Now that we're in to September and autumn is on the way, I thought I'd take a little look back at some of the simple pleasures I've enjoyed over the summer. It's not my favourite season by any means, but there have been aspects of it that I've enjoyed, especially now that we're becoming settled in our house and have got more furniture set up around the place.

Baking

After a hiatus of nearly two years, I've finally started baking again! I used to bake nearly every weekend when I lived in London, my housemates were generally out of the flat on Sundays so I could use the kitchen to my heart's content in the afternoon. When I moved back with my parents I didn't really have the inclination to bake, especially as it's my Mum's kitchen and there's always something going on there. I made one batch of cookies while the rest of the family was on holiday, but that was it.

Now that we're settled in the house and there's less decorating to do at weekends I've started to pick it back up again. A new colleague started in our office recently so as a welcome I baked some chocolate chunk cookies, which turned out very nice. Then this weekend I had three quarters of a lemon left and decided to make lemon fairy cakes, which have also come out nicely. Once I've got back in to the swing of baking I'd like to try some new things, I've got recipes for shortbread and a chocolate loaf cake which I'd love to test, and I've never made a lemon drizzle cake or a Victoria sponge, so getting to grips with them would be nice.

When it's warm enough to have the windows open

I'm not a fan of hot weather. I've probably said that on this blog before, but it makes me feel sweaty and gross, and I hate walking around when the humidity makes it feel like a sauna. It's the main reason why I'll probably never visit Florida.

But that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy good weather. I like it when it's sunny but not excessively hot. I particularly love being able to have the garden door and all the windows open, allowing a lovely breeze to circulate around our house. We're really lucky, when you open the garden door and the window in our bedroom you get a lovely current of air. Plus our living room has a large window overlooking the back garden, so I love to sit indoors in the cool, looking out across the grass, with the door wide open so I still get some fresh air!

Keeping plants alive

It's the miracle of miracles! You may remember from my post about my week off back in July that my attention has slowly been turning to our garden. There was so much to do back in March that there wasn't really a chance to do much with the garden, apart from cut the grass and see what was growing. But in July I set up two hanging baskets and some plastic troughs with petunias and lavender. The petunias went a bit mad and grew quite large, they're now starting to die back a bit (helped by me forgetting to water them, it's rained so much I wasn't sure if they were too damp or too dry, turns out they were a bit too dry). But the lavender is coming along nicely, it's taking a while to grow but I'm hoping that it'll survive the winter and grow back in the spring. My mother-in-law is a keen gardener and has loads of lavender so I'll be asking her what I need to do with it to keep it alive in the cold weather.

I'm just generally impressed with how well they've survived. It's amazing the difference the petunias make in the hanging baskets, they light up the whole of the front of the house. I really hope they grow back next year, but if not then I'll be happy to plant new ones, maybe in purple rather than magenta, or maybe a mix of both!

Visiting new places 

If there's one thing summer is good for, it's visiting new places. As we're still new to the area we've moved to it's been a real pleasure to occasionally get out for a little drive and then stop somewhere for a walk. Along with visiting some of the local villages around our way we've also been up to Hedingham Castle and down to Maldon, and I've had a little visit to the lovely old town of Coggeshall. I also had a nice walk along the river near where we live and found a load of blackberry bushes, but sadly didn't have a walking stick to hook down the really good berries at the top!

Obviously with autumn all we need to do to go out is wrap up a bit more, so I'm hoping that we'll be able to visit a few more places before it gets too cold for my warmth-loving husband to want to venture outdoors. I've got a book of walks around Essex that I keep intending to use more, so we might see about going for a nice stroll somewhere soon.

I hope you all managed to enjoy some simple pleasures in the summer, and that you have some lovely ones in autumn too :)

Canterbury

I've owed this blog post for a few days now, so I apologise for the delay to my fans :) On Thursday my boyfriend took me to Canterbury to see the cathedral for my recent birthday, which also gave me the opportunity to break out the camera and take some snaps!

Canterbury in itself is a nice place to walk around. There's a lot of old and, in cases such as the pub above, rather unique buildings to see as you wander along. Quite a few are half-timbered ones from the Tudor period, in a few places one or two looked a little more Georgian in design. The side streets are quite narrow with the buildings overhanging, basically how London used to be before the center burned to the ground in the 1600's.

There's also a river running through it, although I can't for the life of me remember which one (actually I've just Wikipedia'ed it and it's the River Stour, I'm very glad I didn't try to claim it was the Thames XD) and some of the buildings literally overhang the water instead of the street.

