Saturday 8th April - Celebrations

 We met up with family - more family! - this morning, and were lucky with the weather.  The day began cold and misty, but by the time we had finished a late breakfast at the cafe (waffles, maple syrup and bacon) the sun had burned through the clouds. 

We handed over birthday presents (not for me) and exchanged Easter eggs. I also took the opportunity to pass on all the fluffy Easter chick's, woolly lambs and decorated Easter eggs which have been accumulating over the years, kept over from various Easter egg hunts in years gone. Eggcellent; more things rehomed! 

I had another chance to practise witn the drawing app on my phone while tgey went off for a walk. There are two of these large terracotta pots with bay trees near our preferred table, underplanted with ivy and daffodils. 

It was such a lovely day we stayed on for lunch.

So good to spend time with family and friends. I'm looking forward to more of these occasions as the weather improves. 

Good Friday 7th April 2023

 A group of us have been following the Lent course written by Andrew Dotchin some years ago, called 'Of Mice and Marshwiggles' and based on the Narnia books. I strongly recommend All his Lent courses. 

I made a mistake this morning, and selected tomorrow's reading, day 40, instead of today's.  I'm not great at 'doing' Good Friday, especially when other circumstances make me feel a little fragile. The end of tomorrow's reading is this, which is so full of hope, life, joy, that I am sharing it now.

Friday 7th April - yesterday and today

We did have tea outside in the afternoon; the almond macaroons I made on Wednesday afternoon. It was cold, sunny and cloudy by turns, but didn't start to rain until it was time to say goodbyes.

I had also made small panna cottage in espresso cups. I didn't serve them yesterday as in the end the macaroons were enough. So we had one each today at lunch time.

Oh me oh my! Why have I never made them before? I started with this recipe and also the instructions on the packet 

and gave it some thought. I always knew mental arithmetic lessons at school would come in useful (well no, not at the time, maybe). Eventually I  came to the conclusion that half a pint of 50/50 double cream and milk (semi skimmed) and 15g sugar and 2 leaves of gelatine should work. I heated the milk/cream/sugar in the microwave, added the soaked gelatine and stirred Intel it was all smooth.

 We had one each after lunch topped with a little whisky marmalade in lieu of fruit compote. Delicious! I will make this again, with a little more milk for a softer set.

It was a fitting reward for this morning's Adventures. 

Firstly, we used the in-post lockers to send a box of books to ziffit. Turned out to be as easy as making panna cottage.

Secondly, for the first time in three years, I went in to John Lewis for a look-see and to buy a birthday card. We were wearing FFP2  masks, but by walking very slowly and steadily I managed to keep my breathing under control. The store has undergone quite a major revamp since I was last there, and this is the first time I have been a-browsing for - literally - years.

Thirdly, while he was queueing to pay for the card(s) and other bits and pieces, I stood near the cafe and experimented with the drawing app on my phone

Fourthly, we took three bags of clothes and books and bric-a-brac to the charity shop.

In the afternoon we had tea and cake with friends in their garden. This time the sun came out and it was actually HOT! What a day.

I did a bit more to the cafe sketch just before writing this post.

Wednesday 5th April - Gluten-free surprise

 Family is dropping by tomorrow - what a lovely surprise! So we have found the 'round tuit' ("I'll do it when I  get a round tuit") and demolished the cobwebs from the bathroom windows, cleaned the bathroom, hoovered the kitchen, hall, stairs and landing (and our bedroom while the hoover as upstairs - after all, why not!?), polished the taps and changed the handtowels in readiness. 

Of course, we Always do All of this Every Week... well, to be more truthful, most weeks. There are only two of us, and sadly no cats anymore, so how dirty can the floors get? (I did work with someone years ago who couldn't sleep at night unless she had hoovered the whole house every evening... I  was speechless, in a mix of awe, admiration and disbelief)

We shan't be entertaining indoors (covid protection is still a thing for me) but there is always the possibility of someone needing the loo before their hour drive home.

Then I thought about needing to be able to offer a gluten free something to go with coffee or tea. Ah. We have got Nairn's plain and also chocolate chip oatcakes in the cupboard,  but not all oats are as gluten free as one might hope. And what about the malted barley syrup in the list of ingredients?

I've gone back to a tried and tested old fashioned favourite; Almond macaroons;

I followed the recipe, halving the quantities; 1 egg white, beaten to a foam, 110g ish ground almonds and 60g caster sugar. Reading on in the recipe, I saw that this also makes a traditional Passover treat if you add cinnamon to the dry ingredients and leave the mix as little balls rather than flattening them. I left out the cinnamon as I'm not sure if my visitors would like it, but otherwise carried on.

The advantage was that ten little balls of mixture fitted nicely into the air fryer, taking about 18 minutes at 160°C. I've rolled them in icing sugar as the recipe instructs and put them away until tomorrow. 

