More Plums

I'm gradually making my way through the plums. Yesterday we had a large plum and hazelnut crumble which my lot consumed long before I had a chance to whip out the camera. Today there has been more jam and a plum cake...


Adapted from a recipe in my very favourite cook book, (I could sit and just read it for hours) Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diaries for "a wonderfully moist, fresh plum cake"

He's not wrong... wonderful, moist and perfect still warm with a dollop of thick cream! (This one's for you Maggie!)

And there are still plums left!

Quilts and Klimt

What an exciting weekend. On Friday morning Jude and I headed up the M6 to the Festival of Quilts. So much wonderful work from such talented people I wouldn't know where to start to describe it all so instead a collage of just a small sample of the work that caught our eye.


We also met with some fellow bloggers - I've never yet met a blogger I didn't think was lovely and Friday was no exception. Mai-Britt and Jackie - it was great to meet you. Also had a chance to chat with Maggie Grey who as ever was wonderfully generous with her knowledge. I can't wait to try out some of the techniques she showed us - all of which are in her in her book. Of course I had to buy a copy - would have been rude not too!

I think I was quite restrained in my purchases (well... compared to last year) but I did buy another book which is full of great looking things to try. All I need now is some more time....

After FOQ we got back onto the M6 and head up to this city...

After not too much driving up and down the dockside we found we our hotel which was very luxurious and also happened to be where Melanie C was staying the night as she was playing at a concert at the Docks. We didn't get to see Mel C though because we were far too engrossed with our luxury bathroom and this amazing shower!

After several showers later we were ready to hit the town on Saturday morning... and straight outside our hotel was this... the Liver Building.

We both got rather excited and carried away remembering episodes of the Liverbirds... which for some reason prompted this...

Moving on very quickly from that last photo... we also spotted several of these strange creatures - superlambananas - which are situated all over Liverpool.

Eventually we got around to the reason for our trip - the Klimt exhibition at the Tate. We both enjoyed the exhibition but had some prior idea of what we were going to see which was not actually a show devoted to the work of Klimt. It was more about a group of artists known as the Viennese Secession, of whom Klimt was the leader. There were a lot of photographs, models of buildings, exhibition catologues, furniture and housewares as well as a substantial number of Klimt drawings and paintings. I could imagine it would have been a disappointing exhibition if you were expecting a blockbuster show of Klimt paintings. But the work that was on display was stunning and it was an interesting and informative exhibition. This was one of my favourites.

We managed a light lunch at the Tate Cafe before setting back home - but not before we saw these power boats racing on the Mersey. An exciting end to an exciting couple of days!

Plums

I was given these today... about 10lb of plums!


Which was wonderful but I really needed to work on my essay... but tomorrow I'm going away for a couple of days (I know I only just got back!) so I had to do something with them now.

Not really what I wanted to be doing while I cooked dinner but it had to be done and I've got five pots of plum jam as a result. Only 8 lb of plums left to deal with now....

I leave you with a one of the better things about this wet weather...

while I go off to pack a bag. I'm off to the Festival of Quilts with my friend Jude tomorrow

Joe: " Festival... cool... will there be beer and tents and music and stuff?"

Me: " No there will be cups of tea and quilts."

Joe: " Ha! Ha! Not much of a festival. Why are you going for two days?"

Me: " Because we are going on to Liverpool to see the Klimt exhibition at the Tate."
Joe: (With loud guffaws) " There's a Tate in Liverpool???"

Me: " Yes Joe - It's European City of Culture."

Joe: (Falling off his chair with even louder guffaws) " Yeah right!"

There then followed several tasteless jokes about Liverpool. My sincere apologies to all friends and readers from Liverpool for the crassness of my son. I'm actually looking forward to it.

It's August...

... it's mean to be summer. But it's wet and miserable and I'm cold! So I think soup will be a good idea for lunch. Something warm and hearty like leek and potato.


This is an old time favourite recipe of ours from a cookbook by Claire Macdonald. Pretty much a standard leek and potato but with a teaspoon of medium curry powder added whilst frying the leeks and onions. The resulting soup doesn't taste of curry but has a lovely warm kick... just what you need on a wet and miserable August summer day!

Served in a bowl to remind me of Italy... which brought the sun out (temporarily) for the photograph. I think we need a bit more of Italy, don't you...

Tuscan Tales

This has been our home in the sun for the past week

Nestled among the hillside vineyards of the Chianti mountains

and beautiful olive groves.

There was a couple of days sightseeing.
First, the wonderful Gothic city of Siena


And then Florence... heart of the Renaissance.
Here we soaked up the culture

strolled along the Ponte Vecchio


and marvelled at the beauty of Michelangelo's David


But most of all we spent our days lazing about in the sunshine,
reading in the shade and
dipping in here when it got too hot



and of course enjoying the simple things in life...
good food and wine

Now I've bored you all with my holiday snaps I really should get back to the washing which is draped all over the house due to our lovely inclement English weather. It's good to be home!

Reading and Relaxation

Stewart and I are off for a short break to this Tuscan hilltop for a bit of reading and relaxation, leaving Joe to look after the house and the dog. I think he has a whole posse of friends coming to stay with him so I hope we still have a home left when we return!


Unfortunately not all my reading is entirely for pleasure.

Although I hope to find time to get through at least a couple of these too.

And maybe even a bit of time for some painting.

And some sightseeing... And of course eating plenty of lovely Italian food and drinking lots of local Chianti... maybe I won't get to read many of those text books after all... maybe I should just leave them at home with Joe!

I'll be back soon so don't have too much fun without me.

Skirts and Shorts

We're going away for a few days soon.

It's very hot where we're going.

I need some skirts to wear.

But my skirts are too tight.

I've been eating too much chocolate and it has made my clothes shrink!

Then I remembered a remnant of fabric bought a long time ago...

so I made a skirt!

There wasn't actually enough fabric to make a waistband so I used bias binding instead.

And being very lazy I decided to use the binding on the hem too. I thought it looked quite "Boden" and trendy.

Not bad for under a tenner and the whole lot took under three hours and that included inserting a zip. I might have to make another one!

There has been some other sewing going on too following a conversation with Joe:

"You're good at sewing Mum"
"Apparently"
" Do you think you could mend my shorts? They've got a bit of a rip."
"Let me see"

" Glad it's not a big rip then."

Just look at those tatty edges... how on earth was I meant to fix that!

Ha! He won't ask me again in a hurry.