September

Oh my goodness, can you believe it’s September already? What is happening this year? We’ve had an amazing Summery Summer (which, quite frankly, we could have had last year!) and now without me even noticing we’ve pounced right into September and Autumn. If I had a garden to be taking care of I may have been more aware of these things. Perhaps if I were looking at all of the clothes and décor catalogues I may have had a heads up. But alas twas not to be and I’m left playing catch up.

Despite all of this September is still one of my favourite months. When it gets a bit colder outside and the sky gets bluer I am happy. The air is crisp and if you are up early enough you can catch some frost. This is my favourite time of year. There is a paragraph from The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill where she describes her lifelong love of autumn and I agree whole heartedly. I implore you to read this book, it really is one of my all-time favourites.

September is fabulous because it is the start of the time when all of the meals prepared at home start to change. For breakfast I love to change to porridge instead of yogurt. As we’re having a pretty great Indian Summer this year I may move slowly into this and make some compote or have muesli with my breakfast. When lunch rolls round I normally just have soup and some homemade rolls if it’s the weekend. Tea time is the best though. It is normally something that has spent the whole day in the slow cooker making it like a true nursery meal and exceptionally comforting, or something that reminds you of childhood. I love toad in the whole or bangers and mash with proper butchers sausages. Toad in the hole reminds me of Danny Champion of the World and so really does help you feel cosy from the inside out.

Normally in autumn there are beef and ale pies or lots of mince. Chicken is normally for Sunday dinners and pulled pork sandwiches are what Saturday nights were made for. The most humble of all dinners is sometimes the best and that is a baked potato. I love them with a hint of bacon and sour cream with lots of cheese, though TH loving lots of protein as he does normally wants an egg in his. Not the healthiest of dinners but a real treat. If we have this it will be on a Monday as I wouldn’t ever put the oven on for just one thing. No, these need to be organised around the time the oven goes on for the roast at Sunday lunch time!

I’m already keeping my eye on some brambles in the area so as soon as they turn I will be ready for them. Everything in Autumn tastes strangely of brambles, apples, cinnamon and nutmeg when you come to my house. I never really eat much game although The Husband loves it and I know it’s autumn when I see new advertisements at the butchers stating that the more seasonal meats can be ordered in.

I feel that when I look back at last year’s posts they were about moving and now we’re in the same position again this year. Oh well, we’re always up for a new adventure!!

January

January can so often be a gloomy sort of month. I know that I feel deep down inside that seeing as Christmas is over it may as well rush into spring. I want to see the bulbs and go from deep rich colours to more muted tones. I then zip forward a couple of months when I start to plan our summer holiday, and by the time that’s over its autumn and I might as well get planning the Christmas shopping trips all over again. This has been the cycle for a little while-but long enough for me to get into it-and I want to stop it.

How dull to plan your life away, constantly wishing I was a couple of months ahead of where I was. There are wonderful things in January that I should be grateful for now. I don’t want to get to a busy weekend in spring planting out seeds and wish I could be wrapped up cosy like I should have been in winter.

This January I hope to be different. I have read so much in papers about failed New Years Resolutions, and so I aim to make this difference through celebration of the season. I hope that by ensuring January is kept, well, January like I will see it for what it is and what it can give me.

This means buying in season, and following January pursuits-marmalade making included. It means being true to what your body tells you. I don’t crave salads, I want soups. Last night we had the most delicious bangers and mash, not exciting, just slowly sautéed onions made into thick gravy with gorgeous butchers sausages and lump free mash- heaven after a long day, and definitely worth waiting for.

We are still on for having game-feathers and furred, and although we can no longer pop out to buy super fresh fish from our little village harbour I still want to eat seasonal seafood. I am always keen on buying up veg and using it to bulk up meals and winter root veg is the best.

We now live outside of the village and rely heavily on a boxed veg scheme and a local butcher for much more of our food. I hope that this keeps me in line to succeed in my aim. I love reading about what everyone is up to this January and imagine I will be getting lots of ideas!!

November is…

November is for hot pots and slow cookers, it is for roasts after long walks and good warm filling soups. November is for looking out of the window and seeing harsh frost and rain.

