New

The second in the January Scavenger Photo Hunt series - New.

My offering for 'New' was not what I had in mind when the list for January's words were selected.  During a walk I'd asked for ideas and Himself suggested it. I'd mulled over it and wondered what I could use, may be by the time it came round there would be snowdrops or the hyacinth flowers were blossoming and I could use them..... then this happened.

I was approached by a small and forward thinking charity and offered a job. As the gardener in their beautiful walled kitchen garden.... erm yes please!

I had the invite to look around with part of the criteria being .... Bring Moss. I am not joking. An important part of the charity's ethos is being dog and family friendly. So, she and I (I was glad of her company) went and had a 'sniff around' - well she did more sniffing that I, and we liked what we saw.

It is early days, but do I like how the universe has created this safe space for Moss and I?  Yes, truly yes.

A new year, a new place to grow - in more ways than one.

 

2 - 52 Chili 'non' carne

The second of my new-to-me recipes for 2021 

Photo from website

A night or two ago, I was so 'bleh', having absolutely no inspiration for the evening meal. Himself and Youngest were of no help either, both of them looking at me blankly when I asked them what they fancied eating. It never fails to surprise me that those two are bottomless pits with hollow legs, devouring vast quantities of food quite happily yet never know what they want to eat .... some days I despair (ok - most days).

I came across a meme the other day and I knew exactly how the author felt when they posted this ...

Any way, I started mindlessly scrolling through various of my go-to veggie/vegan foodie websites, looked at one or two of my cookbooks then found this .... 'Meatless chilli con carne - vegan. 

I have made something like this before a while ago and it was 'ok-ish' in the 'you eat it coz you're hungry' sort of way. However, this one looked simple, I had the ingredients and I was getting fed up with looking around.

Apart from the addition of a heaped tablespoon of crunchy peanut butter (something I always add to a chilli) and a few random mushrooms which needed eating up, the recipe was simple, easy and very quickly filled the house with most mouthwatering fragrance.

The hungry Horaces that I live with absolutely flattened it in record time - so that was proof it was a vast improvement on my previous attempt (or they were so hungry by that time they would have eaten stewed cardboard!! 😄)

Jokes aside, it was good and warming and it does go on the 'make it again please' list. 

Will I make it again? : Yes

Will I modify anything? : I always do - like I did this time with the addition of the peanut butter and I tend to add more vegetables that the recipe gives.

52 new recipe challenge 

Soft and Silver Sunday Skies

A quiet, slow day - one made for curling up on the settee with a book. One for sipping mug-loads of hot tea and may be surreptitiously dunking a digestive or two. A day that might involve a bit of knitting, blogging and other wonderfully lazy-cat activities.

Or so I thought. I managed an hour or so of gentle nothingness and general sloth-alicious settee behaviour when Himself suddenly got up and, in his best rally the troops voice managed to peel the sloth (me) and her son (Youngest) off the settees and away from the fire. Moss, of course was in on this pressganging and bounced about like the dilly dog she is.

Wrapped up warmly we set off - I was not really in the mood for a walk, but knowing 'that it would be good for me' trudged along behind the other two. Well three really, Moss always out front 'scouting for sticks/rivers/mud puddles/slush and ice'. Himself and Youngest skated and slid rather joyfully along the icy patches while Moss joined in with happy circles.

Despite the thick grey mist, there was a 'lightness' in the air. The fine misty rain constantly flickering on my face was more of a sensation than a drenching. The faint breeze swirled silently, barely perceivable until it found bare damp skin when it then became sharp and brittle.

Distant trees faded in and out of view, large pale shapes in the subdued pewter grey sky. No bird song, no traffic, no dogs barking. Just our scrunching boots in sloppy, crunchy, muddy, icy snow.

The faded splendour of the original Victorian gates perfect for the eerie atmosphere and with the crows flying silently over head adding to that abandoned Gothic mansion feel.

The next field was filled with sheep, not that you could easily see them, they were fleeting ghosts in the far distance. 

