By Alice | Published:
January 25, 2012
This is a pretty dead time of year in the garden but primroses stop everything being brown :) I keep pots of things on that piece of slate on the table when we aren’t using the table in the winter. The table is from IKEA that I painted with outdoor wood paint and let go a bit weathered over the years, the metal Habitat chairs are from Ebay, also painted. Putting assorted sizes of green painted picture frames on the trellis is another idea I had a few years ago to stop the winter garden and an ordinary fence looking too boring, they are weathering now but that’s OK. I think it looks nice in the summer too when the clematis and jasmine grows through it. Picture frames are really cheap from charity shops once they have lost their glass.
By Alice | Published:
January 19, 2012
That isn’t Little Horse, that’s a normal sized horse.
THIS is Little Horse with tiny little stumpy legs.
As seen on a very wintery lunchtime walk.
I’ve been talking lots of film pictures lately so there has been a bit of a posting hiatus while I work my way through a roll and send them off for processing. Soon! :)
By Alice | Published:
January 9, 2012
I don’t plan to make granola in particular at this time of year but this seems to be when the urge strikes. I guess it is a time of year when you need all the cheer you can get while still trying to eat healthily. For this batch of granola I wanted to limit the ingredients to a few flavours rather than throwing in every nut and seed I have. I remembered that my dad gets a very nice maple pecan oat cereal from Sainsbury’s that I’d tried over Christmas so that was my inspiration. My measurements were roughly 500g oats (I used Flahavan’s organic porridge oats), 100g pecans, 100g sunflower seeds, 1/2 cup maple syrup, and 1/4 cup groundnut oil. Mixed, then spread on a baking tray, put in a medium hot oven, and stirred every 15 minutes until golden brown. I think the secret treat when you make your own granola is to make it pre-breakfast so you can have that first bowl with granola warm from the oven, preferably with a handful of blueberries on top.
I took this picture on Sunday morning before I took down the Christmas and birthday cards that we put across the dresser and radiator in the absence of a mantlepiece. I can see a cute gingerbread one from Marceline peeking out!
By Alice | Published:
January 5, 2012
Between Christmas and New Year we visited Kew Gardens, I had been quite ill after Christmas with a horrible tummy bug so this was my first trip out feeling quite pale and delicate. We often seem to go to visit gardens in the winter, they certainly are quieter! :) My dad had strongly recommended we find the Marianne North gallery which is hidden away at the edge of the gardens, it is really interesting, I now strongly recommend it too. Afterwards we paid a very quick visit to the Petersham Nurseries tea house but they’d run out of lunch items so instead we went to Wallace and Co for a quick lunch.
By Alice | Published:
January 2, 2012
Seems like ages since I did this last! These are the books I read over Christmas.
A D Miller Snowdrops
: A central crime story with interesting description of expat life in Russia.
Christopher Isherwood Mr Norris Changes Trains
: Maybe not the best Isherwood? But it kept me reading, again it is an expat story, this one set within Berlin during the rise of the Nazis.
David Hieatt The Path of a Doer
: My sister got this from Santa :) It’s a short book of inspirational statements, you might know the author from his setting up of the Do Lectures and Howies.
P D James Cover Her Face
: The first PD James book, a whodunnit introducing us to Inspector Dalgliesh. After starting it I realised that I’d read it before but as I couldn’t remember who had done it I read it again. That sandwich is my Christmas sandwich which I look forward to it all year :) It contains a tiny bit of everything from the Christmas meal. That’s my dad in the background.
Caitlin Moran How To Be a Woman
: An interesting book, part autobiography, part rant, part making very good sense, it’s good to see gender issues being discussed and in an accessible way.
Kathleen Jones A Passionate Sisterhood: Wives, Sisters and Daughters of the Lakeland Poets
: The wives and children of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Southey, and the other surrounding figures of that circle, had difficult domestic circumstances and had to deal with illness, addiction, and hardly any money. An eye opener as to what it must have been like.
