frayed at the edge

A tale of three cakes!

Did you think I had forgotten the photos for the Friday Cake Fan Club?  Of course I didn't, I just thought I would keep them until today!!

lemon drizzle cake and date and walnut loaf

 

And the third cake?  Following the success of last week's no-cook chocolate brownies, I thought I would have a go at no-cook sticky toffee cake .......

I crumbled the cake into a bowl and added twelve dates, cut into quarters.  I melted the two Mars bars in a small bowl over a saucepan of hot water, then added approx 60g butter to melt and mixed it well. I added this mixture to the cake and dates and stirred it together - that took a bit of effort as it's decidedly sticky!  Next, I put it into a loaf tin lined with clingfilm, then into the fridge to chill.  Last, I cut it into squares

So .... how does it taste?  Absolutely delicious!!  As you can see, I cut it into small squares, as it is very rich.  I think it would be even more delicious with a little cream or ice cream!!

 

I should have done the ironing this afternoon ..... but instead I got organised for my next knitting project (I finished my shawl yesterday)

These little fellows are so cute - I had intended to knit them last year (possibly even the year before) so I thought I had better get a move on to make sure they are ready for this Christmas!

 

Their little hats are so cute!  I've been saving up yarn - odd balls from the bargain basket!

I'm spoiled for choice for their beards - maybe I'll just have to knit lots of them to use all the different colours ......
 
 

 

 

 

 

Colour in the sky

Yesterday morning there was a wonderful rainbow in front of the house.  Unfortunately, I couldn't get far enough back to get all of it in one photo!  (I suppose I could have climbed the fence into the field behind the house and run up the hill .....)

the left hand side

the right hand side

the centre!

 

This afternoon, there was a dramatic sunset .....

...... but this isn't it, this is the reflection of the sunset on the clouds in the east .....

....... this is the sunset!!

 
 
 
 
 

A domestic day

As always, today was taken up with all things domestic (except for the laundry, which I did yesterday!!)  I am going to visit Stuart on Wednesday, so I offered to make chilli con carne for dinner.  I thought I would cook it today, as I think it tastes better if it matures for a day or two!

 

I know that looks like a very big pot - but there is some for Malcolm as well!!  Of course you can't have chilli without all the extras

I also did some 'baking' - this is loosely based on a recipe I saw recently in a magazine - no-cook chocolate brownies

Very simple - a bought cake, butter, chocolate and sultanas (there should have been golden syrup as well, but I don't have any!)  This is so easy - melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pot of hot water

crumble the cake into a bowl and add the sultanas. then once the chocolate/butter mix has cooled, stir it in

Line a baking tin with clingfilm (I used only half the amounts of the original recipe, so instead of a square tine, I used a loaf tin) and press the mixture in.  Pop it in the fridge for several hours.  Once it is firm, cut it into squares (quite small ones, as it is very rich!) and dust with icing sugar - yum, yum, yum

Once all the cooking was done, I sat down to finish off a shawl I have been knitting for Malcolm's sister, Jennifer.  It's just a little shawl - more a shaped scarf.  The edging is knitted first, then stitches picked up all along the edge.  The shaping is achieved by knitting short rows.  It's knitted in aran, so was very quick to do.  By the time I finished, it was starting to get dark, so I had to use the flash to take the photo, so the colour isn't true - it's a lovely soft slate grey, with little hints of heather colours through it

I am so pleased with the shawl, I am going to knit one for myself!!
 
 

 
 
 
 
 

A grand day out

First, of course, I have to start by revealing the Christmas cake, after it was unwrapped!

mmmm - rich and delicious!!  Several times between now and Christmas, I will drizzle brandy over it, so it will be even more moist.  In the past there have small disputes over the icing of our Christmas cakes, as I don't like marzipan, but this problem has been resolved - no marzipan under the icing, and marzipan fruits on the top for Malcolm!!

While we are on the subject of cakes ..... of course there was cake yesterday at patch'n'chat - in fact there were two -

 

a border tart

 

iced ginger bread

Yes, I had a piece of each!!  We could have eaten them in style, as the table in the shop has been laid to show off Christmas place mats

If you would like to make these mats, do check out Borderland Fabrics' website, to get in touch with the shop to buy the fabrics.

 

Now on to today - we set off this morning for the village of St Abbs over on the east coast.  It was a beautiful morning and we had a lovley run over.  We were heading to another event organised by local wool shop Woolfish - a cornucopia of all things woolly.  Malcolm came in to have a cup of coffee, but then he left me to immerse myself in all the wonderful woolly goodies.  (he went for a walk along the clifftop - taking lots of photos for me, which you can see tomorrow in Shadow Shot Sunday!!)  I haven't yet taken photos of the things I bought, but of course I did take photos of some of the stalls.  First is the exceedingly colourful stall of my lovely friend Lindsay 

Every time I see Lindsay she has made all sorts of different, interesting things, and they are always beautifully presented.

