✴ happy monday

This monday morning feels a bit like someone has forgotten to turn the lights on. It's so dark and gloomy, cold and drizzly. Bbbrrr......Just when you think spring isn't far away, it's beginning to feel a lot like winter!

This week, I have lots of things I want to get done. Stitchery things, tidy sorty things and better living ways to achieve.

With all the unfinished projects on the go {as always} I can't help but reach for the cosyness of crochet and a pile of grannies started long ago have been lovingly stroked, counted, laid out, counted again and pondered and perused... before finding their way back into the sewing basket and with the pile of things to do.

I have decided I need to have early nights {again..}. I need to drink less tea {gasp...} I'm reaching instead for one of the many boxes of herbal tea in the cupboard {left over from many visits from Aunty Lulu} I'm not really a fan of herbal tea. I like the idea of it and I admit to be a little bit obsessed with the pretty packaging that you just don't get with a packet of builders. But I'm going to make an effort with it.

It seems so much more elegant and grown up to drink an exotic and calming blend of tea.

This afternoon I'll be mainly chasing around after the only girl in football class and watching with bewilderment as she turns from a shy and wary little lady to an unruly and disobedient little monster....ahh...

But until then, where's that calming tea....

Happy monday.

✴ winkworth arboretum...

...on a cold, wet sunday afternoon.

Starting with a very welcome pit stop for hot soup and cheese toasties in the cafe and deciding that the rain was probably not going to stop any time soon, we braved the cold and drizzle of the great outdoors.

Suitably attired in wellies and waterproofs it was evident that it really wouldn't take too long for the littlest member of the group to end up with soggy and mud splashed trousers after a good session of puddle jumping. 

Despite picking probably the worst afternoon to visit this idyllic National Trust spot, everything still looked beautiful and spring like. Patches of daffodils and snowdrops carpeted the mulchy earth and raindrops clung to budding branches like crystals, catching small rays of light through the dark ominous clouds above. Delicate pale green lichen hung from branches looking like clusters of seaweed washed up and left behind by the salty sea. So pretty. 

After a bit of wandering and a lot of pondering over a damp and just slightly bit confusing map we eventually came across an old, weather worn boathouse. Believed to have been built around the turn of the century, the National Trust have kept it quite untouched and rustic inside with a few oars nestled in the rafters, a slightly crumbling wooden canoe on the floor and fish trophies on the walls. A couple of comfy whicker settees and chairs have been placed by the open doors leading to the small balcony over looking the lake and on a side table, an old chess set, perhaps to while away the long tedious wait for a bite { I don't really get fishing...}. The perfect place to hide out from the rain with a hot flask of tea....um...if only we'd been so prepared..!

A walk in the woods on a rain soaked day which holds such romantic captivation for lovelorn couples can be tantamount to trauma with a toddler in tow. For many reasons; 

one, a small person will positively insist on holding the map/umbrella/camera... in fact anything other than your hand... two, a small person is incapable of walking along a designated path choosing instead the most muddiest embankments, deepest puddles and steepest verges and any other route with a slight element of danger, along which to tread... three, at some point, and maybe even more than once, a small person is guaranteed to 'step out' of a wellie boot and will therefore require carrying the rest of the way back to the car while bemoaning the "wet sock..." they are now sporting.

Happy weekend.

✴ at the bench

I've spent the last week or so 'at the bench'. When I say this I mean the jewellery bench but in actual fact I don't have one of those so picture me instead brandishing a soldering torch and cursing slightly slipped soldering on the tiny bit of workspace next to the kitchen sink. By the dying Aloe Vera plant. Next to the tin jug with the cat food forks in. Not very glamorous. But then silversmithing isn't. 

I have rough grated fingers and thumbs blackened and course from so much wire brush cleaning of silver and brass. A manicurists nightmare....or dream, whichever way you look at it.

I've been firing lots of little brass leaves, with a notion to turn these into a beautiful autumn inspired tiara and with several february birthdays I've been making jewellery gifts with silver snowhearts and recently fired copper hearts. 

I always end up with odd little bits of precious metal clay when I roll it out into heart and leaf shapes. Because the clay dries so quickly, these scraps never quite make it back into the pack while still soft and malleable. This time I thought I'd try and make something with these scraps. Something organic, twisted and strange. 

I think they turned out a bit like ferns or seaweed. They may end up in a new life as a botanical style brooch. For me. Because I'm quite attached to my strange little sea ferns!

Some dazzling creative spaces over here

✴ happy monday

I think to call this a happy monday may be a bit of an overstatement. With a bad nights sleep thanks to a wide awake toddler, a croaky and disappearing voice and a desperately gloomy dark day, this is not a great start to a hopefully happy and productive week! 

My friend gave me this lovely bunch of narcissus flowers at the weekend. So beautifully delicate and heavenly scented they are, sitting innocently and unassuming on the mantlepiece. I keep catching wafts of their perfumed loveliness as I walk past and it is indeed lifting my spirits and sending a message that spring is just around the corner.