The only obvious evidence of their existence was the trail of trampled fodder, which despite it's bedraggled appearance still gave off that fruity sweet perfume of meadow hay so reminiscent of heady summer days.

Silent sentinels.

A old cast iron kissing gate (type of swing gate) - my favourite photograph from today's walk.

Frozen animal drinking trough

A slippery drover's track.

On our final return stretch, we could hear cattle bellowing raucously in the 'invisible' distance. As we approached we could make out a huge steaming mass of cows and calves with the one cream coloured bull squeezed into the middle. They had heard a tractor bringing their food and they bawled rather loud encouragement at their farmer.

The matriarch cow, taller and certainly louder, reached up and managed to grasp a mouthful as the tractor approached. As soon as the bale had been placed in the galvanised feed ring, the bellowing and hollering stopped and all we could hear was the tractor trundling back towards the farm and the sound of satisfied chewing of fodder.

Then once again, the only sound was our boots slipping or crunching through the rapidly melting snow. 

Although it was still raining, my initial reluctance to walk had all vanished, the air still damp and cold had been refreshing and invigorating,  now I was ready - as we all were - for a mug of tea. Time for one last run around, then home xx

Thank you everyone for joining in with last Friday's photo hunt - a lovely selection of stories and photos. Here is to our next Scavenger photo hunt, Friday 15th January - this week's theme is NEW. Until then have a good week x

Link up party - Gifts ≈☆≈

photo from pixabay

Welcome to our first Link Up Party of 2021!

This week's theme is 

Gifts

If you are joining in,

just follow the easy link up instructions ☺️

and don't forget to link back to my blog xx

.•:¨¨ ≈☆≈ ¨¨:•. .•:¨¨ ≈☆≈ ¨¨:•.

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Gifts

January 8th Scavenger Photo Hunt - Gift/s

I had planned on sharing things I had crafted as gifts however sadly one of the recipients still hasn't received her pressies due to the previous tier 4 conditions and now the latest lockdown we are dealing with. I don't want to spoil the surprise, so her gifts are all stashed safely together ready and waiting for when we can all get together again.

So, I thought I would share a 'stocking present' to Himself and I from Eldest and his lovely partner. Each one of us received a carefully chosen woodland creature, however they were 'naked' so every little animal was lovingly given a wardrobe of warm tweeds and woollen scarves.

They were the first thing we opened on chrimbly morning and I found it hard to put mine down (which in case you had not already guessed is the Hare!) I kept stroking her lovely felted ears and admiring her fringed kilt and warm shawl.

The rather dapper Mr Badger is Himself's and he loved him immediately. Mrs Hare and Mr Badger are tree decorations however, when the tree was packed away, these two remained out and will do so from now on.

They linked their arms and explored their new surroundings, taking in the air and checking out the hyacinth bulbs then wandered along the small aloes and cacti on the window ledge.

They even checked out a few houses, I suspect they will move around a bit until they find the spot they like the most 🥰 - as you can tell, I am still besotted by them!

2020's chrimbly day was a very different one, it will have been for most folk, Mrs Hare and Mr Badger brought such a lovely moment of joy and will continue to do so through 2021.
 

Right, that was a minute of light-hearted waffling, I am off to see what the others have shared - until next time - stay safe xx

1 of 52 - Food for thought

Something I did some years ago, inspired by a blog - sadly now long gone, was to try a new recipe each week with the idea that by the end of the year I would have a collection of 52 new meals/bakes or flops for me to return to (or avoid!).

Admittedly I did not manage all 52 weeks but by the end of the year, I did have a considerably revamped meal plan of which a number of recipes remain favourites and are still part of the menu.

However, I get bored with cooking - it is something I do so that we can eat, not something I do because I am good at it or actually enjoy doing. 

We eat to live rather than live to eat. 

Any hoo - I decided I would give this another go.  Himself has decided that as a moderate omnivore living with a full time vegetarian (me)  that he might as well fully commit to being vegetarian too. This gave me added incentive to look for new recipes and I found THIS . 

