Anemone Watch

On the 26th July, about two inches high and a tightly furled bud.



Today, about six inches high!



Basking in the morning sunlight, Friday 3rd August.

Sweet Pea Season

The more you cut sweet peas, apparently, the more they grow.  I can't wait to have them everywhere in the house.  The ones I'm growing this year are the most beautiful of colours - gorgeous muted pastels.

Fewer Cakes and More Fruit and Veg

I started Weight Watchers On-line on Thursday.  Attempts to lose weight by myself recently have failed miserably, and Weight Watchers seemed like a good idea.  I joined about ten years ago and lost over two stone - I liked the structure and the discipline and found the points system worked really well for me.

Over the years the weight crept back on - actually most of it piled back on dramatically when I started a new job - and I've been up and down ever since.  I managed to lose a stone last year and was really happy with the way it made me look and feel.

Unfortunately the winter and miserable summer so far led to serious over-eating, and at the moment I'm about two stone heavier than I want to be.  This is my "before" photo!

So, this blog will be featuring fewer cakes and more salads and low-fat meals for the foreseeable future (but will never become a cake-free zone, don't worry!). 

Weight Watchers has changed a bit since I last did it, but I've been impressed with it so far.  For those of you who aren't familiar with it, every food has a points value, and you have a certain number of points to eat per day.  You can earn extra points through exercise.  You could, if you wished, eat only very small amounts of high-calorie and high-fat food, or spend your time eating wierdly processed food which has had unimaginable things done to it in a factory to take the fat out, but the fact that you get hungry leads you to eat large quantities of "low-pointed" foods (it does me anyway).  You can eat unlimited fruit and veg (except potatoes), and things like wholewheat bread, potatoes, brown rice, eggs and low-fat creme fraiche are all low-pointed and labelled as "healthy and filling foods".  It's going to do wonders for my attempts to keep off the processed food - I've eaten so much fruit and veg since Thursday that I think I'm going to turn into something that photosynthesises.  We went shopping yesterday and I went mad in the fruit section - I love summer fruit and would, I reckon, about five times out of ten, chose a delicious succulent plate of melon, pineapple and strawberries over a plate of cake.  I bought apples, melons, raspberries, blueberries, peaches and delicious dark-red cherries (and amazingly our food bill was even a little lower than usual).  I have to say, also, that the on-line tracking is also perfect for someone who is, it's fair to say, somewhat addicted to fiddling around on the computer.  We shall see how I stick to it!

I made a gorgeous salad for my lunch.  Butternut squash roasted in olive oil, goat's cheese, walnuts, raw spinach leaves and peashoots.  Beautiful, tasty and healthy.

That was followed by creme fraiche, blueberries and raspberries.

Dinner tonight - and on several other occasions seeing as I've made enough for a small army is curry.  Onions, yellow peppers, courgettes, sweet potato, chicken, chick peas and green beans from the garden in a tomato-based sauce (made with bought curry paste).  It's cooking as I speak and I shall be enjoying it with basmati rice very soon.  It's so pretty - I love eating dishes that have lots of different colours in them!

PYO

One of the loveliest things about Summer is being able to walk outside and pick bits of your meals.

In the last week I've had porridge with raspberries and pumpkin seeds for breakfast (my favourite!)...

...bran flakes and blueberries for breakfast...

...Petit Suisse, strawberries, and flaked almonds for breakfast...

...courgettes...

...green beans...

...and 'tates!!!

Aren't they beautiful?!?!?!

Erratum
Dad says I have to issue an erratum - they're broad beans not green beans.  I knew that!

Front Garden Jobs

What could be better than gardening on a sunny Saturday morning?  Nothing, except for gardening on a sunny Sunday morning and then blogging about it!  It feels like I haven't been out in the garden for ages - and it certainly feels like it hasn't been sunny for ages - so I've just spent a lovely couple of hours doing a bit of housekeeping in the front garden.  Now I'm sitting in front of the computer with a cup of coffee - bliss.

A while ago, I sowed some spinach in the salad bed under the dining room window.  What I got was a lovely crop of dandelions and other weeds.

The herbs were in a bit of a state too.  Parsley had bolted, mint was looking sickly and chive was a bit yellow. 

So I dug up all the weeds, sowed some salad leaves, cut parsley back (not sure if this was the right thing to do or not, I suppose we'll see!), nipped mint's tips and tidied chive up. 

I also planted basil...

...oregano...

...and rosemary...

...all of which I grew from seed!  I have been meaning to plant the poor things out for weeks, they've been stuck in pots on my windowsill getting more and more pot-bound.  Hopefully now they're out and now it's sunny they'll have a growth spurt.  I had four of each, so I planted the left-over basil in between the tomato plants in the back garden, and the left-over oregano and rosemary next to the water-butt. 

Then I weeded all the raised beds and removed the weeds defacing my beautiful gravel.  I like weeding...it's very meditative.  I didn't notice until Alastair pointed him out, but I had some feline company when I was weeding the raspberry bed.  Whisk had curled up in the long grass on Yvonne's side of the fence!

Then...I dug up my poor dahlias, aka slug-snacks.  They blatantly weren't going to grow.  I replaced them with one of my colour magic geraniums, also grown from seed.  Any slugs and snails found eating it will die.  Horribly.

