Thursday.... Thanking, Baking, Harvesting and Welcoming

Thank you to everyone for commenting on the last post.
In reply
-- I  apologise to the people who were offended by my mention of people pushing trolleys with their elbows.
-- My Naan Bread recipe is on my separate Recipe page.
-- Thank you if you popped over to visit that most popular post and pushed up the views even more!
-- Thank you to Mum who replied in the same way as my post
-- I agree with Pam about children standing in trolleys
-- Simon's reply made me smile
-- I believe the stats when they are good but I'm sure the low page view ones are wrong!

Once upon a time when we had all 3 children at home and Col took a pack-up lunch to work everyday, I  baked cakes every week. Now I only bake about once a month.

A few sultana buns and plain scones

A Mincemeat cake using some home made mincemeat that had got forgotten at the back of the jam cupboard

I also made cheese straws using a new recipe in which the cheese was grated on top of half the rolled out dough, folded over, rolled out, more grated cheese put on top, folded over and rolled again before cutting into fingers. This worked well, more air gets in so the straws fluffed up nicely.

Most of the things I made went into the freezer for the next few weeks.

After saying we had no blackberries anywhere around Col found a few on the field side of the hedge where we don't usually go. Our autumn raspberries are coming along well, quite a lot of rain over the last few days will have helped.

Big Welcome  to Sonya and Joy new followers on Google in the little pictures on the right. Hope you enjoy reading. Blogger is mis-behaving again so I can't find out if you have blogs too.

Back again in a day or two

Sue

Hollyhocks and nasturtiums, crocus and dwarf narcissus.

We went out early this morning to a car boot sale that's usually just the first Saturday of the summer months but I discovered they have an extra one in August. It was more or less a waste of time/diesel because C found nothing and I just got a new tee-shirt for £1 and 3 packets of nasturtium seeds and a packet of salad leaf seeds for 10p each. The nasturtiums will be handy for the containers on my shabby chic ladder next summer and to fill gaps in the big flower border.

We were home again by 9.30 and after a coffee C went off to work for his Leiston customer, he came home at lunchtime with a bag full of Hollyhock seed heads. So they will be sprinkled around the flower border too. The Hollyhocks that I had all went rusty and I pulled them up, but I think someone said they could have been left and would have flowered OK.

A bit later the postman brought a small parcel of bulbs. I had sent for a few cheap plants from one of those catalogues that comes unasked for through the post. The Trailing Pansies came a week ago and some teeny weeny Polyanthus plug plants arrived yesterday. The pansies are also for containers on the ladder over winter and the Polyanthus will be to sell in spring. The crocus are called Cream Beauty and were on offer for £2.99 for 50 bulbs. This will be about the 10th time I've tried to grow crocuses here. Snowdrops and primroses are fine but crocus just vanish. Also in the parcel were 50 dwarf narcissus bulbs which were free with any order.  I shall probably plant them in pots and also sell  them later - that's the plan anyway.

While we were out this morning I wanted to nip into the nearby WHS for a copy of  Home Farmer Magazine. When it first started I subscribed for a few years but now I only buy a copy if we are somewhere with a WHS - nowhere else seems to stock it. I had looked at the contents list on their website and was interested in reading the articles on Dig for Victory and WW2 cookery. I also enjoyed the diary by Dot Tyne who is a VERY self sufficient smallholder now living in Wales. She seems to have more hours in her day than I do!

You know I've been huffing and puffing about everyone else having lots of blackberries whereas here we have none, despite having brambles all round the hedges, well we hope to have solved this annual problem by digging up some runners from a friends cultivated blackberry patch. That was a couple of months ago and they are coming along nicely so that C has put up stakes and wires to train them on.
Next year we WILL have blackberries right here on the smallholding - fingers crossed.

Welcome to several new followers on Google friends, Debra, Jibberjabber and Lynda and Tricia, Rona,Stephanie and Debijanebell, Belinda, Shellw and Leisha who have clicked the Bloglovin'button.
I hope you all enjoy reading about our quiet life here in the beautiful Suffolk countryside.

Back Tomorrow
Sue

An Inspector calls........... eventually.

The Camping and Caravanning Club site inspector was due today at 11.00am. By 11.45 there was still no sign of him so as he had left his mobile number I rang him to find out if we had written down the wrong day. No, he had just been held up and then got lost. I said it was usual for people to call if they were running late. He said he supposed he could have done. Eventually they arrived at 12.30. His excuse was that his Sat Nav had gone wrong and he had followed it to Stowmarket ( which is a town in Mid Suffolk  30 miles away).
There was just nothing I could say without being rude!

Cash in today for three more IBC containers - Handy.
C. delivered two and came back via our friends to collect the picture he had framed for me and some cultivated blackberry runners. You would think that living in the country there would be blackberries everywhere, but last year we had none anywhere close. The hedges are all cut back and the brambles had all been cleared from under the pylons too, and with the dry weather we didn't get to pick any.
He brought home four large clumps and we've put them in a place where they can grow and hopefully not be in the way. C will put up some post and wires later to train them on.

While it was gloomy and wet I got the other two poly-tunnels weeded. We've lost two cucumber plants - something has attacked them at soil level. This is really annoying as the seeds are very expensive and it's getting a bit late to start again, perhaps we'll be able to find some plants at a car boot, although not tomorrow - the weather forecast is not good so it's unlikely the sale will take place. In the other tunnel a couple of pepper plants are looking sad.

We will be watching the Eurovision Song Contest tonight - I don't know why, I doubt UK will get many points, but as it's been on every year for as long as I can remember it's become a bit of a tradition to watch..........and then to go to bed when the voting goes on for so long that we start to fall asleep!

Thank you to everyone for yesterdays  comments about living without a salary. It's Just a case of getting rid of all debts including the mortgage, saving some money for back up and having a way to earn some income that doesn't involve going out to work. Simples! :-)

Back Tomorrow
Sue