The 'Ultimate VEGAN Breakfast' - no don't look away and tut tut, vegan food can be surprisingly 'normal' and not at all artsy or complicated. My only concession to the ingredients was to swap out the baked beans (something I just can...not...eat...) for cannelloni beans and added sliced bell pepper and cherry tomatoes. It makes a flavoursome and satisfying meal and seeing that our token raving carnivore (my youngest son) scoffed it in record time then asked for the recipe to be sent to his equally raving carnivore lovely gf, confirms my initial statement - vegan food can be surprisingly 'normal'.

Picture from the website - we ate ours before I realised I should have taken a photo.

I will store all my new recipes as I go along HERE and if you like what you see, feel free to follow the links and try them for yourself 🥑😊🧅.  If you fancy trying a new recipe too - let me know because I will be on the look out for new and tasty meals and baking !

Deerstones

 I started this before the sun came up, the sky was pewter and the snow covered rooves a soft pale grey. There had been a soft dusting of snow overnight and by the looks of it, it then froze into gravel hard pellets of glittery silvery white. And, although now that the sun is well and truly up - it is unseen as it hides behind the thick layer of pale grey-blue cloud drifting across the sky.

Yesterday we walked up and over the moors to a favourite space of ours - locally known as Deerstones, it is a rocky outcrop facing the village with a bit of history.  It is near an old quarry which now has weathered into a protective space for grazing moorland beef or sheep. If you look hard enough you can find the old powder house, a natural cave beneath a large rock which has the remains of a concrete lining making the space as dry as possible for the explosives.  

Local village knowledge talks of this powder house being a 'den of iniquity' during the days of the mills.  When the workers, having being paid on the Friday afternoon, traipsed up onto the moors and hid in there, where they'd gamble and drink all weekend only to return back down on the Monday morning worse for the wear, stumbling straight back into work. The stories go that the wives would have to go up as soon as they could and wrestle as much money as possible from their partners so they could pay the rent or buy food for the family. If they left it until the Monday evenings when their errant husbands would return home to eat and sleep - there would be very little if any money left over from the weekly wage.  Hard times ...

We often sit on the rocks above the powder house and let our eyes feast on the view - but yesterday was too bitter. The wind could slice through clothing with such an icy steel that we only briefly acknowledged our favourite stopping point with a cursory glance. 

We'd stopped earlier, sheltering out of the cutting breeze in a wooded strip where the sun was a delight. Moss played and we drank tea as we listened to the drip of melting snow and the mewling of an unseen buzzard.

It was pleasantly (relatively) warm in the trees basking in the low sunlight - I could feel it on my cheeks and it felt wonderful. 

As we packed away the flasks and dog treat remains, Moss collected herself a stick ..... she 'told' me that ... no stick left behind ...

Leaving the shelter of the trees and stepping into the snow and wind was a sharp contrast to the benign sunlit mug of tea from a moment ago, but it did give the incentive not to hang around and to 'get on with it'!

Up on the moors, the snow in places was nearly up to my knees and I was very grateful that I was wearing my welly-boots (a decision that I regretted a bit later though!) as we waded across the drifts.

The sun slipped down below the clouds on the horizon, glowing and golden. Himself suggested we went up the moor road to the crest and capture the last moments of the light before we headed back down into the village.

We only just caught the last of the rays as it disappeared and although the evenings have started to feel infinitesimally lighter, it was definitely time to go home.

The snow on the pathways then on the tracks nearer the village began to turn to ice making striding difficult and we began to tiptoe and shuffle carefully and despite the caution, I slipped and landed rather inelegantly ... I suspect I shall get a bruise on my left thigh as proof..... it was at this point I wished that I'd had my walking boots on rather than my wellies - hey ho, can't win them all!

The final part of our walk, through the village, was accompanied by the remaining festive lights, the odd pumpkin, an ornamental witch draped in red fairy lights (!?!) and a few early evening dog walkers.  A good Sunday walk, time for a fresh mug of tea before I start cooking the evening meal.

I hope your Sunday was as good, that you got out as best you could despite the restrictions. I am so very lucky that we live in a village surrounded by the moors and it does not take too long to be out on the hills with only a dilly dog for company.

