Christmas Marmalade

With the magic of freezing you can stash away Seville oranges and bring them out hopefully before the next season! Its only a couple of months away from when the new season oranges arrive. Here are a few jars of Seville marmalade made today, ready for selling next week at a bring and buy coffee morning at a friend's house in Kenilworth.

Using Tate & Lyle sugar does seem to lead to a better set, perhaps cane sugar is better than beet sugar, but I did add an extra lemon just to help the set, so it wasn't exactly a very scientific test.

Christmas inspired sewing

Having fallen by accident into a WI craft group earlier this year, with the help of very skilled friends there, I am exploring and starting to develop sewing skills. In my way I try to personalise each project and push the design a little further and incorporate small extras.

Many years ago in the Payroll Department of the NERC we had a part-timer, who was a member of the WI and would each year bring us goodies of handmade niceties to raise funds for various charities. These gave me the idea of making heart shaped decorations to give to my friends this year. I have continued to use the hearts I bought over 15 years ago using them on the doorhandles. Kaye who leads our craft group has a wonderful stash of materials and I've added a few extras to these, and taking about three hours each, I stitch thinking about each friend I am making these for.

This is the one, with different fabric each side, which I made for Vicki, my bread guru, who lives partly in London and partly in Southwold. I left this with her on my visit, but further ones will have to remain secret for now!

Here is one that I've made specially for myself, not a heart, but one with the year embroidered. I hope to make one each year, and hence trace the standard of my work. It started with two small squares of absolutely gorgeous turquoise silk. I sewed with 'silver' thread for the first time, there was a mirror, an embellishment, beads, padding and embroidery etc.

Out to town with my new shopping trolley

Still in my dressing gown, I answered the door bell. There on the doorstep was a Parcel Force lady with my box. It was so light I thought it was empty. But no, there inside was my new shopping trolley, only ordered last Thursday. Made in Spain, the Rolser trolley comes in many colours and I had decided for a darker colour but with a nice green trim.

As the day was sunny I decided to step out and had a number of shops to visit. Waitrose first and Sainsbury's on the way home meant I tested my trolley to capacity, and yes it fully meets expectations.

Up in Kenilworth I took a picture of the new Almanack Restaurant. Its also a coffee shop and has a light and airy feel to it. On Friday David and I went there for dinner and had some really excellent lamb which was the roast of the day, I would have loved more vegetables than the potato moussaka it was served with. The North side of the square is nearly completed. The development has been really slow having started before we moved to Kenilworth.

Cold weather and warm woollens

Yesterday we seemed to spend the best part of the day in Ikeas, yes, more than one of them! That is almost beyond the call the duty, but the boy now has his big bookshelf/cupboard with doors on. I am from the open shelf brigade and David is from the behind closed doors brigade. I would even like to have all my ingredients on open shelves and can remember my grand-mothers larder in New Holland in Lincolnshire. It was down a couple of steps from the kitchen, and being half underground was lovely and cool. It had a stone floor and marble shelves. I would happily swap this for cupboards and my fridge!

Mr S has taken himself off to the NEC to spend a day amongst model trains so today I have a day all on my own at home, and after the gloomy morning will probably go outside to check on the garden and clear up the leaves etc. I've sat and done some knitting and phoning around. Sadly Aunty Nora is very poorly and is now in Hospital, and a phone call to Aunty Prue put me back in good spirits. We compared notes and I found out that her sweetpeas are already up, so I shall start mine off soon. My tee pee with only a few plants yielded so many bunches last year, and I hope that do as well this coming year.

Although we had a sprinkling of snow in the night, it had melted away by the morning, and thanks to my recent knitted items I am pretty snug. Both the legwarmers and the gloves are knitted in Manos Silk Blend. I'm pleased to have knitted some gloves, but feel that I am rather a nice leather gloves type of person. I do however now wear some rather unflattering performance biking gloves when cycling around, as I ruined a pair of fine leather gloves when they got wet through whilst cycling during the blizzard a few weeks ago.

Anna from Web of Wool suggested I put a couple of drops of hair conditioner in the rinsing water when preparing my new Lace Triangle/Tucker ready for its stretch on my wires. Here it is drying in the conservatory. The design is one based on the techniques explained by Evelyn Clark her booked called Knitting Lace Triangles. I've had the yarn for a couple of years now and was the first of consignments from the shawl club from Poshyarn. It is a lovely shade of Lavender and is warm and soft.

Couple of days in London

• First time down to London from Kenilworth on my own. Jolly pleased with myself as I managed to get some very cheap train tickets on line. I even managed to update some software called Adobe so that I could print off the tickets.
• Fine weather meant Vickie and I had a lovely walk around her locality, it is almost like a village and even has a wonderful church.

• Got to taste some delicious home cooking and excellent bread, succulent partridge , and a 'surprise soup' at lunch time which I have already cooked at home, and has Mr S's approval.


• Visited Poilane with Vickie, and was shown round the bakery including their wood burning oven. Due to a hopefully temporary downturn in restaurant bookings, the morning bake on Thursday was suspended and all we could see was the mother in the mixer, and no actual bread being baked. Annie, the bakery manager was very informative. Bought some goodies back which were enjoyed although, bless him, Mr S said my bread was more to his liking.


• Visited the Wallace Collection and had lunch there with Vickie in their restaurant which is light and bright and in the inner court yard which has been glassed over. Looked at some wonderful rooms with their silks and stunning chandeliers and found the Oval Drawing Room and the picture of the Swing by Fragonard.


• Vickie knows the area well as she used to live just off Marylebone High Street, and it was a treat to see the wonderful food and cloth shops. We walked and talked and admired the wonderful architecture during a walk from there to the Railway station.