The Woodman....

Sometimes in life you are totally blown away by your nearest and in this case most definitely dearest! LSO (for those of you who have just started to read my blog - this is my darling and much loved husband - I call him Long Suffering One - LSO, why? because he has to put up with me and all my mad schemes and wild ideas! ) LSO is always trying to get out of DIY things, if I want him to - mmm, lets say drill a hole into a wall - it becomes EPIC! to get this done I get out the drill, plug it in mark the exact place were I want the hole, have the picture ready , then I make him tea and ease him into doing it for me - I did Say EPIC!!  By his own admission he just doesn't like DIY!

 

So imagine my surprise when one afternoon I heard sounds of the sander from our garage! I silently crept down to see what was going on..... It was him engrossed in a piece of wood! I left I needed to sit down! A few hours later he came inside and said that he had made something for me(be still my BEATING heart) He had found a beautiful piece of wood in the fire wood and made a Cheese Board for me, it was absolutely gorgeous!

 

 

Tools of the trade

 

Firewood with Potential

 

My Cheese Board

Little Madame and Star!

  

The Sandman

Now I am a bit of a strike-while-the-iron-is-hot type of person person!..... I had been thinking a bout a rustic outdoor tray for ages, every time I looked at my pile of left over pallet wood - a tray was what came to mind. I was going to make it myself ....however... I thought I would try my luck!

 

 

And my luck was in! Apparently he felt like doing woodwork, so with me telling LSO exactly what I wanted he put it together for me. He drilled, measured, cut, planed and sanded......Soon I had my tray

 

 

Somehow, and maybe its because he knows me so well, he was able to make exactly what I wanted!  

  

My Tray

Not only did I get my tray but then he then went back into the garage and made himself a beautiful wall hook for his study - the word that comes to mind is GOBSMACKED! I really didn't know he had it in him. To think that I have known him for 16 years and he never told me.... He is really GOOD at wood work! I do however feel a little sorry for him now - can you guess why? Yip! He is NEVER EVER NEVER going to get out of doing DIY for me again - NO excuses and certain No begging and pleading (he translates those two word into nagging) He can and he is  really good at it!  Did I mention how much I love my LSO..... I love him too much..... xxx  

  

Wall Hook

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pack Your Bags.....

Darling Peeps, today you will find me in a somewhat  melancholy mood - Why? Well today we packed out bags, and boxes and toys and anything else that could be packed!  I am sure that I would have packed the dogs if they had of fitted into a box and kept still for long enough!

 

We have not sold the estate, perish the thought!  However 4 years ago when we moved in, we decided on a FIVE YEAR PLAN! The house that we bought is an old lady, and she needed help, we did a bit of revamping, we stripped the walls of horrible 1970's wallpaper and lifted carpets! We gutted the kitchen and had a bespoke kitchen put in,  and then began to save!



  

The House When We Viewed It.....

 

A Small Revamp.....

 

Our FIVE YEAR PLAN has been achieved in four years and we are really excited! The plans are everything that LSO and I ever wanted in a home and we cannot wait to see our dreams materialise.... So why the melancholy mood you ask? Well packing up ones life is a funny old thing, you come across bits and bobs that just make you smile, however there are those things that make you realise that life moves on and waits for no one. I opened a box in the back of a cupboard and found Little Madames baby things... she was a Premmie and her clothes were all tiny, a tiny hat, teeny little socks and clothes. She has grown so much..... A box of our wedding pictures, dried flowers from the day the day I married my Prince.......A bag of my mothers things, when my brother gave it to me last year I was too sad to even contemplate opening it then....Finding a lost treasure, is such a JOY! ...... Lots of bittersweet memories!

 



Packing My Tresures

 

Packing boxes is not pleasant, however it does give you the opportunity to throw away or donate things.... The boxes seemed to be never ending. I am amazed at just how much stuff we have accumulated over the last 4 years. There are boxes everywhere you look. There is just SO much STUFF!



The Start....

 

A Day Later.....

The Spare Room....

 

I am trying hard not to let this renovation unsettle me, however seeing as I am a creature who likes my home to always look perfect and beautiful, one who likes everything in its place.... I am very, VERY  unsettled. We have also had to be ruthless about what we are taking with us to our temporary home, it is full furnished, so it is clothes and little else really.....Well I did sneak my sewing machine and hooky things into the box - you know me - when the going gets tough, a girl's gotta hook!  

 

A Beautiful Moon!

The moon was full and beautiful last night. LSO called me outside to look at it. As I gazed up I realised that tomorrow would be a new moon, it is also spring, a time for new things to grow! Crisp blue sky's, the smell of green grass being cut, pretty flowers beginning to bud. So throw in a new roof, a few less walls, the smell fresh plaster and paint on walls...... A great team of builders and there is nothing to be unsettled about, its just a re feathering of the nest really.......xxx

 

PS:: I will keep you posted....

Comfort Food.....

I am feeling poorly, and when I feel poorly and a little under the weather I want some comfort food, not the average comfort food, like stew, soup or mashed potato, toast and tea! When I am poorly I want 3 things and 3 things only! Three very odd things but they work for me! They are my Poorly Comfort Food!

