Everything's a-budding and a-blooming

Another beautiful day of sunshine.
C had training today and got home early, so after a light tea of Summer Tomato Soup with ciabatta, followed by not-so-light rum and raisin icecream we went for a walk in the park.
Summer Tomato Soup
 I often add a bit of balsamic vinegar, and tonight, as the tomatoes are not really the most flavoursome at the moment, I added some sugar too.

Have to get out my tree books to try to identify this one. I thought maybe it was Linden, but I can't find that it flowers before any leaves come out. I spotted it yesterday as we drove past and was sure it was covered in flowers, not leaves.

Where are the pastels...

... when you want them? The SCS photo challenge this week was pastel colours, and I have been looking and looking all week. Someone I know who does a 365 photo journal says who needs desaturation when you have the Irish weather to do it for you, but it was no help to me.
In the end I spotted these paper Cosmos flowers I made a few years back.  They always were pastel, but have probably faded a bit more with time.

This morning was so lovely and bright and sunny that we went for a walk. C was feeling tired and didn't want to drive as far as the Botanic Gardens, or walk as far as along the canal, so we went to Farmleigh. It doesn't open till ten, which gave me time to make a cake before we left.
I am thinking these magnolias might qualify for pastel colours.

But that bright blue sky most definitely doesn't!!

Where Sheep May Safely Graze

This is a card I wanted to post up here as I was so happy with my little sheep. I made it just before we went to my Dad's, for the ODBD Second Anniversary challenges. Being the second anniversary, one of the challenges was to use cotton. I am not a big fan of actually making bullion knots, but I do think you can make so many lovely designs with them that it's worth enduring with it.


Just two bird photos from when we were down in Kerry. Year before last I gave Dad a coconut filled with seeds and suet, and when it was empty he took it down. I think he'd forgotten about it, but when he was worried about leaving the poor birds without any food while he was away for a couple of days, I suggested that fat balls or suet would last longer than leaving just seed. So he found another coconut, and wired them up to his feeder. I just sat on a chair in the garden for about half an hour over the space of the afternoon, and even after weeding out the total duds, I still have over 50 shots I can't bring myself to ditch. I love the ones that show the birds in motion. Really, I should have brought my tripod or seen if Dad had one I could have borrowed. I'll try to edit a couple of the Blue Tit ones - they look so cute tucked right into the shell. But for now, I love the sense of motion with the Great Tits in this one.

And those ever-elusive Coal Tits were not so elusive down there as they are up here.

Showing Off

It's quite funny when the female robin is foraging for her own food at the same time as she makes little chirps to be fed. Then the male comes over with his beak full, and she's gobbling away at her own food. I am so enjoying watching them. I saw this little display on the shed roof this afternoon.

Some welcome light relief after trying to talk my dad through deleting an email on the server that was blocking up his Mac.I can't believe he used to teach programming!!

Colour on a Grey Day

I was thinking that maybe I'd get to upload a few of my action pictures of the birds at my dad's feeders today: it was such a dull, grey wet day that it seemed like a waste of time to have my camera with me in town. Then it was such a rush to get from work to Dublin Castle (where I was meeting C for lunch, as he had the day off today), that there was no time for stopping to take any pictures. But I spotted these buildings just as I got to the Chester Beatty, and as it had stopped raining, almost, when we were leaving after lunch, C said I could have two and a half minutes to take a picture. They look freshly painted, but since the last time I was up that road was in the snowy twilight in January, I could have missed them altogether that evening.
There was fantastic contrast between the dark bark of the cherry trees and the papery white birch bark, but I only had two and a half minutes!!

Happy Easter

Despite the tub they are in having been frozen totally solid back in January, the first of my daffodil buds broke into bloom yesterday, just in time for Easter.
Just as well they are in a tub - it's so windy today that the only way to get a macro shot was to bring the whole tub inside.
Papa Robin is getting better at gathering more worms to fly back to the nest with, he can manage 5 (I think) now, with a bit of pecking around to get them all. He's still nowhere near the puffin - online research tells me they can carry up to 12 sand eels in their beak, but I am sure I read more than that in my bird book, or a photography magazine.

Hot Cross Buns

Most years I don't actually remember to make Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday, although we happy eat them any time of the year.  For quite a few years I used to be cooking for Easter camps, and although I did often make fresh bread-rolls for 80, I never did buns. As you can see, I don't put a cross in mine. These were the last two left from the dozen I made in time for a late breakfast yesterday, and we finished them off with afternoon coffee today. I have to admit that when it came to dinner last night, we decided we didn't really need a big meal, so we passed.

According to my book of festive baking, the association of Hot Cross Buns with Good Friday began only after the Reformation in the 16th century. Before that almost all dough was marked with a cross before it went in the oven, to ward off evil spirits that might stop it rising. After the Reformation this practice was discarded as being "Popish", and was just kept for the day in the Church year when the cross was most significant.
Check out this photo of a little Greek wood-fired oven that we saw in the folk museum in Corfu - it has a cross on it.

