Amazing Pear Cake

When your gifted a bowl of freshly picked pears, recipes need to be found! thank goodness for pinterest and all the amazing ideas on there!

This pear cake is totally delicious, sweet and really light, lovely paired with custard or vanilla icecream

If you have pears you so need to bake this cake! Recipe can be found here

Life Lately - Full of Veg

This last week has been filled with the general work and home, a few hours out here and there, gardening and just quality time with the boys doing art, crafts and movie watching together

The local community allotment scheme had a charity open day so we popped along for tea, cake and plenty of fresh vegetables which we've already devoured and savoured in our salads
My neighbour are always passing baked goodies to each other and I have to give her a shout out for the amazing dairy free brownie cookies we managed to scoff, they were delicious. Her pear tree had also given off a wonderful fruit load so I have a bowl full waiting to be turned into chutney ready for Christmas presents this weekend (thinking ahead and loving it)

I'm sitting here figuring out how I want my blog to take shape, snippets of our life through the week I'm loving, is that enough! I always have such grand plans to do so much more!!!

Maybe those plans will come to light once I've worked on them a little more, in the meantime my fur babies are keeping me company whilst I type, always by my side!

Have a fabulous week x

Bats and Blackberries!

We're a few weeks into our summer holidays! I'm mixing work with family and trying to keep calm in between!!
We've took the first week as a complete chill from the structure of school, letting the boys enjoy their freedom. Plans are made for mini adventures over the next few weeks from home art projects to days out

We are super lucky to have this amazing countryside very local to home and within walking distance, and amazingly a million and one blackberries to pick, which of course we obliged
I love finding wishes! I always wonder who's wish it holds and what they've asked for!

I treated the eldest to a boat trip with a difference to look out for bats! It was amazing, awe and fun filled, partly thanks to having to row a boat! sharing said boat with very large black hairy spiders! and rowing said boat back in the pitch black!
Hearing the bats through the frequency on the bat detector was amazing and we'll certainly be booking tickets again next year

The youngest has art stations set up in most rooms of the house! There's always pens and cut paper everywhere! If you ask him what he wants to be when he's older he happily replies 'an artist'

 We've all spent time in the garden whether its tending to flowers, veg, weeds!! or bouncing on the trampoline, its nice to all be in the garden together and I cant wait for it to be finished. Restyling our space is taking a long time but it will be great once its complete

Why Vegetarian!

As I said in my previous post I was trying to start a new page here and there but really I am a throw it altogether kind of gal as that truly shows my personality and quirkiness!
This is one of my posts from my new now gone blog that I'm transferring over...

I get asked quite a lot why I'm a vegetarian, quite simply its an easier diet for me to digest!
I've suffered with IBS since I was diagnosed in my early 20s, I struggled digesting meat as the effect after eating it was quick, generally bloating and nausea.
In my late 30s I decided enough was enough and over a few months I gradually removed meat products from my diet and introduced more vegetables, fish, eggs and fruit to replace the nutrients I was losing.
It worked I can now eat a meal without feeling ill, there are still occasions when IBS rears its ugly head but I can deal with it so much easier than before.

I've found so many new favourite foods since taking the plunge, figs and avocado are just two of them...

The urge to seperate things!

Some time ago I had this overwhelming urge to separate life as I knew it!
I wanted to keep business, home and fun separate!
I tried and failed miserably!!!! It all seemed to fall apart around me! I had a blog account here and there and an insta/fb/online shop and this and that!
arghhhh, its just all become too much!

Trying to grow and develop a small business and have perfectly perfect photos and show and tell is just not who I am on a daily basis! I'm just little ole me! A 42 year old wife, mum and animal lover who's life is escaping her and who is desperately trying to reign it all back in!
Do you ever feel like this!!!
Sit back and think I've took on too much again! There are too many angles to this and that so lets just put them all together because that's who I am! That's how I work!

So sod the extra blog and insta that goes with it! My love and desire for food photography and sharing recipes can continue here in my good ole faithful space.
Sod the extra this that and the other! Its all staying here, the space that has kept me sane over the years as I've offloaded about life in general!

I hope you stick around to read more ramblings from this cat mad woman trying to make a mini empire and keep her home reasonably tidy!

blur of a week ...

