Jubilee and So Much To Say

Day 1 of The Long Jubilee Weekend.
Wow - I don't know where to begin. Just had one of those amazing weekends. It started with a friend's daughter's wedding. They got married at Normanton Church, Rutland Water.

An amazing venue for a wedding. Sadly it was not hot like it had been a week ago but the rain managed to hold off. The groom arrived by boat! After the ceremony the bride and groom then took a boat trip around the church

They had another boat shadowing them to film them.

Sorry but I'm deliberately choosing pictures so that my friends faces don't have to be splashed across my blog.

The bride had to wear wellies in order to be able to get on and off the boat without getting her feet wet!

Whilst all this was going on a lot of the male guests were busy admiring the gorgeous car used to deliver the bride to the church.

 

The reception was held at a local boarding school - again an unusual venue. As the service in the church was done as if in a registry off ice Mr P was asked to conduct a blessing service in the school garden.  

The speeches and the cutting of the cake were done before the yummy dinner. This was done so that those giving the speeches could eat their food without getting stressed about having to give their talks. Nice touch I thought.

The cake was all chocolate - made up of layers of chocolate cake and cream and the outside is white chocolate!

The bride and groom put the rooms together. They supplied all the furniture, decorations, flowers etc. I think they did a great job.

I've been to lots of weddings but this was the first time I've ever truly seen the bride's bouquet tossed for one of the unattached girls to catch!










Day 2.
So that was Saturday then came Sunday and the Jubilee Celebrations held at our church. The church invited the local neighbourhood in for an indoor street party. Thank goodness it was planned this way because it poured with rain ALL day. They were of course fed 1950's food.

Should say around 100 people turned up for the event. This was then followed by community singing and party games.

One of the church rooms was then set up with 1950's memorabilia. In this picture were some photographs of one of our older ladies. She had been a midwife and oh the pictures just looked as if they'd come from the recent TV series "Call the midwife".

Dad and I had lots of fun browsing through the magazines. I was especially intrigued to read the adverts for cigarettes. As some of you may know I work for the NHS trying to help people quit smoking.

I found this one rather interesting - have a fruit gum when you can't smoke!

Not so removed from today when I know lots of my clients chew sweets in order to resist a cigarette.

Children and adults had fun playing with lots of very old games and toys.

Then finally people drifted into the church to watch the regatta live on a large screen.

The Queen amazed me she stood for virtually three and a half hours watching all the boats go by, in the cold, wind and rain. What an amazing woman - guess its qualities like this that have kept her going. Long may she reign.

I also thought the filming of the regatta was brilliantly done by the BBC.

Finally Day 3.

Today Mr P and myself opted for a quiet day at the Crick Narrow Boat Show.  We had a fabulous day, never been there before and oh boy was it a treat.You see I kind of have this yearning to spend our first year of retirement on a narrow boat either cruising around the canals of Britain or going to France and hiring a barge and travelling all the way south to Carcasonne. We both love the canals and have even walked the whole of the Leeds/Liverpool canal - the longest one in Britain. We also spend lots of spare time walking different bits of the canal system. I think my children think me mad - they're often saying "Oh mum you and your boats". Having said all this Mr P and myself had not been on a narrow boat until that is today!

I adore these traditional narrow boats - and today we were legitimately allowed to nose at them and go inside.

This man is advertising for someone to come and work with him!


But you have to be female!

Then decided to go back to old habits and took a stroll along the tow path and was delighted to see a boat called "Chance" - a fellow blogger. Chance Blogspot

Dogs were allowed to enter the boat show. Doesn't this one look sweet with his small neck scarf?!

These dogs were huge - Irish Wolf Hounds.














Ok I have to be honest and say we were a little insey winsey bit tempted with this small 2nd hand narrow boat, called Aster.
 http://canalboatsales.homestead.com/aster.pdf

Can't seem to show you a picture but it was oh so sweet and so traditional in its layout. Oh well we'll keep on dreaming. Hope you are all having as much fun as I am this long bank holiday weekend.

Bara Brith

This post is especially for a friend who claims to be useless at cooking, but I want to show her and others of you out there this simple recipe. Anyone can make it. You just need to get yourself organised ahead of the game, because you have to soak some fruit and sugar in some hot tea. Bara Brith is a Welsh tea loaf. Here goes:

I've made two cakes, as that's what I always do! One to keep and one to give away, or freeze.