 

Number 1 -  My mom used to give me Gem Squash when I was little, scrapped out of the shell with lashings of butter and salt, I LOVED it! I still do!(as a matter of fact I don't need to be feeling ill to eat this)

Number 2 - Granola and Milk, however it must be a small amount of granola but a LARGE amount of milk! Like a half a litre and loaded with sugar!

Number 3 - A Savoury Tart thing that my mom used to make!  This is my favourite and what today's post is all about !

 

For a few days now I have been fighting off a head cold (grrr - nothing worst) alas yesterday I lost the war and I woke up feeling like death! I was feeling lousy, my nose was all bunged up and wanted nothing more than to curl up under the duvet and sleep! Little Madame had other plans however...... After much explaining she agreed that home was the best place for us, by home I mean the couch! So we settled down to a day of TV watching( not the norm - but sometimes a mom has to do what a mom has to do...) Around lunch time, I was asked "what's for lunch mama?" Savoury Tart popped into my head. So I dragged myself to the kitchen and got out my trusty old recipe book! 

 

 

My 30 year old Recipe Book

The best thing about this savoury tart is that you can make it in the pie dish that you bake it in! I plonk all the ingredients into the dish stir it up and pop it into the oven! EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEASY! Just what you need when you feel horrible! Something really simple!  

 

The ingredients are equally easy, the only thing you might not have in your grocery cupboard is a tin of canned meat/ Bully Beef, however I ALWAYS keep a can in my grocery cupboard, for me it is a basic along with caned tomato's and pasta!

Loved These As A Child !

I have no idea where my mom got this recipe from, and in our house it was not just reserved for when we were sick, we also had it on a Sunday night, with a big fresh green salad, and best of all it is AWESOMELY delicious the next day - in a fat  chunk straight out of the fridge! My brother and I also knew that when we opened our lunch box and school the next day - a chunk of tart would be waiting for us!

Of course you now want the recipe...... So here it is

Avril's Crust less Savoury Tart

1 tin of Canned Meat/Bully Beef
125g Grated Cheese
1 Cup Milk
2 Eggs
1 Tbs Chopped Onion
1/2 tsp mustard(I used what ever mustard I have)
1 tsp Dried Parsley
1 Tbs Flour

Mix everything together in a oven proof dish and bake at 175degrees Celsius until golden brown

APPLY TO MOUTH!( a very sick one , in this case)

Mix It In The Oven Dish

Golden Brown and Piping Hot!

Not even an hour later I was back on the couch under my crochet blanket, feeding my cold, with piping hot tart! Did it take away my head cold? Not really! Did it make me better? Not really! But it did make my tummy feel full and warm.....And isn't that what Comfort Food is all about..........xxx

Comfort Food!

Mandala Magic

Just when I think I am totally up to date with the making and trying out of all thing crochety.... Another beautiful thing pops up on the world wide web.... The last few weeks I have noticed Mandala's. Now I am not to sure what a mandala 's function is, I have seen them used as table adornments and then seen them being used as pot holders. they are in every colour and size you can possibly imagine but always round!

 

I wasn't really taking too much notice of them, until the Lovely Lucy from Attic24 posted a wonderful blog about them. Now I think I have waxed lyrically about Lucy often enough to not bore you to pieces waxing again, suffice to say she is my crochet GURU! Lucy also runs a yarn festival, called Yarndale, along with like minded yarn friends. They ran the first one last year, she asked for people to help her make granny bunting and boy oh boy did people help! Pretty bunting arrived from all four corners of the world. Some how I missed out on it all..... I mean, I  saw it and read about it but did not make bunting to send. Read her post here 

 



Lucy's Picture of the Yarndale Bunting

So this year for Yarndale she asked all her readers and the peeps on the world wide web to make just  1 Mandala each and send it to her, she even gave you a pattern - here... And this year I was not going to miss out, I even had an idea.... An African Themed Mandala! So I duly popped off to out local Yarn shop( Any excuse... I hear you say!) and bought the yarn- I bought reds and oranges to represent our amazing sunsets and green and brown for the earth, I then asked my helper Beatrice if she would bead it for me in traditional African bead work. It looked absolutely WondErFuL!....It was duly sent off to the United Kingdom in a protective padded envelope. This was a few weeks ago. Today as I sat down to write this post I realised that I had in my haste to get it done and posted not taken 1 photo of it.... NOT ONE!!!

 

I did however take pictures of my practice runs! I did two before hand just to get a feel of how I would place the colours and if the pattern was as easy as it looked and it hooked up really quickly. They  both looked great! Lucy's pattern was really easy! - See she is THE CROCHET GURU! 

I have been pondering what to do with my mandala's.... I am not the type of person who would use them as pot holders, honestly I think I would end up burning myself, anyway they are too pretty for pot holders!  I certainly wouldn't use them under a vase or ornament.....I was thinking about stitching them onto a canvas as some sort of hooky art piece..... But in the old end I didn't have to worry about how to use them because apparently they  work REALLY well as Barbie carpets in a certain Little Madames  doll's house! So you see even Barbie LOVES crochet..... xxx