The next lot of loveliness was on the stall of Janis Embleton - all sorts of super handwoven delights

And then I succumbed to the most beautiful hank of pure silk lace weight yarn from fyberspates - I will have to knit something very special with it

Unfortunately the llamas and alpacas weren't there today - I know I showed you photos of them when we were there in the spring, but you can never have too many photos of such lovely animals!!  
  

 

 

Under wraps

I didn't have the best of starts to today!  I had an appointment at the Borders General Hospital - a follow up to a previous appointment for the 'face ache'.  Malcolm came with me, as he knows I really don't like hospitals!  The first annoyance was not being able to find a parking space (we had to park outwith the hospital grounds - probably about quarter of a mile away - not a problem for us, as we're fit, but not much use if you're really ill).  Then, we sat and sat ... and sat!  Although my appointment was for 9.40, they were already running an hour behind!!  I saw the consultant for five minutes - how are you, much better thank you, that's fine I don't need to see you again .......

Never mind, things got decidedly better after that, when we called in to the tearoom at the Old Melrose Furniture Studio .  There was a welcome fire burning in this marvellous old range

 

 

On the shelves behind my chair were just a few of the wide selection of antiques and collectables available in the adjoining shop

 

And of course, there was food and drink!!  Malcolm had a wonderful cup of coffee, I had an excellent pot of tea, and we both had a toasted teacake with butter and jam (the eagle-eyed among you may notice that Malcolm had already tucked into the jam before I took the photo!!)

 

I'm sorry not to have answered the questions about the shawl before now, but I kept forgetting to take a note of the pattern number and the yarn when I was in the studio - for several evenings I have sat down with the laptop to write this drivel informative blog and thought 'oh bother', I forgot that info again!  So here it is .... the pattern is Sirdar3983, the yarn is Patons Fairytale 2ply (baby) and as for how long it took me .... I didn't work constantly at it, and I did do most of it on holiday - I suppose it took me eight weeks of knitting in the evenings.

So, what is the thing that is under wraps, as mentioned in today's title?  This afternoon I baked my Christmas cake - but it was only just out of the oven when I was ready to do the blog, so you will have to wait until Saturday (because tomorrow it's Weekword) to see how it turned out

 
 
 

All my own work!

I had a busy afternoon in the kitchen, cooking spicy lamb and sweet potato - some of which we had for dinner (with courgette fritters), the rest to go in the freezer.  I also cooked a huge pot of beef curry, again to go in the freezer.  But before that, I decided to have a go at making scones!  It's a long time since my last attempt - the results of which could have been used to make a rockery!!  But having made all that jelly (after the first batch of quince and apple, I then made apple and rosehip) I thought scones would be just the thing to go with the jelly.  Of course I turned to my favourite ancient old Delia book, (although she let me down for the jelly, I had to turn to Prue Leith!) and got organised

Now, I'd love to be like the Pioneer Woman and show you dozens of photos of every last little thing involved in making the scones - but it would have been far too much effort to keep washing my hands!!  So we'll skip the sifting the flour, rubbing in the butter, adding the sugar and salt, then adding the milk to make a soft dough, rolling it out and cutting out the scones .... so, here they are ready to go in the oven

and here they are twelve minutes later!

not perfect, but not too bad!!  Next time I think I wouldn't roll the dough out so much and would use a bigger cutter, but of course the main thing is how they tasted!  So for afternoon tea, we not only had scones, but we had some of the apple and rosehip jelly  - lovely!!

 

 

Now, I want to tell you about Weekword.  I have been asked to choose this week's word, and after a lot of thinking I have decided on 'BROWSE'.  The rules are quite simple - interpret the word in any way you choose - a painting, drawing, photo, words - the choice is yours.  Then post it on Friday - it's that simple!!  If you want to join in this week, please leave a comment, so that on Friday I can include a link to your blog, so that everyone can visit.

 

 
 
 

 

 

 
 
 

Jolly good jelly!

Last week we picked the quince from the front garden and Malcolm's sister Jennifer gave us some apples from her garden ......

 

..... so I decided to make quince and apple jelly.  That meant that first I had to buy a jelly bag (or, as this one was made in Glasgow, a jeely bag!)

 

First, I chopped the up the quince and apples and put them in a large saucepn with  just enough water to float the fruit.

 

After simmering the fruit until it was very soft, it was then poured into the jelly bag, which was suspended over a large bowl and left to drip overnight.

 

The next morning, I had a bowl of juice, with which to make the jelly, and the drained pulp, which wasn't wasted, as Alison took it home to feed to her hens!

 

Next, I had to measure the amount of liquid and weigh out the right amount of sugar (I had to buy some sugar - we use so little sugar I probably only buy one bag a year!!)

I then had to make sure that the sugar was properly dissolved, before bringing the liquid up to the boil, using my jam thermometer to see when the setting temperature was reached.

