The Portland Lighthouse
Lighthouse on Cape Cod
Listen here for my choir singing, ‘Lower Lights” a beautiful song about the importance of the lights around the coasts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TW9-EQDQX5g
NaBloPoMo
Tag Archives: NaBloPoMo
The Extra Mile, Red Docs and Ballet Boyz
1 I took a very large envelope to the Post Office today, sending some of the Christmas Clings that Marilyn very kindly sent to me, to our Grandchildren. I asked if they had a ‘Please do not bend’ label but they didn’t. The woman behind the counter suggested that I add a piece of card to strengthen it all and so I said I would take it home, do that and come back tomorrow. ‘Just a minute,’ she said and disappeared into the back. She then spent the next 5 minutes or so undoing my package, fixing it up with a piece of card and resealing it! What a star!
2 I am so excited! I now have my red Doc Martens! Some of you will know I have been eyeing these for some time and today, there were some new ones in, in red leather rather than the patent and so I have some at last. I wore them out of the shop which reminded me of being little when we always took our old shoes home in the box and wore our new shoes home with such pride!
My new red Doc Marten boots
3 Tonight we went to The Hall for Cornwall to see The Ballet Boyz, an all male modern dance group. THe first dance was incredibly lovely showing off the beautiful male bodies; the second dance full of stylised violence and suppressed aggression and quite exhilarating.
Thanksgiving, Toddler Talk and Garden Birds
1 Happy Thanksgiving to my dear family in Atlanta and in Hawaii, to our good friend Shelagh in Vermont and to all my lovely blogging friends in America. May you all have love and laughter in your lives.
Happy Thanksgiving
2 Such a lovely phone call this morning from two and a half year old Grand-Baby T who sang the following to us to the tune of Frère Jaques
Father Christmas, Father Christmas,
He’s got stuck, he’s got stuck;
High up in the chimney, high up in the chimney
What bad luck! What bad luck!
Try it!
3 The birds were very busy in the garden this morning – all kinds of tits, our wren, lots of Goldfinches and the usual Magpies, Blackbirds and pigeons. The Goldfinches were stripping the Verbena Bonariensis of its seeds. A Heron flew over yesterday which was a treat.
Goldfinches and a Coal Tit, taken from the kitchen, through the window on maximum zoom
I’m watching Comet ISON with great interest. This update just came through from my dear Sister in Hawaii and it’s all looking just a bit iffy at the moment as if it might not survive its close encounter with the sun.
Decorating, Owl Wood-stack and The Snow Dog
1 Decorating is making progress. It will be beautiful in time…….
2 This amazing picture of an immaculate wood-stack in the shape of an owl came my way recently. I can’t imagine actually using any of the wood.
Beautiful owl woodstack
3 I started knitting the Snow Dog months ago but have put off the sewing up, my least favourite part of making anything. Today, in a break from painting the coving, I made a start. It’s hard!
Snow Dog pieces
Batch Cooking, Viburnum and Restoration
1 Yesterday I cooked up a storm, making the first of the meals for 11 and a 1/2 family people for the holiday season! This was the beautiful Flemish Beef casserole which will be topped with garlic bread. It is now in the freezer in 6 boxes of two servings each and I thank my school friend, Stella, for the recipe. I shall add chestnuts to the final dish to make it even more festive!
Stella’s Flemish Beef
2 The Viburnum is bursting with waxy blossom, such a welcome sight when there’s not much colour in the garden.
Viburnum
3 The people who had this house before us changed some of the beautiful Victorian features and as we decorate, we are restoring those we can. They removed the picture rail and put it lower than it should be. The lovely Mr S has taken it all down, we have filled the holes and re-plastered parts and now the rail is back at the height it should be, restoring the elegant beauty of the room. Now we just have to get it all re-painted before Grand-baby B arrives on Monday as she will need somewhere to crawl about!
The rail in its original position and the patchwork where it used to be.
The Ballad of Joe Hill, Singing and Limequats
1 I was reminded of these words of Shelley yesterday
“Music, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory- “
when I heard ‘The Ballad Of Joe Hill’ sung by Paul Robeson, one of my all time favourite voices singing one of my lovely Dad’s favourite songs, and one which we played at Dad’s Humanist funeral. It was chosen by Ed Milliband in Desert Island Discs on Sunday and has been in my head ever since. Some of you will know this – but it doesn’t matter how long ago you ‘lost’ a parent, they never actually leave you and music can suddenly bring them back into the kitchen as clearly as if they were still alive.
3 Singing with The Inglehearts tonight was especially good. There’s something very special about singing in harmony with friends. Here’s a public Thank you to Claire Ingleheart for her work, her friendship and her very special talent which she shares so freely.
3 The Crystallised Limequats look beautiful in their jar.
Crystallised Limequats
Horse, Sweet Potato Soup and Limequats
1 The horses in the field behind us almost came into the garden today! One was scratching his neck so hard on the fence that we thought it might give way!
Our neighbour in the back field
2 I had some left-over sweet potato from making a Sweet Potato Cake (Don’t ask! It was a disaster! The recipe read well but it was almost tasteless, solid as a brick and fit only for the birds!) While it was in the oven and before I knew how awful it was, I decided to make the rest into soup with carrots and ginger, onions and garlic and vegetable stock and that was fabulous!
Sweet potato, carrot and ginger soup
3 I didn’t know what Limequats were either! I’d eaten Kumquats and these, it seems, are the lime version. I decided to make Crystallised fruits with them so here they are in their sugary bath with cinnamon and vanilla. I love how the little seeds have the green line in them. In case you can’t tell the scale, each Limequat is a bit bigger than a marble but not quite as big as a golf ball.
Inside a Limequat
Toady I’ve posted the recipe for the very delicious Raw Chocolate Brownies should you wish to try them. You can find it on my Recipe page or click here.
NaBloPoMo
Golden Onions, Walk and Raw Chocolate Brownie
1 This morning the low beams of the winter sun caught our homegrown plaited onions and made them even more beautiful.
Golden onions
2 We had a walk around the Great Flat Lode behind our house today. There was a surprising amount of colour – golden gorse, Pink Campions, red berries and lovely green moss with ivy leaves and, on this crisp clear day, a very good blue view of the sea on the North coast of Cornwall.
Cow Parsley seed heads
Golden gorse
Wheal Uny engine house
Ivy and moss
Overlooking our house (the yellow half) and on to the sea
Pink Campion against the bracken
Ivy flower
Palm trees, an engine house chimney and the sea
3 I’ve made Raw Chocolate Brownies this afternoon for some friends on Tuesday. They are surprisingly fudgy and yummy!
Raw Chocolate Brownie, just nuts and dates and Maple syrup, all ready for the freezer
Click on NaBloPoMo to see more in the post every day in November challenge.
Sunbeams, Hyacinths and Winter Sky
1 Just for a few moments this morning, sunlight found the slim trunks of our Himalayan Birch and made them glow.
Sunshine lighting up the white bark of the Himalayan Birch
2 I have ‘planted’ some hyacinth bulbs in water in the beautiful old glasses that were my Mum’s. She planted them up every year for flowers for my birthday and the New Year which is what I am aiming for. They are now all in a dark cupboard.
Mum’s old hyacinth glasses
3 Today was very cold, 4.5C, but the sky was very blue. In fact, it was a perfect crisp winter’s day.
Winter blue
