Photo Friday, well sort of.

This week has been Joe's birthday. We've celebrated by eating lots of Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Brownies. They didn't come out looking quite like the picture in the recipe but they are rather tasty! This isn't exactly Photo Friday material, but we're now declaring our winter break over and Photo Friday will be back properly next we...

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Knitting - The Answer

Well, the answer to last Wednesdays question about fingerless mittens anyway. I think when it came to it, by asking the question I realised I knew the answer - do you ever do that? You ask something and realise that only one answer is acceptable, but until you ask you just can't decide? I was really hoping you'd all say to undo them, that they were better without, and so that's what I've done. They...

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February in the Chicken Coop

This month in the chicken coop... ... its been cold, wet and windy. On many days the girls have got up, had something to eat, and gone back to bed and I can't blame them! We can't let them out into the rest of the garden unsupervised at the moment leaving them with not much to do except snooze the day away. I think they're probably hoping for spring as much as the rest of us! ... they've been supervising...

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To Knit Or Not To Knit...

So I finished the baby socks I was working on. I love how quick and simple they are, though I'm a little dubious that they are "newborn" size. Ah well, at least they'll be grown into. My quandary is this; what next? There are so many lovely patterns I'd like to knit, my favourites board on Ravelry is growing and growing. What I'd like to do next though is use up some of the wool we already have,...

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And he huffed and he puffed....

.... and he blew the fence down. I know many many people are having a rough time with the weather and the flooding, our own story is tame in comparison. We noticed yesterday morning that some of our fence panels were flapping in the wind, and when we looked closer we found two of the posts had snapped. They hadn't come down completely, but a few more huffs and I think that would have been the case. We...

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The Great Swift Bake Off

I am sure many of you brits will have picked up on the phenomenon that is "The Great British Bake Off" (bbc link). For those less familiar here's a quick summary: A group of amateur bakers (normaly fairly good ones) compete in rounds of three challenges to avoid elimination by two judges - Mary Berry (cookery guru and the go to cookery book of choice for cakes) and Paul Hollywood (master baker). A...

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Kitchen Gadget 5. Slow Cooker

We can be rather lazy when it comes to cooking. We love home cooked meals, but even more we love meals that are all prepared in advance, that allow us to just sit down and eat. This months gadget is our slow cooker (crock pot for those of you over the pond) and it allows us to do just that. We can fill it with some fairly simple ingredients on a Saturday morning, go out for the day, spend time in...

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Making a Plan - January Gardening

It's planning time. We have three beds that make up our veg patch and we're starting to come to some decisions about what we want to do with them this year. Each bed is about 1.5m x 3m so we have plenty of space to grow a range of things - but not enough to be completely self sufficient in veg over the summer. Our plan has always been to both rotate crops through the beds and try a few different things...

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Life's a Game: 2. Go

This year we're sharing with you our game of the month. These are all favourites from our collection, or ones we play with our friends. February's game is Go. No, we're not talking about the ancient Chinese game involving little black and white counters. We're talking about Go, the 60's board game that takes you around the world on the hunt for souvenirs. While this is part of our charity shop...

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