Dog days, lavender haze

I worked today in a favourite moorland garden and apart from doing what was supposed to do, as well as 'entertaining' Willow, I cut back a lavender hedge.

The scent was utterly delicious and I could not bring myself to throw the clippings in to the compost.

So I brought them home!

After I had showered and eaten a late lunch, the girls and I went into the greenhouse to see what could do with the fragrant cuttings.

Then I remembered that somewhere I'd seen mini lavender head wreaths so with a bit of prepping I collected enough useable blooms to make two tiny circles. 

They are now hanging up on our bedside lamps ... Happy me💜

So, if you have access to a bunch of lavender , this is what I did .. 

You'll need floristry wire, sharp scissors or secateurs, wire cutters, piece of pretty ribbon and lavender flowers.

Choose a good strong stemmed stalk (leave that one long) then trim the others very short.

Carefully wire around the long stemmed flower, then add a couple of short stemmed flowers, wiring around them, keep adding more flowers as you go along, 

Once it is long enough or you run out of flower heads, circle round and wire it to the other end 

Tidy up any wire or stalks showing and add your ribbon.

Step back and rightly feel pleased with yourself 😊

September's Crunchy Ginger Biscuits

 Last night I made a second batch of ginger biscuits and yes - they are still yum. As ever, I have modified the original recipe to our own tastes which if you make them - feel free to tweak 😊The original recipe has the cooking times as  10 - 12 minutes however I found the biscuits were still soft even after fully cooling down. 

I returned them to the oven on 100 deg c for about 15 mins and that made all the difference. The second time of baking, I turned the oven off, allowed to cool a little and put all the biscuits back in on metal cooling racks (like the photo below) to crisp up for a further 15ish minutes. Then, once fully cooled they have a delightful crack and crunch to them.

Crunchy Ginger Biscuits

Ingredients

• butter (softened) 170gm
• sugar 190gm
• 1 egg
• Self raising flour 320gm
• Golden syrup (or treacle for a darker taste) 150gm
• Ground ginger 2 heaped teaspoons
• Cinnamon 1 teaspoon
• Ground cloves 1/4 teaspoon
• pinch salt

Two tablespoons of granulated sugar, shake of ginger and cinnamon (to taste) - mixed in a saucer to roll biscuits into

• Preheat the oven to 180 deg c
• Cream the softened butter and sugar, add the egg and syrup and beat well
• Mix in the spices and salt then add flour - mix well
• shape into golf ball sized balls - don't flatten and roll in the sugar and spice mix
• Place, space a little apart on greaseproof paper lined baking trays and cook for 10 - 15 min until a lovely golden colour
• Place on rack to cool and return all biscuits to the switched off but still warm oven to crisp up - leave 10 - 15 mins. (This is optional - if cooked and cooled they have a soft centre but we like a good crack as we bite into them)
• Cool and scoff with a good mug of your favourite hot beverage 😄

I used an online 'cups to grams' converter which made it much easier.

Hope you give them a go and enjoy them as much as we do 😊

Trying to banish the autumnal blues

*if I don't leave a comment on your lovely blogs, it seems that blogger is not playing nicely - fingers crossed it won't be for long 🤞 

Today, in and effort to prevent my head imploding from a murky mix of autumnal blues, post holiday drearies and driech weather - I threw myself and the dog into the glasshouse to see if I could sort it out .... 

Almost a reset for both the greenhouse and for me I suppose, especially as the weather kept drizzling and that in itself is rather a downer for me, so armed with a large travel mug of tea, the radio and an easily excitable dog we trouped off to the garden much to her disappointment!

Most of the morning was wading through all the things which have been temporarily homed here from my parents move, I am hoping that this weekend we can takes lots over to their new place once Himself and I have built their shed - weather permitting of course......

By lunchtime both the dog and myself were fed up so we trudged back to the house and we had a bit of time out. In the afternoon with the shredder and the dustbin in full use, I finally discovered that I do actually have a floor in the glasshouse again.

Woo hoo I was finally able to reach my glasshouse grown vegetables and harvest what was ready - a glimmer just at the right time.

On a different note - I am launching myself into 'hand made chrimbly' I am going to attempt to make at least one gift per person. I have quite a stash of 'useful crafting stuff' and I think it is time to start using it up. I am thinking along the lines of crochet (can't knit any more as one of my thumbs just cries in pain), painting  (carefully - again hand issues), air dried clay, sewing and baking.

And talking of baking, I have just made some cracking ginger biscuits. It comes from an American site so everything is in cups. I shall do the 'Himself taste test' and if he thinks they are worth making again, I will do but I will convert the amounts into grams.

*later* 

I swapped some of those ginger biscuits for a bowlful of windfall apples - hmmm what shall I make with these? And the 'Himself verdict?' They are definitely have again.

I spent most of last Tuesday painting my folks shed which had the bad grace to fall on both the dog and myself courtesy of a huge gust of wind. Willow decided she'd rather sit inside the van for safety and I had to wash paint off my arm, out of my hair and chuck my shirt into the washing machine!

Any hoo - end of grumble, tomorrow is another day (shed building) and to round up Friday - Himself has lit the fire - autumnal vibes anyone? 

Let's get a raidin'

Continuing on our lovely bank holiday weekend up in Dumfries and Galloway and still on a high from the wonderfully unexpected proposal in the gardens, another request was to 'Do' the Raiders Road. A forest drive that, in places, feels delightfully wild and magical. 'Off roading' enough to satisfy the off roading drivers in our midst and safe enough to cope with normal road vehicles for other members of our convoy. 

