Collages

Here's a little project I've been doing with my pics recently.

Insects

Here is a small collection of photographs I took last year of various insects in our garden and on our many walks.

What a nightmare

I foolishly deleted some of my picasa albums which much to my utter annoyance totally destroyed this blog...what an idiot!! Anyway on with a New Year and a new start with this blog.

I've managed to salvage some of my blog postings that I spent a lot of time doing but obviously all of my photo postings are now gone!

Toad In The Hole Recipe

This will serve 6

Ingredients:

• 12 Sausages
• 6 oz (150 g) Plain flour
• 2 Eggs
• 6 fl oz (150 ml) Milk
• 4 fl oz (110 ml) Water
• Salt and Pepper
• 2 Tbsp of Olive Oil

Pre-heat the oven to gas mark 7, 425°F (220°C) then grill the sausages until they are fully cooked.

Now, sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl and make a well in the centre of it.

Break the eggs into the "well" and mix with the flour, making sure you have no lumps.

At this point you need to put 2 Tbsp of oil into your oven dish and heat in the oven.

Now mix the water, milk and seasoning in a jug, and gradually incorporate this into the mixture. If you have an electric whisk you should get this done in just a few minutes.

You should now have a mixture that has the same consistency of single cream.

Cut the sausages up and place in the oven dish. Pour the mixture over the sausages and cook for about 35 mins.

Serve with mashed potato, vegetables and gravy.

Judy Collins

I've recently discovered the beautiful voice of Judy Collins. These two videos have to be my all time favourites of all of her songs.

Here she is with Pete Seeger singing "Will Ye Go Lassie Go". (In the very near future me and my hubby will be recording our own version of this particular track.)

This is one of her earliest performances on Hootenay in 1963 singing Anathea:

Liver

This is a tale about liver:

A long time ago back when I was nine and my sister was about five, my mother served us for dinner: liver, onions, mashed potato and peas. Anyway after about fifteen minutes or so I'd finished all my dinner and was allowed to have a biscuit then watch TV. Well my poor sister she hated liver and after a further ten minutes shouted

"I've finished."

Well my mum knowing of previous altercations about liver in the past with her, rushed to the kitchen to check her plate, oh yes empty plate, but there was bits of chopped liver all over the table, so with that, my mother scraped the liver back onto her plate.

"Eat it NOW!!" she yelled.

Well a further ten minutes passed.

"I've finished", a little voice called from the kitchen.

This time my mother was up in a flash and raced to the kitchen, no liver on her plate, no liver on the table..why was my sister holding her hands tightly in her pockets, my mother clocked it too.

"Empty your pockets!".

My sister carefully held out two parcels of liver wrapped in kitchen roll, my mother was furious, with her hands trembling with anger she shook out the bits of liver back onto my sister's plate,

"This is your last warning Lady-Jane, EAT IT NOW!"

Well after a few sobs from the kitchen and about ten more minutes later, my sister appeared in the living-room doorway

"I've really finished mummy, promise, look?"

My mother searched her plate, no not a scrap of liver there, nothing on the table, my mother then checked the floor, no none there either. She eyed my sister's pockets, no none there either.

"Have you really eaten your liver?" My mother asked

"Yes, really." She sheepishly replied

"OK, good girl, now you can watch the rest of neighbours and then you can both do the dishes."

Well as we were doing the dishes I noticed my sister kept on looking at the vegetable rack...oh yes you've guessed it, there was the liver stuffed behind the potatoes on the top shelf. With a wink to my sister and without a word being said, I hastily wrapped the nasty stuff and threw it away.

My sister still hates liver to this day!

I Can See You

Our cat, Lemius Sippius.

Our Terrible Blight!!

Absolutely gutted today...our tomato crop has been ruined by blight!!

Earlier this year me and my hubby decided that we wanted to try our hand at growing a few veggies. Well I knew this was really going to be my hubby's project as I've got "Agent Orange" fingers and have never been able to grow anything in my life.

