Through the kitchen window

I absolutely love my house but it has one small drawback... The kitchen is at the front and overlooks the road. I would love to look out onto the back garden and then I could have a stable door into the garden.  I have a soft little notion of cooking tea with the top part of the door open .  It would be pretty silly here though as my back door looks directly onto my neighbours back door.  Not exactly pretty.

Curled up on the sofa

Only the other day we were basking in sunshine and now it's cold enough for me to light the wood burner again. Tony has just done our phone signal so I know he is on the way home.  I've put the kettle on and the tray is set with cups. I've put a pan of pasta on to boil and will add the sauce once the pasta has softened a bit.  I like to cook the pasta in the sauce as it gives it chance to develop a good flavour and texture...It means that a cup of tea will be ready for Tony coming home and tea will be  ready around five thirty...The house will be toastie warm for himself too...….  I am very well trained :-)

I will have the house toastie warm ready for Tony coming in from work

Blimey, that was quick

Only the other day I showed you how I was using the base plates of some veggies to try and grow more. The lettuce hasn't surprised me as I have done that before but I am amazed at just how quickly the garlic has pushed out roots.  It will be interesting to see whether I get some nice green shoots that I can cook with.
This morning I walked around to our little mini supermarket and met my neighbour Joan coming in the opposite direct. We stood at a good social distance and had a bit of a natter. People coming along the road stopped, crossed the road and went on past us.  It's a really bizarre situation isn't it. I find myself scanning the path ahead of me just in case I need to take evasive action. At least everyone is doing this with a smile. I bet an awful lot of local residents have never ever taken a walk around the estate. It's nice to see people doing that now.
Cooking session today has given me a huge pan of chicken curry to freeze in portions. At least Tony will be well fed for a good long while if anything should happen to me :-)  

Look at those roots appearing on the garlic baseplate

The lettuce is really shooting up

This one is going to give me plenty of fresh lettuce leaves once it is a bit bigger

This will be my house at the end of self isolation :-)

Lovely clean windows

It hardly takes five minutes to clean my kitchen windows and they always look so much nicer when they are done. What I want to know is why oh why the window has to be behind the sink.  Do kitchen designers think we spend so much time washing up and food prep that we need a window to look out through.  I have to climb up on the stepping stool and sit on the draining board each time I clean the flippin windows. They would be cleaned a lot more often if I could simply walk up to them and clean them.

I've lost all sense of smell

This morning I decided to have a mammoth cooking session.  I peeled and chopped a pile of onions and garlic but it was only when I started to fry them that I realised I couldn't smell a thing. I have harboured some sort of bug for a while now and did wonder whether I have been infected by the dreaded bug.

Broccoli pasta bake

Cottage pie

Bolognese sauce

And I have a little experiment going.  I am trying to see how many different veggies will grow from the base plate.  Here is a piece of broccoli stem and the end plate of a garlic clove.  It will be interesting to see whether any shoots will form.. I have done this with lettuce, onions and celery with great succes.

Lettuce regrowing from the base

Another variety of lettuce growing from the baseplate.. Note the fresh new growth

A peep at the garden

Tony has worked his little puddings out in the garden these past few days and what  a difference he has made.  He weeded and trimmed the borders and has replanted the new privet. It had become quite wind rocked and most of them had loosened up in the soil. In front of the new hedge he has made stepping stones from bricks so that as it grows taller and thicker we won't need to stand on any plants when it comes to cutting the hedge. For the time being he has placed the pots which contain his Hosta collection on top of the bricks. The weather is turning considerably colder though so it may well be that he has to stay indoors tomorrow. He is due to go back at work to Monday and it will feel very quiet once he does.  I have become accustomed to him being at home and it's been nice having proper lunch times again. We sit at the table and share a meal rather than grabbing a quick sandwich. I will try to make the effort to continue doing this when I am home alone

                                                       Please stay safe everyone. x

It's coming along nicely

It's been another gloriously warm day up here in the frozen north. This morning I spent a couple of hours working out the layout and starting to sew the blocks together. It is going to be really pretty when it is all completed but it's been far too nice a day to spend indoors so I sat in the garden watching Tony dig and plant and generally titivate everything. It does look nice out there and in a few weeks time once the weather picks up again it will all romp away.  The forecast isn't great for the weekend though so we are making the most of the decent weather while it's here.  I can sew indoors while it's snowing  :-)

The current layout of the quilt. In the process of being sewn together

Start of the quilt

I have finally gotten around to starting another quilt.  Tony and Alexander have bought me some gorgeous fabric over the years and my fabric stash is growing alarmingly. I set to this afternoon and made a start on a lovely blue and white one.

The little artist

This morning I took my penknife and a couple of twigs outdoors and spent a while whittling. I'd intended to make a chicken from a forked twig and did feel I ought to have a large dog by my side and a shotgun leaning against the chair to see off unwelcome visitors, rather like the old pioneers… Not that I have either a large dog or a shotgun.  

The little girl who lives across the road came out and bounced her ball up and down for a while but was clearly a bit bored.  I sent her home to get a piece of white paper and something to rest on.  Then I showed her how to make pictures using the flowers to 'paint with'. I showed her how to crush them and squish them across the page to release the colours.  Then I asked her to find a small twig and showed her how to make narrow streaks using the twig to drag the leaves and petals across the page.  She understands that she wasn't allowed to come within ten feet of me and we spent a couple of hours just sitting 'painting' together, her on the pavement and me on my garden bench. I did say she wasn't to pick flowers from anyone else's garden and she must wash her hands thoroughly when she went in.  She asked if we could do some more after lunch but I said we could do something different tomorrow if the weather allows. I gave her some homework... :-)   She has to draw a huge sunflower and stick it in her bedroom window.. She skipped off home with a smile on her face.  I had quite forgotten how much fun children can have doing the simplest things. I already have a project in mind for tomorrow if the weather allows.