Then...I dug up the reluctant gooseberry.  No sign of flowers, let alone fruit so far this year - or for several years - so he had to go (poor thing).

 
Finally, I thinned my love-in-a-mist seedlings.  I've mentioned before that I hate getting rid of growing plants with a passion.  As a result, they looked like this.

If I didn't do something, they were all going to die...so I did a bit of slash and burn.

I hope the remaining plants grow big and strong and flower beautifully.  Because it's been so wet - and because the snails ate my dahlias - there's lots of foliage in my front garden but no flowers.  I'm really looking forward to flowers, and soon!

Sunshine, Flowers and Family Memories

Philadelphus, given to me by Mum and Dad...



Clematis, given to me by Mum and Dad...

Little Pink Geranium, aka "Uncle Harry Plant"...

..given to me by Mum and Dad!  Uncle Harry Plant is so named because the original clump - of which mine is a descendant - was given to Mum and Dad by Mum's Uncle Harry, my Great-Uncle Harry.  Great-Uncle Harry went over the top on the first day on the Somme on 1st July 1916, 96 years ago, got shot in the thigh, lay out all night and got taken back to Britain the next morning (historical detail unchecked, have I got it right Mum and Dad?!).  I don't remember him, but I know that he went on to live to a cantankerous old age and is famous in the family for the saying "it's too bloody daft to laugh at".  Notably, on being told that Britain had joined the Common Market in 1973, he utilised this phrase, adding that he didn't want anything to do with "those bloody Germans - they shot at me". 

I think it's proper name is cranesbill, but I like Uncle Harry Plant.  Feeling connected to your family through shared family memories is special.

Addenda from Dad

"Uncle Harry" plants growing in front of graves in Blighty Valley cemetery where lie many of his comrades from the Sherwood Foresters who went over on the first day of the Somme, July 1st 1916.

Photo taken on the morning of  28th June, 2012.

27th June, 1916 - night:  "From the trenches at Bouzincourt, the battalion took up the final position of assembly in Glasgow Street.  Heavy rain for 24 hours.  The battalion again in readiness and in the appointed place for the second time on the night of 30th June...."

Uncle Harry was your great-great Uncle...Mother's Great Uncle...Grandma and Dorothy's Uncle Harry.  Wounded below the knee...exit wound in thigh.  Wounded on the 1st, left France on the 5th, back in England on the 6th July.

Cupcake Heaven!

I spent a lovely, long and relaxing weekend at my parents' house last weekend.  On Sunday I had a mammoth cupcake baking session.  We were celebrating Fathers' Day late, so I made honey drizzled cupcakes for Dad, and as Mum isn't over-fond of honey - and because I wanted to pratice my icing after Fi's strangely-iced birthday cake - I made lemon and walnut cupcakes for Mum.  Obviously I intended to sample both, just to make sure that they turned out alright you understand.

The book was a gift from Jules which I'd not used before, and you can tell by this photo that its going to be a favourite - sticky pages are always the sign of a good recipe book!

I discovered a universal truth which I knew, but never realised how much difference it made, quite by accident: softened butter makes cake-making incredibly easy.  Mum and Dad's house boasts a lovely AGA which keeps the house toasty warm, and I left the butter in the pantry rather than the fridge...hence incredibly soft, almost liquid, butter. 

The honey drizzled cupcakes were a pleasure to make.  I established myself in front of the kitchen window looking out at Mum and Dad's lovely garden.

The butter and caster sugar were creamed...

...and the beaten eggs were stirred in.  The eggs were from a neighbour's chickens - look at that lovely bright yellow colour.

Then the dry goods were added...

...and folded in with a metal spoon.  Finally, some chopped walnuts were stirred in.  I like big chunks of nuts in my cakes, so I didn't chop them finely at all.

As it was Fathers' Day, Dad was allowed to lick out the bowl.

Then the cupcake cases were filled and popped in the AGA for 20 minutes or so. 

They sat on the top of the AGA for a few minutes first to warm.  Eric, Mum and Dad's 20 year-old (!) cat, supervised from her basket.

When the cupcakes were cool, they were pricked all over with a fork, and a mixture of melted honey and orange juice was poured over them. 

It soaked in in a manner which foretold delicious squidgynesses to come...

...then finally the cupcakes were topped with a mixture of chopped walnuts and cinnamon.

They looked delicious!

While the honey drizzle cupcakes were baking I whipped up - and it really was whipping up, it was so quick and easy - a batch of lemon and walnut cupcakes. 

The methodology for these was a bit different from the honey drizzle cupcakes.  First, the walnuts had to be ground.  I ground them roughly in a pestle and mortar so that the cupcakes would be more textured than they would have been if the walnuts were ground as finely as flour (like bought ground almonds).

The walnuts, flour, sugar and spice were put in a bowl, the eggs were added, and everything was stirred together.

The mixture went into the cupcake cases, and the cupcake cases went into the AGA.

When they were cooled, I iced them with icing made from softened butter, icing sugar and lemon juice...

..but I was in so much of a rush to taste my cupcakes that I didn't take any photos of the icing process!

I unveiled my cupcakes at afternoon tea-time.  They looked amazing.

They tasted amazng too.

So amazing, that we had them for morning coffee the next day!

Thanks for a lovely weekend, Mum and Dad!