Comfort

Don't you just love the simplicity of a plate of fairy cakes? You can go from a feeling that you might quite like them to this.......

  

Then this.......

This.......

And finally this......

Ready to go with a nice cup of tea this afternoon. That's what I call comfort. 

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Happy Birthday

We celebrated a Birthday over the weekend but not a Birth day. Luckily baby is not going to share it's birthday with it's Daddy although that means I'm still sitting here, the size of a house and feeling rather fed up. 

It was lovely S's Birthday on Saturday and I ignored his claims that I shouldn't be baking cake in my condition and made a very simple plain victoria sponge, iced it with plenty of buttercream and let little F choose what decorations. If I say so myself it was delicious. The three of us have more or less polished the whole thing off. And despite the no baking comments I'm just about to start on a banana loaf now. Keeping busy is best right now, and I hope that I may encourage baby to come if I keep on my feet and stay active. Tomorrow is officially 40 weeks so it could be any time now. I'll keep you posted. 

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Edit - You may have noticed I've made a few changes around here. I've been feeling for a while that everything was looking a bit cluttered and busy and I wanted the pictures and text to really stand out. So I've cleared all the background stuff and deleted quite a bit of stuff from the side bar. Also, I've gone for just one side bar. You can now find my list of blogs I love via the tab at the top of the page which will take you to a separate list. I'm just in the process of adding links to that list. I've also dropped the label list and archive down to the bottom of the page. I've written a new 'about me' page which you can access again via the tabs at the top. You can find the link to my email address there and I may add to that page from time to time. Hope you like the new uncluttered look. F x

The View Through.......

I used to hate the view when I opened our front door. Now I love it. It used to include our very horrid kitchen and dull magnolia walls in the hall. Now I'm greeted by our vibrant yellow hall walls and the view through to our lovely new kitchen. I look up the stairs and see our photo gallery that is taking shape(sorry, I've cropped all but the very edge of that off the picture) and the jolly blue gingham curtains I've just completed. I've even grown quite fond of the twirly 1960s banister now. Somehow it sort of works in this house and with the yellow walls. 

I had a dream of living in a home decorated in shades of elegant neutrals but I've really realised with this house that you have to listen to the building. It was painted all over in neutral cream when we moved in and after living with it for a year we realised that it just didn't work that well. It's a 1960s house with no interesting architectural details and  huge windows that let in a lot of light. It was crying out for some colour. When we first started rolling on this yellow I did have a moment of mild panic. It looked unbelievably bright. But now it is finished and we have pictures and curtains up it just makes me so happy. 

You'll see from the above photo that there is some neutral going on. We've painted the living room in a Dulux shade called white chiffon but we do have a feature wall in the dining end of the room that is a deep cherry red. Despite the fact that the walls are painted in there, it's still a work in progress so I won't give you a look at that just yet. You'll see that the skirting boards are still the hideous orange wood we inherited and we're living with the horrid blue curtains that the previous owner left behind. The woodwork will get done in bits I suspect(unless S has a fit of energy during half term!) and we don't have the budget for curtains for now unless I can find some super bargain fabric or cheap but lovely ready made curtains on line. 

I'm very happy with my little kitchen now. I love to spend time in here cooking and baking. We decided to go for colour in here too as the units are neutral. I initially picked out a blue that was almost the exact colour of my cornishware collection but then decided it was too deep and was going to make the room too dark. This is perhaps the smallest window in the house and as the kitchen is north facing I didn't want it to feel dark or cold so we plumped for a paler shade of but still with the same tone as the Cornishware. I'm really happy with how it has turned out and I love the contrast of the red gingham blind against the blue. Are you getting the fact that I love gingham? I really do. I'd have it at every window if I could get away with it. In fact I'd quite like red and white in the living room but in a much bigger check. Something like a 2" square if I could get it. I haven't run this past lovely S yet though and somehow I'm thinking that he wouldn't be up for that idea. He's definitely getting better at accepted my taste but we've still had a number of 'discussions'. For example he thinks that our bedroom is too feminine and girly. It's really not. I'll share some pictures of that soon and you can let me know what you think. So I'm going to slowly work on the idea of the large gingham check in the living room.

