Farmleigh walk

We went for a walk in Farmleigh this morning. If the sun wasn't exactly shining, at least it wasn't raining. I wouldn't mind some tonight, mind you, or I'll be out watering the garden.
I'll leave some of the photos for another day, but here are a couple of some water striders on the pond in the walled garden. I was lying on my front over the stone rim, with a firm grip on the camera, because if I'd let go of it, the strap wouldn't have been short enough to hold it out of the water. I am fascinated at how you can see the dimples in the water surface where the strider is resting on it without breaking the surface tension. It was a bit problematic to focus while leaning over the water, but I was pleased with these photos. You can see the sun reflecting in the surface of one of them. It makes such a defined shadow that when we looked at the photo on the camera, we thought it was two insects mating.


We seemed to spend a long time walking round the walled garden, which is where the potentilla and rudbeckia were. C thought there was another way out, which there wasn't. At least the sunflowers I'd promised him were still in full bloom - mine aren't even budding yet.

And we got some lovely apple juice at the organic farmers market, which was more than welcome when we got home.
On an up note I've managed to restore all my emails except for a few days worth, and all my Firefox favourites, so my PC is just about back to normal. Hope to goodness I don't have to do all this again when I upgrade the motherboard soon. I shouldn't...

Recipe of the Week

Last night I decided to format my C drive and reinstall Windows, as a couple of programs were getting increasingly flaky. I've got to admit that I was more than a little disappointed when, after a format and total clean install, my Olympus software is STILL returning an error message and shutting down. A very helpful support guy made all sorts of suggestions over the course of a week, none of which sorted it out. So I had high hopes of my fresh install. Hey ho, at least I can view EXIF data in Irfanview, even if it's not quite so user-friendly.
Anyhow, it being a holiday weekend C got up late, so breakfast was almost at brunch time, and lunch wasn't till around 3. So we didn't bother with dinner - I made these muffins instead - after defrosting the freezer on Thursday I must admit even I was embarrassed to find how many cranberries were lurking there.

Cranberry Walnut and Orange muffins.
12 large muffins

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tblsp baking powder
1/2 tsp each baking soda and salt
10 tblsp / 5 ounces soft butter
1 cup less one tablespoon sugar ( 7 1/2 ounces)
Grated zest of 1 orange
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups (12 fluid ounces) plain yoghurt.
3/4 cup chopped walnuts
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped cranberries

Preheat oven to about 180C, 375F.
Grease the muffin tins (I prefer this to using paper liners, which they always seem to stick to).
Stir together the flour, salt, baking soda and baking powder.
Beat the butter, sugar and orange zest together till light and creamy.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Beat in half of the flour mix.
Beat in half a cup of yoghurt.
Add the remaining flour half at a time, alternating with a half cup of yoghurt each time.
Stir in the nuts and cranberries.
Spoon evenly into the muffin tins and bake for about 25 minutes, till golden brown. Leave in the tins for 5 minutes to cool before removing.

A photo from the archives - sitting in the Tuileries when we visited Paris last March.

A sunny day...

...so we went for a walk in the park in the evening. The reflections were down by one of the ponds. C took a little bit of persuading to go that way, as there was less direct sunlight. So when we came up from the hollow we struck across the open grassy areas and encountered the deer. The sweetpeas are my own...

Teasels and the Sparrow Family

I was out with my aunt today. The forecast was for rain, but we were able to sit out in the garden for a while before it was time to provide the tech support which is why I was really there. In fact it only started raining when I got to the train station. She has a beautiful old-fashioned rambling cottage-type garden (well, her house is a cottage. It used to be thatched, too, but the insurance on thatch is high, and at some stage she got slates on instead). Haven't had time to upload the pictures yet, but here are some teasels. And yes, they were tall - taller than me, at any rate.

Here too are more photos of the sparrows. Father and son, mother and daughter? Parent and child, at any rate!

At last...

C had a friend staying over the weekend, so on Sunday morning I was busy getting dinner organised. But within a couple of minutes of putting some seeds and nuts in the feeder, along came the usual sparrows, and also this Great Tit. He was even still there by the time I'd changed the lens on the camera. He seems to be much shyer than the sparrows, so I had to take the pictures through the glass door. If it's fine tomorrow, when I'm not working, I'll fill the feeder and then just sit quietly and see if he comes again. He's so scruffy that I can't help wondering if it's a juvenile.

The little robin fledgling came back too - he's just so adorable.


For anyone who likes reading, can I recommend "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Burrows. And then can I recommend it again!I spotted on Judy Rozema's blog that she had been reading it with her book club. As I once worked in Guernsey, I went off to check it out, and when I was ordering something else from Amazon I bought it. Quite apart from all the memories it brought back of my time in Guernsey, it was such a delightful and charming book. As it is set just after the war it deals a bit with the German occupation of the island, which I knew quite a bit about. So some pages make you almost want to cry, but then on the next page you are laughing again at the wonderful characters. I wasn't sure if C would like it, as I think it's probably more of a woman's book. I was going to lend it to his mother first, as I know she will love it. But he picked it up when he'd finished his latest P.G. Wodehouse book and he's hooked.

Late last night...

