A day at Duxford

Yesterday we  headed up to Camridge to the Duxford Aviation museum, to look at the planes and also to watch the airshow. This was mainly for the benefit of our daughter who is aeroplane obsessed.  The weather was glorious, and it was a most enjoyable day.

Admiring the Lancaster

These aircraft are just magnificent and breathtaking, it's to hard imagine that they can even get airborne.

My daughters favourite is the Lancaster bomber, she has been fascinated by aeroplanes since she was a baby, and has seen the Lancaster in flight a few times at our airshow in Southend, and screams in excitement she is so in awe of it!

Concord

Sadie liked the colour of this one below:

Loop

Prime view

Memphis Belle

EX RAF Fellows

Always a humbling experience to think about what these gentlemen  have been through.

A very happy girl flying her inflatable plane who has now been named Bertie bomber.

 Just before we came home I had a stroll and looked  through the stalls and the bookshop, with the faint music of  Vera Lynn and Gracie Fields playing in the background, such a fascinating and nostalgic time, we romanticise it, but must have been extremely hard.

I myself came away with with a small greetings card above, I have resisted these so far based on all the silly slogans, as they are so common now, so just a small traditional one for my kitchen wall will be fine.

Hope you all had a good weekend. x

Nude Artwork in progress

This is my latest oil painting in progress. I love painting nudes, really like this pose, here are a 3 stages of it.

This is just referenced form a pose on google.

First stage

This is stage 1, blocking in rough shadows.

Stage 2, improving, getting colours and blends in.

Stage 3

This is my favourite stage, getting lots of detail and definition in, and warming all the tones up and getting nice soft blends with a big soft brushes, My paintings are totally smooth, no brush marks,although I do want to experiment with techniques. I do have a go and then going back to my old ways, old habits die hard!

I have one more stage to go on this , but it won't look much different, just little thongs that irk me.

A painting is NEVER finished you know......

Melting moments

Melting moments? These biscuits had me in a bloody meltdown for an hour and a half this morning!

 For those of you that watched the Great British bake off, you may recall  Mary-Ann making these in Episode 4, which was primarily biscuit week. I for one really enjoyed the show, and thought it was a real close call between Mary-Ann and Jo, both of whom I thought were brilliant in their own ways. I am now following both of their blogs, as they have some fantastic ideas.

 These biscuits were a damn bugger to make despite following the recipe from Mary- Ann's blog  here, mine didn't quite turn out looking as lovely as hers, but they do taste really good! Maybe I will try the Croquembouche next...err no .

I had real trouble getting the mixing to pipe from the bag, it was far too stiff, god knows how she managed it, I beat the butter until it was really soft, but the volume of flour and cornflour made it just like pastry ready to roll, which is correct for biscuits ( it should be very short) I had to add some milk just to get it soft enough  so as to be able it to squeeze through a big star tip in the pipe bag, even then it was still really difficult and I gave up and  rolled and cut the rest out into heart shapes, they still looked nice. I just made some ordinary buttercream and sandwiched them together with that and some strawberry jam.

Draw a line of gel food colouring, liquid is no good

Ready to pipe

Not bad for first attempt

The kids are sorted for a treat today then.

Happy baking!

Remembering Steve Jobs

COMMENCEMENT SPEECH AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY, 2005

"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.''

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice.''

"Stay hungry, stay foolish."

Wet and windy Cornwall

We had our week in Looe in Cornwall last week, it was nice to get away  but the weather was awful. First time I've ever been in September where the weather hasn't been warm and sunny, but we made the best of it, we came home a day early though. As I mentioned in my last post we haven't been to this part of Cornwall before so it was fun exploring new places.

Boat trip

Walk down to Polperro harbour

Polperro harbour

Lovely shop in Fowey

Cream tea

Yay! the sun came out!

Best pasty shop in Looe

I made my Chilli jam and  onion chutney at the weekend,  and tastes good too!

Other than that , I  have been  tidying garden, autumn cleaning, general pottering, and helping Sadie with her new puzzles most of the weekend, she has now gone on to 200 piece !!

 Sadie started school full time today bless her she was so excited this morning! I will miss her chatter, but will also enjoy the quiet....  New painting projects will be commencing soon! Watch this space.

Projects and preserving

I'm loving these last days of summer, the weather is just perfect,warm sun, lovely cool mornings, with the smell of Autumn in the air, and the relief of of cooler evenings and nights,I've had my fan on full every night for months! I like it when it gets dark earlier too, the garden looks really pretty with there fairy lights on.

 I'm already preparing for winter, making Jam's, and chutneys and  pickles, I really enjoy this, and find it very satisfying looking at a stash of homemade jars in my dresser. The market was selling strawberries and raspberries cheap today, they needed to be eaten straight away, but I made jam , delish it was too. Will make some nice Xmas gifts!