Four vehicles in total - us in our van, Youngest and his lovely girlfriend in his converted ex mountain rescue land rover, Eldest and his fiancé in their land rover defender and my brother and sister in law in their electric suzuki off roader. Plus three rather overly excited and enthusiastic dogs - Willow (Welsh collie) has two 'cousins' (American Labradors - yellow and fox red). So you can imagine the chaos....

We met up at the Clatteringshaws Loch side of the road and carefully picked our way down the forest road - stopping for photos and chats and swapping of drivers. The first park up was for the dogs (collectively known as the girls) so they could hurl themselves into the river. And bless her - Willow was the first in by a country mile - my little silly dog who would not walk through a puddle managed to out do the labs at the first swim!

After a vigorous rub down, the girls were dispatched to their vehicles and we all set off, trundling along. The weather had been promising potential rain and so far it was sunny and warm. 

We eventually reached our chosen lunch spot - Otter Pools - and found a park up that took all four vehicles and cracked on the kettles (yes kettles in the plural - Youngest's van and ours are both togged up to turn into instant cafes so there were teas, hot chocolates and coffees made on the spot) and opened tubs of home made cakes, biscuits and fruit pies and between throwing sticks for the dogs, drinking brews and munching cakes, chatting and batting away the midgies (we were all covered in 'smidge and had incense sticks smoking away!)

We had to retreat to the vehicles once the rain began, Youngest and I had already planned how to cope if the weather went bad - so we had his awning out between the van and landie making a safe dry space.

We must have spent aaaaages there - mid morning cakes turned into a delicious lunch while chatting and playing with dogs - it was wonderful. But it was time to move on, the rain was getting a little more persistent so we packed up and headed off, trundling through rain sparkly trees and gushing streams.

We pulled up into another favourite stopping place (Stroan Viaduct)  and set up for afternoon tea and cake (this off-roading business plays havoc with the waistline!!) and we just about managed to keep out of the rain - but we all agreed that it actually added to the adventure of it all.

This was our last planned stop - as the road was nearly done, so we said our good byes to my brother and sister in law and their girls and headed back to Kirkcudbright to dry off.

What a lovely day - despite the rain - we absolutely enjoyed it 

And in this last photo - it shows you how small Willow is compared to her cousins....

I may have cried

 

A while ago - when the boys were young - we accidently stumbled upon what has now become an annual event - Kirkcudbright Summer Floodlit Festivities Tattoo. It was just a chance comment by a campsite owner that led us firstly to the town then to the tattoo. The only time we have missed it was 2020 (thanks covid) and despite the almost predictability of the tattoo schedule we absolutely love it.

The boys are bigger now, big enough to have mortgages, partners, cats and serious jobs yet we all still come to Kirkcudbright and make a weekend of it all.  This year was no different - well, it was in a way - I shall explain as I go along.

In the town is a lovely house and garden (Broughton House) run by the National Trust for Scotland and again this place is firmly on our agenda - particularly the gardens. Over the years we have been inspired by the planting, taken photos and, certainly Eldest and myself, probably stroked nearly every plant and wished we lived there.

This year we (almost) didn't go as the pricing had gone up and it is usually me who pays, I'll be honest - I hesitated at paying for six adults since taking early retirement - I now count the pennies rather closely. Fortunately that was sorted and on Saturday morning all six of us and a silly dilly dog meandered through the gardens - a haven of peace and tranquillity. 

Except Eldest seemed ill at ease, he was not as engrossed in the plants or the place like he is normally until we all wandered into the central lawn (which we call Tizzie's lawn after the cat we met there) when it became apparent why he was on edge.

He dropped to one knee and proposed to his lovely partner - there was not a dry eye in the garden. Unintentionally (for he is not one for showy IG/FB type things) he had an audience as well as us quietly and emotionally witnessing his proposal. Other garden visitors stood with hands over mouths, smiles and tears in their eyes too.

As a pack we bounded over and hugged and cried together then afterwards there was spontaneous applause and more amusingly - 'victory laps' around the lawn by son and girlfriend - oops - fiancé and they were quickly joined by other son and his girlfriend - with the sounds of laughter in the garden - it was wonderful. 

Certainly for the rest of the day, Himself and I caught ourselves grinning, and as we left the gardens the National Trust staff gently queried if we were the family who were celebrating in the garden as so many other folk commented about the special moment. 

Now - Youngest is under pressure .... the staff told him that he would be next (and his lovely girlfriend agrees - talk about a sweating younger son!)

So - yes, another annual tradition our family keep - but with added love (and tears!)

I'll chat later about other lovely parts of our jolly away - I just had to share this moment💚💍🧡

Autumn slips in uninvited

I've just stumbled back in from a dog walk - we, Willow and I, definitely needed the air and now we have returned, she has fallen asleep at my feet and I am contemplating a brew - hmmm - yup, I agree with myself, I do need one.

Thank you everyone who commented so kindly on my last post, I won't go in to details how awful these last few days have been especially as it seems we have come through from the other side and I don't want to dwell on what has happened.

Has anyone else noticed the nip of autumn in the air? I know that trees have shed their leaves early this year due to water stress however, that metallic scent of decay that comes with the cooler weather seems to be swirling around first thing in the morning when I take Willow out for her first piddle before breakfast.

I am not ready for autumn. I never am.

I watch for the swifts and mourn when the skies have been left empty and then when the swifts go a few short weeks later - I can feel my heart crack. I have been scanning the sky today - nothing. They have left whilst I was sinking in the mire of moving house and truculent parents. 

It doesn't seem that long ago I was all nerves and white knuckles while I was learning to paddleboard with a dog who hated water (which as we all know turned out to be a fallacy and this woofing lunatic loves swimming after all!)