Showing posts with label country living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label country living. Show all posts

Belated New Year Greetings!

 


The above picture is titled 'spring clutter' on my PC. Not quite there yet, but this week, I bought a couple of bunches of daffodils so we're getting there. This is the time of year when I try to buy a bunch of tulips or daffs, or sometimes both, every week, just to prolong my favourite time of year - spring. 

This year, too, I remembered to plant some bulbs back in the autumn, and they're all emerging. For the first time ever, I managed to persuade a couple of blue hyacinth bulbs to grow and - more to the point - flower, in a pair of lovely old glass hyacinth vases. Every year to date I've put them in these vases full of water, in hope, and every year I've been disappointed. Last year, I forked out for big expensive bulbs and hey presto - this year they're flowering! You obviously get what you pay for in this instance.

I've had a ridiculously busy, albeit happy, Christmas. Missing our son who works in Stockholm very much, now that he's gone back. 

But I'll also have some rather big news about my writing. Coming very soon. I've been gearing myself up to writing about this on here, but putting it off till I felt as though I had got 'all my ducks in a row.' Now, if not in a row, then at least they are swimming about where I can see them. 

Watch this space.

PS, the daffodil plate, my favourite, belonged to my mum who bought it in our local auction house back in the sixties. It looks like Moorcroft, but it isn't. Don't know what it is, but I love it.



Apples - and a Recipe.

 


These are Golden Noble apples from the very old tree at the bottom of our garden. They're cooking apples, but much sweeter than Bramleys, so you don't need to add much sugar. The tree is so old that it's now on a two year cycle. It has a massive crop one year, and then rests up and has only a few the following year. The variety is old as well. As they ripen and mature, they turn a lovely golden colour. 

This year was an apple year. We have made apple pies, apple crumbles and apple scones. We've frozen some for winter. We've given a lot of them away to friends. You're not allowed to leave the house without taking some apples. We've given the small windfalls to a friend with horses - they love them, seemingly. We don't spray the tree, so there are no chemicals on them. The wasps have had a good go at the remaining windfalls, and the birds are doing the same thing. 

Now, most of them are gone, winter's on its way and I'm going to cook the last few. This isn't my favourite time of year. I love the colours that I can see from the window of the room where I work, but I hate the fading light, the way the nights draw in. The only positive thing is that it's easier to batten down the hatches and write. This year, in the sad old UK, with our energy prices rising to crazy levels, I'll be writing all wrapped up in woollies and socks and blankets, and hoping for a less chilly winter. I've got my fiction to keep me warm.

Meanwhile, I make my scones with about 500 grams of self raising flour, a couple of teaspoons of baking powder, a walnut sized lump of butter rubbed in, as many peeled apples as you like chopped into the mixture (lots) and a tablespoonful of sugar. I mix them with home made kefir, but if you haven't got that, buttermilk, or a big dollop of Greek yoghurt mixed with milk, or sour milk - all these will do. I like to add some vanilla essence, but you might prefer cinnamon. Your scone dough should be very soft - just not quite sticky. Better sticky than too dry though. Form into two rounds on a well greased baking tray, make a cross in the middle so that you can pull them apart later, and bake in a medium to hot oven, (about 200C) until well risen, and cooked all through. If you're baking them in big rounds like this, it's about half an hour. If you're making nice little scones, it'll be more like 15 minutes. Cool on a baking tray and eat while they're still warm with lots of butter. They freeze well too.