Some sunshine please........

Oh these dreich days are really getting the better of me............the lurgy has been hanging around in our house for weeks now, little star was ill for about 3 weeks, she then had a small spell of jollyness and is now full of coughs and cold again :(

Last week I coughed like I smoked 40 a day and then eventually took to my bed at the weekend, full of the cold and feeling very flu like.........bleurgh.

So, in an attempt to try and cheer myself up, I decided to take a look through some lovely Spring pictures taken in the garden either last Spring or the Spring before that (I'm thinking prob the Spring before that as Stella took up all of my time last year!)

Where is the sunshine of February? The lovely sunny days promising us that Spring is just around the corner? There is nothing nicer than being able to take a cuppa out to the back door and sit and enjoy a bit of early Spring sunshine on your face, it warms the soul out of hibernation, don't you think?

Oh how I long for the yellow burst of little celandine flowers along the bank of the burn, and that sparkle of sunlight off the water as it trickles down to the big burn...........

Fingers crossed Mr. Sunshine arrives back from his long holiday fairly soon. In the meantime, I hope this little burst of Spring has cheered you up, it's certainly given me hope!

L x

Strathardle Gathering

This weekend is the annual Strathardle Gathering over in Kirkmichael, we've gone for the last couple of years since moving up here and have always had a fantastic day. This year I am entering some of the competitions in the Indutrial Tent. Now, for those in the know this is very competitive, it's the ladies opportunity to fluff up their feathers and show who's Queen of the Kitchen, Garden and Crafts!!!

I am on the Ladies Committee for the Alyth Show, our local agricutural show, and was lucky enough to be able to accompany a judge this year, so picked up quite a few tips here and there.

So, for the next couple of evenings I shall be busy getting my list of entries together, a little bit of baking, some jam making, some flower arranging, picking my veggies and making some bits and pieces for the craft section. I'm not entering loads in each section as I simply don't have the time. It always amazes me how some folk have entries in nearly every section, I take my hat off to them. But then if you're serious about this (which clearly I'm not!) you have to enter loads in order to be in with a chance to win any of the cups as it's all based on points!

I'm really looking forward to entering my veggies, funnily enough, that's the section that I'm entering the most in! I know of a few people who are entering in this section so there's going to be lots of competition this year. One of our neighbours entered for the first time last year and won the cup so the pressure is really on for him this year, good luck Geordie!

In the flower aranging section I'm (hopefully) entering a jug of sweetpeas and a vase of garden flowers. Now, our garden isn't looking the greatest at the moment as I'm still battling with our very wet borders and the rain this year really hasn't helped. So, thanks to John (my gardening guru) I'm hopefully going to be able to get some flowers from his garden tomorrow. We do have some fabulous Dahlia and other bits and pieces so I'm thinking a nice warm coloured arrangement will look really good. One of our other neighbours is the champion of this section so Saturday is going to be an interesting day!

I'll post some pictures once it's all over and let you know how I get on, wish me luck!

L x

A wintry Easter weekend

It was to be expected I suppose, given that Easter is so early this year, that we would have snow in between fleeting visits of the sunshine. We've just had the most horrendous blast of wind, hail and snow all mixed together, and now the sun is out in it's full glory, Spring showers in their truest form I think.

The above cherry blossom tree hasn't quite come out yet this year, when it does it puts on a beautiful show of tiny delicate pink flowers. I've brought some branches in and hung the Easter decorations from them, the stove is lit so hopefully the warmth will bring the buds out fairly soon.

The dining room also looks a bit like a florists shop at the moment, jugs and jugs of daffodils and masses of branches of flowering currant. Gregg will come home and complain that it smells of cat pee, but I quite like the smell, I think it's almost earthy, a real spring smell. I've volunteered to do the flowers in Church tomorrow for Sundays service, so hopefully the daffodils will come out in the warmth of the stove too. One of the joys of living in the sticks is that there is still a lot of "by the gatepost" selling. The daffodils came from a local farm, they leave a couple of crates with bunches made up and an honesty box, 25p a bunch and locally grown, so a dozen bunches were bought for the church.

Our little enterprise of selling by the gate is also doing well, we now have 20 chickens and a bunch of regular customers that either collect their eggs or I deliver them on a Friday when I'm down in the village. It was Easter last year that we put the sign up, it still amazes me that we get so many people popping in, especially walkers with a little room in their rucksack to squeeze in a half dozen eggs!