November is for Remembrance Day, Guy Fawkes Night, and when I will stir up the Christmas cake. For me it is also when the girls in the family are heading to Edinburgh for some Christmas shopping.

November is for wearing two coats and scarves, big hats and boots for stomping around the countryside to tire the dog and stay warm. It is for jumpers. Jumpers of cable knit and snug soft materials. It is for finding sparkle for parties. Glittering and sequined garments which will shimmer and dazzle in the fairy lights.

November is for being surrounded by books, cushions and mugs of hot cocoa.

 It is for visits to the library and books bags overflowing with recently requested items full of ideas for Christmas bakes and makes.

November is for throws and eiderdowns, porridge for breakfast and travel mugs for the long journey to work. 

November is for long nights spent watching period dramas, for playing scrabble and finding Christmas movies at the weekend with warm fresh popcorn.  November is for squirreling away presents and hiding them in a new location each and every weekend.

January is here!

Oh January, I used to think you awful. You used to be plain and boring after the excitement of December, November had Bonfire Night, October is our anniversary and Halloween, and before that is the general excitement of Autumn. January used to just be exam time at University, or thawing snow.

This year is really quite different. Not only is there no snow, but the garden is completely untended to, and although it’s mild, oh my gosh is it windy-and the whole place looks a mess. This is not helped by the fact the fence is half blown over, the gate has been whipped off, and rubbish is strewn across the place from toppled over bins and recycling totes, and a busy, busy Autumn meant the place was never really tidied after Summer in the first place.

This means that on top of the normal things like sowing sweet peas (if you want to get lovely strong ones), I need to dig everything over. I would like to grow my own potatoes this year too, so will have to get a move on and start to chit some of the many varieties taking up vast corners of garden centres at this time of year.

January is actually quite exciting this year. My friend Holly who was involved in a terrible accident has an amazing outlook on life which has completely rubbed off on me. I feel like last year was a bit ‘Urgh’, I think lots of people have thought that. There seems to be a general consensus-certainly around the coffee table-that yes we did get through it, and yes we should learn whatever lessons it’s taught us, but it was a bit of a long hard slog.

I think we are still in comforting food mode, but a bit more ready for fresh things with bite too. Re-heated second helpings of Christmas and New Year dinner are long forgotten! We’re planning on going on holiday with my family this year and getting a villa in Cyprus for two weeks, so like last year I think I'm going to be having lots of Greek and Cypriot food as we’ll be booking our flights early and I tend to get in holiday mode early…very early! There is loads of gamey foods available, and we’re incredibly lucky that our local butcher has such a wide supply of really good food. Living by the sea means that we’ve got a massive choice in fish namely; John Dory, Mussels, Oysters, Scallops and Turbot. There are bundles of root vegetables about for filling up on, and the clementine’s are always there for a burst of colour.  I'm living by the BBC foodie website here which is full of really great ideas from a range of really great names.

Most of all I think its time to get like Paddington Bear and make some marmalade with Seville oranges!

I'm hoping to have a busy year, I'm planning to go out and do more, this means lazing about less, but with working one normal job means I spend less time travelling. I hope that I'm busy actually doing fun things, or at least a chore I need to do. I don’t want to fill my time with travelling, I don’t want to fill my time with nonsense I don’t want to do, and I don’t want to spend time with people that drain my energy. Those are pretty much my new year’s resolutions-but probably something that you should subscribe to in general-and something I should have had the sense to actually act upon long before now.

Welcome to April

Hello Spring time, you are well and truly here aren’t you? I do love the smell of Spring, it’s the start of grass cutting season, but there is another scent, one I can’t quite put my finger on that signals excitement. The Husband and I did a well and truly Spring into Summer exercise the other evening when we had a BBQ in some uncharacteristically mild weather. We spoilt ourselves rotten as we had the fire pit roaring and shooting bright flames and heavenly scents into the clear night sky where we watched little satellites orbit and twinkley stars sparkle. However, that was in March, which is over…caput and not coming back for another twelve months, so get you’re glad rags on, socks pulled up or whatever other saying you want because we need to make this April happen, and one way I want to do that is by planting!!

