Happy bunting

Joyful strings of brightly coloured bunting fluttering in a gentle breeze. Celebrating the sporting spectacle of the rugby world cup, making passers-by smile and nod to each other as a small gesture of togetherness at the tail end of summer.

Fruitful and happy (birth)day

Most of the tomatoes have been gathered in today, hopefully to make another batch of passata. Also the remaining blueberries (half of today's pickings aren't shown as they were given to our lovely neighbour as a small thank you for taking Jeaves for a long walk this afternoon!) and a few raspberries and blackberries.

Most of the final chillies were harvested as well as some elderberries for some wine. Need to hunt out more tomorrow to be able to do this.

The weather was glorious today - the final days of summer before the autumnal equinox in two day's time - and George made the most of the sun!

And a huge Happy Birthday to himself - we had a chilled afternoon in our local with friends from way back who dropped in unexpectedly. So lovely to catch up and chat :)

 

Natural beauty

You can't improve on nature can you?

Another beautiful day on Planet Earth

What a beautiful September day we had in central Exeter today!

And then in the mid afternoon we had a Spitfire fly overhead, commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. A little high to get a good photo but the sound of the beautiful Merlin engine was unmistakable.

Back at Labrador Bay

I returned for a quick pitstop between office visits recently. I think the ubiquitous ice cream shot is a good way to admire the sea view!

Happy 2nd Birthday Jeaves!

Two years old!

Thank you for the fun, love and joy you have brought into our lives. We are truly blessed :)

And you are an utter cheeky monkey and we love you very much!

The lovely Mr Foxie, a pressie from our lovely neighbours, Henry and Marley, and their humans Helen and Andrew, made it for 10 minutes before ending up in the hospital queue!

My animals and other family...

Just a wee update: Jeaves is officially part of the family and has settled in very well indeed. So much so that George is bullying him mercilessly - chasing him around the garden (well, Jeaves does it in return, so fair game) and pinning him to the corner of the sitting room.  However, in George's defence, Jeaves does like to shove his nose in places most of us would not dream of...

Maybe, perhaps, fingers crossed

We are hoping Jeaves will be joining our little family. If George agrees. Fingers crossed.

Language

"Language isn't about perfection. It's about passion, expression and culture." Stephen Fry

How wonderfully apt to read this quote having just finished my first year with the Open University (modern languages degree: French, Italian and English) with modules taken in French and Italian.

Starting in October is the next module in French which I have chosen not to dilute with Italian this time, just to try and make it more achievable!

Bonne chance à tous les étudiants!

Gorgeous George

Isn't he just scrumptious?!

What we do in times of stress

Labrador Bay

I think this has to be my favourite place name in Devon: Labrador Bay!

And its beautiful too :)

Words to live by

We have elderflowers!

Elderflower and lemon cordial has been created!

Having another go this weekend, with less lemon and more elderflowers.

Mmmmm :)

Don't mind if I do!

Cheeky little ice cream enjoyed yesterday in the shadow of Haytor on Dartmoor. Yummy!

First walk

First walk in my new regime post op.

Loving the autumn light through the trees!

Although I did overdo it a little. The prescribed 15 stroll was half an hour in with body beginning to hurt. Whoops. So pleased a darling friend drove by and insisted on bundling me into her car and taking me home.

Phew. Not so far tomorrow eh?

True words

Carved into a flagstone of the pavement leading to Exeter Cathedral, such an apt sentiment for my lunchtime meanderings!

Small city

I love the small city of Exeter.

I love that you can be in the heart of the city and can look out beyond the buildings and see green fields.

For a London gal, that's just plain weird! But I love it :)

First Bake!

First baking session of the new year resulted in testing out a Madeira cake.

I know this is often viewed as an old lady's cake, bland and simple, but I have been buying this regularly from our village shop and loving it.

The recipe is based upon Nigella's with a few tweeks, taken from the inspirational blog 100 Cook Books. A straight forward lift of the adapted recipe is:

Ingredients

• 250g butter
• 200g caster sugar plus extra for sprinkling
• grated zest and juice of one lemon
• 3 large eggs
• 300g plain flour
• 1.5 tsp baking powder

Instructions 

1. Preheat oven to 170 degrees C (I reduced the temperature after 30 minutes by 10 degrees as I have a fan oven, I should have reduced it from the start as the edges of the cake were slightly dry)
2. Cream butter and sugar and add lemon zest
3. Add eggs one at a time with a little of the flour between each egg
4. Then gently mix in rest of flour followed by lemon juice
5. Dollop into a loaf tin and sprinkle with tbsp caster sugar
6. Bake for 1hr to 1.25hrs (until a cake tester comes out clean) - I baked mine for 55 minutes, which was enough.

I used a 2lb loaf tin without a liner, next time I'll line the tin and bake for the entire time at 160 deg C.

Snapshot

With a new year dawning, hopes are high for a better year in so many ways.

My day started today with my usual walk across the village to feed the hens and let them out of their coop. The girls were very chatty today and wanted to help me in my quest to fill in some rat holes that had appeared in their enclosure overnight, pecking at my rubber clad fingers with much enthusiasm!

I then rolled out the trusty bike and pootled off for a short bike ride, my first in many months. The sky was a beautiful blue and there was a lovely nip in the air which made me peddle with much enthusiasm, only stopping to make a fuss of Oliver the golden retriever and to wish his owners a happy new year.

I do so love living in this village!

The afternoon saw us heading to some dear friends for their annual drinks party - I was looking forward to sampling their coffee martinis with much enthusiasm :)

A few hours of sock knitting in front of the fire finished off this chilled out start to the year!

Finally, here's a little snapshot of our cottage's sitting room - yes, DH is snoozing on the sofa!!

Happy New Year to you all :) x