Outlines

I know I'm not the only one who loves photos of trees, with their branches forming eerie outlines against the sky.

I often find myself gazing upwards, with a big chubby smile across my face.

I just find it so beautiful, don't you? When the sun is slowly disappearing behind the horizon, it creates such a peaceful atmosphere. Still beauty.

And that sky, so blue, so deep, so pure.

Happy Friday all. Hope you have a nice weekend whatever you're up to! x

Ouch

I feel a little bit like this this morning.

Wide eyed and a little stiff. I may have overdone it last night, you see. What with the badminton season officially opened the other day, we decided to rent an indoor court to play to our hearts' content without having to worry about the wind. And so we did. But my total un-fitness came running out the door. Or rather running up my right shoulder blade. And now I feel like I'm 80 years old. Can't really carry anything with my right arm, and turning around is excrutiatingly painful. Honestly. It's ridiculous!!! Having arnica rubbed in last night before going to sleep helped a little, but you know what, it's not good is it?!

Hoping that you're all feeling a little more supple today ;-)

Cookies

A couple of weeks ago, Lucy over at Attic24 made some scrumptious looking cookies. Not one to resist the temptation, I promptly adapted her recipe. I don't have a microwave and I'd run out of sultanas, so I used chocolate chips instead - I know, what hardships ;-)

So here's my adapted recipe - thanks Lucy for the inspiration, they certainly didn't last very long!!

Ingredients

• 100g butter
• 50g brown sugar
• 2 tbsp runny honey
• 100g self raising flour
• 100g oats
• a couple of handfuls of chocolate chips

Method

• Place the butter, sugar and honey in a pan and melt on a low-medium heat until the ingredients are melted. Give a good stir to combine.
• Add the flour, oats and chocolate chips. Stir well.
• Place small tbsp of the mix onto a lined baking tray (I managed about 20) and flatten slightly with a fork.
• Bake at 180C for 12-15min, until lightly golden.

All I can say is that these will definitely be made again - so simple and so so scrumptious!

Minestrone

I've got one last soup recipe for you. Spring is coming, but it's still a little cold out there, so soups should not be banished just yet. This minestrone recipe is fabulous. So fresh, so tasty and most importantly, so so filling!! There's quite a lot of chopping involved but it's worth it. And if you make a big batch, you can freeze individual portions, which is really quite handy.

Ingredients

• 3 large carrots, roughly chopped
• 1 large onion, roughly chopped
• 4 celery sticks, roughly chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 large potatoes, cut into small dice
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 2L vegetable stock
• 400g can chopped tomatoes
• 400g can butter or cannellini beans
• 140g spaghetti, snapped into short lengths
• 1/2 head savoy cabbage, shredded

Method

• Heat the oil in a pan, add the chopped carrot, onion, celery, garlic and potatoes. Cook on a high heat for 5min until softened.
• Stir in the tomato puree, stock and tomatoes. Bring to the boil then turn down the heat and simmer, covered for 10min.
• Tip in the beans and pasta, then cook for another 10min. Add the cabbage for the final 2min.

(Recipe from Good Food here)

Oh and by the way, I forgot to tell you (but I'm sure you eagle eyed readers have already noticed!) I've added a new link at the top of my blog. If you click on My Recipes, you'll get a list of all the recipes I've blogged about with links back to the relevant posts. Just to make it easier for you to find your favourite recipes! :-)

More of the same please!

What a weekend it was!!! I hope you had a nice one, it certainly was very enjoyable here!! Oh so much sun, we just can't get enough of it!!!! I absolutely love it, it was nice and crisp, but not too cold, and actually quite warm in places.

We went for a lovely walk. So refreshing and relaxing. These guys were very cute indeed. I wanted to take one home. Boyfriend wasn't so keen.

Snow drops made my heart flutter. So nice to see spring is well and truly on its way.

And the badminton season was officially open.

Well not here exactly, but anywhere when there isn't much wind. I looooooove it!!
Hope you have a lovely Monday all xx

Destination

Last weekend, we used a little shortcut to go from our b&b into Rye town centre. This involved walking over crossing a railway line (sorry, didn't mean to worry anyone there! It was a fully official pedestrianised crossing!). Don't you love straight lines?

They sort of give out this feeling that possibilities are indeed endless, that you can do anything you want, anything you aspire to. And go anywhere you want too.

Well these roads are taking me somewhere new. A new country. A new continent. Practically a new hemisphere (well not quite but near enough!). It's pretty exciting and fairly scary too. More on this later!

Third

We're in the third month of the year already. Honestly, where has it all gone??? Every year, time seems to go a little faster. It's quite an odd feeling but life does seem to pass through my fingers without me even realising. Not sure what this means really. Anyway, it's March and as quite a few of you have pointed out already, it does seem that Spring is on its way.

Buds are emerging here and there, flowers are starting to pop out, birds are definitely being more vocal.

I'm not sure how long this mild spell will last, I bet we'll have our fair share of more rubbish weather (this is England after all!), but in the meantime, goodness me it feels good! So good to wake up in the morning and it's dusk, good to take the train and it's bright, good to leave the office in the light, and good to come home an hour or so before sunset. Good good good.

Do you see what I see?

Why is it that when I see some of these little white fluffy things...

I think of this?

Sheep, yarn, it's all the same isn't it?! (I think it's called yarn obsession actually...!)

Some more?

Well I hope you don't mind!! I was looking through the photos that I took at the weekend and selected a few more I'd like to share with you. Mostly buildings. Don't get me wrong, I know very little about architecture, but that doesn't stop me from appreciating it. And some were just quirky, like the one above. That made me giggle. So there, I hope you enjoy coming on this little journey with me!

The last standing gate into the town...

This is the castle, Ypres Tower... I love this photo

And the little pub nestled at its foot...

Finally, some magnificient houses in an old cobbled street...

Right, well now that I feel like I should work for the Rye tourist board, I think I better stop ;-)

Wishing I was there...

Good morning good morning! How are you all doing today? I hope you are fine. I'm good, loving the fact that the sky is blue this morning. Honestly, I saw quite a bit of rain yesterday and it makes a nice change. Although it wasn't too bad because we were somewhere different. We went down to the Sussex coast this weekend and it was so much fun!! Anyone heard of the Rye Scallop Festival? Well let me tell you this, the place wasn't exactly buzzing, but it was so peaceful, so relaxing, and so satisfying (many scallops were indeed consumed!). I love scallops, they are so wonderful, so delicate, and so hard to come by in this country, unless you live around Rye I guess. And what's that about not eating the coral? What's wrong with people? Anyway, no rant for me today, no no, just some pretty photos, I promise!

I don't actually have photos of any scallops I'm afraid, they just went straight into my belly!! But I do have scallop shells as proof though!

This was quite funny, a scallop race it was, local people competing, it was good fun to watch. And then there was a bit of this...

And a little bit of this too (no riding no, just some carrot feeding!)...

There was also an extensive session of shell picking here...

So excuse me while I dream that I was still there! See ya later! xx