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Monthly Archives: October 2012

18th October – Staines, The River Thames and Anticipation

1. With 9 hours to fill today, we opted for a late Full English breakfast and very good it was too! We then went on the bus to Staines. There was a lovely mosaic in the bookshop, an interesting sculpture near the shops and a lovely old lych gate to St Peter’s Church.

2. We had a delightful walk along the Thames which was full of water birds – swans, coots, ducks and geese. Watching the swans landing and taking off is always fun.

3. Now we are just full of excitement and ready to be off, flight at 8.45pm. Dehli here we come!

I can’t upload photos for some reason so there’ll be lots to look forward to when we get home!

2 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 24, 2012 in art, India, mosaic, postaday2012, sculpture, travel

Tags: Dehli, holiday, India, Postaday, postaday2012, River Thames, trip of a lifetime

Murals, B&B and Signs in the Pub

17 Oct

1. As my readers know, I love the five hour journey from home to London. Today I managed to get a photo of these murals in Cornwall just before the Brunel Bridge.

2. We’re spending the night at this delightful B&B near Heathrow.

3. The local pub is very friendly and has these pleasing signs on the wall.

12 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 17, 2012 in art, painting, postaday2012

Tags: bed and breakfast, Brunel Bridge, Heathrow, Postaday, postaday2012, pub signs

Peachy Clouds, Yellow Dandelion and My French Bookcase

16 Oct

1 A beautiful blue sky with peachy clouds when I first got up this morning…. and a lovely day to follow.

Early morning sky

2 I love dandelions! Most people consider them weeds but I love their brightness and their lovely sunshine faces.

Dandelion in the park

3 This delightful bookcase was bought by my Mum in an auction when I was only 10 years old with the promise that it would be mine in due course. I love it and love that my books are, indeed, my silent friends.

Des Amis Silencieux with richly coloured leather backed books

P.S. We start off on our holidays from tomorrow, going to India and Nepal and I may not be able to blog every day and I probably won’t have time to read or comment on the lovely blogs that I follow. Please continue to read – I will catch up when we get back!

13 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 16, 2012 in books, nature, photography, postaday2012, Uncategorized, Weekly photo challenge

Tags: Des Amis Silencieux, DPchallenge, French bookcase, French furniture, Postaday, postaday2012, red sky

Autumn Leaves, Autumn Fruits and The Last of Our Lettuce

15 Oct

1 The leaves are falling fast and they glisten beautifully in the rain.

Leaves on the drive

Beautiful Maple across the road

2 Our fruit bowl is full of beautiful Autumn produce and the garden full of fruits for the birds.

Autumn fruit bowl

Cotoneaster, with berries for the birds

3 We’ve picked the very last of our lettuce today and planted the over-wintering green manure seeds to help the fertility of the ground next year.

The last of our salad leaves

16 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 15, 2012 in environment, Food, garden, growing, postaday2012, senses, Uncategorized

Tags: Autumn, DPchallenge, garden produce, Postaday, postaday2012

Some Jays, A Greenfinch and A Stork’s Nest (Weekly photo challenge – Big)

14 Oct

1 For the last days we have been watching several beautiful jays fleetingly in our garden. They always seemed to have something big in their beaks. Looking them up in the bird book we learned that they love acorns. Today we realised that they are getting their acorns from over the road and while they are still elusive to catch on camera, I just managed to get a couple in the oak tree. You’ll have to look carefully to find them!

The elusive Jays

2 A little Greenfinch has been at the window feeder. I managed this photo from about 3 metres away from the kitchen and through the window.

Goldfinch at the window feeder

3 As this is mostly a bird post, I thought I’d include this one of a stork and its enormous nest taken in Spain last year, for this week’s Weekly Photo Challenge of Big.

Big nest on big columns!

11 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 14, 2012 in birds, environment, garden, nature, postaday2012, Uncategorized, Weekly photo challenge

Tags: greenfinches, jays, Postaday, postaday2012, weekly photo challenge

Hoodies Being Worn, Shalwar Kameez and Autumn Leaves

13 Oct

1 Beautiful photos of the Grandchildren in their hoodies arrived this morning.

T in her hoodie

J in his hoodie

2 My lovely neighbour called in to lend me a lovely Shalwar kameez for our adventure in India that is now only four days away!

Shalwar kameez fabric

3 In Nalder’s Court, Truro, there is a lovely tree in Autumny colours and I loved the way the fallen ones made patterns in the grid.

