Jigsaw time...

I decided jigsaws create their own timezone - just a quick sit down turns into oops I seem to have lost a few hours so very easily, or that's just my excuse anyway! It's also been a great time to listen to a whole host of music whilst playing with the puzzle so feeling thoroughly chilled out after three days of folk and country on the Fire stick. J's back tonight so he'll be glad I've got the country stuff out of my system.

Let the games begin...

Progress by Tuesday evening

Finished by tea-time today

  And the music well there's been Seth Lakeman, Wildwood Kin, Karine Polwart, Mary Black, Dixie Chicks, Randy Travis, ....and many, many others. Just two for a taster...

Winter Photographic Scavenger Hunt #4

Today's post is the fourth one taking part in Eileen at A Bracelet of Days' Scavenger Hunt challenge. In case you haven't yet stumbled across them I first mentioned the challenge back on 1st December 2018 and have so far made three other posts containing photographs:

1  on 7th December 2018
2 on 23rd December 2018 
3 on 30th January 2019

You can find links to other bloggers taking part on Eileen's post from 2nd February

Enjoy x

15. Flight. This was a lucky shot whilst dropping J off at the allotment on 5th February. There were several small birds all fluttering around the hedgerows and I just managed to catch this Great Tit coming into land in the hazel hedge. The photo has been cropped from the original to get a closer look but is otherwise unaltered.

8. Chocolate. We're still finishing off some of the Christmas chocolate that J was given but this tub was almost at an end when the photo was taken... It may be suggested that it only lasted as long as it did because I don't like the Snickers but that would be thoroughly unfair... maybe....

3. Fastener. This oriental box decorated with lacquer and mother of pearl was an eighteenth birthday present from my parents and has a really unusual fish shaped clasp. Looking at it this closely shows up it's need for a polish!

4.Nail. Another box I have was made from old floor boards and bought at a craft fair the first year I moved to Stratford. It's clasp is made from an old iron door nail.

18. A natural feature. One of the joys of having an old tree in the garden is watching the lichens appear year on year. 

So that makes 14 of the 20 photos complete. More next month.

Meaningful Books

This week I was tagged into a twitter meme to post the covers of seven books that mean something to me. No explanations and no reviews. One a day for 7 days and pick someone else to carry out the challenge too. My problem was limiting it to just 7 but given the thought it required I thought I'd share them here too.

Frederick by Leo Lionni

Wild flowers of Britain by Roger Phillips

Folk-tales of the British Isles Edited by Kevin Crossley-Holland

Food from your Garden 

The lost words by Robert MacFarlane and Jackie Morris

The enchanted Isle by C W R Winter

Spiritwalk by Charles de Lint

It was fun hunting up just seven books and has given me more than a few for my "time to re-read" pile and a lot more for my "I forgot I had that" pile. Could you limit your list to just seven?

Sowing Time - well sort of..

Despite good intentions we just couldn't resist the call of the seed box on Monday. All gardeners must hear it surely, that little tiny voice that starts quietly and gets subtley more insistent as the days start to lengthen: "go on sow me, it'll be fine, there's plenty of room on the window sills, you know it makes sense, I don't even need to be indoors you know, you've already warmed the compost up shame to waste it...." 

So we succumbed and now have loo rolls sown with brussels sprouts, cauliflowers and parsnips - just a few, to get ahead, you know how it is...

Oh and a few of last autumn's late sown chard just cried out to be potted on - they may grow on, you never know...

Oh and there may be a few sweet peas, welsh onions, echiums, pansies and violas on the go in the back bedroom under propagator lids but there aren't any photos of those so no proof just yet...! Now what was that weather forecast?

Using stuff up cake

After dropping J off at the allotment with all the card and shredded paper my little Zoe could hold I came back to potter around. A quick look at the slightly overripe bananas in the kitchen meant it was time to make cake. I also had some walnuts left over from making carrot cake for J's birthday at the weekend so in they went too. A super quick chuck-it-all-in-the-food-processor cake that has left the house smelling really nice too!

Banana and walnut cake

300g Self-Raising Flour
200g Margarine
200g Sugar
3 ripe bananas roughly broken up
4 eggs
handful of walnuts roughly chopped!

Place everything except the walnuts in the food processor and whiz until thoroughly mixed. Then sprinkle in the walnuts and give it a quick mix.

Pour into a greased and lined tin and bake on Gas Mark 6 for approx. 45 minutes until the skewer comes out clean. I used a square 24cm tin for bar-type slices. A smaller deeper tin will also work of course, just adjust the cooking tie to compensate for deeper batter.
When baked transfer to a cooling rack and leave to cool before cutting into slices. Alternatively serve warm with either raspberry sauce or custard for a lovely pud!

Banana and walnut cake straight from the oven

Let it cool for cake or eat warm for pud

Meet Bob Plant

Bob came into my life about twenty years ago - a mere 12 inches tall and one of three pals in a supermarket bargain set, he promised great things if I looked after him and kept him watered and fed... 3 houses, 2 towns and several different rooms later he'd ended up over 6 feet tall, 4 foot wide in places and so big he blocked the light from the small window in the spare bedroom. All this despite very intermittent watering, next to no feeding and maybe one re-potting in the last ten years, indeed some might say he's been thoroughly neglected and it's a miracle he's survived much less thrived. But thrive he has and if we didn't want to find him barring entry to the spare room drastic measures were inescapable so today we snipped and lopped and took several overgrown limbs away, leaving a shorter, slimmer model with soon to be shiny leaves and hopefully happier is his home. But all is not lost for the trimmings, thanks to a handy internet guide we have, we hope, created a few mini Bobs. They are now under cover and we'll watch them carefully over the next few weeks and then, if they are really lucky, friends and family can have a Bob of their very own...

Oh and don't tell Bob but we also identified a few more limbs for removal when he's recovered a bit.

Here in the undergrowth....

One of Bob's 5 new offspring

Heated airer or soil warmer?

A new slimline but could be trimmer Bob

Oh and while the compost was out we may have sown a few seeds too but that's for another day.

And didn't we have a loverly time...

Today is Js birthday and luckily it dawned cold and crisp with beautiful blue skies and hardly any wind so we bundled up in thick jumper (J) plus scarf, thick coat, woolly hat and gloves (me) and headed off to Warwick for the Snowdrop Day at Hill Close Gardens. 

A wonderfully resurrected piece of the town's Victorian past the gardens were once owned by individual families and are now beautifully maintained by a small staff and lots of volunteers. They are open to the public all year round and hold various special events too but despite working in Warwick for years, today was my first visit. It was wonderful and with the help of my trusty wheeled walker and a few carefully placed benches I managed to enjoy most of the gardens. Each one has it's own "personality" - for some it was carefully sculpted parterres and small hedges, others boasted mini ferneries and bosky glades, yet more had clipped lawns and sleeping beds or veggies, compost bins and fruit trees. several also have interesting little buildings well worth exploring and displays of art work, old tools or potting shed set-ups.

The snowdrops were planted daintily beneath hedges, in lawns, dedicated beds and even hanging from some venerable old apple trees. They were joined by emerging irises, hellebores, crocuses and aconites. Soon there will be daffodils and tulips too so if you are nearby I thoroughly recommend a visit.