So we'd already started on a compost heap/bin last year and I have a strange compulsion to wash and keep yoghurt pots, so we set about using our very own compost and put a few tomato seeds in each pot and kept them on trays on the kitchen unit.

I was amazed at how quickly they grew and pretty soon we realised we needed a more permanent veg plot. So we got to work and quickly cleared an area.

Anyway we planted a few more rows of seeds of peas, beans, cauliflower, broccoli, spinach and rocket and over the next weeks and months our veg rapidly started to grow...

And of course as with most things you learn through trial and error:

• Rocket tastes disgusting!!
• A very "Green-fingered" hubby makes everything grow, so in the future leave enough gaps to prevent overcrowding.
• Nettles soaked in rainwater for about a month in a bucket makes excellent fertiliser but it sure stinks!
• There is immense enjoyment and satisfaction in looking at your plants at least 15 times a day!!
• Purple-sprouting broccoli takes months to grow!
• Cabbage-white butterflies are the worst pest of all, do not be fooled by their delicate beautiful exterior they are little ba***rds laying their eggs all over the leaves of everything, which then in turn gets completely devoured as the nasty hungry little caterpillars eat every leaf in sight!
• Beer traps are excellent for attracting unwanted slugs and snails.

And so that was where we were up to just a few days ago, everything doing really well. The spinach was great and very tasty, the peas and beans were ready for picking, the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower weren't going to be ready till next spring (much to our dismay) and the tomatoes just needed a couple of weeks and they'd be ready too..and now the worst has happened! Due to the terrible weather over the last week or so in this part of the country this is what we came down to this morning:

Yes you've guessed it the bloody awful dreaded BLIGHT!!!

Every single tomato plant, about 25, have all been ruined by blight!!! So another lesson there for us both, we need a greenhouse in the future!! It's very upsetting when these things happen and there's nothing you can do to prevent it.

We've looked to see if there's a solution and basically it's chop it all down and don't compost it!! As you can see my hubby is gutted at that prospect and just can't bring himself to do it today. So we'll see if they miraculously recover over the next couple of days...but we're not holding our breath :(

Papiroflexia

Papiroflexia (Spanish for "Origami") is the animated tale of Fred, a skillful paper folder who could shape the world with his hands.

Created by Joaquin Baldwin at the UCLA Animation Workshop, 2007. Original Score written by Nick Fevola. www.pixelnitrate.com

Watch more cool animation and creative cartoons at aniBoom

How To Make Fairy Cakes

Making Fairy Cakes

Ingredients:

• 125g (4oz) Butter,
• 125g (4oz) Caster sugar
• 2 Eggs
• 125g (4oz) Self-Raising flour

Now firstly you want to heat your oven to 180° (350°F)

All children, go and wash your hands WITH SOAP!!

Firstly you want to cream the fat and sugar together until light and fluffy. Then beat your eggs in one at a time. (At this point, you might think it looks like the mixture has curdled a bit, don't worry!) Now adding a spoon at a time carefully fold your flour into the mixture.

After all the flour has been folded in, carefully divide your mixture into about 12 cake cases. You should only need about 2 teaspoons per case.

Now pop in the oven for about 20 mins. Kids go and play! You can now have a coffee and have a bit of peace.

When the 20 mins are up check your cakes are ready by using a skewer or fork and push it in the centre of one of your cakes (preferably the biggest one) if it comes out clean they are done, if not try again in 5 mins!

Whilst the cakes are cooling, it's best not to tell the kids they're done yet as they'll only mither you to decorate them. So, in the meanwhile mix up some icing sugar with a few drops of food colouring, pour out a few hundreds and thousands etc... into little saucers and as soon as the cakes have cooled, let the kids have fun!

A Dandelion's Journey

A dandelion's journey

From Plants and flowers

From Plants and flowers

From Plants and flowers

From Plants and flowers