Turning 21, and a flurry of photos about myself, including making, baking, jamming and a whole lot of Nature

Tomorrow is my birthday. My 21st, to be exact. Scary stuff! I don't feel old enough to be that old - it sounds like such a big, grown-up age to be and I'm not a grown-up, am I? But apparently so.

I've had an amazing few weeks at placement - the mum is lovely, the boys are sweet and amazing, and I have so much fun!

So what have I been up to recently? Brace yourselves for a whole lot of photos! Well, this happened at home:







 This is bubble dough, made according to these instructions which I pinned on Pinterest.











 See how it breaks?




 





 And stretches...













 And then I made it with the older boy at placement - again, it stretches...











 And snaps!














And then this happened:

Yum! That, my friends, is a plum crumble! My placement mum spoils me, sending various treats and tidbits home with me all the time. On this occasion, she sent me home with a bag of plums, which duly got made into crumble for the whole house to enjoy.

 ...













 Isn't that beautiful!









Then there was a day at placement where I discovered this:

 Isn't this just incredible?! A stunning butterfly got stuck inside. Being a good person, I released it. Being human, however, I took lots of photos first! It was a great opportunity to get close-up photos:








 How stunning is that?! Hold on, let me give you a bigger photo...

Just look at that! Okay, maybe I'm some kind of sucker, but I just love the details that went into creating such a tiny, perfect, fragile creature - the downy fur near the body, the colours, the actual symmetry!! How is that even possible??

I find nature to be incredible - it works so perfectly, it doesn't seem possible at all. But it is. Another few photos:

 Sunset outside placement...












I walk this walk twice a day, to and from placement, every day. Am I not the luckiest person alive?! I mean, it's really super steep, and I'm always out of breath climbing to the top. But in exchange I get to see all the amazing colours, and leaves and plants and life mingling - truly, the colours I see are just awe-inspiring...

See?! I'm not sure that there's a single shade of pink or purple not found somewhere in there...






 As far as I can tell, these are snowberries. They look beautiful and plump, and bursting with white juiciness. They're poisonous. It's a shame, because they're everywhere just now, and do look so attractive to eat.

After going blackberry picking with my placement family, my housemates and I caught the bug and went out near our house - there's a field right outside with bushes dripping with berries. I turned a few of the berries into a fruit mix with pears which was stewed gently and made for a bowlful of yumminess when mixed with yoghurt - again, an idea I got from my placement. I love how my placement mum feeds the family, and I'm constantly making mental notes all the time I'm there, not even for future children or anything, but for myself!

The rest of the berries got turned into jam:







 For most of my housemates, I think, this was the first time they'd ever seen jam being made. Fascinating for them to see, especially when ti came to the wrinkle test (checking if the jam is set).









We got some jars of dark, beautiful goodness from the berries! It tasted great on toast!







And speaking of jam, I made plum jam at my placement:

Again, it looks so beautiful! Such a pretty colour, and it tasted wonderful! My placement mum so sweetly sent 2 jars of jam home with me, one to share with my housemates and one for myself!



The hamsters have been a lot of fun so far. One of them, Houdini, earned his name because the minute the lights go out he heads straight for his wheel. the minute you switch on a light to catch him in the act, he's gone. No matter how fast you are, it's like he senses it! we managed to capture 2 photos of him in the wheel, I think? after an hour of trying!

And finally, one of my housemates got this beasty on her wall. Needless to say, she was terrified, and mama Beth had to remove it...

 that's all - a long post of photos, I know, but I hope you enjoyed them!

Love love xx

PS. a couple of amusing links for you to enjoy:

Miley Cyrus Wrecking Ball Parody

Ylvis - The Fox (What does the Fox say?)

Jam! Jam that I made! And a brief explanation of my next post...

Look! I made jam!

Yes! I made both strawberry, and raspberry jam! Not just these 2 jars, but not many more, as I made small batches - we only have small saucepans, and fruit is expensive. But I did it! All by myself! It's the first time I've made jam on my own - I've helped my mum with it before, but doing it myself felt like a great big grown up step.

I promise, tomorrow I will tell you the fish story, in all its glory. I'm still a little too traumatised to tell it yet. Plus, I need to go and get some photos to make it more interesting to read. Okay, so not photos of the main subject. But still, something to break the writing up. We all know it makes reading easier!

I'm pondering more exciting flavours of jam to make over summer. Have you ever made jam? What flavour jam would you like to see?

Love love xx

munchables, frozen fruit, homemade coleslaw, jelly, cardigan

This feels like a very food-orientated post today. Food is dominating my life a little at the moment, I confess. Difficulties eating anything that requires biting into means that I spend a lot of time craving foods that I can't have, or wondering if I can have a certain food. For example: biscuits. I can't bite into them anymore, so I've stopped having them, because nothing takes the fun out of meaningless calories like having to work for them. Also: chewing gum. Now I don't eat chewie all that much. But I like a bit, now and then, when a friend offers. Except that now I have to take my teeth out so it doesn't gum up the clips on the denture or get underneath it. And that makes it something I can't enjoy in public. And so I can't eat it as soon as a friend offers, so why take it from them at all?

So I've been thinking a lot and wondering what foods I can eat. Of course, smoothies are now a staple part of my diet, being absolutely easy peasy to slurp down. And in my quest t try and be interesting and get more than one flavour of smoothie, I rediscovered a book I was given years ago, I think by my grandparents: The Little Black Book of Smoothies. And in this awesome little book, are about 100 recipes for different smoothies, as well as a general ingredients you can add section at the front, which can help if you don't have the specific ingredients for a smoothie. Not all the ingredients mentioned int he front are used in any of the recipes, but it's packed with information. One of the really intriguing things it mentions is about freezing fruit and fruit juices etc. So to this end I have been preparing and freezing all sorts of fruit, like bananas and apples and melons and the like; and I've been freezing juices like apple juice in ice cube bags. And I've got to say, it works! Maybe if I make a smoothie later I'll photograph it. But freezing the banana does produce a smoother smoothie. Interesting tip, huh?

So I've been on a bit of a freezing spree. Having defrosted and turned raspberries into jam and now removed some frozen redcurrants from the freezer too, I've been filling it with other things, namely fruit, but also homemade coleslaw. I'd give a recipe for this, but there really isn't one. It's just cabbage and apple and carrot all grated down and mixed with raisins and mayonnaise. I haven't added the mayonnaise to the frozen stuff, I figure that can go in when I choose to defrost and eat the stuff. But it is very eatable! It's shocking how nice it is with raisins in, they really shouldn't go but they do!

So yeah, back to a point I made about taking redcurrants out of the freezer - I'm hoping, well planning, to turn it into redcurrant jelly over the next coupla days. Another thing I haven't tried yet, but I'm very excited about it, especially after the success of the raspberry jam; which is very yummy, I might add.

My last thought for the day is of the cardigan I've been knitting since last October. I'm a slow knitter, I know... But this has been an epic adventure, as I've restarted it entirely on a new needle size once, and put it down and picked it up so many times, and restarted one piece of it because I mis-read the instructions, and stopped and started until it seemed like the knitting would never finish; and whilst I enjoy knitting, the thought of knitting something eternally and never getting the sense of achievement from knowing that you made that finished garment is incredibly disheartening. But: I finished the knitting part today! Pictures of the three parts will go up later, promise. So now all that's left is to block it and sew it together. But that will have to wait, because right now I have work. So until later-!

Love love xx