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Monthly Archives: January 2024

Own Grown Salad, Lunch and A Squirrel

It’s very pleasing in the middle of winter, to be able to pick our own fresh salad leaves. We brought the baby plants home after a Community Roots session in the autumn and have kept them under cloches in the edibles trough outside the kitchen. Here they are in the salad spinner, about to be washed.

For lunch, with the leaves, I fried up some slices of the Chestnut and Sweet Potato Roast we had last week. It was delicious.

The squirrel who visits us, knocked the peanut holder from the bird feeding station and sat on the grass eating all the ones that had spilled!

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 21, 2024 in Cornwall, environment, Food, garden, nature, Postaday 2024, Uncategorized

Roasted Rainbow and Another Good Read

20 Jan

One of our favourite meals tonight, a rainbow of roasted vegetables with halloumi cheese – scrumptious!

Red Pepper, Sweet potato, Carrots, Yellow pepper, Broccoli, Red onion

My lovely book buddy, H, brought me up another good read yesterday and I have just spent two days reading! I thought I would just read a page or two and then get back to the various things waiting for me but I haven’t been able to put it down!

If you haven’t read this, then I suggest you do. The story is quite remarkable, very moving and is just chock-full of human kindness.

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 20, 2024 in books, charity, environment, Food, Kindness, nature, philosophy, Postaday 2024, Uncategorized

Tags: Christian Lewis, Finding Hildasay

Exciting Find in the Garden

19 Jan

I found two strange little fungi in the garden today and two family people have helped me identify them as Collared Earthstars – such a lovely name for a delightful little thing. I had thought it might be a Puffball because when I touched it, it puffed out a little cloud. Here is the info from the link I was sent by C. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/fungi-and-lichens/collared-earthstar/

The Native American Blackfoot Confederacy called collared earthstars ka-ka-toos – meaning ‘fallen stars’ – and believed them to be indicators of supernatural events – just one of the lovely things I have learned today. Another is that just a raindrop landing on the dome is enough for the spores to puff out, such delicacy, such beauty.

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 19, 2024 in environment, garden, nature, photography, Postaday 2024

Tags: collared earthstar, Geastrum triplex

Reflections

18 Jan

What a glorious day to go singing in Penryn with the backdrop of the Penryn River. It was so still this morning with the bluest of skies and the the loveliest of reflections. We are so lucky to rehearse with a view as beautiful as this.

Daffodils, Cakes and AGM

17 Jan

When we arrived in Redruth in 2008, our lovely neighbour turned up with a jam jar full of local daffodils and joined us on the floor (furniture arriving the next day) to share our Chinese takeaway. Every year since, on the anniversary of our arrival, she has come round with daffodils. Just the best neighbour!

The cherries didn’t sink in the cake and the Victoria sponge was a huge success. As well as being my favourite, it is clearly loved by many.

English Cherry Cake – the cherries didn’t all fall to the bottom!

Victoria Sponge

It was the AGM of Community Roots this evening, a fascinating account of what is being achieved and what hopes and plans there are for the future of the project. I share three of the slides here with you, apologies for the slight fuzziness.

Our Values

Colourful contents of veggie bags over the year

Word cloud, collected this evening from all the people present

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 17, 2024 in Celebration, community, Cornwall, friendship, Happiness, Kindness, Postaday 2024, Uncategorized, volunteering

Community Roots, Cake and Sea View

16 Jan

What a delightful day I have had! This morning we worked at Community Roots with the best of people and I planted seeds for onions and shallots. Our youngest volunteer washed leeks with help and others planted beetroot and spinach in one of the poly tunnels.

Washing leeks

Working out numbers needed

8421 seeds planted!

Planting out baby spinach, baby beetroot plants

Winter salads

Salad tunnel

This afternoon I have baked cakes for tomorrow’s Community Roots AGM – an English Cherry Cake and, my favourite, a Victoria Sponge. I learned a new trick to stop the cherries all sinking to the bottom but I won’t know if it has worked until it is cut tomorrow evening! I’ll let you know.

English Cherry Cake ready for the oven

In the winter, when the trees are leafless, we can see the sea from our bedroom window.

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Posted by mybeautfulthings on January 16, 2024 in community, Cornwall, environment, growing, Happiness, nature, photography, Postaday 2024

Catkins, Sunset and New Moon

15 Jan

We came back home to Cornwall, 16 years ago today!

A Poem

14 Jan

#OnThisDay in 1818 Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem ‘Ozymandias’ was published for the first time in The Examiner.

This poem is one my Dad would recite and is one our friend Ti can recall.

Marmalade and My Dad

13 Jan

The house has been full of the wonderful smell of marmalade today, first the fruit boiling and then the marmalade and we now have lots more to take us through the year. We put some oranges in the freezer and will cook these when the making calls or we are near to running out. I was surprised to find I had no labels so the labelling of thin cut and thick cut will have to wait a day or two.

Regular readers will know that my Dad was the marmalade maker in my childhood home and it was he who taught me the skill. It seems fitting then that today, his birthday, I have spent with him in spirit in the kitchen with me, praising and appreciating my efforts. Thanks, Dad.