Birds and more birds

On Monday I linked to Lorraine's beautiful bird ornaments. Well - the most wonderful package was waiting for me at the post office today, including this lovely goldfinch, which will be a treasured decoration for the Christmas tree for years to come. I am amazed at the detail, right down to a catchlight in the eye. I guess I have to add goldfinches to my growing list of birds that are different in the States and here, even though they have the same name. Hmmm, what was that I was reading only this morning in Colin Tudge's The Secret Life of Birds about the Linnaean system making identification easy even internationally.
Thank you, Lorraine - for everything in that lovely parcel.

Lovely sunny day, so a few bird photos. I don't like magpies, but there's no denying that they are quite beautiful birds. The little coaltit - not the best of photos. And yet another robin, but I like this one because it shows the two little fluffy white stripes. I don't know if that's part of his juvenile foliage, I don't ever remember noticing it on robins before.



The SCS photo challenge this week was sparkle, shimmer and shine. Our tree won't be going up for at least another week, but this morning I was struck by how the strong low sunshine was reflecting off all the glass in the building and reflecting on the Liffey.

Old Tree Decoration...

I was searching my hard drive today for a photo from a commercial package. Didn't find it, but I found this photo of one of the little snowmen I made our very first Christmas together. We didn't have a lot of money - C lost his job 5 months after we got married, and it was a pretty bleak time back then as far as the job market went - plus ca change!! This is the first year for a long time that Ireland has had net emigration figures again. Anyway, we did get a little tree, and I knit about a dozen snowmen to help fill some of the gaps. Some of them had knitted scarves, and some were scraps from the scrap-box. (This particular scrap was from a trouser-pocket lining, and there's one with a lovely silky red and black scarf. One knitted one was wool from a sweater that I knit 3 times for my brother. The first time I knit it in real Icelandic wool and Mum shrunk it in the washing machine. The second one, same colours only mohair, he got caught in a lathe in college and it mangled it. The third one I knit in the same colours again with really cheap wool from the pound shop - and he wore it for years!) The snowmen still come out every year, in spite of the fact that they are a reminder of a difficult time.

New Tree Decoration

I had to smile when I saw Lorraine's post this morning with her lovely bird decorations. On my to-do list today was to take a photo of the lovely little Venetian glass ornament I got at the Craft Fair in the RDS last week. Time was when all the crafts were Irish - not true any longer. I went on Wednesday with someone from work, but didn't get to see all the stands. So when C came home on Wednesday night with two free tickets for either Thursday or Friday - well, there wasn't much deciding to do. I'd seen the Venetian stand on Wednesday and had been admiring the beads. I have some antique Venetian glass beads which I wear quite a lot - these modern ones were much glitzier, but lovely. There were a lot of masks too - very pretty but not my style. On Wednesday the stand was so crowded I never saw the tree decorations, so I was delighted on Friday to find that as well as the less nice Santas, they had just one little boy ornament left. I like getting a special ornament each year - but only if it's something I really like, not anything for the sake of something. This little guy will look much better on the tree than hanging from my Anglepoise.

We had a power cut just a few minutes after C got home. It's the second one in just over a week, and this time my computer did not like it, Thunderbird was acting up in a major way. I'd just got about half a dozen candles lit in the sitting room and hall when the power came back on.

Robin...

This morning, when I should have been cooking dinner.

Torrone Molle

I haven't shared a recipe for a while. Someone asked about chocolate biscuit cake being hard to cut recently, and it reminded me of this recipe from Elizabeth David's Italian Cookery which was the chocolate biscuit cake I grew up on. I can remember making it for me brother's birthday when he was maybe 8 or 9. So I made one for the weekend, since we have a friend coming over later on.

Torrone Molle
6 ounces each cocoa, butter, castor sugar, ground almonds, Marietta biscuits. 1 whole egg and 1 yolk.
Beat the butter and cocoa together till it is a soft paste, then stir in the ground almonds. Melt the sugar in a heavy-based pan over low heat with a little water - you're trying to melt it rather than dissolve it. Add to the cocoa mixture. Stir in the the egg and yolk, beating them together first, and then stir in the broken biscuits carefully.
Press into a round tin (about a 20cm diameter, I think) and chill. It is even better the day after you have made it.
According to the recipe this serves 6 people - I think it's more like 10, as it is very rich.
I'm sorry I don't have this in cup measurements - C couldn't believe how much cocoa there was as he watched me sifting it. I had to settle for regular Rich Tea biscuits - time wasn't on my side yesterday, and of the three shops I tried near work, only one of them even had Rich Tea. I am sure it will still taste good.