Have a good week and see you on the 8th with the first of January's words - gift/s, xxxx

You are amazing x

Hello dear ones - thank you so much for your thoughtful comments and I was touched that some of you shared your word for 2021 with me - thank you.

Those words have such power and positivity.  Here is to all of us being able to step up and blossom this year, with support and kindness I am sure we can negotiate our way through 2021 and survive.

`•.,¸,• •,¸,.•´`•.,¸,• •,¸,.•´`•.,¸,• •,¸,.•´

On the fun and success of December's one word a week photo scavenger hunt, I thought I would trial it a bit longer and see how it goes - for those of you who are newbies, this is what we do ...

Using the word as inspiration, find or take a photo that fits, then waffle a bit of a story with it and share with us on the show-and-tell day. You can find the list for January is at the top right corner of my blog.

Your photo (or photos if you have more that one that goes with your story) can either be freshly snapped that week or one from your archives - we don't mind, it is all about sharing the stories and pictures. I will add a link up and all you have to do is follow the very easy steps and share your post. Then we can come and find you and comment on your photos and stories xxx

`•.,¸,• •,¸,.•´`•.,¸,• •,¸,.•´`•.,¸,• •,¸,.•´

And, to make you smile - here have this happy little face and gorgeous smile - hope it makes your day, like she does mine every day :)

Courage and a year in review ❤️

Thank you every one for joining in through out the year and in particular December's photo scavenger hunt - here is to our blogging community - may we share, support and uplift each other through 2021 xxxx

 

January - A new year, a new month and two finished crochet blankets. I choose my word for the year **'Journey'.

February - Damp, cold and slow. Lots of walking and watching the news about a new virus spreading from the east.

March - The world stops. We clap every Thursday for the NHS, we hide, we avoid, we are uncertain and ill at ease.

April - Our personal world reduces to a very tight-knit and protective bubble. A small furry lad brings laughter and a much needed distraction. He, after all our care and love, returned to the trees and grows up to be a rather handsome fellow. I still see him occasionally.

May - Walking and keeping a safe distance, wearing masks, washing hands and using sanitiser, queuing to enter essential shops. Sharing and caring is top of the community wish list. Gardening is a safe way to care for others.

June - The weather is glorious, we walk miles and miles and miles over hills and moors. Restrictions are lifted enough for us to get out in the van - we choose to keep as far away from others.

July - Our lockdown summer is one of rolling sunny weather and walking. We keep our heads down and our boots on. Walking and gardening is pure escapism from the worry and the uncertainty.

August - Walking, hiding, gardening, thinking - retreating inwardly. Reviving lost skills, learning new ones. Creating as a form of escape.

September - Walking still - using the miles to breathe and to think, gardening for myself and for those who can't.

October -  The long lingering summer warmth fades, walking keeps us sane, gardening still keeps me busy.  Numbers are not reducing, death toll increasing and we can feel our world becoming on edge again.

November - Once again we are looking inward. Crafting and in particular sewing becomes another way to escape. The weather is now definitely autumnal and certainly more wet, walking is less pleasure but still a necessity - it keeps my head from imploding. Never have I appreciated home and garden, family and the internet connectivity more.

December - The numbers are rocketing, new variants of the virus are emerging and despite the promised vaccine relief there is no way this will help at the speed that it is required. The NHS is at the point of breaking yet there are still those who do not believe or take care or responsibility or even think. We are placed in tier 4......

**And my word for 2020? Journey?

It was the right one for me - not only in the physical sense of me walking hundreds of miles over the year but I have moved on from 'all that was not right for me' in 2019 and journeyed into myself and back out - and 2020 despite being a 'year of all years' has been part of that journey. I have come out the other side more whole than I have felt for years.

I now need a new word, 

a new guide for the new year and it will be 

'Courage'.

I hope that I have inspired you to choose a word for your new year - it helped me - may it help you too xx

I can only hope and wish and think positively for 2021, she will need all the help she can get.  Stay safe, think positively and be kind, above all be kind xxxxx