You-nique

Out and about in Dublin.

It doesn't seem like so long ago since I took a photo of this wall when it was just gently shabby looking, not totally weathered like this. I'll have to look it out!

Our robins aren't around too often this days - we often see them in front picking insects out of the hedge, less often in the back. So it was a treat to have one fly down this morning when I went to put the bin out and shut the back gate.

Hot off the needles

This is the jacket I knit for little George - the wool was left from one of C's sweaters, and it was great to be able to put it to good use. I enjoyed this because it was all knit in one piece - and sewing things together at the end is my least favourite part of knitting. I did have to learn not just one but two new casting on methods - amazing, after all these years of knitting.

His real present was two books which we had when we were kids, but I also had this altered project which got left out of the Christmas parcel for Waterford.

I spotted one of my orchid irises in bud this morning when I went out to re-pot some bamboo that I had been overwintering indoors, and the nigella is starting to blossom. But it feels cold for May except when the sun is out - I'm still wearing a hat most mornings, and there was one day last week when I'd have been happy to have my gloves, too.

April cards

Favourites from April...it seems to have been a good month on the creative front. I'm so pleased that Rangers brought out some more colours in Liquid Pearls, especially some better greens. They're fun to stamp with, as in this Asian card.

I find it harder to send such simple cards as this, in case people think that they've been short-changed, but they'll always get used somewhere along the way.

Tomorrow's project is finishing off a knitted jacket for my nephew's birthday. Rather stupidly I forgot to bring the wool to work this morning - at least I was able to pick up all the stitches for the front bands so it was all ready to start knitting this afternoon. Picture to follow...

Neglect

tr.v. ne·glect·ed, ne·glect·ing, ne·glects

1. To pay little or no attention to; fail to heed; disregard: neglected their warnings.

2. To fail to care for or attend to properly: neglects her appearance.

3. To fail to do or carry out, as through carelessness or oversight: neglected to return the call.

 

What I am, apparently, doing to my blog. And what happened to this hanging basket - although to be fair, it's hanging outside a pub that is a victim of the recession, rather than wilful neglect. And in my case it's lack of time rather than wilful neglect.

We had these Sicilian onions the other day with some lamb chops - definitely on the repeat list. Even though they spattered oil everywhere and left C a big clean-up job on the hob afterwards.

Sicilian caramelised onions
12 oz / 350 g small or pickling onions
2 tblsp olive oil
2 fresh bay leaves torn into strips
thinly pared rind of one lemon
1 tblsp soft brown sugar
1 tblsp clear honey
4 tblsp red wine vinegar
Skin onions - blanch in boiling water first if needed.
Heat oil in a frying pan, add bay leaves and onions and cook for about 6 minutes, turning occasionally, till onions are browned all over.
Cut lemon rind into thin matchsticks (I used zester thingy). Add to the frying pan along with sugar and honey. Cook for 2-3 minutes till the onions start to caramelise.
Add wine vinegar, being careful as it will spit. Cook for about 5 minutes till onions are tender and liquid is almost all evaporated/absorbed.

I used shallots, being what I had. Next time I think I'd just fry the bay leaves whole in the oil - I think you'd still get enough flavour from them, and they were quite chewy and we ended up picking them out. 

 

I promised some owls. I still haven't finished editing my photos, but here are some of the long-eared owl, along with one of the barn owl and the only good one I was able to get of the Snowy. Since the Snowy Owl was still in its cage, and you couldn't get close enough to the bars to really lose them with a wide aperture, it was very difficult to get anything worth keeping.

 

 

Tomorrow - or Saturday - I'll try to sort out a new blog header for May and some of my favourite April cards...

Birds of Prey

I took more photos last Saturday than I'd like to admit to, and not enough of the descriptive boards saying what each bird was. But here are some of the raptors, most of which I can put a name to.

My favourite of all was the little American kestrel - weighing only 4 ounces and half the size of our own European one.

Irish kestrel

Various hawks

Golden Eagle

When C went last year, this was one of the birds that they had out , and some of the Harley riders posed with it. This photo gives a good idea of the size of it. I thought I had a better photo which somebody else had taken - all C had with him was a little point and shoot - but if I do, I can't find it.

I'll be back with some owls...

MIA

I feel as if I've been missing in action for a while. Easter was busy, and then I fell and hurt my arm - it's still sore, but there were only a couple of days when I didn't feel it was sensible to try to get up the ladder to the attic.
Today the weather was better than the forecast earlier this week, so we headed down to Rathwood near Tullow and spent some time looking at the owls and birds of prey, and then had a walk in the woods. We were lucky that the torrential rain and hail downpours all happened when we were either in the car or under shelter. More photos will follow...The little owl is really little - and must also be very light, as I didn't feel him at all when he landed on my back!

The oilseed rape is out all over the place, adding great splashes of colour to the landscape.

Off now to see how well my Salted Caramel Tart turned out - for starters I think I made it a bit large, but I don't posses an 8" flan ring.

Howth

Happy Easter!
It's a grey, rainy day here. We had hot cross buns for our breakfast on Good Friday, but I'm saving a lamb roast for tomorrow.
During the week I had to get a medical for work, and afterwards I walked on over to Howth to visit some relatives. As we were having guests in the evening I wanted to get home in good time, but I still had a bit of time to walk round the village on my way back home again.

I have a few more photos, but I'm still trying to get to the bottom of my computer problem. I'm sure it can't be good to get an error message every single time I shut down; next stop is to try a Windows repair as everything else so far has failed.

I saw this blackbird in the trees yesterday when I went down to the butcher. We were watching another pair hunting for worms in the front lawn this morning.

Cards

I don't seem to have too many favourite cards from March. I think I was too busy trying to fix all my computer problems.

And I did have a lot of fun working out how to make my own pop-up house instead of just settling for using a pre-made template. No point in having several paper-engineering books and not using them. I already know one thing I'd change if I make a parallel cube again, and the pitch of the roof is a lot steeper than I would want.

More birds

I meant to have included these tufted ducks in the last bunch of birds. They were quite far off on the lake, but it's still probably the best picture I have for showing the tufts. There are a lot of them at Farmleigh at the moment.

This pair of greenfinches were gorging themselves on sunflower seeds today - and as luck would have it, just when the sun was out. I need to clean the glass in the back door, though.

This sheep tea-cosy is my latest completed knitting project. I'm currently working on an Aran tunic-style sweater for myself, but I think something for my nephew is going to have to take precedence.