summery skirts and things with short sleeves.

So I will succumb to the sunshine later in the week and wear something light and airy, but inside I shall be railing and wishing for a nip in the air.

Have a lovely week. First recipe added to the home cooking page at last. More to follow soon!

Foraging Time

It seems our hedgerow harvest is a little behind most of the country. I've read of people missing the blackberries already but around our way only a few have ripened so far. I tramped across the fields this morning, dodging the showers and sheltering under beech trees when the rain was heavy, on a little foraging trip hoping for fruit.

Solo tramping was very relaxing but rather quiet. My little men begged to stay at home today and finish some mammoth Lego construction with daddy supervising and who am I to argue? After a long week, concentrating hard at school all they wanted was to be left to play, cosy in pyjamas with toast and hot chocolate to keep them going. I think they deserved it.

There were hips and haws a plenty on the hedgerows and some beautifully dusky sloes but as we're not really drinkers I thought I'd leave those for the birds rather than take them to make sloe gin with.

I've had my eye on a lovely crab apple tree all summer but the little fruits are still quite hard, bright green and firm on the tree so another forage in a few more weeks will hopefully yield up a crop of rosy apples ready for picking. Crab apple jelly with cheddar cheese and some smoky ham is divine.

Hunting was much better along the canal side. In this picture you can see the line of trees I walked along (from right to left) and then I cut through the water treatment plant (with my nose closed!) and down onto the tow path.

Its a funny day today, every time I took my hood down the rain returned, even though the sun was so bright.

This is my way back, past the narrow boats home to a few hardy souls. Today there was woodsmoke curling from a chimney and the smell followed me all the way home. Autumn is truly in the air.

Wellies by the back door is a sure sign the year is getting older. Crocs and sandals are packed away for months now. Time to gather my little haul of purpleness and make a crumble for lunch tomorrow. Yippee!!

Thanks for all your lovely comments about market shopping and recipes. Its especially great to hear from people who know our little market, small world!

Quite a few people have asked for some of the recipes and now at last I have worked out how to add separate pages to my blog I though I'd add a few of my standbys over the next few days. Some are from my favourite cook books so I'll add links and credits where I can, otherwise I hope you won't mind a few random scribblings on my favourite seasonal food. Hope to have the courgette cakes and paella dishes up later this evening. Have a happy Saturday Stephx

A Saturday Away

My parents are great. After a very busy summer they offered to give Woody and me a day to ourselves and took the boys off for adventures on steam trains and up church towers. So what to do with Autumn creeping in and a whole day to potter about? Only one choice for us, off to Ludlow we must go.

Up over the Shropshire Hills the season is much further on than in the Moorlands surprisingly. Every shade of crimson, sienna and burnt umber lined the hedgerows as we trundled along one of my favourite journeys in the world from Eccleshall to Newport ,(I ignore the bit through Telford - I studied near there for a year and I just have to admit its really not my sort of town), then on across the Severn, uphill to Much Wenlock and then the final stretch to Ludlow with the mighty tower of St Lawrence's church beckoning us on.

This journey turns me into a jibberring wreck of joy but we can only contemplate coming in the season of mists and mellow fruitfullness. There's something so magical about the textures and colours of Shropshire's patchwork landscape that transfixes me.

Acre after acre of blonde, stubble fields sat hard up against newly ploughed velvety furrows that snaked around knots of woodland changing into their autumn clothes. Yesterday was a day of heavy clouds then bright low sunshine that threw amazing shadows across the countryside as the clouds scudded swiftly over a soft blue sky. No photos sadly but those pictures will stay in my head all season.

This weekend is the Ludlow and Marches Food Festival , usually the sort of busy event that would put us off visiting but being just us two we thought we'd make the most of it and enjoy a bit of festiveness. Well I did.

Going to a Food Festival with a non-foodie is interesting believe me. Woody has no interest whatsoever. He likes a good meal but only if its quick and he doesn't have to get involved.  Left to his own devices he'd live totally from the freezer and the tin cupboard. London Grill with fish fingers and a fried egg is Woody's idea of foodie heaven. I was in my element though.

So we didn't do the tented village inside the castle but we visited the Fringe stalls and had a proper linger around the market admiring cobnuts and damsons, lychees and fennel, all sorts of tomatoes and fabulous apples. Woody does however love his cheese and fruit so we treated ourselves to a few local specials and the most delicious peaches.

Mostly we just enjoyed a bit of good old fashioned sauntering, people watching and mooching. There were Sausauge Trails, Ale Trails, Waiters Races, Pudding tasting; all sort of queues for this and that but we could still potter about in one of our favourite places and just enjoy the day.

Ludlow has few chain shops and is a British pioneer of the Italian Slow Food idea that puts shoppers back in touch with the best produce from where they live with the emphasis on quality, provenance and taste.

But there are other traders too, vintage heaven with lots of lovely emporiums selling salvage, clothing, brocante and lighting but my favourite shop is a traditional ironmongers, just like Frost's where my mum and dad used to shop. You could get everything from lawn seed to a roll of lino for the kitchen floor, all in a village shop in a row of terraced houses. Brilliant.

We came home with new books, old books, a few treats to stash away for Christmas, the new Country Living (perfect timing) and a beautiful bunch of Shropshire chyrsanthemums. Mine are a way off flowering yet so these are bringing a lovely feeling of harvest to our little home for now.What a wonderful day.