MAKING great fires in the log burner! Does that count?
COOKING warming veggie curries; pumpkin & chickpea and a peanutty aubergine recipe
BAKING Scottish Shortbread. Delicious!
SIPPING a few hot chocolates lately. Well, it’s cold. 3° yesterday, 2° today. Brrr!
READING Mad Blood Stirring by Simon Mayo (and listening to it on Spotify)
WAITING for snow. First snowfall nearby last night
LOOKING very wrapped up when out. All the woollies. Wearing my rainbow bobble cowl at the mo and wrapping my purple Hitchhiker scarf on top when I go back to the car
LISTENING to The Battersea Poltergeist and Uncanny podcasts by Danny Robins
WISHING Christmas presents magically bought and wrapped themselves
ENJOYING lights and sparkle when out and about
DISLIKING Christmas trees and decs up in early November. Soon it’s going to be Christmas from the day after Halloween…
APPRECIATING any sunny blue days
EATING toasted goats cheese, rocket & red onion chutney toastie in a favourite cafe today
LIKING the mocha that always accompanies it. Strange combo maybe…
South Kensington, London. What a beauty
LOVING heated car seat and stirring wheel. A car with gizmos
BUYING a Star Bar recently, then dropping the last bit in the gutter
MANAGING to forget about a third of all I need to remember
WATCHING Ant & Dec in Australia. They make me laugh
HOPING for a good December
LISTENING to be audiobook of Mad Blood Stirring by Simon Mayo (on Spotify)
WEARING black jeans, green top
VISITING The V&A: Gabrielle Chanel, Fashion Manifesto
NOTICING how one person with a (very) loud voice can dominate a space. Shoulders went down in the cafe when they left
FOLLOWING …it’s macabre, but so many death announcements today …Shane MacGowan, Alistair Darling, Henry Kissinger and Dean Sullivan (Jimmy Corkhill in Brookside, a particularly English soap opera)
SORTING photos. Where do you store your digital photos? Cloud? Lap top? External hard drive?
GETTING organised with lists, but not much action
COVETING I can’t think of anything. A chateau maybe? A castle?
FEELING relaxed
HEARING a buzz of conversation, South Oxfordshire accents
How are you? What are you up to at the moment? Tell me three things?
Making: (made) an epic tiramisu for seven, all of whom are greedy for dessert. It made lots of portions – enough for seconds for the greedy fans, plus some to take home!
Cooking: A recipe a week from the Green Roasting Tin book, yes, still. I’m enjoying them, apart from this week’s which was a little less than the sum of its parts. Might try it again, but make my own harissa. This weekly project has really revitalised the meatless meals that I make
Sipping: Earl Grey
Reading: The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. Only just started, so this isn’t a recommendation, although it is a very successful best seller. But it’s good so far. I’ve read that if you liked the Crawdads book, this is for you. I did, so hopefully I’ll enjoy it
Waiting: for more rain, I collected lots several weeks ago, to the extent that I began to think I was crazy. But then it stopped raining after a few days and the water is now long gone, used in keeping the plants going
New violas, 6 for £3.50 from a local nursery. So much pleasure for a little cash
Looking: stylish as usual (ha!)
Listening: to the children playing outside, they’re just home from school
Wishing: for a long settled period for us all. Lots of continuing upheaval in the world
Enjoying: autumn
Appreciating: juicy blackberries, pausing to eat a few during walks
Gorgeously red haws (not to eat fresh, though apparently they can be used to make drinks, jams, jellies & syrups)
Eating: fish chowder later tonight, the first this autumn
Liking: cake and coffee with my friend yesterday, after a nice walk for a few hours. We talked and talked and talked
Loving: my aunt’s reaction to a potential menu for a light lunch next week, she said “No, I don’t think so, thank you” to my savoury suggestion. But when I offered to make scones and take over a cream tea she leaned forward, grinned and said: “Now you’re talking!”
Buying: bargains! I’ve got new tops from Seasalt, FatFace and a Craghoppers fleecy thing, which will be good for wearing on cooler autumn walks, all for around half to less than the full ticket price. WHOOP!