The cathedral itself is beautiful. There's the usual intricate carvings and high-vaulted roofs, but there's also a lot of lovely stained glass including some along the windows right at the top of the roof (which must be difficult to clean, even with scaffolding!) and a lot of carved marble memorials along the inside walls. Jon pointed out that a lot of them were for members of the armed forces but thinking about it that doesn't surprise me too much, soldiers were far more likely to die abroad so their families didn't have a grave to visit, but a memorial in their home town acted as a marker that connected their family to the deceased and ensured they would be remembered.

What always amazes me about these buildings is the fact that they were built entirely by hand. No power tools, no health and safety, just wood and rope scaffolding and ladders. It raises the question of just how many men died in the process of building these incredible monuments?

After we'd been around the inside (including the shrine to Thomas a Beckett, which was quite moving in a way, but I preferred the single lit candle that stands where the main shrine used to be before the Reformation) we walked around the outside as well and saw the cloisters, where Jon took the above photo. We then diverted to the nearest pub for a tasty lunch, and on our wanders visited the Roman museum, which was nice and modern but rather small and quite difficult to navigate with the school group that was there.

If anyone is thinking about visiting a nice old city then I can highly recommend Canterbury. We probably would have wandered around a bit more had not been freezing cold and drizzling, I'd also recommend visiting in the warmer months in future.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Hyde Park

Today I went to Hyde Park for my friend's birthday. It's fast becoming a tradition that he holds some kind of treasury hunt for these events, but not the kind of treasure hunt that involves finding clues. This year we were given polaroid cameras and two lists. We had to take photos of one thing from the first list, combined with one thing from the second list.

We were all split into teams, generally with a mixture of people we knew plus a few new acquaintances. The team I was in had orange sashes and our "secret sign" was a salute. There was a race to get two props, we ended up with a plastic ray-gun and a long black wig. We were given two puzzles, which would give us two more things to photograph on our list, and had an hour and a half to complete everything.

A couple of examples of our work; we combined "An animal or animal statue" with "A BBC documentary" by taking a photo of two of our group with a camera and "microphone" (aka a pen) surrounded by pigeons, ducks and swans. We also had "A willing member of the public" and "Sherlock finds the killer instantly", with me as Sherlock, several team members and two willing members of the public looking shocked, and a baby who was part of our team pointing the ray-gun prop at a pair of shoes (with her Dad's help) as if she had just disintegrated someone.

It was a lovely afternoon coming up with all these ideas and running around the Serpentine Lake in Hyde Park to take them all. When I have been to Hyde Park in the past it has only been to see the Winter Wonderland, which takes over most of the park. Now that I've seen it without all of that in the way I think I will have to return again for a proper walk, and with my camera naturally.

Monkeys & Pancakes

Last time I visited the Netherlands our one and only day out was to an animal sanctuary that had a cafe that did very tasty pancakes. We decided to visit it again on this trip, especially since last time we went there were no monkeys out in the monkey area.

As you can see from these photos, this time the monkeys were out and about! Last time we went on a Wednesday and didn't realise at the time that that was the cleaning day for the whole sanctuary, so we only saw a few goats and a pig. This time the monkeys were out, along with sheep and pigs, and a swan and ducks in the river.

My boyfriend emailed me last night to tell me he wasn't sure what he'd prefer, a photo of me being terrorised by monkeys, or a photo of me enjoying my holiday. You can't get close enough to be terrorised by the monkeys (thankfully!!) so I went with looking vaguely worried as close to the fence as you can get.

While this may not look like a tasty pancake, I can assure you it was actually very delicious. I had a cheese and bacon one, while Eva had a cheese one and then an apple one. I had learned from previous experience that bacon and cheese was plenty to fill me up, so didn't bother with a dessert pancake. I also won't need any dinner after this, just some Pringles and a bit of toast to fill in the gaps.

Have a nice evening everyone!

Lazy Day

Today has been a day of lounging around, and a certain amount of stupidity.

We had this day set aside to walk Eva's Dad's dogs, Bruce and Lana, throughout the day. But in the end we went for one walk this morning.

This is where my stupidity comes in, I took my camera with me, and managed to get some good shots of both dogs. But I've just gone to get my memory card out of my camera so I can sort out the photos aaaand...it's not in there. It's still in the card reader, left over from last night XD So, no dog pictures for anyone.

This afternoon has been spent listing badges on my new Etsy shop, Creative History, and sorting out some new colours for some of Archaeologist postcards that recently sold on Creative Classics, and watching TV.

Very little else going on, just generally lounging around. Tomorrow will hopefully involve some photos, if I forget my memory card again I'll be massively annoyed.

Walking Adventure

Today me and Eva were at a loss for things to do, so in the end we decided to go for a walk and then reward ourselves afterwards at a cafe that Eva said did very nice hot drinks.