Back to the kitchen. Here's the view from the door. Well at least some of it anyway. The view to the right was looking a lot less tidy but I was feeling impatient to write this post so you're just getting the tidy views for today! Can you spot our little 1960s serving hatch? It's still wearing the orange pine look as well so needs a coat of paint when we do the woodwork through on the other side. I hated this feature when we first looked around the house. 'How naff' I thought. But I have to say it is absolutely fab. I couldn't live without it. Because the kitchen is too small for a table we use the dining table through on the other side all the time. This hatch saves so much carrying. When preparing a meal I just put everything in the hatch then walk through hands free to collect it from the other side. And clearing the table at the end of the meal is a breeze. Just pop everything back through the hatch ready to be dealt with sooner or later.  Love it! It's also great for when little F is sitting in his high chair and I need to go through to the kitchen for something. I can still chat to him through the hatch while I'm preparing stuff. Great!

Well I hope you've enjoyed the little wander through my hall and kitchen today. See you later in the week. I'm hoping I might be able to do a baby blanket 'ta da' soon. 

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Little Corners

A tiny corner of our kitchen including new sweet calendar from Belgium and lovely Cath Kidston teapot.

Chocolate Thins

Chocolate Thins are one of my favourite things at the moment. I think baby likes them! Well that's my excuse for eating so many of them at the moment! Anyway, little F likes them too and I would far rather give him a home made biscuit for his afternoon snack than something out of a packet. They're so easy and quick to make you can be eating a warm one within 20 minutes of having the thought that you fancy one. I think this recipe originally came from a Sainsbury's book my Mum has and I copied it into my little notebook of favourite recipes years ago. For that reason the ingredients are in imperial but hopefully you've got scales like mine that have both imperial and metric. Otherwise you can always use a weight conversion chart. 

4oz Self Raising Flour

4oz Butter or Marg(soft)

2oz Castor Sugar

1oz Cocoa Powder

Cream together the butter and sugar. I find it works best if the butter or marg is fairly soft. Sift in the flour and cocoa and mix well. The mixture can seem quite dry and you've really got to work at it to get it coming together. This works best if your margarine or butter was nice and soft. My mixture today was really nice and soft but sometimes it seems quite dry and crumbly. Form it into balls about the size of a walnut(or bigger if you're greedy like me and want really big biscuits!) Place on a baking tray and gently press down with a fork so you get pretty lines across the biscuits. Bake for 10 - 15 minutes at 190 degrees C. I have a fan oven and find that 170 is a better temperature and they need about 13 minutes. Keep checking them though as you don't want them to catch and burn.

These biscuits are delicious straight from the oven when they are soft and yummy. As they cool they become crisper which is equally delicious. I find that they will keep very well in an airtight container but if you're anything like me they won't last very long!

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The very ugly kitchen

Before I start, I should warn you that there are no pretty pictures in this post. I've been trying to decide whether to show you images of the ugly kitchen. Part of me wants to because I want to do the big 'Ta da' when the new one is installed, but part of me doesn't want to because I really only like to show nice pretty pictures on this site.

So in the end I have decided to just give you a sneaky peak so you get the idea. This is actually just about the best vew I could show you. If I panned round to the left you would be looking at some very yucky cupboards, some hideous panelling popular in fish and chip shops in the 1970s, and our oven covered in a very unattractive blanket supplied by the removal company as we're not able to install it until the kitchen people have provided a gas supply into the kitchen.

If I was to pan round to the right you would see yet more yucky cupboards, the frankly revolting sink and horrid yellow roller blind!

We are counting the days until they start on the work as it is currently the most unappealing place to cook a meal. Here's a close up of the lovely tiles. Can't wait to see the back of these on Monday. I might even volunteer to help Mr Kitchen in smashing them from the wall!

The kitchen we've chosen is cream panelled with a beech work top. Very simple and hopefully a good backdrop for my Cornishware and other pretty bits. I will be making a roman blind for the window in red gingham and I think the walls are going to be pale blue but I will decide on that once the kitchen is in.

I am so excited to be getting my first ever chosen by me brand new kitchen. I had a new kitchen before when I rented in Kew as I was the first tennant after the flat had been renovated, and it was lovely, but it wasn't what I would have chosen. This, however, is my choice. Simon has been the bestest Hubbie and let me have the design I wanted. He prefered a white one but it looked a little dated to me as it had too much in the way of twiddly moulding. The one little choice he did make though is a fancy tap. I think it's a little OTT for our needs and the size of the kitchen but he really wanted it and as I had my way on everything else I had to let him have his one little toy! You'll see what I mean when I show you in a week or two.

So that's the end of the sneaky peak. Hopefully I'll be showing you the finished article by the end of next week. Next time I'll be back here spreading some hydrangea love. See you soon.

Fiona x