Some of you might remember that we hatched our first lots of chicks last year, 9 in total, 3 hens and 6 cockerels. The three hens are doing great, one of them is a real little madam, she jumps up and pecks me on the leg every morning, although I am getting wise to her now! I'm obviously not quick enough in giving them their grain! Anyway, your probably thinking, what did we do with the six cockerels? Well, one of them went to a small holding up the road and as far as I'm aware he's still doing well. We ate the other 5. They were delicious. I'm now thinking we should hatch some free ranging table birds and then start to breed them for ourselves to eat all year round. We shall see, we need a bit more land and I'm still working on that one, hence the reason we have no pigs as yet :(

We also had to despatch our much loved cockerel William, he was very ill with an infection that hadn't cleared up, so he's now buried in the garden. I cried when we had to do that but it didn't bother me at all when we had to kill the others that we ate. I quite happily plucked them and got them ready to roast for Sunday night supper. So, we now have William II, he's another Welsummer cockerel and is enjoying strutting his stuff in front of the ladies and crows away quite the thing on top of the fence post.

I also mentioned the other day that I had to try and catch one of our drakes, we currently have 2 drakes and 3 ducks, all Indian Runners, as our little call ducks got eaten by something when they decided to sit on eggs and we couldn't find them to bring them in at night. Anyway, as you can imagine, with it being Spring and all, the drakes are rather randy at the moment and have decided that three ladies is just not enough for them, so our two chinese white geese, Florence and Felicity, have been getting chased to the point where they dissappear down the burn and don't know how to find their way back! One of the drakes has to go, we could eat him, but I'm going to give him back to Diana (pottery friend!) as she's just lost her drake to the fox. He has been given a reprieve at the moment as I've not had time to go up to the pottery, maybe this weekend, then hopefully peace will be regained in the hen house!

So, I hope you all have a lovely Easter weekend, we'll be dodging the snow showers, hopefully getting some more studio building done and a bit of gardening. We might even go and roll some eggs!

Love,

L x

A quick hello.....

Just a quick hello from me before the weekend begins. The dreaded lurgy attacked this time last week, needless to say I ended up in bed for a few days. Not one to play the martyr I slept it off, best way in my opinion! So, feeling a lot better now but sounding like I smoke 40 a day (although I do quite like having a Mariella Fostrup type voice!), I've been playing catch-up these last few days. I have managed to get a few parcels in the post and have another order ready to go out, so roll on the weekend!

I'll be back on Monday with lots to tell, I've spent a good bit of this week cheering myself up by organising our holiday, all will be revealed on Monday, lets just say I'm VERY excited!!

Have a great weekend, what are you all up to?

L xx

P.S. The picture is of Jacobs Ladder, we've got tonnes of it in the garden just now, it makes a lovely cut flower so I'm off to fill up loads of jugs to dot around the house! x

Mass baking

Last night I took myself off into the kitchen to have a mass baking session. I love baking, especially when it involves using up lots of our free range eggs. So, I asked the birthday boy (Gregg) what kind of cakes he would like for his birthday as I was planning on making him one to have tonight and one to take into the office with him today. The request was for a carrot cake and a sponge cake and I also suggested I'd make him a tray of mars bar crispie cake as he rather likes that too.When we were at the CL Fair last week he kept pestering me for mini eggs as I'd made some little jars of treats - jam jars filled with mini eggs with a fabric lid, tied with a ribbon and a cute little hand written tag. Like last year they sold really well and we also had a little bowl of eggs on the counter for people to help themselves to, quite a nice little touch I thought. So he knew I had a bag stashed in one of the boxes but I wouldn't tell him where they were as I knew he'd eat them all! I'm such a spoil sport aren't I?!! So I've made him what looks very much like an Easter cake for his birthday to make up for my stingyness last week! It's just a simple victoria sponge with home made strawberry jam in the middle and pink butter cream icing on the top, not quite sure what he'll think of that little touch!!

As promised, here are some photos of the pots that I did for display at the fair, just another little touch that I though looked rather sweet dotted around the stall. So many people asked if they were for sale and there were nearly a few flower heads pulled off as people were convinced they were artificial - really, what next?

Birthday boy and I are are heading out tonight, we thought we'd head down to Dundee for a bite to eat, we've been recommended to go to a Turkish restaurant, so we might give that a bash.

Speak to you all tomorrow!

L x

Hi Ho! Hi Ho! It's off to the fair we go.....!

At last, we are nearly at the end of March, Spring is well and truly here, as is the Country Living Spring Fair Scotland, aaaargh! We're nearly all organised, although I've still got a million and one things to do tonight, including filling and sewing up another 10 door stops! I spent part of the morning doing something I've been looking forward to for ages, I had planned to do them last year, but as usual ran out of time! What do you think of these.....................?

My friend Diana who has Glenshee pottery sold me some of her old china, she used to have a tea room on Mull, so had plenty going spare! I think it's such a sweet way to recycle old cups and saucers, I just hope the Country Living visitors think the same! Although if I was bringing them home to dot around the house I wouldn't be too sad! As you can see I've got a bit of a production line here.....!

I'm really looking forward to meeting a few of the Scottish bloggers at the fair so please do come along and say hello, we're at stand C34. Tomorrow is set up day and the fair runs from Thursday 22nd March until Sunday 25th March at the SECC in Glasgow.

I'll be back next Monday with all the tales from the fair and lots of photos!

Right, I really must go and get on!

L x