The strawberry season is upon us, so we spent a pleasant hour strawberry picking at a lovely pick your own farm near Lymington. There is nothing like it, gathering the sweet berries and tasting the odd one or two. It is such a domestic pleasure all the joy of harvest without the hard work! However picking is just the beginning! We came home with six large punnets of strawberries and two punnets of raspberries so I have been cooking all afternoon!
The Blackfield Horticultural Show is coming up soon, and I have been looking at the classes to enter, there is one for jam tarts so I thought I would try out my pastry making skills. After making the mistake of using self raising flour the first time I managed to create a sort of pastry cake! The second batch came out fairly respectable. I used two recipes: a normal plain pastry recipe and a tart recipe. Clive and I tasted one of each the tart recipe won as it had more buttery sweet taste. As for the jam, for now I used a conserve, will try the jam making tomorrow!
The shows are great fun to enter, costing only 40p per entry! I tried it last year for the first time and it was really exciting, taking my entries down early in the morning and returning in the afternoon to view the other entries and to see how I got along! I did fall foul of the rules with my Victoria sandwich by putting icing sugar on the top rather than castor sugar (I did not even realise there were rules for things like that!)I won a certificate for my shortbread, card and crochet phone holder which was very encouraging as I had only just taught myself!
The Waterside Arts festival starts soon as well, it is a great event the whole village gets involved. There are a number of poetry writing competitions an art exhibition, as well as live bands and music events. Should be fun! How I love the summer! Let’s hope the weather is good, it is surprising how everyone seems to smile more when the sun shines!
Posted by spicyapplebum under
books | Tags:
Narnia,
Secret life of bees |
1 Comment
I remember all the summers, when I was a child, were warm and full of promise. Waking up with the day ahead to fill as I chose, reading, writing, sunbathing. It was a time before sunscreen and skin cancer, when you could lay in the sun all day and not even turn pink. I don’t remember being bored, but I do remember enjoying endless days lost in my books, or cycling to the library to get more adventures.
Without books I don’t think I would have survived my childhood, escaping into another world or another time seemed to be essential. The first book that really hooked me into reading was the magician’s Nephew, it was the first time I had read a book from cover to cover and I remember being so proud of myself, but what was really magical was the escape to another world, one that had different problems from my own, that could all be resolved, neatly by the end. I think that is why the magician’s Nephew today is still special to me. With books I created the childhood I wanted, trips abroad, adventures and mysteries to solve as well as romance. I could drop into another person’s life and be someone else for a while.
I think the most important book for me today is called the secret life of bees. Why is it so special? Because it is the story of a girl who goes in search of people who knew her dead mother. The book is so well written the author describes the longing and sheer determination to know that special person even though the child’s memory is blank. The way the writer describes how important it is for the child to know her mother, the need to have some point of reference for self, that it really is a joy to read. I think the writing must be autobiographical somewhere, because of the feelings and emotions she conveys reflect my own experience that I don’t believe that anyone could write with such conviction unless they knew.
C invited me to a girlie night out to the premier of Sex in the City, at the Casino, it was a fab night! We started off with Manhattans in the bar! It was great to dress up in heels and a lovely dress, we all looked fab!
I liked the film, but have to admit I hadn’t watched any of the television series! Obviously the TV series had ended with them all happily ever after, so the film started from that point! Ending up with the same, happily ever after!
I loved the clothes, and the guy next door (whoa!) but I must say I couldn’t live their life! I felt so pleased to be back in my own world after all that glamour! You just can’t beat a loving relationship!
