Canal Walk

 Finally  my duckling hunt paid off. It was a beautiful (but cold,  a heavy frost overnight) morning, and as I had bad earache yesterday I decided to go for a walk along the canal rather than cycle in the park. I walked to the lock along the road, because where the houseboats are, and beside the train station, is usually the best place for finding ducklings. Nothing there except a mallard drake enjoying the sun, and a moorhen showing the beautiful browns in its plumage in the sunshine. Normally I think of them as black birds. But, despite the recent heavy rain and frequent hail showers, I decided to risk the mud along the towpath and walk back home canal-side, and that was where I found my chickies at last. They were tiny, I don't think they can be hatched that long. And yet this time last year, any we saw were well past the fuzzball stage. I wonder why they were so much later this year...

Apologies for the brightness - it was, as I said, a very bright sunny morning. I'm sorry, for some reason the photos are showing in reverse of the order I wanted, and it's one thing that is not so easy in the newer Blogger dashboard, moving them around. My walk started at the bottom of the photos here. Many of the houseboats were decked out with planters and tubs full of colourful Spring flowers. The snail was on the side of a barge which does charter trips. 

April Favourites

 In spite of the long weekend for Easter, and the brighter evenings (big boost!), April was not a very good month on the card-making front. Just a few to share. And I'll add a couple of photos from the morning last week when I cycled to the "park within a park", the Peoples' Gardens at the entrance to Phoenix Park. I left the house early that morning, and Farmleigh wasn't yet open. Also I had seen someone post a photo of a mandarin duck in the park, and since I'm sure it isn't resident on the lakes I normally pass, I wanted to take a look at the one down there. No mandarin duck in sight...

Celebrating Earth Day with recycling - two calendars, old jeans, tomato paste tube, packaging and an old book. I suspect I bought the buttons specifically for cards.

Thank you, Lorraine. I need to practice two-step stamping in conjunction with die-cutting, but this was fun to make for a mixed-media wreath challenge. 

There were bluebells planted all along the side of a path down the hill from the road at the top to the lake at the bottom, but not something that the perspective allowed a good photo of. There was also a lovely big patch under a a couple of trees. 

Farmleigh Again

 I took a quick trip to Farmleigh one morning a couple of weeks ago, hoping to inspire C to take a trip to see the magnolias the following weekend. He settled for just looking at my photos. This weekend we were finally able to travel further, so we went to the Botanic Gardens - but alas, I forgot to check that there was a memory card in my camera. So he did get to see some magnolias in real life.

Here are a few photos from the Farmleigh trip. I'm also keeping an eye out for ducklings everywhere I go, because I can see that this time last year we were seeing them on the canal. No sign of them there, no sign in Farmleigh, no sign in the Botanics.

There is what may be a tufted duck's nest in the lake. I don't know, it looks more like what moorhens make to me, but whatever it is I'm sure it's bird-made and not man-made.

I did take a few photos in the Botanic Gardens with my phone - I shall have to see what they look like on a larger screen and whether they are worth sharing. In any case, even without photos it was well worth the trip - sunshine, blue skies and birdsong. 

Milestones

 It's taken me a LONG time to get to 1000 blog posts, but this is it.

I've been cycling to work for a full year now. A few falls in the ice and snow, one broken rear derailleur and bent hanger, one chain off, possibly fitter than I was. It's been better than I expected, if also much longer than I expected.

Since this is a milestone post I'm going to combine my March favourite cards (not very many) and our walk along the canal last night. Another milestone - I think C went for 3 walks yesterday, though his first one was more a saunter to stretch his back. His lunchtime one was a full one, but it was a lovely sunny afternoon and he was happy to come out again.

The utility box depicts the canal lock. There are often fishermen, I think we saw a record number yesterday. The swans were resting on the bank, not bothered at all by all the pedestrians passing so close. A houseboat still decked out for St. Patrick's Day...

Farmleigh

My sister says we are lucky to have Farmleigh within our 5km limit, and she's right, we are. But with the walled garden normally closed, I'm not sure that she didn't find more colour in her local 5km walk in Cork which she shared with me recently. However, I took a trip to Farmleigh on Thursday, and for the first time the walled garden was open. It wasn't an ideal morning for a visit, but I needed to get out of the house and finding the garden open made it worth it. The hyacinths smelled gorgeous, and in fact on the sunnier mornings I can smell the flowering trees on the way to work. I've had a bit of grief with the bicycle but hopefully everything is running smoothly again. That was another reason for taking a leisure outing on Thursday, to make sure that all the gears were changing smoothly again and the chain no longer coming off.

This one was so strange, because the branch stuck out at right angles from the main trunk and was just covered in blossom for the entire length - like a floral cotton candy!

There are some more photos in a March album HERE. They are from two visits, and were too many to overload a blog post with. 

Happy St. Patrick's Day

 No particularly appropriate photos this year, due to the 5km travel restriction and the fact that when I am out, I am usually on my bicycle, no camera.

But a Spring flower card (the daffodils are out in full force here, sometimes so massed together that if it's sunny and warm you can smell them from a distance, and some good Irish green. The greengrocer did give me two pots of shamrock when I went down before work yesterday, but I didn't get as far as taking a photo of them. I think I'll probably plant them in the garden. Until he gave them to me, I was going to green up my current crop of alfalfa sprouts for my "green". We will see what today's weather brings. Yesterday started grey and damp, but by the time I was working from home, it was so warm and sunny that I had to get the spotting scope out to reassure myself that a sparrow on the wall was sunbathing and not dead. The scilla photo was taken when I walked over to get a part for my bicycle in the afternoon, still beautifully sunny. 

Seville Season

 It's Seville orange season here just now. We're well stocked on marmalade, but I have a couple of other recipes that I always like to make when the oranges have that extra tang and zest. I see that in 2010 I posted my "bottled sunshine". This year I am trying it with vodka instead of brandy, in the hopes that it will be something like an orange version of limoncello. On fishing out the old magazine page with the original recipe (I'd say it's at least 20 years old), I saw that it also included a Seville orange curd, so I tried that while I was at it. In all honesty I'm not sure how much different it tastes to lemon, perhaps a little sweeter, and without the colour cue it might be hard to tell the difference. But we've been enjoying it on homemade crumpets.

SEVILLE CURD 

Use sharp, tangy Seville oranges as an ideal alternative to lemons Makes about 280 ml (1/2 pt) 

The finely grated rind and juice of 4 Seville oranges

85 g (3 oz) butter, cut into cubes 

230 g (8 oz) caster sugar

 3 eggs, size 3, lightly beaten and strained

 Warm sterilised jars, covers and labels

 Put the grated rind and juice of the oranges into a heavy-based pan or double boiler with the butter, sugar and strained eggs. Heat gently, stirring all the time until the mixture has thickened – this will take about 30 minutes.

Leave to cool slightly, then pour into warm sterilised jars, cover and label. Leave to cool completely. Chill until required.

Hopefully I can drop some duck à l'orange somewhere into our meal plan over the next couple of weeks, too. 

I was busy on Sunday and forget to change my header. I have a couple of shots with some Spring bulbs in the folder for last March, but I settled on this one of a tree instead.