A break in France

For the last 9 days we've been here again, in our friends house in France.


A thoroughly relaxing break of sleeping, scrabble, coffee, patisserie and sunshine.


And lizard watching (yes, in march! It was freakishly warm). And napping, and more scrabble.



Now we're back, it's back to work, and the house, and to blogging hopefully! I have loads of posts in my head, it's just getting them published.
(while I was away Imagine it published a blog post that I had managed to write for them-they blog about moments, big or small, and I wrote about the first time working back on my loom. It's here, if you want to see)

(apologies for the quality of pictures, all on my phone)

Eat: salmon and cucumber dill salad/goats cheese & onion bruschetta

I've done quite a bit of cooking trying out recipes I've saved over the last few weeks. I go through phases of being stuck in a rut where all I can think of is pasta, to being really adventurous and trying out tons of new recipes. A few weeks ago I had a week like that, and since most of them were good, I thought I'd share them. we did eat them all before i'd taken photos, so its a pictureless post.
I found this salmon recipe on pinterest, it's so easy! It's not really so much a recipe for salmon as a dressing you could put with any fish, possibly even meats. It's very summery, it wasn't really the right time of year for it but i know if I don't try things out straight away I'll forget about them.
We roasted some new potatoes in olive oil and rosemary to go with this, our only complaint was that the dressing was possibly slightly runny, but that could be easily amended by adjusting the quantities of the wet ingredients. I'm a bit slapdash with quantities unless it's baking, so it's probably my fault! I also couldn't find fresh dill when I was shopping, so used chives instead. It would be a lovely side dressing for a BBQ, or as it is here for a summer meal.
While I was shopping for the ingredients for the dressing above, I saw goats cheese, and wanted it. So I decided to make bruschettas with goats cheese and caramelised onions for a starter (I really went all out that night!). I don't know about any of you, but I've never been able to make really nice caramelised onions, just sort of burger onions. So I googled it and found this I really only used this recipe for the onions part, I just toasted some French stick under the grill, smooshed the goats cheese (minus rind) on the top, and then put the caramelised onions over. They were scrummy.
That may have been completely unnecessary, I may be the only numpty in the world who doesn't know how to make good caramelised onions, but hey. You live and learn! More recipes coming soon.

Indecisive

lobster and swan

I'm intrigued. What do you do with your magazines when you've read them? I read mainly interiors ones, and textile/craft ones too, but I am a hoarder. I can't bear to throw them out. Or even rip the occasional page. I feel like one day I will need a library of inspiration, and that will come from these magazines.

Since I came to college I have had subscriptions to/bought religiously: crafts/vogue/Elle decoration/selvedge/country living/Mollie makes (the last 3 I still get) and I occasionally buy homes and gardens or another interiors magazine that takes my eye.

lobster and swan

But I can't bear to throw them away, so they all still sit on shelves around the house, taking up irritating amounts of room.
I've been debating the idea of scrapbooks? Normally I'm precious about cutting them up too, but im starting to think that keeping the pictures and articles which I find inspiring in one place might be better than a stack of old magazines, in which I have no hope of finding that amazing picture I know one contains.

lobster and swan

I kept a scrapbook when we were planning this house, to save samples and swatches, and pictures I loved, but I was a bit precious about how the pages look. I sectioned it off by room, so I could show James my ideas. But I think I need to try very pointedly do the opposite now, not consciously choose images to sit together, but see what combinations come up from sticking images in as I find them.

Any ideas? What do you do, do your magazines go in recycling when you're finished, or do you have a library of past editions hidden away somewhere?!


All images from lobster and swan - links under images - who is excellent at scrapbooking. she also has cute cats.

Bookcase: We need to talk about Kevin

image from amazon

I'm well aware I'm behind the times by talking about this now, even though the films just out the book is a good few years old, and could be described as a modern classic already, but I've only just read it and it's SO.DAMN.GOOD.

