Sunday evening

By Sunday evening I'm reflecting on a full and happy weekend. 

I made cheese scones for supper, and we dunked them into bowls of hot tomato soup. Then I curled up on the sofa for some relaxation:

• knitting (this shawl, progressing well)
• a stack of magazines
• The Archers
• a few squares of one of my favourite chocolates
• a large mug of Sunshine Grey tea.

All is well.

View from the sofa - Sunday evening

Winter and woollens

I've used Silverpebble's and Thrifty Household's excellent Making Winter project to start something I've been meaning to do for a while: taking time out of my day, every day, to stand or sit outside for ten minutes and drink a cup of tea or coffee.  I think even in the very depths of winter I would get enjoyment from wrapping up warmly, stepping out into the garden and watching what's going on around me as I sip a hot drink and think about what needs to be done with my day.

Today I looked at the lavender bush where I saw Mr Toad back in May.  The lavender bush did pretty well this year but I realised that I still need to cut off the dead flower stalks.

I checked that the hens were happy under their new rain cover.  They get a new one every winter, and I spend each spring and summer looking for perfectly clear shower curtains that I can use.  Gill found this one for me in the Habitat closing down sale.

I marvelled at the amount of cherry leaves that had fallen in just one day since I last cleared them all up.  I love how they look on the green grass, but if I leave them there, we will have no grass next summer...so every week or so I rake them up.

And I drank my cup of tea and rejoiced at my toasty warm shoulders and wrists.  As well as Making Winter, there's something else that has caught my eye this month: Wovember.  This is Kate Davies' and Felicity Ford's campaign and celebration of 100% wool.  I was as appalled as Kate was to discover, when I read her blog last month, that an item of clothing that contains no wool whatsoever can still legally use the word wool or woollen in its description.  Wovember has been set up as a way to highlight this issue, campaign to change it, and at the same time celebrate everything 100% wool.

My shawl is knitted from sock yarn, which is a wool blend of 75% wool and 25% polyamide.  This enables socks and shawls and anything else knitted with it to be subjected to lots of use and regularly chucked in the washing machine.  My armwarmers are 100% wool, from merino sheep, and I just love them to bits.  They are incredibly warm, and perfect for pulling over my hands as I clutch my early morning cup of tea.

The University Parks and the teapot

A weekend in Oxford, visiting family, resulted in us driving back down the M40 on Sunday evening with windfall apples, wrapped birthday presents, an enormous jar of fig jam and a new teapot in the boot of the car. 

On Saturday afternoon G and I dropped the children off with their cousins for a couple of hours, and we headed for the University Parks, one of my favourite places in Oxford.  This has been a good year for berries - the bushes and trees were absolutely laden with them.  If you know of any hungry birds, tell them there's a feast on at the Parks.

We strolled around the Parks, admiring some very energetic games of tennis on the playing fields, and then we headed northwards, following the river back into the city.  Along the river there were the most elegant swans, a few punts, and some beautiful trees.

Punting

The river Isis, in Oxford

Weeping willow by the University Parks

On the way back to pick up the children we walked through Wolfson College, and I had lawn envy.  They don't have moulting chickens and drifts of fallen leaves on their lawn.  They have croquet hoops and neat stripes from the mower.

Wolfson College's beautiful croquet lawn

And this morning I find myself back in London, looking at these photos to see if the berries really were that red, and to see if the parks really were that beautiful with autumn colour.  They were.  I've turned the windfalls into stewed apple, hidden the presents, made plans for the fig jam and made the first pot of tea in the new teapot.

It was a very good weekend.

The Oxford University Parks

My new teapot (with sweet little matching milk jug)

Splash of colour - December

For this month's Splash of Colour there could only be one photo - my newly re-arranged shelves of tea.

Instead of a meddly of boxes shoved higgeldy-piggeldy at the back of one of our deep shelves - behind egg cups, water bottles, flasks, teaspoons, jars of hot chocolate and packets of yeast - we now have two tea and coffee shelves, right above the kettle and the coffee machine.

I just love how all these boxes look together - matching and yet not.  If you'd like to see more clearly what's in each box, go and look at this photo over on Flickr, where I have added a whole pile of explanatory notes.

10 things

My mind is addled this week. I have a cold, which has left me feeling slightly delirious and other-worldly.  This is therefore the perfect moment to share with you a collection of random thoughts that are skitting through my head this morning.

• This Clara doll, from the Nutcracker, is utterly amazing.  I am itching more than ever to make a doll from Hillary's book.
• My new-found tea obsession continues.  I went to the Twinings Shop, right opposite the Royal Courts of Justice at 216 Strand, at the weekend and stocked up on the Rose Garden tea and various other enticing flavours.  Twinings also have a lovely online shop, and at both shops you can buy individual teabags to try out different flavours.  C reports that the apple, cinnamon and raisin one is wonderful, G likes the Blossom Earl Grey, and my friend J just sent me some bags of Twinings Chai tea which is like drinking a hug, it is so lovely ( I thought that the chai might be too sweet, and I really don't like sugary tea, but happily it is unsweetened for you to add your own sugar - or not).
• I've bought the new Carol Ann Duffy book for O for Christmas.  There is a beautiful window display to promote it at Foyles in Charing Cross Road, which if you are nearby is well worth a detour to go and admire.