The past week has flown by in a blur! I'm grateful for the long weekend ahead of us to catch up on home and family 'stuff' and those much needed lie in's I seem to need lately!
I seem to be going through an exhausted not happy with myself stage I'm trying to combat it with good homemade food and walking!
The fear of slipping into anxiety mode frightens me and with the Mr shortly working away I'm using all my energy up on controlling my feelings, I know I'll be fine but I also know I will have a few bad days, I always do!
So back to good food and walking...

Lambs, Pottery and Gardening!

This week was all about settling back down to normality with the return to work and school after our much needed holiday, happily though it was only a 4 day working week so smiles all round.

School is always a worrying time as Riley is not a fan, if he is interested in the current terms project then its not so bad, this term is greek gods! Thankfully this week has gone okay with no issues which always makes for a great week
Jack is in his first year of GCSEs and coping okay with them, I still don't think he realises how much more of a workload is coming his way!

For me personally this week I got to feed the local lambs after work each day which just makes my soul smile every time I see them. That's it for another year though so I look forward to next spring already.

I had another pottery session this week, I truly love it, totally for personal pleasure, if i'm honest I'm not happy with the pot I threw but I'm hoping the decoration hides that! It sadly has a week point but I did learn the bubble blowing technique so it wasn't all bad

This weekend the garden has had all of our attention, there is so much to do and to be honest we're still not sure exactly what we want to happen but we are making a start, lots of pruning, weeding and tarpaulin

Our garden is quite large (its not all in the photo) so we are trying to make a plan to design a family friendly garden, the trampoline for the boys, a seating area, lawned area, shrubs and growing our own veg!

We are slowly making progress and we're hoping to work so much more on it as the weather allows us too

For the love of Portugal and a good read

The past few weeks have been crazy with a busy workload and the Easter school holidays
We've managed to take some time out as a family and flew off to the amazing land that is Portugal, it was truly lovely to just get away, relax, refocus and spend time together

The pool was a welcome relief to the boys as no wifi was in the house (perfect) and it was used daily
We visited a few amazing places, my favourite town was Obidos, I just loved the buildings, the history, the castle wall (no way I was walking along that!), the most amazing bookstore full to the rafters and all in apple crates
Buddha Eden was amazing! actually beyond amazing, the statues and gardens were just unbelievable!
I even spotted some pretty yarn bombing in a beautiful park that also had black swans!

No holiday is complete without a good read and I managed to finish two books from the pile of must reads at home

Both were Jenny Colgan, she's kind of a my favourite go to author at the moment for a good chilled read.
I loved both these books and would recommend them to anyone, they both made me realise that life is too short and we must do things for the 'now' and not look back on life wishing I'd done just that!

Crochet Face Scrubbies Pattern

After creating some new face scrubbies for my own personal use, I realised I'd changed my pattern slightly so thought I'd update my previous pattern found here

 Pattern
I used 100% cotton and a size 4 crochet hook

MC- magic circle
SC - single crochet
DC- double crochet
SS- slip stitch
CH- chain
*pattern in American crochet terms*

• magic circle, CH2, 12DC, SS in top of CH2 to join
• CH2, 1DC in same space, 2DC in each stitch, SS to top CH2 to join
• CH2, 2DC in same space, *1DC in next stitch, 3DC in next (*repeat to end) SS to top of CH2 to join
• CH1, 1SC in each stitch around, SS to top of CH1 to join
• Fasten off and weave in ends

The handmade soap is from the Okie Soapy Soap Shop, and is the tea tree and green clay facial bar, its smells amazing and makes my skin feel amazing, I have quite an oily skin and this soap really helps balance that out

Pottery Workshop - Pinch Pot Windchime

Another pottery class attended ('m pretty addicted) this time it was a windchime theme, Stephanies were amazing design ideas but after searching through pinterest and seeing this I was hooked! (parden the pun) on creating something similar as a gift to the man of the house for his love of Koi!

Rather than working with clay in slab form, I rolled it out quite thick and using a circle cutter I cut out my shapes one at a time, and after a quick demonstration from Stephanie about pinch pots! I used that technique to create each scale!
Once done I pressed in doilies and stamps to add some scale details

I enjoyed making this one so much I couldnt wait for them to be fired in the kiln!
I also bagged the funkiest apron whilst there!

Stephanie added some black glaze to it and then each piece was complete
Each scale was strung together with a knot under each one, if I'm honest I'm super proud of this make and totally love it and cannot wait till another pottery class

Stephanie holds pottery classes in her workshop, contact her for more details