Autumn in Nalder’s Court

Autumn leaves in the tree grid

16 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 13, 2012 in Children, craft, environment, Grandchildren, India, knitting, nature, postaday2012, travel, Truro, Uncategorized

Tags: Autumn Leaves, Postaday, postaday 2012, Shalwar Kameez

Two Daughters, Exeter and Magic in the Skies

12 Oct

1 We met our two of our beautiful daughters for lunch in Exeter – what a pleasure to spend time with them both.

2 Exeter was full of delights.

3 There was a fabulous bright and double rainbow on our way to Exeter and on the way home the sunset skies were wonderful.All these sky photos were taken from a moving car so aren’t perfect quality. Click on any photo for a bigger version.

Rainbow at 70mph

Seagull on the bell tower

Millenium mosaics

Exeter Cathedral

Three Gables

Built in XVI Century

Beautifully painted lamp post

Flower on a cake

Love this! Fabulously British!

Beautiful buildings near the Cathedral

Mosaics near the car park

Love the horses in the boat

At first glance , this scaffolding looked real!

Sun setting

Sun almost gone

Sky on fire

12 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 12, 2012 in family, mosaic, nature, painting, postaday2012, Uncategorized

Tags: double rainbow, Exeter, Postaday, postaday2012

Choir-Baby Walking, Pumpkins and Recipe Links

11 Oct

1 Imagine our delight when 11 month old Choir-baby T, set off to walk across the room this morning! Last week he could wall-walk; this week he can walk confidently and turn around without falling!

Choir-baby T walking

I’ve had enough of this grown-up talk! I’m off to explore!

2 Only the other day, I was admiring a photo of pumpkins from America and then today when I went shopping, I saw all these. Wish they were as beautifully displayed as the ones mentioned.

Glorious pumpkins

3 I’ve frozen the Curried Cauliflower Soup today and have put the recipe on my Recipe Page. You can find it here. You can also find the Happy Cake recipe here .

Curried Cauliflower Soup ready for the freezer

P.S. A warning about the Happy Cake! The tryptophan might make you sleepy!

Some lovely Fellow Bloggers have given me some delightful Awards – thank you all so much, very much appreciated! I’ll sort them out asap!

4 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 11, 2012 in awards, baking, Children, Choir-baby, Food, postaday2012

Tags: awards, cake recipe, Choir-baby, Curried Cauliflower Soup, Happy Cake, Postaday, postaday2012, pumpkins, recipes

Happy Cake, First Class Post and Curried Cauliflower Soup

10 Oct

1 A seasonal cook-up today! First a beautiful cake, Plum, Almond (should be hazelnuts) and Chocolate Cake, that came to me via the BBC Good Food site today. I couldn’t resist it! My version is full of the amino acid tryptophan which helps to make us happy! There are ground almonds, almond slivers and lots of good dark chocolate, all good sources of tryptophan hence its new name of Happy Cake.

Doesn’t that look delicious?

And it is!

2 While the cake was cooling and waiting for its glaze, we went to the Post Office to post off the two hoodies by the fastest post possible though I could hardly bear to part with them. If the hoodies themselves don’t keep the Grandbabies warm, then the love they’ve been made with will surely do the trick.

Hoodie parcels

3 While we were out we found big Cornish cauliflowers at a good price so I have made an enormous batch of Curried Cauliflower Soup, one of our favourites for cold winter days: 3 pints in the freezer and one for tomorrow. Two servings go very nicely into a one pint milk carton and they stack really neatly in the freezer.

Curried cauliflower soup

I’ll put both recipes up soon.

I can’t post large photos at the moment, they stretch and go out of proportion so these are all medium. Do click on each one for the large version.

24 Comments

Posted by mybeautfulthings on October 10, 2012 in baking, craft, family, Food, knitting, postaday2012

Tags: Cornish cauliflowers, Curried Cauliflower Soup, First Class Post, freezer, happy, hoodies, knitting, Plum Almond and Chocolate Cake, Postaday, postaday2012, seasonal cooking, serotonin, tryptophan, weekly photo challenge, winter soup

Two Hoodies Knitted, Silver Raindrops and A Meeting

09 Oct

1 Finishing the little hoodie for T spurred me on to finish the one for her older brother. It’s been a wet and grey day so I curled up with my sewing up of the blue hoodie and am really rather pleased with the finished article! I’ll post them off tomorrow and hope to be sent photos of the Grandbabies in their new hoodies.

2. It rained relentlessly today but that means there were beautiful raindrops on the flowers. The pink Japanese Anenomes look so delicate and almost translucent with little jewels in them.