I will be perpetually out in the garden (I forced myself out in March even though it got cold and misty because I regretted my Autumnal planting regime as soon as I saw a sad display of daffs which I know I could have worked harder on). Some teeny tiny seedlings have already poked their two prong faces up into the sunlight, attempting to gather as much of it as they can-a bit like us here in the North East really! But there is more…there’s always more!
One thing I will be doing in getting the last of the ‘hardy annuals’ in the ground before the middle of April as that means I can then let nature take over and I can go off and prettify everything in sight. We moved here in July and I hardly got to do a thing to the garden last year, so this year I will be outside all of the time. There’s been quite a bit of sweet pea seedlings planted about the roses so they don’t need a net or wigwam, and I’ve fallen in love with corn flowers as I really love the country garden look. I want my garden to make no sense at all, I want lots of height from things like fox gloves, but I want a real mix. I know its not as easy and as haphazard as it looks, I’ve probably got too many tall things at the front and too many teeny things at the back, but some of the plants will die off (hopefully after self seeding a bit) and I can start again next year.
Living near the sea here means that we can eat an awful lot of fresh fish, so I know that trout’s in season-and can probably be bought cheaply. Not attractive or over exciting, but it CAN be if you don’t shirk away from eating healthily and (admittedly for us) very cheaply. Try this idea out from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
April can be glamorous too you know?!! Its not all garden work and wet fish! Its also a time to get on top of that winter wardrobe and collection of coats at the front door you probably haven’t used in a while. Take control and advantage of offers in dry cleaning establishments by sending what needs to off to dry cleaners (admittedly in general quite bad for the environment-but you have to measure it up for yourselves). I like to bag items up in those bags you buy off the TV, and put off into the spare room so that the Spring things can come out and have space in the wardrobe-which means I don’t have to iron things I’ve already done! This keeps an eye on the purse too as I don’t have to think I should go around buying things for ‘events’-seeing as I don’t go to Ascot family BBQ’s will do-and that money can go towards much more enjoyable things like shopping the way I want to….for books and china in charity shops!!

One last things that the Spring sunlight shows up is all of the harsh winds I faced a few months previous. I used to be awful with the amount of products, creams, solutions and lotions I bought when I was a bit more carefree and younger. But now seeing as I have to pay bills I cant just buy whatever the nice perfume lady sprays at me, and I cant fall for whatever lotion is rubbed soothingly on the back of my hand. So I got to a point a couple of years ago where I used up everything I had and started anew-which I'm sure would actually have been quite a good thing from the point of view that I don’t have the same skin type as I did when I coveted these potions. So now, seeing as its Spring, and seeing as I haven’t bought any magic creams in a while, I treat myself to a new more Spring like regime! I want to share a couple of things I’ve read about as I was loaned a wonderful home made remedies style book which has beauty tips in it too.
So, that, for me, is the start of Spring. Welcome to April, have fun, do your own thing and make it exactly what YOU want it to be!

Welcome to January

Welcome one and all to the month of January. The Christmas decorations have all come down-even though Twelfth night falls on Thursday-and although the house looks a tad empty I'm trying my best not to go out and fill right back up again!

This month is still quite full of warming food that need to be jam-packed with energy. Hot soup, juicy steaks and steamed puddings will all be playing a massive part in tea time planning this month, although salad has its place too. I love casseroles in Autumn, but by January I feel like it needs mixed up a teeny bit. Personally I love Greek food, and like to picture the summer holidays and have warming food that’s very Greek, I'm talking kleftiko and stifado…..yummy! Running around the sales could burn off any heavy food calories you have had, but it won’t do any good to those resolutions you only made a short while ago about being the Queen of Thrift.

Remember if you want to buy cheap food mackerel is great right now. We’re really lucky living by the sea and can easily get a whole bunch of fish if we want, I'm learning to be braver as when we moved here I had no idea how to prepare it…but I've slowly been learning and I urge you to try to prepare it yourself if you can! Crab would be a good place to start, so try it now as in January its perfect. Also try to get some seasonal Swede, make some delicious mash with it, it’s really scrummy with proper sausages. For pudding get some great forced rhubarb and make a pie or crumble with ‘lashings’ of cream…what was that resolution about being healthier?