Greylag geese
Managing: to get the late payment and interest charges (circa £25!) taken off my credit card bill this morning. I’d uncharacteristically missed the payment deadline by ONE day. I was all ready and prepared to point out that I always pay off in full and have had the account for years, but didn’t have to at all
Watching: Wedding Season on Star, Disney+, so far so good and unexpected
Hoping: to go to London soon, at the beginning of the week I was waiting for the infrastructure from the Queen’s State Funeral to be cleared and things to settle down
Wondering: If you watched it? Jaw-dropping organisation, incredible sights. I loved the Scots Pipers and the Grenadier Guards and the Household Cavelry and …. It was such a spectacle. Along with over 28 million in this country, I was watching. This is the end of an era, so many of us have never known life without the Queen, just being ‘there’
The bees loved the sedum flowers at Buscot Park the other week
Noticing: it’s growing much cooler in the afternoons and evenings. Have you got the heating on, or a fire going yet? The fire has been on once so far, but I’ve wrapped up in my Tilted Squares blanket a few times
Getting: my preserving pan in action. So far I’ve made a batch of Chilli Jam. It’s v v pokey. I used a variety of homegrown tomatoes and hot, hot, hot homegrown birthday chillies
Prairie Fire chillies went into this, it’s definitely not for babies!
Following: what’s on at the V&A and considering Membership again
Heart, or bottom?
Sorting: apple recipes: jelly, chutney or jam?
A return visit to the Cotswold Sculpture Park, before it closes at the end of the month
Anticipating: the new series of Ghosts (BBC 1 tomorrow night, we’ll watch later on the iplayer)
Feeling: keen to see the next of River Cottage Reunited, such a shame there’s only 4 episodes, but wow it’s my kind of telly. Did you see it? Or watching now on catch up on All4?
Cerney House Garden
Hearing: Figure it Out by Royal Blood. Needs to be loud
Chilli Fest!
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What about you? Is all okay in your part of the world? Share three things?
Oh and a warm hello to you if you’ve recently found this blog through Facebook, my Facebook blog page has now reached 4.8K followers!
This new Siri is not nearly is sexy sounding as the old guy (yes, we have male voiced Siri) plus his sense of humour sucks! (‘Sucks’ – too much Glee while crocheting. I need to watch something that’s going to increase my vocabulary, not the opposite?!) If you dictate a stupid question, you get a stupid answer – but this was important stuff.
This genuinely made me cringe and yelp a bit when I saw it the other day. Urgh, the thought of dog lick is foul. Cats are fine though…
Ah yes, I totally agree.
Everywhere I go I seem to end up stumbling into ‘Christmas rooms’ and this was one of the biggest and the best. It was so lovely I was singing along to Let It Snow and realised there were at least half of a dozen others joining in too.
There’s a thingy on the left which you can just see, where you can put you head up into after crawling under half the table top scene. It’s for children really I suppose and I wasn’t brave enough to have a go, but how cute to see the trains going past your nose and Santa flying past. Can you spot him?
Funnily as I’ve been looking at this as a large sized pic on my iPad, I’ve noticed a few things are leaning or have fallen down. The ice skater makes sense, maybe the couple of cool kids leaning against the rink is a deliberate move, but I’m not sure about the other thing.
Winter’s definitely on the way when you see sprout sticks appearing in the farm shops. Roast chicken with roast potatoes, parsnips, sprouts and carrots, homemade stuffing with steaming hot gravy over will be happening on Sunday.
I’m going to crochet the border and darn the ends of my ripple over the weekend. The end is in sight!
There are thousands of blogs out there but I’ve realised you can only really connect with a certain number. When one becomes inactive, especially if you’ve followed them for years, you naturally begin wondering if the person is okay. When I started mine I connected with quite a number of people who were also new to blogging. We’ve been in touch for nearly three years now, but lately I’ve realised quite a few of these are only posting sporadically, or have stopped completely. I’m wondering if there is maybe a natural end to a blog? People get busy and interested in doing different things. I know I’m not posting much at the moment; but how many photos of the same ripple blanket do people want to see anyway? Have you also noticed your favourites dropping off?
More importantly: what are you going to be eating at the weekend? I do love details like this.
Although it’s quite a bit cooler now and the nights are drawing in at an alarming rate (curtains closed by 8pm) it still feels like late Summer.
I took a trip, with a friend, to Waterperry Gardens at the beginning of the week. It was lovely and warm outside, so I took a picnic for us to eat at one of the outside tables. I’m glad because car picnics aren’t much fun; tubs slide off the dashboard and you end up doing a balancing act with a plate on your knee!
The gardens are so well tended it’s a pleasure to wander, or sit, and take in the colour. There is a new ‘Truth Walk’, it would be good to go along the paths when the snowdrops are flowering.
My friend knows many of the staff at Waterperry and we stopped to chat several times. Apparently two of the head gardeners at Sissinghurst, when Vita and Harold established the garden, were trained at Waterperry. I was asked if I’d had noticed any similarities in the designs? You can actually; as I mentioned after my visit to Sissinghurst Vita didn’t wish to see any earth between the plants, the beds were crammed full, this is also striking in the long border at Waterperry.
The Little Room of Rachell 
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