Have you seen tomorrow's forecast? Yesterday's sunny day was more of a trailer for the coming Spring. Today has been mostly cold, and tomorrow looks like being showery. Tea or coffee in the garden might not be happening after all....

Tuesday - a feast is as good as enough

I have had sticky toffee pudding and double cream for supper, after sardines on toast. We have discovered a brand of sardines called King Oscar;

I expect they are ridiculously expensive compared to 'the usual' but in my book they are worth the money as a treat.

As was the sticky toffee pudding. I wouldn't normally eat something as rich as this tin the evening so fingers crossed I don't have reason to regret this in the wee small hours.

Spring arrived in the afternoon. I had a couple of free hours and found the energy and oomph to get into the garden. Maybe joining Vicky (our gardener) was the incentive I needed. I sorted out the two small plastic greenhouses with Vicky's help, and cleared out the cold frame, and settled down on a sort of tro.ley-seat on wheels to clear 4 vegetable tubs of weeds and empty another couple of large pots ready for sowing some seeds soon. Pictures in a few days...

In consequence I have had a surfeit of exercise, fresh air and sun. If this weather can just last a little longer...

I think I have settled on April's cross stitch design, but I can never be sure until I have finished it and put in the post.

Monday 4th April - Exercises and sewing and Windows 11

 This arrived in the post for me today;

My Medal! I started 'walking' the South Downs Way on Boxing Day last year, and completed the 100 miles last Saturday. Let's be honest here; it s a virtual walk, where you enter the distance in km, miles or steps and you can see the course of your travels plotted on a map. I've been aiming for a daily step count of 2000 by the end of each day - not much, but it has kept me active. If I do NOTHING but sit and red, sit and knit, sit and watch television, my step counter can be less than 500 by bedtime. So this has been a real incentive to walk those extra steps, usually 'on the spot' while watching television.

One side shows Beachy Head, and the other King Arthur's Round Table, which is at Winchester. The disc rotates, showing various landmarks along the route on the Beachy Head side, and the names of the Knights on the other.   

I'm going to try talking my ancient and reluctant relative (mentioning no names) through a short and simple set of chair exercises several times a week as part of my phone call - I phone most days. He used to go to a proper Chair Exercise class, but that stopped some time ago. He has become a bit wobbly, partly s a result of being unwell recently. I'm no trained fitness instructor, but I reckon this will do us both good; - everything to be done gently and easily without strain...

1. wriggle your toes, flex your ankles up and down a coupe of times, rotate them a couple of times clockwise and then anticlockwise.
2. raise your foot and lower legs up, and lower a coupe of times (do each let separately)
3. see if you can get your knees to touch the underside if your table in turn (I know he is sitting in a chair with arms at his desk)
4. hands and wrists; stretch your fingers, and loosely relax them into a fist, repeat. Wriggle your fingers as though you were drumming them on a table top, or playing a piano. Bend your wrist up, then down, up, then down. Rotate your wrists one way, then the other, and repeat.
5. shoulders; raise and lower each shoulder in turn, make them go forwards and back in turn, rotate one way and the other.
6. neck; slowly look to the left, and the to the right, and then left and right again.
7. You're done! 

"Really," he said in surprise.

"Yup. was that okay?"

"Well, yes. More trivial than I was expecting. Thought you were planning something much more strenuous".

I hope he will be happy to do this again - it only takes just over 5 minutes. I'm assuming he did try and do it all - I did point out that there was no way I could tell if he was joining in, so he could just pretend and that would keep me happy...

This was the next thing to arrive;

A small brown paper bag with a square of orange furnishing material, two other scraps of cotton, a square of wadding and a little clear bag of notions - buttons, a ribbon, embroidery floss. It's for a project that our local eco group is running (not the church one but the town one), to collect embroidered squares and sew them into a sort of cloak.

I didn't choose the colours, and am a bit non-plussed. The theme is nature; they are the colours of the desert burned dry by the sun. I knew that if I ferreted through the bags that a friend brought round I would get lost, so just picked the first one.

Can you see what it is yet? 

No? Well neither can I.

So far I have made a quilted background - not quite finished. I've added some of the pieces of brown and dark red lace that Ang sent me right at the beginning of the postcard project, and I think I will add the green sequins she included, to be seeds. Then what? Belum tahu, as they say in Indonesia, one of the few phrases I remember from over 50 years ago. It means 'don't know'.

My Cross Country Collaboration has arrived with Ang, so I can post the picture now;

 I'm tempted to leave it small - it's meant to be daffodils on the banks of Ullswater. Oh, let's go large!

Finally - Windows 11 - a 'heads up' - I haven't moved to windows 11 on this computer, although my husband has moved his. It's ok, but a bit different to Windows 10. The messages 'inviting' me to upgrade are coming thick and fast now, and need careful reading or you will find yourself upgraded willy-nilly. That might be fine for you - or it moght not.