Of course January ends with Burns Night on the 25th, so you have to get your haggis, neeps and tatties ready for your Burns Supper!

2010 has been.....

I'm so glad that I started to keep a blog, there are many reasons I can be grateful for this, and happy that I have it, but one of those reasons is that I can keep track of things we’ve done or things that happened to us.

In January I’d set my heart on becoming a Mother, can you believe the amount of stuff I thought I needed to fulfil that wish? Well, it obviously hasn’t happened, but the fact that I thought it would straight away took up the whole of January. Horrible cold January was made about one million times worse because of things so far out of my control its ridiculous!

February was the same, but I'm not about to go down the path of explaining all that again…however we had a lovely Valentines Day. Each and every Febrauary the 14th The Husband and I take it turn about cooking each others dinner. I had decided to go down the ‘everything should be heart shaped’ route and so a lovely pasta dish was created by yours truly!

March is the month of The Husbands Birthday and I had a wonderful time creating his Birthday tea. I’d hoped that I could take him away for his Birthday-much like the year before, but unfortunately the school holidays came too close to it and it all would have been much too expensive for a couple of days out of town!

April was lovely as The Husbands family from Edinburgh were up and we got to take them to Kincardine O’Neil to show off the beautiful Antiques shops that they harbour in that part of the world. Our beautiful niece Keira was getting healthier after being born quite underweight and she took up much of our time too!

Hooray for May the month of my Birthday and The Mother in Laws of course! Much celebration and more shopping-thrift of course.

In June we decided to move, we’d had quite enough of the town and decided to get out into the wilds! Busying myself about a new home helped to heal the ‘pain’ of January and earlier in the year and in general I think I started to feel a lot better! The sun was also shining and we opened the door to countless walks and adventures.

July was the moving month and one of the worst gout attacks The Husband has ever had….cue lots of stress and anguish on both our parts. However there are a whole range of amazing things that did happen that month! July was jam packed with sunshine and trips to the beach…never a bad thing.

August was also full of sunshine and something I was not used to at all, visitors. We had a spare room…why not fill it with people! A brand new way to feel happy and share all of the lovely things The Husband and I have built together.

September was a walking month…full of visitors and walking. The nephew came over quite a bit and I was already thinking of Christmas. We had trips away and met with family, life was good.

Our anniversary is in October and I think everything was geared towards that weekend off, my last holiday from work was a distant memory and spending time in the deeply golden autumnal sunshine of October was both refreshing and almost medicine for my soul! I love Autumn and the coming of one pot suppers…but winter was around the corner.

How did I know November was coming? But we sure as heck didn’t know that the snow was…the snow started and it hasn’t stopped since…well, its stopped, but then it just starts again, and again, and again! 

December…the years all gone, Christmas fills every space in the house and we feel refreshed. Healed by what has come and what we’ve accomplished.

Bring on 2011

November thoughts

We are in November now! Is that exciting or what? Please don’t answer that!! I am disproportionately excited at the thought of spending Autumn and Winter in our new home.  Although when you have to head out and its dark in the morning and at night when you shut up the library at five it does get a bit much!!  I just want to go home and sleep! 

I am, however, excited that I have a new hallway or room to decorate; I’m excited that we’re making a home out of an empty shell, and the memories will always be ours. I hope that when we have people over to stay they see the love in the house, maybe not the best of everything-I wonder if anything, but they will see two old souls wondering from room to room attempting to ‘fix’ things, attempting to make things and make a home.

We are so blessed-we are so utterly naturally lucky with some things, and one of those things is that very little can please us and make us happy. I LOVE-and I mean LOVE, much more than any normal person should-lighting candles in the porch. I think our new little lamp and our old tatty lanterns are welcoming. And honestly, that’s the only thing I care about. I am proud that I look at our home and think it looks cosy or warm or friendly. I am proud when I can smell the slow cooker with our yummy tea inside. I am proud that I don’t need a great many things in life to feel this way.

Have a great November and week ahead, I hope that you are meeting the new month with excitement of Christmas ahead but also happiness to live in the moment (oh and getting those tulips planted!!)

Sheila

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