I wish you all a happy monday. x

✴ weekend crumbling

{tea lights in vintage brioche tins and lace doily}

You know when someone is a little bit poorly by looking into their eyes, glazed over, perhaps a little pink and with a droopy lidded tiredness that sums up the overall feeling of being run down. I saw this on the little lady over the past few days {a lot better now but for a bit of a cough} and I saw this in my own eyes in the bathroom mirror last night.....Eughhh...lurgy has at last got me. It was inevitable but nonetheless annoying and totally unwelcome.

{brioche tins, wire basket, 1920's ash butter bats and rolling pin and embroidered tablecloth}

Not helped that I was solo parenting all of yesterday and last night and had planned to prepare a lavish dinner for a dear friend who had a special valentine birthday. When cooking for friends I usually plan the menu for days, pouring over the cookbooks and cookery magazines  but yesterday, struggling with a general feeling of Hhhmmppffff  I ended up completely and utterly making it up as I went along, and actually it worked a treat... to the point that I wish I'd paid a bit more attention to what I was throwing into the cookpot {or tagine..} so I can recreate the tasty dish which magically appeared on the table last night! Chicken and squash tagine followed by rhubarb and strawberry crumble. Yum. I think I just about got away with it! Or maybe I was feeling so poorly that anything would have tasted sublime and warmed the cockles?!

 {vintage lace and trims currently being used for headdresses and accessories}

{a bundle of french linen pieces and assortment of cross-stitch monograms}

Although I' haven't been blogging as much as I'd like to recently I have been shopping, oh yes. Thrifty vintage shopping, my absolute fave! With recent visits to Kempton, Kingston and Farnham I have gathered quite a few lovely things. I'll show you just a small selection now and hope to get round to photographing everything else soon.

{glass dome with blue and white china dish and 6 small cocktail glasses}

Anyway I think it's time for more honey and lemon to soothe my croaky throat. Or perhaps a hot toddy?!
Tonight I'm making a completely-made-up-as-you-go-along* sausage stew and blackberry and pear crumble. A gloomy dark and damp day such as this {where are you spring???} deserves a warm and cosy evening of stodgy comfort food and something good to watch on the tellybox {where are you Lark Rise???}.

* although completely-made-up-as-you-go-along several times before so practically a bona fide recipe.

Taking part with Flea Market Finds

✴ feeling delicate

We're feeling very delicate today. My little Tinkerbell has had her fluttery fun filled wings cruelly clipped with a very high temperature, a runny nose and a bit of teething thrown in for good measure.

There has been much Cbeebies watching, with glazed eyes, not much eating and a lot of cuddles and forehead stroking. And a regular dose of Calpol! 

It's most definitely a quiet stay indoors type of day. For me there has been much tea drinking {so what's new?} and monitoring of sick child. It's a horrible feeling of helplessness and inadequacy of not really being able to do that much to ease the misery. But for the cuddles, lots of cuddles and whispers of shhhhhh......it's ok......

I've been finding time, during a welcome break of a proper nap, to do some more twiddling of gold wire and embellishment of crystals, pearls and beads on a new headdress. We have been watching Boardwalk Empire in the evenings, oh my, something new to get my teeth into and I'm just loving those 20's costumes, so very stylish and spangly. I'm thinking of maybe doing some 20's style headbands or some feathery frou frou of sorts. Ooh la la.

Joining in with My Creative Space.

✴ frozen dinners

We have just about finished eating the homegrown produce from last year that I squirreled away in the freezer. It's so great to be eating runner beans in January that were harvested last August! 

This year I managed to successfully freeze courgettes, runner beans, turnips and blackberries {picked abundantly from nearby woodland walks}. The small and pretty purple skinned turnips harvested in October were a delight as 'tatties and neeps' for a new years dinner. 

I blanched most things before freezing and more information on that can be found here. 

The blackberries I just washed then laid them out onto trays to open freeze in the freezer before then popping them into freezer bags. Open freezing them first helps avoid them sticking together in the bag.

Berries freeze brilliantly. I often buy raspberries when on offer in the supermarket and freeze the excess. They work very well in muffin, cake and pancake batters, just add them to the mix while still frozen and bake as as usual. I have one last bag of blackberries in the freezer which I think will make a lovely sunday crumble to shut out the cold and miserable rain that seems to be darkening our days at the moment. Bbbrrrr......

✴ nothing but love

I've been caught up, bogged down and up to my eyeballs with this, that and a bit of the other...
I have issues with the real life versus creative life equilibrium and find myself always the first to blink during the daily stare contest with time. Curses! Doesn't time always have the last word on the subject!! Hate that! Why can't we all just get a few more hours in the day, I mean really, who came up with the 24 hour thing anyway!? Actually, the way things have been recently I'd probably use the extra hours to sleep so I'd be no better off and just as behind as I am now so there it is!
This is my poor excuse for my terrible absence from this blog.....again......
I like to think of myself as the Caroline Arless of the blogging world.....not drunk, in prison and with an enormous bottom... but, even though not always around and often found to be a bit unpredictable and unreliable, a little entertaining when she does turn up and cherished and forgiven by all the other Lark Risers...hopefully...
Speaking of which, I am still just a bit in love with last nights final episode and am not sure how I'm going to cope without my sunday dose of Lark Rise to Candleford.....perhaps I'll finally get to spend a bit more time here.....!

I promise to do a proper catch up but until then I wish you all a loved up, heart filled day, especially to my own special valentine and little valentine. x