Busy Hands

Today we are expecting visitors,  My  Dear Father-in-Law  and his wife are visiting from the Isle of Wight,  we haven't seen them for a little while and we are all looking forward to the visit.  I think we will be having a bit of a houseful for the day as friends and family pop in to say hello.

Carrot cake was made yesterday and this morning a lemon cake will be going in the oven.  Carrot cake takes a while to make and bake,  the lemon cake is incredibly quick and easy,  but both are really tasty and everyone seems to enjoy them!!

I found the recipe for the carrot cake here Aunt Mary's Carrot Cake,   And if you fancy having a go - here is the recipe;-


Ingredients

Serves: 12

• 275g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
• 4 eggs
• 400g caster sugar
• 350ml vegetable oil
• 375g grated carrots
• 125g chopped walnuts (optional)
• 200g sultanas (optional)

Preparation method

Prep:30  mins | Cook:45  mins

1. Preheat the oven to 160 C / gas 3. Lightly grease and flour a 20cm cake tin.
2. In a large bowl, combine flour, salt, cinnamon, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda.
3. In a large mixing bowl cream together eggs and sugar. Add oil.
4. Slowly add dry ingredients and blend together well. Add carrots, walnuts and sultanas.
5. Pour into cake tin and bake for 35-45 minutes. Check after the first 35 minutes, to see if a skewer inserted into the centre of the cake comes out clean. If not, continue to cook, checking every 5 minutes. (I find this will take at least 1 hour to cook)
6. Top with a cream cheese icing and enjoy

Cream Cheese Icing

Ingredients for the topping

• 200g (7oz) Full Fat cream cheese
• 56g (2oz) softened unsalted butter
• 56g (2oz) sifted icing sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence

For the topping, mix cream cheese, softened unsalted butter, sifted icing sugar and vanilla essence, until smooth. Allow the cake to cool and then add the topping.  It is important to use full fat cream cheese - anything else and the icing will be runny, the full fat version makes a thicker icing.  This cake will keep for a few days in an airtight container. That is, if you can resist it that long!

I have had my crochet hooks out this week.  My Girl will be going away next week and some new hats are required.  I found the most amazing wool with sparkly bits running through it,  the hat is made and out in the sunlight it sparkles!

Whilst visiting Blogland yesterday I came across this Blooming Flower Cushion,  I really did want to have a go,  I rummaged through my wool stash to find the colours I wanted to use and made a start.   It has grown quicker than I thought it would,  so I think it will be finished in a day or two!  It is supposed to be for My Girl's bedroom, but I have a feeling it will end up in her suitcase as she packs next week!

Paper Potter

I am now beginning to plan my planting for next year - I know its early but now is the time to be buying seeds as most places are reducing the price of this year's stock and lots of bargains can be found.  There is a garden centre local to us where re-cycled pots can be picked up for free,  so I have gathered several of these.  To fit in with our freecycling, recycling, Eco efforts I have purchased a Paper Potter which arrived today.,

With the aid of the lovely My Girl - a short demonstration of my new toy;-

You will need;-   A tape measure,  a sheet of newspaper,  a paper potter



Cut a strip approx 8cm by 57cm



Roll the newspaper  strip loosely round the potter

Roughly fold up the bottom of the paper

Push onto the base of the potter and twist

Ta-dah ---  a little paper pot is made

When seedlings are ready - plant straight into the ground. 
No root disturbance and the paper will bio-degrade -  Eco Friendly too!

Guess what we are doing this evening?????????

Thank you for my gifts

I had some lovely gifts from my family for my birthday;-

My Girl surprised me with the pretty pink birthday cake - she said I always make the birthday cakes so it was my turn to have one made for me!  She had also sat at the sewing machine for a few hours and the result was a beautiful top - I look forward to wearing it!



About 25 rows of shirring to achieve the stretchy bodice of the top.

 Mr Milly made me a happy Mrs Milly with a brand new shiny red camera.  I love it and so far the pictures have been great!

My Boy was next - in typical My Boy style dropped by in the morning and then went out again without even saying hello!  He wanted to give me a gift for my birthday but didn't know what I would like.  He was hoping he could pop in and  talk to his dad for a bit of inspiration without me noticing!    Ok, I work in my office upstairs, but it is at the front of the house with a window overlooking the road and he does drive a truck - he really is difficult to miss!  But he did well - I now have a lovely new bottle of my favourite perfume.