 

Then, the last stage was to put the jelly into jars, admiring the lovely deep gold colour as I did so.  It tastes lovely - I think it will be delicious with roast pork and Malcolm fancies some on his porridge - so a very versatile jelly!!

 

....... and of course I will give Jennifer some, in return for the apples!!
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 

The cutting room floor

Since I started my blog, I have taken hundreds of photos, and of course I have used quite a lot of them.  But there are some photos which are still languishing unseen in my folders ... perhaps they are a bit blurred, or the moment for that story passed, or something better cropped up later in the day to change the plans for that day's post .... and there are also all the photos from before blogging! However,  unlike bit-part actors, whose moment of glory ended up on the cutting room floor, some of these photos are finally getting their moment in the spotlight!

We'll start with cute animals .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

then a bit of falling down fence

 

 

my latest pillar box

 

 

a bit of sewing

 

 

a bit of knitting

 

 

there has to be Scotland's (other) national drink

 

 

a little bit of (a previous) garden

 

 

a (holiday) sunset

 

 

swallows getting ready to fly off to sunnier climes

 

I hope you have enjoyed my trawl through the archives ... and now I have a present for you ..... a little bouquet of flowers and grasses which I picked from the hedgerow this morning, when I went out for my last three mile walk - I certainly have got my legs fit for the holidays!!

 

No doubt while we're away we will have the occasional glass of wine .... and as always I'll raise my glass and think of family and friends and say

 

cheers!!

A perfect scone

As ever, yesterday morning saw me leaping out of bed at 6.30 to head out for my walk.  I've shown you lots of photos of the Eildon and Minto hills, but not Ruberslaw, the hill behind us, as the sun is usually behind it.  Finally yesterday morning I was able to take a photo

 

When I got to the bottom of the hill, where I turn to head back home, a car drew up and and elderly man got out.  He expressed surprise that I was out and about so early.  I explained that I went for a walk every weekday morning, to keep fit.  He then said that when he retired he started keeping black sheep, to give himself a reason to get out of bed in the morning.  He then heaved a bag of feed out of the boot of his car (a very cool and trendy black Mercedes!) and we went over to the gate to look at the sheep.  He called to them to come over to the gate, then got them to stand and pose for a photo

 

The ewe at the back was supreme champion at the Royal Highland Show at Ingliston, one of the other ewes is her daughter and another is her granddaughter!  The one on the right is the tup (ram) - the elderly gent couldn't quite find the right expression to tell me why the tup was there ... eventually he hit on the word 'mate'!!  He then headed into the field to feed them and I headed home for breakfast.

 

In the afternoon, as always it was off to Jedburgh for patch'nchat at Borderland Fabrics.  I took along the strips I had left from the 'jelly roll' that I bought for Oliver's quilt.

 

I had decided to use them to make a quilt for 'Project Linus', which gives quilts to sick children (named after Linus in the Peanuts cartoons, who is always seen clutching his blanket).

 

I started by selecting six strips and stitching them into two lots of three, which I then crosscut into squares.  I realised I needed more squares and did the same again (sorry, forgot to take a photo of the second lot!)

 

All the squares cut and laid out ready to sew together .... but then there was a slight pause, when we had to go and eat Norrie's wonderful scones ( I had butter and strawberry jam on mine)

 

We were also offered a slice of Annette's light-as-air sponge, but we were strong and went back to our sewing!

 

By the end of the afternoon, I had the squares sewn into strips.

 

On the way out to the studio this afternoon, I was sidetracked by this lovely butterfly, which sat and posed on the buddleia!

 

A quick bit of sewing, and the strips were joined together

 

The last stage was to add borders, then I went out into the garden to take an arty shot of the quilt top draped over a steamer chair - but as fast as I focused the camera, the breeze sprung up and moved the quilt!  Eventually I managed to take my photo ....

 

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for Shadow Shot Sunday - especially if you like cute little dogs .....

Teeny tiny socks

I've made a start to the little baby socks - it's funny knitting such tiny things when I'm used to knitting adult ones!

The six rounds of the rib.  To give you an idea of how small the socks are, the needles are only five inches long!  They are lovely bamboo needles, which I bought here

  

the fourteen rounds of the cuff

 

the fourteen rows of the heel flap

 

On an entirely different subject, I wish I could paint, because if I could, I would paint a still life of this plate of fruit and berries, picked this morning from the hedgerow and garden

 

And another change of subject ...

 

don't worry, you haven't fallen asleep and woken up in December - this Christmas card was included in a fund-raising pack I received from the British Red Cross (although Malcolm said he saw Christmas cards for sale in a local garden centre last week!!)

And one more thing totally unconnected to today's title .... no matter how hungry I was, and no matter how keen I was to forage for free food, this little fellow is safe!!

  

 

Tomorrow is 'weekword' - do come back and see what I have to say on the subject of camping!