Blueblee muffins

That’s what we call them in our house and R & I had fun making them and eating them today. Yum!

I’m umm-ing and agh-ing about what to do with my wool now. The spinning lady is so busy that her offer to me involves driving to “The Wool Emporium” about 50 mins away where she holds subsidised workshops on carding and spinning, so could show me how to do this.

I know I’m just being lazy but a few things are putting me off: 1) the extra driving 2) the thought of trying to interest a 3 year old in spinning so she won’t run amok and get tangled up in everyone’s yarn 3) I’m gonna have to pick all the straw and poo out of the wool myself and wash it and dry it.

It’s taken the wind right out of my artisan sails.

What to do?

 

Back n Bloomin!

Well, I’ve been distracted from blogging by some lovely extended birthday celebrations (yes, it was a big one, no don’t ask!). We only went away for a few days but when we got back to the garden, it was as if we’d been away for a month. The buds that had started to appear on the apple trees have bloomed into a wonderful sight.

I was lucky enough to get a new camera from my family that had been on my wish list. My other all singing all dancing fuji cannot be beaten but it’s bulky slr-type lens means it’s no good for sticking in your pocket for a day or night out. Now THIS one. Well it’s the size of a waffer thin mint but seems to do most things the other one can. Thanks to my family for indulging me. Like I say, it was a big birthday and no, you still can’t ask the number! So, even though it was nearly dark, I was keen to put the new camera to the test and take a snap of the blossom. Quite a challenging shot. No light as I say and I don’t know what all the buttons do yet as it’s only just out the packet. Did get this one decent shot which I like coz it’s a bit surreal with the blue sky and the moon. This was courtesy of a clever little function where the camera takes one shot without flash, closely followed by another with flash so you can compare and ditch the one that’s no good. Great if you’re like me and a) don’t know much about the science of photography and b) are completely indecisive.

 

What Do You Call A Sheep With No Wool?

Ruddy cold I should think. I was quite shocked at how quickly and dramtically this sheep had lost it’s wool so guess what? Yes, I phoned the farmer for one of my classic “twit in the country” conversations.

Me: hello, it’s plumsource here from up in the village.

Farmer: Oh yes, hello (was that his eyeballs I heard rolling?)

 

Snaps & Snippets

It’s hard coming up with blog titles sometimes! Anyway, here’s a few random snaps I thought I’d share with you.

Our bird table only caters for small wonky birds these days

 

Woolly Tales Part 2

The spinning lady called me back! She left a message. I don’t think she was stifling her laughter. I can hold my head up high now as I collected some more wool last night and I now have pretty much a whole carrier bag’s worth – woo hoo!

 

Cookbooks

It’s Tana Ramsey week, this week in our house. I’ve been trying to inject some enthusiasm into creating our meals ever since Mr. P figured out that I’ll be dishing up 17,500 family meals over the next say, 16 years.

So, I’ve been cooking from different recipe books from the library and borrowed from friends. So, we’ve had Nigella week, a few Jamie weeks, a retro Linda McCartney week – loved the 80s fashion and food styling photos in that book, Lorraine Kelly week, quite a few Annabel Karmel weeks and as for Hugh Fearnley – well he pops up all over the place. My criteria for a tip-top cookbook is not so much that it has to have recipes for wholesome family food that’s really quick to prepare, but that it has loads of mouth-watering pictures. No pictures. No go. I’m even down-hearted now if there’s only a picture every other page.

 

Random Yarns

I was going to show you my wool:

but there’s a problem uploading images at the mo, for some reason. Will insert it when I can…

Still no answer from the spinner lady to my email or tel message. Perhaps she’s still rolling (or spinning) about on the floor laughing at how little wool I have and can’t get to the phone / computer.

During one of my rare ironing incidents the other day, I was looking for a means of occupying R and aware that it couldn’t be “ironing like mummy” because she doesn’t have a mini iron / board (funny that??). Came up with the idea of tying up a bit of string to make her own mini washing line which she absolutely loved. She spent ages figuring out how to hang her dollies’ clothes with the mini pegs. I was so chuffed that I came up with something so simple and engaging instead of turning on the telly.

 

Respect For The Beasts

Inspired, by this blog, I’m officially on my way to being Felicity Kendall / Barbara Good from “The Good Life”. I’ve got half a carrier bag of stray sheep’s wool! The sheep in the next field seemed really cross that R & I were stealing the fleecey bits their neighbours had left behind on thorns, brambles and fences. They were Baa-ing really loudly and pacing backwards and forwards indignantly. I tried explaining respectfully “look, you and your friends don’t need this wool any more and us humans can make things out of it to keep us warm.” No effect. Still more staring and aggressive baa-ing. I tried the diplomatic route, “What lovely wool! Thank you very much”. More narky baa-ing. R started crying, so we packed up (not before “mummy get’s this big fluffy bit over here” though). No. The sheep didn’t win actually. We were going in for our lunch anyway, OK??

 

Spinning and Life Cycles

I spent a very dreamy day pottering and pootling around yesterday. It is the second day I’ve done this, this week. R was in nursery both days and I just faffed about doing nothing in particular. This is my idea of heaven. I felt so terribly guilty about it though that I couldn’t relax 100% and confess to jumping to attention a few times Mr. P came down from his office – making out I was being busy! I was recently saying to a friend that the sort of “day off” I crave is being at home doing absolutely zilch and how nice it was too. I spent some of the time eating, some of the time looking out at our birds and animal neighbours, much of the time thinking and alot of the time on the computer reading and writing about random things. This is the story of my life: to the undiscerning onlooker, it may appear that I’m a lazy bugger yet really I’m ever so busy mentally. Yeah right!

 

Help Required!

I dunno how to listen to music anymore.

I have a CD player in the car but I never seem to want to listen to the CDs that are in the glove box.

I have an old but good set of NAD seperates and excellent speakers on which to listen to CDs and the radio and could probably plug new fangled things in to them if they weren’t stacked up unplugged in Mr. P’s office awaiting new shelves in the lounge. We’re looking into a radiator cover with matching bookshelf above. A local man may make it for us but sadly he’s had a death in the family. I expect it’ll be a while before the official “stereo” system is back in action.