We're a bit unlucky with the weather, it keeps alternating between sunshine and showers, so we did our best to time our walk between the rain. It didn't work completely, it rained a bit once we got to the forest where the walk started, but once the showers stopped and the sun came out we soon dried off.

I'm under instructions to tell you all that we had to edge around a cliff, and we saw lots of nature and wildlife. In reality we had a bit of a death-defying moment (alright, a moment where we could have fallen into a pond) on a very slippery bridge, edged our way around a tree with a very slippery path next to the river, saw a deer, and found a mushroom. The rest of the time were vaguely lost, in that we weren't sure where we were but Eva was fairly certain we were going in the right direction. There were very few maps around, and no signposts to point us in the right direction, unless we were on a cycle path. Cyclists are allowed to know where they're going, hikers just have to hope for the best :P

We eventually found our way back to the start and went to the cafe for some hot chocolate and something to eat. They had a mixed platter that we decided to share, with me eating the meat and Eva eating the vegetarian-friendly bits (olives, cheese, egg rolls and crackers).

We've now had dinner, got pizza as a reward for walking so much today. And tomorrow will include more walking as we have two golden retrievers to entertain!

Have a nice evening everyone!

Amsterdam

Hello from the Netherlands!

First day of my holiday and since the weather forecast is far from positive me and Eva decided to make the most of the sunshine this morning and head to Amsterdam. We haven't been to the city for a good few years, but every time we go we do something touristy. In the past we've done a canal tour, and the Amsterdam Dungeon, this time we visited Anne Frank's house.

Pretty much everyone knows the tale of Anne Frank. She and her family were Jews who hid from the Nazis, helped by some of her father's staff. Their hiding place was betrayed and they were split up and sent to various concentration camps, Anne and her older sister died in Bergen-Belsen a month before the camp was liberated. Her father Otto was the only one to survive, when he returned to Amsterdam one of the women that had helped shelter them gave him Anne's diary, which she had saved after the soldiers had left. The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the world's best-known books.

The house itself is, as you would expect, very small. The walls are tastefully dotted with some exerpts and quotes from the diary, and there are screens that show video clips giving some of the background, and interviews with various people connected to the family. When you actually see the rooms themselves you realise how small the space was for so many people. What made it more real for me is that my youngest sister is around the same age as Anne was when she was living there, trying to imagine my sister cooped up in such a small space helped me realise how hard it would have been on Anne. No fourteen year old should live like that. If you are ever in Amsterdam then you really should visit it, if only to get some perspective of what various Jewish families experienced in order to escape persecution, the Franks were not the only Jewish family in hiding, hundreds of families were protected and sheltered across Europe.

After the house me and Eva went to clear the cobwebs with a cup of tea and some food.

Eva had a sandwich, I had a pecan brownie and a cup of tea. This is rather posh tea, the bloke that gave me the hot water looked rather confused when I asked for milk to go with it, but it was very nice in the end, even though I was using coffee creamer as a milk substitute.

We also then went for ice cream at a place Eva knows which does the most delicious ice cream ever. It genuinely tastes like frozen cream, rather than sugary ice milk. Really yummy!

Have a nice evening everyone!

Osterley Park Country Fair

Yesterday I went to the National Trust property Osterley Park to visit their Country Fair weekend. I was a bit apprehensive because in my experience London doesn't manage to get the "countryside vibe" when it tries this kind of thing, but I thought I would give it a shot. I was also tempted by the fact that the posters about it mentioned jousting and the last time I saw that was when I went to the Renaissance Faire in Ohio a few years ago.

The bad news is that it was £6 for entry and honestly I don't think it was worth it. There were three small marquees as the "craft fair" part and they were mostly full of jewellery. Looking at the stall prices on the organiser website, it's pretty obvious that most crafters would have been priced out of featuring right from the start. It seems that nowadays you're not a proper "craft business" if you can't afford £150 for a stall, even over a two day event. In comparison the last time I did a fair back in my home village is was £20 for a day in the craft marquee, and they cover two fields that never seem to be short on sellers.

Last time I went to a country fair was the awesome one hosted at Hatfield House, which I won tickets for. THAT was impressive as it had a wide range of things to see and do, with several events going on at the same time throughout the day, a huge range of places to buy food and quite a lot of charity stalls as well. Osterley Park had a few children's rides and a few food stalls, but nothing out of the ordinary, and public numbers seemed a bit thin on the ground as well.

However despite all this I managed to get some decent photos.

Osterley Park Hall - Front View

Osterley Park Hall - Front View

This photo is the ceiling on the inside bit between the pillars at the front of the house (I can't think of the proper technical name for it).  

