Hay on Wye

On Tuesday we went to Hay on Wye, it's a pretty little town right on the northern most tip of the Black Mountains. It has the ruins of a huge castle.

The view from the car park is pretty amazing

but the main reason for visiting Hay is the bookshops.
I love books and any excuse to add to my collection cannot be passed by.
We visited several, some better than others. Hay on Wye Booksellers was one of the better ones, they had a huge stock and the lady running it was very friendly. We also visited one which is housed in the old cinema, Hay Cinema Bookshop. This is also very good, there are thousands of books but the staff are a bit offhand, still worth a visit though.

We didn't spend all our time in the bookshops, we had a wander around the town. This picture is by the side of one of the shops

he looks a bit furtive to me, maybe it's something to do with the books he is reading!
This plaster work is very pretty

pity we don't take as much trouble now with our buildings.
This shop is very eye catching

it used to be a butchers, all the tiles on the pillars have animals on them.

We came across this while walking round


very confusing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Hay is right on the border of Wales and England and they still haven't decided who has right of way!

We had a lovely time , I hope to go back soon, you can never have too many books after all!


Hope you enjoy your weekends.

Sue x

Forest of Dean

We got back yesterday from a few days in the Forest of Dean. It is a beautiful part of the country, lots of trees (obviously, clue in the name ) and rolling hills.

We stopped off first in the small town of Coleford. It's not a very pretty place, so no pictures but we needed some lunch and as the saying goes "any port in a storm".
After lunch we headed of to a local arboretum

it adjoins Forestry Commission land. The arboretum itself is quite small so after walking round there we ventured further afield into the wider forest. The weather was glorious, bright and sunny, so I got a few photos like this.

The sun shining through the leaves but I won't bore you with them all. We walked down paths like these


as we headed for this lake

which we waked round, it was very peaceful. Then it was back to the car and off to Ross on Wye where we stayed. We had a stroll round the town, no pictures this time because the light was going and I always end up with out of focus pictures when the light is bad. On Tuesday we headed over to Hay on Wye but I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

Sue x

Visiting

We went to stay with the son and heir at the weekend, he lives in Hackney (which was much nicer than I expected and very clean ). We wandered around town on the Saturday, we saw this



Leadenhall Market, they don't build shopping centres like that any more. Not sure what they did sell there but I think it may have been something to do with game as there were golden pheasants on the round towers. This


Monument, the top is very beautiful but I didn't want to get a closer look as I have no head for heights. This

the London Eye, there were huge queues but I wouldn't have fancied a trip on this either. This



and this

it's on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, it's quite impressive.
We also visited Sealife. It's interesting to see fish close up but I have mixed feelings about large marine creatures living in tanks. The sharks and turtles were swimming round and round, they reminded me a bit of lions and bears pacing backwards and forwards in zoos.
As we were heading over towards Covent Garden we walked past this building, The Institute of Painters in Watercolours, haven't noticed it before. I don't know if part of it is still the Institute, as you can see the bottom is all shops but then I suppose it might always have been like that.

On Sunday we went for a walk around Spitalfields. The old market is now full of stalls selling clothes and antiques, there are also some very nice cake stalls which we did spend some of our pennies at.This church



is on one side of the market it is Christ Church Spitalfields and it is by Nicholas Hawksmoor, very simple and very beautiful. While we were wandering around I happened to glance down one of the side streets and saw this,


I don't know if you can make out the horse statue. No idea what building it's on, any one have any ideas?

We had a lovely time, we don't get to see son and heir very often so it's always a treat when we do. He's coming home in a few weeks for his big sister's birthday so there won't be such a long gap between visits this time.

Enjoy the rest of the week,

Sue x

P.S. It's official, I'm old. I had to give in and use a magnifying mirror to tidy up my eyebrows this morning, how depressing is that!

Knitting and Stitching

On Saturday I went to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. It was heaving, so no pictures I'm afraid as I couldn't lift my arms to use the camera!

