Highly creative - what a lovely day

What a lovely start to the morning I had - Mandy Shaw was on Create and Craft and I sat there catching up with my TAST stitches.  I already had the book that she was promoting - it is stunning - particularly the last wreath where everything is collected together (not a post it note this year - must resist!) and so could just enjoy the advice that she was dispensing.  In terms of the TAST project I have now caught up and am ready for the next stitch on Tuesday.  As I have said before I am endeavouring to complete a stand alone piece and trying to be creative - lets see how this turns out!!




After dressing etc, I had an hour before I had to leave for church - so I set to preparing lunch.  Hardly newsworthy you may say but this included using my soup kettle for the first time - I made the afore mentioned leek and potato soup and made some slimming world syn free scones to go with it (A packet of smash, a pot of cottage cheese with two eggs, two beaten eggs - all mixed together and shaped into scones - bake at 180 degrees until brown.  Truthfully the cottage cheese would have gone out of date by tomorrow so needed using up.  There were, however, strange noises from the kitchen - I had set the soup kettle to make a smooth soup and the book assured me that in 21 minutes that is what would be delivered - all I had to do was to chop 700g of veg, add water up to 1.6 l and some stock powder - simples!  As you can see from this photo - taken just as I lifted the lid - that's exactly what happened - I guess that's the next few days meals sorted then.  My next attempt is a chunky lamb broth using 75g of lamb mince - It's on the shopping list for next weekend.  I can also report that it cleans very easily with a quick wash - I am very impressed - oh and it tasted VVVV nice!












Today's church service was slightly different.  We always serve coffee and biscuits after the service but, today, we had a reason to stay behind - the christening of Edward Green - the baby son of our churchwarden, Michelle - a lovely lady who is devoted to the church, extremely energetic and mother of three children under 5 - where does she get that energy?  Now you can see why I had to get lunch ready early.

I was also lucky enough to receive a little present from Janet and Ian - he gardeners.  They had gone on holiday to Cornwall and brought me back my own cream tea.  They have put it in the freezer so the cream may not be so good but it was a wonderful thought!






This afternoon the sea mist had lifted and it turned into a beautiful day.  The gardens both needed mowing (I keep hoping that this will be the last cut) and the table centrepiece needed finishing - so after a busy afternoon it was time to curl up on the sofa - I had recorded the BBC, Colin Firth edition, of Pride and Predjudice on the Drama - cue some girly oohs and aahs!