To go with it, I've made my chicken risotto, loosely based on a recipe from the same book. You take the skin off half a chicken and cut the flesh into thin long strips. Cook a thinly sliced onion in some olive oil and butter over a low heat till soft. Add the chicken, a thinly sliced red pepper and a couple of sliced tomatoes. Stir for a few minutes, then add a cup of white wine. Add enough water to cover everything, herbs to taste (I usually use bay and thyme, as I can pick them fresh from the garden, and peppercorns), cover and simmer over a very low heat for at least an hour. Use the liquid from this, and more water as required, to make risotto in the regular way, adding the chicken and vegetables about a quarter of an hour before the end, to give them time to warm through. For once I even had some white wine handy - often I just use some sherry instead.

Too many buttons...

The photo challenge on SCS this week was Too Many to Count. This is my sewing and knitting button box, so a lot of the buttons have memories attached to them. The ceramic ones with the cat and mice came from Paris; there are some from waistcoats I have made C; there are little pewter ones with a sheep grazing under a tree that came from a jacket of my mothers, and tiny little mother of pearl and brass ones that came from her mother. Big silver ones from my aunt - in need of a polish. A little barrel-shaped one that I loved as a child and used to have more of...a little Misha badge from the year of the Russian Olympics...Snoopy buttons from my one and only visit to the States, and all sorts of oddments.
I need to put a coat and hat on and sit and watch the feeder some sunny day - I see the little coaltit a lot these days, along with the robin and sparrows.

Quick Knit

This ladybird hat was quick to make - although I had to adapt the pattern slightly as it was probably for Aran weight wool (one of those brands/patterns that doesn't say, but going by needle size my guess is it was heavier than DK). I've knit this before for the little girl I used to mind. She lost the first one at the skating rink and I had to knit her another.

I mentioned that I had got some wool to knit a couple of things for a girl in work.
The photo challenge on SCS this week was curves. It was enormously windy on Wednesday, and pretty dull - but I was rewarded by this rainbow just as I got to work. Seen a lot of rainbows this week!!

Hot off the Needles

...not quite hot. I finished this last week, but only got the buttons when I went into town after work yesterday. I searched both my sewing and my craft button boxes, and couldn't find four matching buttons the right size. This is for my newest nephew, who is now 6 months old. It was fun to knit, because instead of having to knit the front button and buttonhole bands separately, they are cables knit along with the fronts. So, I did have to knit the cable borders for the bottom edge and the sleeves, but it was a lot more fun than knitting ribbed bands.

I picked up some wool to knit a hat and cardigan for someone in work, so there'll be more to show soon.
The weather we've been having is not conducive to outdoor photography, but here's a photo of the Spanish Chestnut tree in work, now almost totally bare. It was a pretty lousy morning, but by the time I finished work it was bright and sunny, so I walked into town instead of waiting for the bus.

Pairs

The photo challenge on SCS this week is pairs of things.
I got lucky this morning. Only thing was I didn't bring my big camera, because I was planning on doing some beading in work, so my bag was pretty packed with the stuff for that. On my way to the bus in the morning, I'd seen one go by, so I knew there was 5 minutes till the next one. That meant I was able to pause and admire one of these beautiful trees - the early morning light on it made for amazing colour. When I stepped across the road to take a picture, I realised that there were actually two trees - and two houses - so it was perfect for the challenge.
Then walking along the quays in town I saw these two painters painting the railings outside Collins Barracks. Thanks to cropping out some of the extra details, I also have two cones.

Bird in the Garden

Last Thursday I bought a tub of mealworms for our little robin, as I'd run out of all the ones I'd saved from a mixed bag of bird food. And of course, I didn't see him again till today. He'll come so close - I need to remember to have the camera ready. In fact, he was so close that I couldn't focus on him while he came to feed from beside the back step - but I snapped him sitting on the wall instead. I know - how many pictures of robins have I already got!
I thought this week was going to be busy in work, so this morning I got up early and made a start on the housework and brought the big bird-feeder in to clean. I hung up a bag of sunflower seeds to keep the birds going, but it was just lying on the ground when I came home. I think the big birds like the pigeons try to take food, and pull it off...so I'd better go and fill up the normal one and hang it out again.