Baking

I bought this recently

it accompanies the BBC programme The Great British Bake Off. It's got some delicious things in it


I'm not sure which to make first. Maybe I should just work my way from one end to the other!
Maybe not, we would then require some serious dieting I think.
Whatever I decide to do I'll post about the results.

Hope you've all had good weekends.

Sue x

Greys Court

Yesterday we went to Greys Court in Oxfordshire it is near Henley on Thames and about an hours journey for us. The house that is there now is Tudor but there have been people living on the site for nearly 1000 years. The estate has only been owned by five families in all that time.
The house is not very big in fact it is a very homely and welcoming house, it's very easy to imagine living there. Unfortunately photography is not allowed in the house so there are no piccies I'm afraid.

In the grounds there are the remains of some of the earliest buildings, this tower


and some of the walls that used to surround the manor.

The gardens are beautiful

this is the white garden which is around the base of the tower.




this is the cherry garden, this is also grown amongst the old walls. There is a walled kitchen garden


which as you can see was stuffed to bursting. Among the things growing were these amazing applesit was very tempting to pick some, I didn't I hasten to add. If you are ever near Henley it's definitely worth a visit.

We are off to a one day event tomorrow, another early start! We are hoping for a dry day so fingers crossed.

Hope you enjoy the long weekend and that the sun shines on you.

Sue x

Savill Garden

Yesterday we went to Savill Garden which is near Windsor in Berkshire. It is in Windsor Great Park and is one part of a group of three gardens which make up what is known as The Royal Landscape. The other two parts are The Valley Gardens and Virginia Water. Savill Garden is the smallest of the three.
It is very well kept, these steps lead down into the garden.

It's a bit late in the year for lots of things in the garden but the summer borders were still looking beautiful.


The large greenhouse in the picture is the temperate house it has lots of tender plants in it. It also has this water feature.

It was quite hypnotic watching it.
There are well laid paths leading all round the garden although you can wander wherever you like, no Keep of the Grass signs anywhere. We came across this walking through some trees

it is a wisteria, we couldn't see the top of it as the tree it was climbing was so tall. We sat for a while in the Jubilee Garden

this is just one of the borders. It was very peaceful sitting there and as it is sheltered we were out of the wind.
It is a lovely garden to visit, the restaurant is very good and the shop had some interesting things in it. We will certainly be visiting again.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend,

Sue x

Gifts

This is just a quick post today to say thank you to Lorraine for the pay it forward gifts. They arrived cheerfully wrapped

and they smelt good too, thanks to the lavender. When I opened the parcel I found these

a dish cloth, a brooch and a heart. Thank you Lorraine, they are very much appreciated.

We went to Savill Gardens today, hopefully I'll do a post about our day out tomorrow.


Sue x

A Grand Day Out.

We had a lovely day in London yesterday. The weather was just right and there was room to walk on the pavements.
We started at the British Museum where we went to look at Sir Percival David's collection. It is amazing, some of the things take your breath away. I've chosen a few of the things I liked best to show you,

these are a thousand years old!

As you can see the porcelain is so thin on these wine cups you can see through them.


This is about three feet in diameter, apparently the potters had difficulty with this size of thing warping. This one looked ok, I wonder how many they made to get to this one?



The pottery in these three cabinets looks very modern, in fact everything was made in the early part of the 15th century
This was one of my favourite pieces

it's about three feet tall and it came from a Buddhist temple, it was made in 1320. I would have loved to have taken it home.
It is a fantastic collection, I think we will be visiting it again

From the museum we walked to the Japan Centre. This is in Regents Street. We walked down Shaftesbury Avenue where we saw this shop

seems an odd thing to find in the middle of London but it obviously manages to keep trading. Near to Piccadilly Circus we saw this

there was no sign on the building as to its original function, does anyone know what it was? The figures were very elegant, there is also a fountain at ground level. I couldn't get a picture of that as there were too many people.

At the Japan Centre we had a good mooch round, it's great fun looking at all the weird and wonderful things. We did buy some buns but I'm afraid they didn't last long enough to photo! Unfortunately I didn't manage to buy any craft books as they have moved them all to their recently opened book shop, which we didn't manage to visit. That gives me the perfect excuse to visit again.

Sue x

Another Competition

Today we went to a dressage competition with youngest. This was held about ten minutes away from the yard where Jelly is stabled, so no crack of dawn starts today thank goodness. She was hoping to qualify for this and I'm glad to say that she did. We'll be off to the competition sometime in September.
Sorry there are no photos but the camera batteries died on me, that will teach me not to check them before we go out.

On a completely different note I have joined in with this,



it has been started at The Balancing Kiwi.
The idea is that I promise to send a small gift to the first three people that comment on this post, they then promise to do the same thing. The gifts only need to be something small and they have to be sent within a year.
I understand that it isn't something that any of you may want to do so I thought that I could maybe make a donation to charity instead.
If nobody wants to do the gift thing if the first three people that comment want to nominate a charity I'll make a donation instead of sending them something.
I hope that this is still in the spirit of the Pay it Forward. I'll leave it with you.

Tomorrow Husband and I are off to the British Museum, he wants to go and look at the Chinese pottery. Then we are going to visit the Japan Centre which is full of all things Japanese, funnily enough. I'm hoping to come back with some craft books!

The camera batteries are charging so I'll be back with some photos and an account of our adventures tomorrow, hopefully.

Sue x

Photo!

Thank you for all the well wishes on my last post. We went out last night and celebrated with a very nice meal.
Anyway, Rachel asked about a photo so here you go

check out the glasses! (They were fashionable at the time honest).
They look a bit different today

Hope you enjoy the weekend.

Sue xx

32

That's how many years we have been married today.

I can't believe that the time has gone so quickly.
Thank you P for always being there for me and with me.

Fancy another 32?

Sue

Little Mattingley

Yesterday we spent at a one day event with youngest. It was held at Mattingley which is near Hook in Hampshire.
We had a very early start

That is A.M.!!
When we arrived we walked the cross country course, I find this a bit difficult some times when I see the size of some of the fences she will be jumping.
That done it was back to the lorry to get Jelly Bean ready. She had her mane plaited

and she had studs put into her shoes, this is to help her grip as she is charging about the place.


The first part of the day is Dressage


this went very well and she got a very good score.
The next event is Show Jumping

This didn't go quite as well as she had a couple of fences down, which is unusual as she's usually pretty good at this part.
The next bit is the Cross Country

(sorry the photo is a bit one sided but it was the best I could do).
She managed to go clear doing this which she was very pleased with. She has gone up a class this season so everything is higher and wider (hence Mothers' nerves!).
After all the excitement Jelly gets walked round so that she can cool down and get her breath back


The lady in the photo is youngests' boss who makes all this possible,( thanks Zoe).
Then it's back to the lorry to sort Jelly out. She's washed down and then she has a paste called Ice Tite put on her legs, this helps cool them down, and then she has stable bandages put on. This is to support them after all the hard work.


Thought you might like to see the things we take with us


this is without any tack and without any of youngests' clothes, this is what they look like when we have finished


lots of washing for Mum!
It was a very long day, we got home at

I should say here that the actual time spent riding the dressage, show jumping and cross country combined is about 20 minutes (this doesn't include any warming up riding done). Makes you wonder why we do it. Despite that we do enjoy it, which is just as well really.

Hope you are all enjoying your weekends,

Sue xx