WOYWW 475

My desk on Tuesday night. I’ve got another busy day today.

I have just finished the little red heart – details below. Beside it is the mopping up sheet of kitchen paper which is maturing nicely – once all the white is covered, it will go in my box of inked/painted kitchen papers to be used in projects.

On the left you can see my new 10p mug tree with all my tapes on it! What a bargain.

Not a lot of deskivity this week – too busy, too tired, too hot!!

This is my desk as it was on Monday when I was working on the heart. Here I am painting the pieces ready for assembly.

Remember the woodgrain heart I made for my hubby for our anniversary in May? A friend saw it and loved it, and asked if I could make another one for a couple who are getting married soon – amazingly they share the same initials as my hubby and me so I haven’t had to redesign anything! She wanted it in red and cream, rather than woodgrain and gold, so this is what I’ve done. Here are the pieces, all painted, and the initials backed with small squares of cream card. After this I painted the backs of these with red, because the inside of the heart is visible through the pierced holes.

Here is the piece finished, with a loop of gold thread to hang it by.

Outing to Tyntesfield

Yesterday we went to visit Tyntesfield near Bristol, a National Trust house whose renovations we have been following with interest. My hubby went fairly recently with the local history society but it wasn’t an outing particularly suitable for me so we decided to go by ourselves on another occasion. We had a wonderful day. I shall be doing a separate blog post about this once I’ve sorted the photos – this will probably take me about a week because I took so many. How could I not, when the whole place is one great big OTT Wow!

Kitties

The kitties are continuing to be Trolley Dollies. When they come in from being in the garden all day, once they’ve been fed, they are absolutely exhausted and crash out on my trolley at the top of the stairs. There are usually lots of legs and tails hanging over the edges of the trolley and Ruby usually has at least one part of her anatomy draped over Lily!

They spend most of their time in the garden just wandering about looking at things, and chasing butterflies, most of which fortunately make their escape – we’ve got lots of butterflies, more than last year, which is good news as they are getting very scarce. We’ve got two buddleia bushes and one is already in full bloom and this is attracting the butterflies. In this hot weather the kitties are not so active and aren’t chasing each other around and playing with things as much, but they are still very tired when they come in! Lily gets very stoppy after supper and demands to be let out again, until she gives it up as a bad job when we refuse, and she takes herself off upstairs and joins her sister to sleep.

Here they are from above.

Food

I’m having a friend over tomorrow for lunch so I thought I’d cook something a bit special – my hubby gave me this fabulous book for my birthday:

and I’m gradually beginning to explore some of the recipes. Today I am planning to cook a lamb tagine and a chicken dish, and I shall decide which to serve tomorrow. These things are always best cooked the day before so that the flavours infuse well. Photos later, if I remember to take them! In the meantime, here is my jar of preserved lemons that I made, and which have been pickling in strong brine for several weeks. Apparently preserved lemons are lemons on steroids.

Sourdough

After a few disasters, I’ve come to the conclusion that my starter wasn’t as it should be, so I’ve ditched it and started again, and already it looks a lot better. Following what seems to be a tradition among sourdough bakers, I have named mine and she is called Esmeralda. Here she is in all her finery, on Day 2 when she’s already fermenting nicely. You can see her bubbles in the picture.

Kefir

Since coming out of hospital I’ve been making kefir and I feel better than I’ve felt for ages since drinking it on a daily basis. I’ve also got my hubby on it and he enjoys it too, and we are hoping it will help his diverticular disease.

Here is the latest batch, just strained and ready to go in a bottle in the fridge, together with my two little jars with the kefir grains in them, ready to be topped up with milk for the next batch.

Straining some excess kefir to make cheese, which is delicious. You can see the whey collecting in the bowl underneath, and this is full of goodness an useful in lots of recipes.

Kefir cheese ready to eat. It’s delicious, especially on my little sourdough crackers, made from excess sourdough starter.

I have done a blog post on my recent venture into fermented foods and you can read about these in more detail there if you wish.

As promised last week, here is my knitting. Still a bit more to do before I think it’s long enough. I am hoping to make some fancy tassels for the ends.

Not sure how many desks I’ll be able to visit this time as this week is turning out as busy as before. Have a great week, everybody.