"William Wallace", one of the Knights of the Damned

I can't remember the name of this "character" but the rider is a woman, she did a very nifty stunt where she tried to pick up a "peasants head" by dropping down the side off the saddle.

"William Thatcher" and his adversary "Count Adhemar", clearly someone has been watching 

"A Knight's Tale" a bit too much.

Overall if it wasn't for the jousting I would have felt that ripped off. I don't think I'll be bothering to go back next year unless there's definitely more stalls and more to see throughout the day.

Have a nice day everyone!

The National Gallery

Continuing with my theme of visiting places, on Friday I visited The National Gallery with the same person I went to Tate Britain with yesterday. The National Gallery is open late on Fridays, and free to get in, it's also very easy to find as it's right next to Trafalgar Square.

Most of the galleries are on one floor, but grouped to cover a geographical area and a certain number of years, so one area covers paintings from 1500 to 1600, and then it's split in to Florence, Venice, the Netherlands etc etc.

Erasmus by Hans Holbein the Younger

I was quite pleased to see the Holbein is one of the artists on show as I've always like his work, although I have to rely on the descriptions to spot all the hidden symbolism he includes.

We didn't get round the whole thing, but what I saw was very nice so we'll be going back again in the future to finish off the rest of the galleries!

Have a nice day everyone!

Tate Britain

Today I went in to central London to visit the Tate Britain. I'm actually quite tired as it was a longer train-ride than I expected and then I walked along the Southbank as well afterwards, so this post is going to be quite short.

It was very interesting, I'm not a massive fan of art at the best of times but it was interesting to see some of the older things they had there. The Turner Gallery was nice, I hadn't seen much of his work in the past but the person I was with enjoys his art and knew a lot about the other works we were looking at, so for once I didn't wander around feeling like an idiot.

I still maintain that a lot of modern art is pretentious rubbish though :P

Have a nice evening everyone!

Ham House!

For the first time in a while I managed to get a weekend that was dry and warm, but not excessively hot and humid! To me this is a rarity so I took the opportunity and joined a little social group in their trip to the lovely Ham House.

Ham House is a beautiful red brick building just east of Richmond in Surrey, set near the Thames. It was built in the early 1600's and was owned by Elizabeth Maitland, the countess of Dysart. It stayed in the line of the Earls of Dysart until it was given to the National Trust in 1948. Oh, and it's apparantly haunted but luckily I didn't see any ghosts while I was there.

Obviously, this is the front of Ham House. There's a walk up a paved road to get to the main gates where you pay to go in (or wave your National Trust membership card and get in for free like I did). They don't have a ticket office but they do have a National Trust branded van, where they can also sign up new members if you want to join! Once you get through the gate you're free to wander as you wish, you can go into the house, round the gardens or to the cafe which is in the old orangery. The group I was with decided to go into the house first before going on a short garden tour.

Yes that's me (spot the iPod earphone wire XD) outside the very large front door! This led into the main hall, a lovely big room with a nice tiled floor and various pictures on the walls. There isn't a guided tour, like most NT properties nowadays you just wander as you wish, but we were given a nice mini guidebook which had a suggested route for us to take and gave a bit of information about each room. We got to see some rooms on the first floor and the basement before we returned to the great hall and went back outside.

The main staircase was decorated with beautiful wooden carvings such as this one of a cannon! Unfortunately you can't take photos using a flash and my camera is rubbish in the dark so that's the best picture of several that I took in the place. But the inside of the house really is lovely, my favourite room was the library which was filled with vintage books! The basement was interesting too, although I must say that I think my time at Wimpole Hall spoiled me as some of the basement was on the bare side when compared to that at Wimpole. It was still nice to see though, the best part of these houses is seeing how both sides of the household lived.

And finally we went on a short garden tour. There was a nice "cherry tree orchard", which was missing it's cherry trees because they were removed long before the National Trust took over. At the back of the house were some lovely lawns that then led down to the "wilderness", which is a semi-cultivated space with lots of hedges and tucked away corners for picnics. And there was also a statue of Hermes! Of course, the classical theme is strong in these kinds of places.

Once we were done with our garden tour we had tea and cakes from the cafe and sat outside near the kitchen garden and chatted. It was a really lovely day out, if you're a National Trust member and have to visit Ham House then I thoroughly recommend it!

My next weekend is going to be just as eventful, not only am I working on the Saturday but on the Sunday I'm going to be doing a sponsored walk for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. This is a charity really close to my heart and I've set myself a target of raising £200, you can read more about it at my fundraising page!

Have a lovely week everyone!