I still have more pickles and chutneys to make, I'm just waiting for all my chilli plants to turn red , the ones that have fallen off the plant I have put into the banana bowl, and they are ripening quickly, I'm storing them all in a sandwich bag in my fridge and once I have enough I'm going to make a massive batch of chilli jam or 'Chelly' we get through a lot in this house, very yummy with cheeses, and very versatile for use in cooking and dipping sauces, mixing in with mayo, endless uses...Another favourite chutney of mine is caramelised  onion, so will be making that soon too , I will post up pics and recipe.

Chilli plant

Those bananas have seen better days, banana cake tomorrow me thinks.

I have also been  painting some old pieces of furniture, and picture frames, still have a few more to go.
It's very therapeutic, transforming junk into something special. This old table used to sit in my nan's hall, I think it's one of her oldest pieces of furniture originally purchased in the1950's, from where I have no idea, I have been after a table for a while, but thought I would have this from my nans house clearance, It's nice to keep something of hers in the family, and it was made to fit! but No matter how old or frumpy a piece may look, a lick of ivory paint transforms it into something elegant and beautiful.

Before at Nan's house

After!

Boot sale frame 15p

Revived

We are off to our beloved Cornwall on Monday morning, just for a few days, and I can't wait! We are staying in Looe, we haven't been to this part before, as always go to St Ives,  I'm excited about exploring new places, such as Polperro, and Fowey, think we will still have to spend at least one day in St Ives though, need my fix, can't resist the shops! So will take a drive down just before we come home, buckets, spades nets at the ready!

My little one starts school full time, when we get back, don't know where the time has gone... :(

On the up side this means I have many hours of total peace and quiet during the day, and can now resume with my oil panting, I'm bursting with ideas and can't wait to get started! My aim is to be doing this for a living so I don't have to go to work, and can be at home with my child, I want to be my own boss, It's just a case of building up my portfolio, and good marketing, networking.  Fingers crossed...

My eldest starts college, and and am hoping he settles in well and gets stuck into his studies as he's had a bit too much relaxation and free reign this summer!

Purchasing roses was most definitely a good decision this year, I got so fed up with slugs eating everything I planted, they don't touch these they have flowered all summer and are still doing so.

Warm wishes

Twice in a blue moon

Ena Harkness

I took cuttings from my nan's pink blush roses and yippee they have taken!

My garden is a mix of all styles, people had said you can't have cottage garden mixed in with contemporary plants such as the bamboos and maples, I don't care and don't conform to me it all works fine, roses are my fave thing of all, great to cut and bring in they add cheer.

Enjoy the last days of summer everybody. xx

Sunday blackberry picking = Jam!

We all decided to go blackberry picking  yesterday afternoon, as I have noticed everything is fruiting early this year, and we were pleasantly suprised, We got 4lb of fruit in just under 1 1/2 hrs, not bad! I shall be back in a couple of weeks to pick more as there were stashes that are red and ripening. I noticed there were also lots of elderberries and sloe berries, has anyone made jam out of these before?

I  thoroughly washed all the fruits and de- thorned as soon as I got home yesterday, and stored in the fridge overnight.

I bought my sugar this morning and got to work on making jam.

You will need:

A big heavy bottomed preserving pan
Sugar thermometer (optional)
Saucer placed in the fridge

Its an equal ratio of sugar to fruit so I had:

4lbs blackberries
2 kg Jam sugar (or preserving sugar-both have pectin)
1/2 pint water.

Tip all the blackberries in the pan, pour the water over and bring up to a simmer and cook gently for 10 mins, then add all the sugar, and bring up to a rolling boil on maximum heat, it should still be boiling high up in the pan even when you stir it, it should look like this:

 Do this for 10 mins, then test for setting point,  spoon a little jam onto the cold saucer and push your finger through it , if it wrinkles or doesn't run back in then it's ready, or take off the heat when your thermometer reaches 220 F jam stage.

I got 8 jars out of this, so 8 jars of quality jam for the cost of £3.50, so am I am best pleased, the only down side was getting stung badly in the nettles , thank god that dock leaves are always in abundance to relieve the stinging, I also had loads of minute thorns embedded in my fingers, had to tweezer them out so a little sore today, but was worth it!

Go raid your hedgerows, and make jam, it's easy free and delicious!

These roses are gorgeous are they not?

They are a two tone pink blush, I cut them from my mums garden, they originally came from  my nan's garden, so I have now taken some cuttings and poked them into some soil, hope they take, great to have free roses for the jug, £10 for 6 in supermarket yesterday, Rip Off!!

Hope you had a happy productive weekend. :)