Absence and illness, Gardening, Mandibles, Gorgeous Gifts from Family Friends

It’s been a while again, hasn’t it? It’s always been a while nowadays! I mean to be better, but Nanny College is so busy, and exhausting, and recently I’ve caught a lot of germs from children and been rather ill. I mean, it’s all very well washing your hands regularly, but when they cough and sneeze right at your face, there’s very little you can do. I caught hand, foot and mouth from a child, and I’d barely recovered from that than I caught another virus, which wiped me out. So I’ve been home with my parents for a few days, recovering. The problem with viruses is that there’s nothing the doctor can give you to recover more quickly. With bacterial infections they can give you antibiotics, but with viruses it’s the old fashioned bed rest and fluids method. At least my immune system will be stronger at the end of it!

Mamma and I have been in the garden today a little. I still get floppy and tired after too much time doing, so I’m currently on a rest – but we’ve emptied the flower pots, and transplanted a couple of roses into new compost. We went to B and Q this afternoon and picked up some lovely plants to go in the pots, although mamma doesn’t want too many pots that she has to look after.

I also saw a good friend today, Mandibles. She came minus the baby, and had lunch with us. It was great to see her; she is a darling, and I’m so fond of her. She signed some of my paperwork for Norland to do with acquiring experience with newborns. She’s been spending the warm weather clearing her stables, and making progress at backing one of the horses (getting him ready for riding). She put a great photo up of the horse with his saddle on for the first time! Once he’s used to it she’ll start adding things like the stirrups, and so on.

There he is - doesn't he look good!

I came home to a beautiful gift from a family friend. She recently allowed me to make off with most of her baby yarn stash, and photocopies of some of her baby clothes patterns. Well, I came home to find a gift bag containing a baby clothes pattern book; a knitted toys pattern book; and the bits and bobs to create a knitted toy, too! How amazing, how brilliant! Totally unnecessary, but appreciated very much! I can see that it will come in very useful indeed!

I also received another lovely gift from a family friend, who had heard that I wasn't well, and so dropped by with a cheering up present! It came in a lovely, reusable bag made of all recycled materials...

And inside was this...

It's a thermo wheat pack, one of those wheat bags you put in the microwave to heat up! Isn't that sweet of her?! And it has lavender in there too, so when it's warm it should smell amazing and send me right off to sleep!

Well, I have a quilt block I want to do, and some more gardening, before I go tomorrow evening. So I better get on with it!

Love love xx

weather and work, quilt, pecan butter, pecan butter, pecan butter, today's plans include soup, peeling fruit

Goodness, it's cold today! Well, I was out of the house before the sun was up in order to go to work, but then Big Boss Daddy rang to say that he and the girls were ill so they didn't need me today. So I came back home! I'm quite okay with all that, since there are lots of things I want to do!

So yesterday I made another two squares for my own quilt which I started back last summer but put on hold and never got back around to until now. I also decided I didn't want one of the squares I had made in my quilt and took it out of the group. I promise, once I have made all my main squares I will take pictures and put them up. All the squares I'm making are from Crazy Mom Quilts' star Quilt along. I have about 6 squares so far, and I need 13. Then I'll need the setting squares, sashing, back, etc etc etc. But I should do the main squares first.

I also made pecan butter - like peanut butter, but with pecans instead. Turns out it's really easy! I roasted 6oz pecans first so they would be a little easier, then I tipped them into the mixer and whizzed! Nothing else, just pecans.

 At first it just shattered the nuts down into tiny little pieces. Not very appetising, I must say.

 But then... look! They kept getting smaller and started to clump together a bit!

 They stopped trying to climb up the side, and got to this point - the oils were coming out, and it was binding, but still sort of lumpy.













And then it went like this! Seriously, I just kept whizzing the mixer and scraping the nuts down from the sides, and eventually the oil came out of them, and they turned all liquidy and like peanut butter but with pecans instead! How awesome, right?!









See? Check out the glossy liquid of that!












So that was hugely exciting for me, and I had a look at the label of a peanut butter jar, and they put other stuff in there, like palm oil and salt and stuff, and it's totally unnecessary. To make a nut butter, all you need to use are the nuts! (insert childish giggle) The oil in the nuts will make the butter for you. Some are easier than others, but for most if you roast them first it makes it easier. And you can flavour these things too, however you like - nutmeg, cinnamon, honey, anything at all!

So today I'm hoping to complete another couple of squares, maybe go swimming, and make some cookies! Very indulgent of me, I know - no housework featuring on my radar (except some laundry that needs doing). Just a day where I can do stuff I want. And I'm making parsnip soup for supper. I really love soups! They're just a really yummy way of eating vegetables. I've been mulling over the idea of trying to make tomato soup for a while. It's such a common soup, after all, and yet I've never even attempted to make it! Hmmmn...

Oh, and I ate a whole lot of fruit yesterday. Turns out you can peel oranges. I know that probably sounds insanely stupid; but I swear, for years we always used a knife to slice the skin of big oranges. Well, I peeled and ate one yesterday. And then I discovered you could peel a grapefruit, too. And under the grapefruit skin is really thick pith which you can peel off as well, in a second layer! So I had a lot of fun eating fruit yesterday.

Love love xx