Entertaining today

 We've got some friends coming  over for tea this afternoon so today I will be busy titivating the house. I've made a huge rice pudding and a mixed fruit crumble for dessert.  I had four pints of milk that needed using up and we're drowning  in apples and pears. Brenda is vegetarian so I've made a lovely cheese and vegetable bake which I'll cover with cheesy breadcrumbs before finishing it off in the oven. I'll roast a couple of small chickens and make a big plate of savoury potato wedges.  There's so many different tomatoes to use up so I'll prepare a tomato, basil and Swiss chard salad and toss a few star shaped cucumber slices on top. It's the last of the cucumbers that was growing in one of my shaper moulds and it really is fun watching them grow to fill the mould. Certainly a talking point. I love cooking for Brian and Brenda as they are always so appreciative. They're great fun too and we always have a great time catching up. 

It's a bumper year for pears

 My poor pear tree was struggling under the weight of pears.  This morning I took all these off and I'm sure the tree sighed with relief.  I'll use them to make a fiery chutney with some of my chillis 🌶 😋 👌 The rest of the pears can now ripen on the tree

Tomatoes are still ripening and giving me decent daily harvests. I think they'll be finished as soon as the weather changes 

Hatton flights lock system

 Tony and I have thoroughly enjoyed Warwickshire.  The people are so friendly. Today before setting off home we visited the Hatton Flight canal lock system.. This lovely gentleman says he has the best job in the world. He delivers canal boats up and down the country.  He also teaches people how to operate the canal boats and locks. So if you fancy learning how to operate a canal boat here's his details. He was really friendly and says it's really easy to operate the barges

I had a lovely slice of plum tart with thick clotted cream in the cafe.  The loo is a little rustic.

Fantastic craft light #nativelighting

 Tony and I are currently at the Warwickshire event centre for the n gauge model railway show. We've just bought this fantastic crafting light and will both get hours of use out of it. Perfect Christmas present for yourself or someone special. It's plenty wide enough for card making or fine detail artwork  at 80cms. 

Food bargains and my garden update

 If you have a Farmfoods shop near you it's worth a visit.  The beans are three for a pound. little chickens are 1.99 and the butter is 99p. We've bought three each of  borlotti, cannelini, butter beans, chick peas, red kidney beans and black beans. Food is likely to become very expensive and if you can afford to stock up you'd be wise to do so. Don't buy the chickens with the green writing as they're smaller. They put those in the first freezer at our Farmfoods.  The ones we buy are in the third freezer along. We also bought a punnet of huge nectarines for 99p. 

And I've been busy moving things around in the garden.  I took the yellow GreenStalk out of the porch, mixed up the colours and placed one each side of the new arch. I'm really pleased with how it looks. 

Treat myself to some books

 It's a while since I bought myself a new book so I've treat myself to a couple from Amazon. Our own lovely Lyssa Medana who blogs as Sybil Witters On has written quite a few books and many years ago sent me a signed copy to read. I've just bought her latest and another crafting one. 

More preserving

 I've been busy adding more jars of goodies to my fermenting tray. Apparently grapes can be fermented and they taste a bit like olives. I picked a bunch off our vine and set them off fermenting.  I'll let you know how they taste and whether I'll do some more.. They might be utterly delicious.  And then again they might not. There's plenty more bunches of grapes on the vine so I can afford to experiment with some. I've set some jars of apple slices on the tray so that they can become apple vinegar and I've set some off fermenting.  I'm going to be so filled with probiotics I'll positively fizz. 😃 

Preserving tomatoes

 I can't get over just how lovely and warm it's been today. Usually by now the temperature is much lower and my garden is starting to look tired. It hasn't happened yet and I'm still picking tomatoes and courgettes by the kilo. We had friends over for a meal last night and I was able to give them plenty of produce from the garden to take home.  This morning I picked a load more tomatoes so I've set them off fermenting. They'll last several months in the fridge and will be lovely on some crusty bread or crackers. Tomorrow, after I've been for a walk with my friends, we're driving over to Northallerton to stock up on coal briquettes for the fire. We'll only be using the stove if we're entertaining as it's far cheaper to leave the heating on low. Tony and I can't stand to be too warm and rarely have the heating higher than 17 degrees in the middle of winter. It keeps the house just comfortable and we set it to 15 through the night. We're big believers in putting an extra layer on if we're a bit cool.

I roasted a big tray of tomatoes then simmered them to remove some of the water.  When they'd reduced down to a thick puree I put them into my silicon tray and dehydrated them till they reduced by half. I froze them then bagged them ready to use as stock cubes.  I've got another batch freezing overnight then I'll add them to the bag.  

And yesterday I pickled a few more jars of the cherry tomatoes.  We had a jar of my previous batch the other day and they were really tasty.

My garden on 3rd September

 Tony and I have been to our folk dance club tonight.  It's the first one since late May and we had so much fun learning new dances. We'll be in Leamington Spa next weekend so we will miss our favourite ceilidh. I could kick myself for not checking the diary before I booked. Oh well, we'll be at a different one the following weekend.  Here's my garden from yesterday morning before we built the arch 

 

Our beautiful arch

 Tony and I have just put this gorgeous garden arch together. I'm amazed he didn't throttle me as I'm utterly useless when it comes to putting this kind of thing together.  I'd have had to take it apart a million times before I eventually got it right. Tony on the other hand just looks at the instructions and knows immediately how to put it together. In my defence, I never played with Meccano as a child 😃