Hot Cross Buns makes 12
1/2 pt (1 1/4 cups) milk and water mixed, lukewarm
3/4 oz fresh yeast, one sachet instant yeast
1 lb strong flour
1/2 tsp each salt, mixed spice, cinnamon, grated nutmeg (I like more mixed spice)
2 oz castor sugar (1/4 cup)
2 oz butter (1/2 stick)
2 beaten eggs
6 oz currants or raisins
1 oz finely chopped candied peel
shortcrust pastry if you want to make crosses

Using instant yeast I just knead everything together, adding the raisins near the end. Again with instant yeast I skip on the initial rising in a greased bowl, and just shape them into 12 buns, arrange in a greased roasting tin and leave to rise. The original recipe, calling for fresh yeast has two risings before the shaping. If you want to make crosses, roll the shortcrust pastry out, cut into thin strips and stick on with cold water.
Bake in a pre-heated oven, 400CF, 200C, Gas Mark 7 for about twenty minutes, till browned on top. If you can put a tin of boiling water in the bottom of the oven to make a steamy atmosphere, all the better.
If you like a glaze on the buns - I do, C doesn't - boil  2 oz (1/4 cup) sugar with 2 tblsp water until it's formed a syrup, and brush over the top of the warm buns.

A Walk in the Park

It was so nice and sunny yesterday evening that we went out for a quick walk after dinner. C hadn't gone for his usual lunch-time walk, as he was recovering from a painful visit to the dentist...It was cold, but well worth going out - especially when it's been raining all day so far.

Sunset in a Puddle

Signs of Spring - a sticky chestnut bud ...

... and even a leaf breaking out

Stepping Out Together

C reckons - purely because there were three of them, that these might have been the ducks he's been seeing swimming around in a big puddle beside the road this week.

R U Ready

The photo challenge on SCS this week was R.
R for robin, of course. And wouldn't you know it, from yesterday the robins stopped appearing together on the patio. The presumed male comes on his own, eats his worms and then flies off into the trees with a beak full. And you're really meant to upload photos taken after the challenge is set, so I had to make do with this...

R is also for ribbons. I am not good on ribbon storage. Spools are fine, they stack on the supporting girder in the attic. But loose ribbon just goes in bags if it's a good length - one for organza, one for grosgrain and one for miscellaneous. And then there's a big box full of shorter scraps. And a very select few wide ones that manage to stay tidily rolled up.

R is also for ruffled - these little mushrooms were growing in the (wet) grass yesterday. It was so soggy that I couldn't kneel down to get a proper photo - I was on my way home from work at the time.

I hung up a sunflower seed feeder to try this week. Either I will have to take it down or just put very few seeds in it, because yesterday there was enormous wastage. I swept a lot up and picked out the good seeds yesterday, but then the wind got up and blew the next spillage all over everywhere. It has attracted this greenfinch on a more regular basis, though, so I'd like to keep it. He's always come now and again, but we've both seen much more of him this week.

April already - where does the time go! Time to make sure all my March photos are copied to the PC, and delete all the junk ones. That's going to be some task, with all the bird ones from my Dad's, and the visit to Clare.

Have a worm, sweetheart

Alas, we are not in Paris. But I've been going through photos and trying to reorganise albums, and this photo of the Pyramid at the Louvre pretty much sums up what it feels like here. It rained almost all day yesterday, with a brief dry period in the late afternoon. When I got into work, before I even opened my mouth Michael said to me "Don't say good, it's morning, but there's nothing good about it". As it happened, I'd started the day with a laugh, so the rain didn't bother me. C had decided to go into work a bit later than usual to help him cope with the trauma of the clock having gone forward. So when he was putting his gear on to leave, he was in a flap trying to find his trousers. Not in the bedroom, not in the porch, not in the spare room - had I done anything with them? After thinking, I burst out laughing because I knew he'd left them in the bike on Thursday, and had never got round to bringing them in - not even when I asked for his lunch bag. Plan B - he recently bought an all-in one rainproof coverall. But that meant changing his heavy jumper and jacket for a sweatshirt and a lighter jacket. And then he ended up with one leg in a leg of the coverall, and the other in an arm, so I went into work still smiling over it all. And goodness, it was wet. I went in to town after work (last tub of meal-worms in the garden shop, lucky robins), and got wetter again sitting in my damp coat on the bus.
While I was washing the floors later on in the afternoon I heard the robins chirping, so I grabbed my camera - no time to change lens - and a few worms,  and was rewarded by getting these pictures.

And in case one isn't enough...

The next picture was this morning - you can see they are ankle deep in puddles!!

It's so funny to watch, because one will cheep away and stand there with an open beak, but if nothing happens it (she?) will grab a couple from the ground, but then is ready for me as soon as (he?) arrives with his offering. I'll have to sit out in the back for a while with the camera and some worms - but not till it's a bit dryer. Today the direction of the rain/snow was into the back porch, so I couldn't keep the door open for long.

As if all the rain yesterday wasn't enough, there was so much snow this morning that I had to scrape the car off before I could go out. It snowed all day, although it never really lay on the ground. There's been so much damage in the gardens already from the cold in January - our neighbour's Lobster Claw tree looks pretty dead. I think it might revive though, when you bend a twig it's still live inside.