• Tyrozets are the best sore throat sweets around.  They have anaesthetic in them so they actually work.
• I am yearning to go back to Switzerland.
• I have had to adjust the quantity of pasta I cook.  After years of cooking pasta for the family, I know precisely how much pasta would feed all four of us, and leave a box of leftovers for somebody's lunch the next day.  But G's ironman training and C's new and enlarged pre-teen appetite have thrown everything into disarray.  For a while there were no leftovers on pasta days, then there were no leftovers and people complained they were still hungry.  So I started cooking 50g and then 100g more at each meal. There are still no leftovers though, and C is still growing and G is still training, so I may have to cook even more soon.
• C and I are watching Sherlock on a Sunday evening on BBC3.  It is a series of just three programmes, which were first shown over the summer, but so very good.  The final installment is this coming Sunday but the previous episodes are still available on iPlayer.
• For the first time ever I had to rip back some knitting.  I feel more like a proper knitter now.
• The Archers has a new website, which is perfect for losing hours of your precious time at.  I particularly love the three minute explanation of The Archers by Stephen Fry and the build up to the 60th birthday celebrations in January.
• To ease my longing for Switzerland, I bought this tin of Swiss chocolate biscuits from M&S.  They are very good.  And because I bought them, I get to keep the tin afterwards.

Rose scented tea

After a lifetime of being somewhat unenthusiastic about drinking tea, I have now found my perfect brew.  For a complete pink, rose-scented overload, serve it with these buns.

But disastrously, it's a limited edition.  So you won't be able to find it in the shops, because I am stockpiling it.

Exciting update: I've just read my link properly and happily Twinings now say "Great news - although initially launched as a Limited Edition, Rose Garden is now permanently available, following popular demand." 

Am still stockpiling it though.  Just in case.

Enchiladas

There has been much sewing happening here over the past two weeks, but all of it for other people, so shall we talk a bit more about food and drink instead?  I do find summer food a drag - I like light things, and I like quick things when the weather is hot.  It is too much to have the oven on for hours, or to stand over the stove stirring a risotto.  And yet the children want something substantial in the evenings - their appetites do not seeem to diminish in hot weather like mine does.

A great summer supper for us is enchiladas with a big pile of green salad on the side.  Enchiladas are a Mexican dish originally, but I am sure my version is more anglicised.  Not even Tex-Mex but East-London Mex.  They are very easy - filled tortilla wraps, baked in the oven with a tomato sauce.

Tonight's filling for the wraps was turkey, green pepper, onion and sweetcorn.  I usually make these without meat though - avocado and kidney bean is very good, as is just onion and pepper.

Make your filling - it doesn't need any sauce.  If you are using avocado and beans, you don't even need to do any cooking - just peel and chop the avocado, drain and rinse the beans and mix together.  To make my turkey filling I very briefly softened the onion, then added the turkey mince and pepper and cooked for just a couple of minutes until the meat was browned.

Next, spread a tortilla with a little bit of sour cream or creme fraiche and put a few spoonfuls of filling along the middle of it.  Fold in the sides and then roll up and put in a baking dish.  Repeat until you've used up all your tortillas and they're nestling snugly in the dish.

Pour over a simple tomato sauce that you've made with an onion, some garlic and a tin of tomatoes.  I really love my enchiladas with a hot, chilli-tomato sauce, so will often add a good shake of dried chillis to the pan, but Cam really objects to hot spices so sometimes I make it without.

Add a good grating of cheese over the top of the wrapped tortillas and sauce, and bake in the centre of the oven for 10 minutes at about gas 6.  Minimal time in the oven is good in the summer.

Serve with a huge pile of lettuce and a sharp dressing on the side.  My children manage two of these each, but that's a big, growing-child sized portion.  I can only manage about one and a half in this weather.  If I make them in the winter I often serve them with rice rather than salad, which makes the whole meal incredibly substantial and cheap.

The children can pretty much make them by themselves - tonight I folded the wraps and lifted the dish in and out of the oven, but the children did everything else.  Cam made the sauce (no chillli as he was chef) and Livvy chopped vegetables, grated cheese and spread creme fraiche around.

And then they ate them all up, which is the best recommendation I can give really.

Iced tea

In honour of my American friends, on their Independence Day weekend, I've been making iced tea.  Graham and I drank gallons of the stuff during our year of studying there. The sugary brew that Liptons sell is nice enough when properly chilled, but a homemade version is in a whole other league.

Here is my recipe - adapted from an American one in this favourite cookbook - but metricised and using about an eighth of the sugar.

The List Writers Iced Tea

In a large jug with at least a 2 litre capacity, put two teabags and two dessert spoons of caster sugar.  Pour over boiling water, up to the 1 litre mark.  Stir well and leave to steep for ten minutes.

Top up with cold water, up to the 2 litre mark, and stir again.  Remove the teabags, and add slices of fresh fruit.  If I have peaches or nectarines, that is my favourite, but this weekend I've been using thick slices of orange with great success. Mango, rasperries or apple would also work well.

Chill in the fridge for at least 4 hours and then serve in a tall glass, over ice.  The fruit delicately flavours the drink without removing any of the lovely tea taste.