I found the first half hard to get into, I'd read a sentence or paragraph and have to go back over it because it was just so wordy, I hadn't taken anything in. But then as Kevin starts to come into himself as a character I was more and more gripped. I found the language became simpler too. It's not easy to read by any stretch of the imagination, the subject is obviously awful, but it was so cleverly written I found myself crowbarring time into my day to read it.

You know what the main crime in the book is from the beginning, so you are constantly leading towards 'Thursday' and yet there are still surprises in it. There were several incidents (maybe I'm just dense-it's eminently possible) that I just wasn't expecting, and floored me when I was reading it. And her ability by the end of the book to make you feel sympathy for Kevin is very clever. Just consider not reading it if you are that time in life where you're thinking about having children!

(Im never sure whether I should carry on writing these bookcase posts - I shied away from writing one from the blook club meeting I went to, since some ladies there were much more eloquent than me, but I like reading, and want to share what I like so I hope you dont mind if I carry on!)

Have any of you seen the film? what did you think? it never came to our cinema, so Im going to invest at the end of the month when the DVD is released!

Pinspiration: christmas decoration storage

image from re-nest via pinterest

(I re-pinned it but the link wasnt direct to the blogpost - apologies)

I saw this ages ago, but had to wait to do it until now.

Its worked quite well, it would work better if you don't, like me, collect random odd shaped christmas decorations, but have perfectly matching baubles instead. hence my pictures make it look like a junk shop stored on an apple crate, but I've still kept them like that. I've then stored them in a box to keep them safe.we get our eggs delivered on a large sheet once a month, so I've been saving those rather than boxes, and I got some more, and the larger apple sheets from our market, who would normally just recycle them at the end of the day.

the eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed some glass cat heads in the photos above, heres a closer one with two of them in - a set of 6 of these were my secret santa present from Lisa-Marie, along with some christmassy truffles! Thank you very much Lisa, and sorry it took so long to write about them!

(apologies for the appalling quality of photos, it was night, on an iphone.)

if you'd like to see what else I'm pinning, you can find me here

Imagine it.

Remember my friend? (how could you not, the post is only about 4 back, such is my blogging prowess these days)

She got married. It was beautiful.

Herself and her husband run a group providing a fresh perspective on life, positive help for anyone who wants it, and embracing and experiencing everything that comes in their path. If you want to be a part of it, you can go to their facebook page, their website, and sometimes through Vikis blog. (they even do wristbands, if you need a positive thinking stocking filler!

Tonight, all their friends and family are having a push to get their ethos out there to build support for the community they are creating, which is why I'm bombarding you with links. Tomorrow, those of you who read wedding blogs, may notice her face pop up again. I know I've asked it before, but shes worth repeating myself for. If you can, If you want to, go, visit, talk, support. anything you feel like doing.

Thank you.

Bookcase: the River Cottage handbook series

Personally, I could write a post on every one of these books, I own 6 of the 8 or 9 there are in the series so far. I love them. They are informative, modern, interesting and well written. The veg book is the only gardening book (other than the fruit one, which I think I took in a bath with me to read!) which I have devoured from cover to cover without skipping bits.

Each book is written, not by Hugh F-W, but by someone knowledgable on the subject, who you'll probably have seen if you watch any of his programmes. So the hedgerow book is written by John, hughs foraging friend. The bread book is written by dan, his baker. The veg and fruit books are written by Mark, the head gardener at river cottage. You get the idea. Don't even get me started on 'pam the jam', I think you can guess that she wrote the preserves book!

Each book is divided into roughly the same sections, an introduction, telling you why you really should bake your own bread/grow your own veg/bottle the veg you grew/foraged, and what you'll need to do it. The majority of the book is taken up with alphabetised sections of recipes/plants and explains about each one really rather well, without losing you in a mire of technical words. Then, in the case of some books (hedgerow/fruit/veg) Hugh has written some recipes to use the ingredients you've grown, and in the veg/fruit books again, there are really helpful chapters on how to set up a good veg plot.

If all that's not enough, they are cloth covered, and the photography is gorgeous.

all images from amazon