I did buy a few things

this pattern and material

fat quarters

this charm pack which is in colours I wouldn't normally choose but hey a change is as good as a rest

and this cushion pattern as I want to make a foot stool to put my feet up when I'm crocheting. I also bought this book as I want to have a go at machine embroidery, although I have nightmares about never being able to untangle the sewing machine ever again.

Hopefully I'll pluck up the courage to give it a try and if I do you will be the first to know.

Sue x

Thank You and Cake

First I wanted to say a big thank you for all your lovely comments on my last post. I can't believe that people I have never met can be so kind.
I have started to feel a bit better I'm glad to say, I hope it continues.
Anyway, on with the cake.

I made Banana and Chocolate Bread on Sunday, another one from the new book.
Here it is before it went into the oven.


Here is what it looked like in the book.


Here is what mine looked like just out of the oven

and here after it had been cut.


This one turned out well, I did have to cook it for a bit longer but that is par for the course with my oven. The family gave it the thumbs up although I have to say I found it a bit tasteless. There's no pleasing some people!

Thanks again for the support, enjoy your week,

Sue x

Fog

There has been dense black fog filling the kitchen for the past few weeks. It has been getting worse as the days have passed. This has made it difficult to achieve anything. I think Winston Churchill called it his black dog, however I like dogs too much to want to associate them with these times and anyway I wouldn't want to upset Florence.

Over the last day or so I think the fog has started to thin a little, enough anyway for me to see to make another cake from the new book.
I made a Lemon Drizzle Cake. This is what it looks like in the book

and this is what mine looks like.



I think it's a bit too brown on the outside and that is because I had to cook it for 20 minutes longer than the recipe said. I have a c**p oven obviously!

It tastes delicious and there is a lot less than this left now. As this is the third cake I have now made from this book and I have had to tweak each one I'm beginning to wonder if anyone actually tried the recipes before they published it. Perhaps I'm being unfair, I'll have to try a few more to be sure.

Hope you all have good weeks, hopefully I'll be back soon.

Sue x

Green and Gorgeous

Yesterday we visited here

Green and Gorgeous grow flowers which they sell as bouquets, they also do wedding flowers. Everything is grown organically. They have a beautiful site in the Oxfordshire countryside.


This is a general view across the site, there were several large polytunnels this one with dahlias


the others had roses and also vegetables. This plant was growing on supports around the beds


it's called a cup and saucer vine, it's an annual so obviously grows very quickly. There were sunflowers

and lots of beautiful roses

like this one. Don't know what it's called unfortunately.
We had a lovely afternoon walking round in the sunshine, we finished up with tea and scones. Couldn't ask for more.

On Saturday I made cake 2 from my new book, a Bara Brith.

This one turned out ok,although the recipe needed tweeking. It needed more fluid than the recipe said but apart from that it worked fine. It certainly tasted good and it didn't last long, we had the last bit this evening.
Not sure what the next one is going to be but I'll be sure to share the results with you.

Hope you all have good weeks,

Sue x

Thank You

Just a quick post to say thank you for all your suggestions regarding the sinking cherries. I did in fact do most of the things suggested. Still as was said, it doesn't really matter as it tasted fine . If I make it again I will definitely put more cherries in it and I'm going to try rolling them in ground almonds

Thanks again, I'm now trying to decide which cake to have a go at this weekend.

Take care

Sue x

Cake 1

Well, I made the first cake from my new book on Sunday.

I decided to have a go at the cherry cake. It looked fine in the tin


and it looked fine while it was cooling down

but when I cut into it all the cherries had sunk to the bottom.

It tastes fine, thankfully but has anyone got any ideas about how to stop the cherries sinking? I did everything it said in the recipe but that obviously didn't work.

Oh and Cheryl, it has managed to spend one day in one of the new tins! Don't think it will be there much longer though.

Sue

Cake Tins

These arrived today

to go with the new recipe book.
All I need to do now is fill them up.
Watch this space.

Sue x