The Eden Project

Reasons to be cheerful...

...one, two, three. We've been having such a stressful time trying to sell/buy/move house and everything has seemed very dreary and dark at times. So I'm coming over all Pollyanna-ish and trying to count my blessings - it will all turn out for the best.

Adventures in thrifting

I'm not supposed to be buying any more fabric until I've used up some of my stash, but I couldn't resist this lovely floral sheet from the Children's Hospice charity shop. It wa only £1.99, so it barely counts. It's such super-soft cotton that I think it would make great bedding for B when she's a bit bigger, or maybe even some summer clothes!

Vintage baby clothes

I've recently been inundated with lovely vintage baby clothes for lucky B. the first batch came from my sister, who has a bit of a fab collection. It looks like B is mostly going to be rocking red gingham this summer! The second batch was in a lovely surprise parcel from France sent by my friend Emma who had been helping her mother-in-law have a clear-out. Sadly I think some of the things in the parcel, especially this beautiful little white top, would be more suited to petite delicate French babies rather than my sturdy little English girl, but I'm just enjoying looking at them and think I might be able to replicate a couple of them using some of my fabric stash.

Photo-a-day February

Another month of the photo-a-day project completed. I'm settling into my visual groove now, it seems that I lean towards lots of close ups that I can then edit into something I'm happy with. I think I actually enjoy the editing process more that the actual photography part, to be honest, and am bereft that Picnik is closing down in April. Will have to find myself a new editing programme quick smart.

Learning to cook

Tim is vegetarian so I never cook meat, and have fallen into a real cooking rut, tending to rely on the same few recipes over and over again. One of my new year's resolutions was to try out more recipes and increase the variety of what we eat at home. Today I made the aubergine and french bean curry from River Cottage - Veg everyday. I had to make curry paste from scratch (using the final shallots from last year's allotment crop), which made me feel a bit domestic-goddessy and it was delicious! Definitely one to make again.

Sloe gin

Today I finally bottled the sloe gin that I've had infusing away on the worktop for the past three months. I've been holding out for the right bottles to put it in (rejecting the suggestion of the man in the farm shop that an old two litre plastic bottle would do the trick, like the sloe gin snob that I am) and finally found the perfect ones in Lakeland. I've used the recipe from the River Cottage Preserves handbook, and initial taste testing are pretty good. Apparently I need to leave it for 18 months before drinking though, and a recent article I read even suggested that 18 years would be the optimum length of time to allow it to reach its full taste potential. Chances of this actually happening in real life are slim to none. I'm not known for my patience! I still have a big bag of sloes in the freezer and am debating whether to pop these into some gin as well. There may well be a lot of gin-based presents from us next Christmas!