In a bowl place 350g of any dried fruit you've got lying around and add 225g soft brown sugar. If you haven't got any brown then ordinary white will do but not as good. Make a pot of strong tea and add 300ml of it to the bowl. Cover the bowl and leave either overnight or for several hours, to plump up the fruit.



Preheat the oven to Gas 2, 150 C, or 300 F.

Now all you have to do to make this cake is mix in 1 beaten egg. That's not so difficult is it.

Then mix in 275g of self raising flour.

The mixture then looks like this. That is it - nothing else to do other than put the mixture into a baking tin.

Place the mixture either in a 2lb silicone tin, which doesn't need greasing or lined with baking parchment - saving lots of tine.


OR

In a traditional tin loaf but with a bought liner. Again saving time. Also if you are giving the cake away it looks quite nice in a liner.











Bake for 90 minutes to 105 minutes. When it should look like this:-

And when out of the tin:-

So come on you readers - surely you can make one for yourselves and say NO to shop bought cake!

It is best sliced and served with a spread of butter(Lurpak being my favourite!)

This was the amount of washing up I had, just missing the cake tin. So that didn't take very long to do.

Give it a go I dare you. Now off to give away one of the cakes.

Garden Warfare

Ok some of you may remember back in April I showed you some vegetables that I planted - well here's a follow up report.
Battle 1
Have managed to keep the chickens from escaping and diving into the raised beds, but this didn't stop the garden birds from eating ALL my dwarf runner beans - they are no more! But hallelujah, with some advice from a fellow blogger I have managed to keep the runner beans alive during the frosty evenings. But next battle has been some slugs - so apologies for any organic growers, but I have succumbed to pellets! Come on if I don't do this I will not have anything left. Two slugs managed to eat 2 runner bean plants in one night!

As you can see they are beginning to grow, as last week saw the return of the sun, HURRAY!

Battle 2
The two tomato plants I bought seemed to be doing really well on my window ledge, as it was too cold and early to put them outside. I even repotted them into a larger pot. But then tragedy - they both caught a virus and had to be thrown away! So at the weekend got two more plants, lets hope they do better.

 


Battle 3
The pepper plant has been slowly growing but yesterday I saw greenfly attacking it so I sprayed it with some diluted washing up liquid water (I'm sure I've read somewhere that you can use this). Today the plant looks fine so hopefully this is one battle that I have won. It's a good job I haven't got to keep any family going with my crops! Gardening programmes make it look so easy.

Saturday ended up at a garden centre with Mrs A, dad and No 3.  Ever hopeful I was tempted by a chilli plant.

Dad got me a new rosemary plant, as the one I already have has been battered by me constantly removing sprigs for yummy Sunday dinners.










Time to be frivolous - went into Wilkinsons for some garden canes and came out with this new windmill instead!

Isn't it gorgeous? Mr P was a bit worried that the chickens might be scared but they seem oblivious to the new garden addition.

Dad also came on Saturday with this lovely sunflower plant.

 He knows that I love them. When I go to France I think I must drive Mr P mad with stopping to take yet more photographs of the fields of sunflowers. I cannot resist them.

Ooh look there are some more buds underneath the top leaves! How exciting more loveliness to come.








I can now show you the finished blanket I made No 3 for her birthday.

I just love these ribbons - purchased from Fabric Guild Leicester

No 3 just loves tea and cuddly things.








Golly going so long without blogging makes me realise how much I have to say, but I promise next time I'll give you an update on horse (Trigger) with some pictures in his new abode.

Misery to Pleasure

I couldn't seem to find anything to blog about for the last week. The weather was miserable, my buddies were feeling miserable, I felt miserable and then a very dear old lady from church died. I couldn't go to the annual Malvern Quilt Show because of commitments. Then to add to my final gloomy moments Mr P went away to our lovely home in Northumberland for the week.

So all in all I felt very sorry for myself. BUT somehow those nasty miseries have all gone and I feel like my old self again. Even the weather has managed to chase the grey away and is now gloriously displaying gorgeous sunshine. The heat has been turned up to a massive 27 degrees!

Every time I turn into a road near to where I live I am greeted by this wall. This photograph was taken last autumn.

Now look how lovely it is today.

Thanks you God for sunshine and flowers.

Thanks too for changing seasons.










Number 3's presie is almost completed - in time for her home coming/birthday this weekend. Photograph to come once she's seen the finished item.

Well I'm off to enjoy this sun and mow the lawn - sorry daisies!