Well, the sparrow (I think) wasn't too late last night. This little fledgling appeared on the wall just as I was trying to get dinner on the table. And I had a short lens on the camera, as C's birthday present had arrived and he was opening it. So a quick change to long lens, and a bit of distraction during dinner. Thing is, I thought at first it was the little baby bluetit I've seen...alas not.

The rose came from C's sister's house. The Australian contingent stayed there most of the time that they were in Dublin. They came for dinner on Saturday, and Maria brought two roses from the garden. It was lovely to have them - we have no roses in the garden here. But she said that just as she was picking them J&G got back from golf and caught her in the act. I've been meaning ever since to take a couple of photos before they wilted too much. I left it too late for the yellow one...

A real miscellany

Aniseed Biscuits
It must be almost thirty years since I last made these. I can remember leaving them on one of the storage heaters overnight to dry. I grew up in a large draughty house with sash windows which rattled in the wind, and no central heating till after I'd left home. In the sitting room and in the dining room we had two old storage heaters that Dad had got from the school he taught in. They must have been almost five feet wide, and a good foot and a half deep. Maybe my childhood memory has enlarged them, but certainly 3 people could sit comfortably on one, even if we weren't really meant to.
It's an American recipe, so the measurements are cups.
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 - 2 cups flour, sifted before measuring
1 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tblsp crushed aniseed. I ground mine coarsely in my spare coffee grinder.
Beat the eggs till light.
Add the sugar gradually, then the vanilla.
Sift the flour again with the baking powder, and beat it in to the eggs, along with the aniseed. It should be stiff enough to drop onto a tray and not spread out too much.
Drop by teaspoons onto greased trays and leave in a warm dry place for twelve hours.
Bake in a moderate oven, about 170C, till they just start turning golden.
Makes about 50.

We had these with two sorbets - this is the recipe for the pear one:
Pear Sorbet
Put 200 grams of sugar in a pan along with 100ml water. Stir gently over a low heat till the sugar dissolves, then bring to the boil and remove from heat after boiling for 1 minute only.
Peel, core and purée 2 large ripe pears, and immediately add the juice of two lemons. If the lemons are large, don't use all the juice. Add to the sugar syrup. When cold, freeze or churn. Near the end of the churning time add one lightly beaten egg white if you like a lighter sorbet.

I got a batch of ATCs finished today, a summer theme using Flourishes stamps.

After much indecision C chose a large guitar case for his birthday present. The UPS guy was very curious about what it was, when he carried it into the house for me. That is one present that is not going to be wrapped!!
It's been on and off rain all day, and I had to wait in for UPS, so here's a photo from when we were training - Industrial Abstract.

Flying visit

Busy weekend, with my sister calling on Friday night, and C's brother and family from Australia here on Saturday. I was hoping to have time to type out the recipe for the aniseed biscuits I made at the weekend - but not tonight. They went down well on Saturday. I wasn't too sure - aniseed is not to everybody's taste, but I'd forgotten that they figure in Greek cuisine a bit. The ones I brought in for my supervisor in work went down well too - I'll bring her in a few more tomorrow since I have to work (not plan A!).
The SCS photo challenge last week was something to sit on. There are a couple of lovely street sculptures in town which I will try to get a picture of some day, but there was no time to make it in last week. I had thought of, and dismissed, the kitchen chairs and my office chair, and then suddenly in bed the other night I thought of the piano stool. So here is one ancient piano stool and one old and slightly shabby but still very tuneful piano. Along with the chaffinch. Why is it that when I only had a little compact digital, there were bluetits and great tits galore, hanging off the feeder every time I went out. Complete with a young bluetit who flew into the shed when I was doing the wash one day, and I had an awful time making sure he got out again, without panicking him too much. But this year the tits that are around have turned into shy, timid creatures - I got one very dark and dim shot of a little one today, but certainly not worth keeping, let alone posting.
Hope to be back with a couple of recipes later on this week.

Sparrows feeding.

I was out taking a photo of a card I made today when I saw both a chaffinch and a Great Tit hopping around in the tree next door, and the tit was taking peanuts from the feeder. So, I changed up to my zoom lens and sat for the next half hour on the floor of the back porch. No more sightings of either the chaffinch or the tit - just lots of sparrows. But I played around a bit with fast shutter speeds.




Australian relatives coming again on Saturday. Maria (who cooks professionally herself) liked the homemade icecreams last time, but told me afterwards she is a bit lactose intolerant. So after thinking of various options, I am going to make pear sorbet, blackberry sorbet and anise cookies for dessert. Had to remember to tuck the icecream-maker bowl into the freezer this morning!
Here's the card I made today:

So here is the card I made...

Misty Morning Flowers

When C was leaving this morning, early to take the car in for a service, he just commented that it was dry. When I got up it was so misty that I tucked my big camera into my bag, hoping for a good atmospheric shot of the swans on the Liffey. I even came back for my lens hood, because there was so much moisture in the air. Well, by the time I got into town there was enough sun peeking through to have burnt any mist off, but because I always leave the house in good time, I was able to snatch these shots in a garden on the way to the bus-stop. I was happy to salvage something from the morning - when I did get into town it's the first morning for a couple of weeks that the swans haven't been there.
There was good sunshine later, and then a totally torrential downpour. To cap it all, I'd unplugged the router this morning, and when I plugged it back in, no wireless connections were working and it took a while to get the radio and laptop back up and running again. When all I really wanted to do was go to bed and sleep for a couple of hours :-(