Uncategorized | with knife and fork

A trip to the library

Yesterday I was getting a bit of cabin fever.

I’d been staring at the screen for too long, Picasa was being a nightmare and Photoshop not much better.

So I decided to stop and take a lttle break.

I strolled to the local library and perused the bookshelves in search of inspiration.

I found a few things then recalled people had been recommending a novel to me…but I couldn’t remember by who or its name.

I tweeted and got an answer pronto. Someone else had already borrowed the book.

Then outside the sound of a heavy downpour and the library sprang to life everyone using it as an excuse to chat.

One lady said summers never used to be like this. The weather was predictable back then she said. Some sort of halcyon childhood summers I think she meant.

The rain stopped. The talking stopped.

I went back to the book shelves and then home contented with my haul.

Libraries are great. And I still have to go back to get the novel when its in.

This morning I spent a leisurely few hours in Liberty’s tea room sipping Lahloo Tea‘s White rosebud tea, eating a large and delicious slice of Victoria sponge cake and chatting to fell food blogger and twitterer @comestibles.

It was lovely way to spend part of the day but the slice of cake was so large I felt full for ages (in a nice way).

But I finally got a bit peckish so I fixed a little snack…..

Dalloways cherries and Alham Wood buffalo cheese with cumin both from the farmers market, some Peters Yard crispbreads and some goats cheese.

Just the job to fill the emerging hole in my tum and tide me over until supper which is at least 4 hours away still.

Hydrangea, blue and pink

We have several hydrangea plants in out garden. One is a white climbing version. But I’ve always liked the blue and pink ones the most.

Now I know that the colour of the flower heads is meant to be partially determined by the pH of the soil (blue in acidic, pink in alkaline).

So how on the same plant have I got blue and pink flower heads so close together.

The best of both worlds perhaps.

See the full gallery on Posterous

And quite intriguing. Explanations welcome.

Strawberry tea with the ladies

Yesterday I spent a lovely afternoon sipping tea and eating delicious goodies all in aid of Breast Cancer Care.

The lovely Scandilicious hosted the event at her flat for a gaggle of girlie food lovers (and a few boys for good measure).

We had strawberries, cherries and raspberries.

Pimms and a wide choice of Rare Tea Lady’s finest teas.

Sour cream chocolate cake, scones sweet and savoury.

And jams and clotted creams of course.

Lots of it had been donated by generous suppliers and much of it had been made by Scandilicious own demon baking hands.

And Alex had brought us some of her strawberry topped fairy cakes.

It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon chatting and drinking and eating.

And raising money for an important cause.

Why not hold your own Strawberry tea for Breast Cancer Care?

You can see Scandilicious own post with a list of the companies who kindly donated ingredients here.

See the full gallery on Posterous

In amongst the potatoes

I got these potatoes the other day from the supermarket, I picked them partly because they were relatively local (grown in Cambridgeshire).

Now I know that doesn’t mean they can straight from Cambridgeshire to may local store, they probably went to some central warehouse miles away and then came back. But hey.

I found this nestled amongst them.