My favourite perfume, my favorite colour and in the most adorable little bottle

Charlotte the Lottie scarecrow was my gift from My Bro and his family and flowers arrived today from My Sister in Law and her family.   So all in all  I think I was spoilt!

Thank you one and all for my lovely gifts  and beautiful cards x x x

Happy Birthday...................

......... to me!

A Few changes

Freecyle has been kind this weekend and I have acquired 2 carry bags of empty egg boxes - they are really handy as we give so many eggs away!  And another compost bin came our way.   Now I have never been overly happy with the compost bins we built from pallets - they just looked way too big,   took up an enormous amount of space and no proper door and they just look so very untidy.  So with the acquisition of a second 'dalek' type compost bin I have decided to do away with the pallet compost bins, and regain the space. 


Old Compost bins



New (new to me!) Compost Bins

I am now on the lookout for another 2 compost bins,  4 will be plenty for rotating the compost and storing some manure too.  So the back of the plot has been worked on today.  Wooden bins deconstructed and a tidy looking pallet fence now edges the side of the plot.   This particular side has a lot of brambles both to the side and behind it.   The fence should hide these and as they grow through the fence it should be relative easy to keep them in check.   

The space that previously housed the bins has been dug over with compost and a purchased bag of manure - its is now covered to stop any weeds growing through and in a couple of weeks it will be ready for the rhubarb to be planted - a permanent rhubarb bed has been created.  For the 2 daleks I have dug under them and loosened the soil for the wormies to get in and do their stuff and these are now sited in their permanent home and await a couple of companions.    This all feels like a much better use of the space, which did feel a little wasted and hopefully great rhubarb and compost will result!


Nice and neat and tidy.  The wood chip is a bit sparse - its only to cover the bed
for a little while and and then it will be moved.  





Charlotte the Lottie scarecrow admiring the new fence and rhubarb bed. 
So much better with green grass rather than weedy bare earth



So Freecyle has been kind and Ebay was too - a push mower came up,  not too far from home and listed as a brand new one.   I put a tentative reasonable bid on it and won!  Much less than half the price of a new one and it is new!   Mr Milly and me collected it this morning - took it to the plot, the cutting blades were set to the lowest setting, far too short for my new grass and no spanner with us to adjust it!  How annoying - I wanted to play with my new toy!   So instead of my Lottie having a cut all the pathways around the Lottie are now lovely neat and short!

My new toy

All in all a good weekend - I hope you had a good one too.x x

Another picture of Charlotte - just because I like her!

Gifts

Its been a week of gifts this week.   Clive from the Lottie plot opposite ours left some onions for us,  Barney gave us some spinach, and a courgette was given by another neighbour.  My Girl and Mr Milly had fun stringing the onions.

And today my Lovely Brother and My Eldest Niece - affectionately know as DJ,  popped over to see me and another gift was received......  Thank you for my gift - I love her!!

My delightful scarecrow, garding the grass seedlings

I thought she might be a little lonely on the plot so found these lovely little flower windmills to keep her company!



How cute!



The Grass is growing

Ickle tiny little shoots have started to appear - thats good  as I was just about to give up hope for the seeds!  Mr Milly is not impressed - as I've used 2 different grass seed he tells me the grass will be different colours!  I did remind him it is an allotment and not a garden and really does it matter if the grass is different colours - it is all going to be green LOL!

You can just see the grass growing - and it is GREEN

We took Star to the allotment with us today, which was entertaining, she had great fun walking over all of my beds - I was NOT happy!   Then I picked another meal of runner beans and a few french beans,  my very peculiar dog has a liking for runner beans - is that normal for a dog?  One minute there was enough runners for a meal and then next there was one left - she had nicked and eaten them one at a time without us noticing!

Anyway Star liked the fresh and long grass that is now growing on the plot and took to lying on it and having a roll around - a couple of nice little pics of her.

Star enjoying the GREEN grass

Having a snooze after eating all the runner beans!

My camera has now been sent back so today we are off to hunt for a new one.  I think probably it will be one of these;

Hmmmm...... which colour to choose!!???