Good Morning October, come in and take a seat!

Photo of the Day
1st October 2007
Autumn fruits from our garden and up the lane

O suns and skies and clouds of June,

And flowers of June together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour
October's bright blue weather.

David's weekend project....What do you like best about blogging?
Well, in my case it is being able to share my life and what I do.
We are isolated in our village, being in a rural setting.
This never worries me as I am quite content.
Infact, not quite contenet, very content.
Being able to document my daily comings and goings helps me articulate my happiness and appreciate the people I share my life with, including the new friends I have made in the blogging world.
No matter where we are or who we are, values remain the same.
My priorities are my family, my home, my friends.
This is what my blog is all about.

For many many years I was a primary school teacher working her way up the promotion ladder.
I was successful achieving Deputy Headteacher status.
I loved my job but realised I was other things too.
We have many roles in life...daughter, wife, daughter in law, auntie ....I wanted to focus on being a good wife, daughter in law and auntie.

I love the challenge of maintaining a good life on a reduced income.
I did bring home £2,000 a month ($1,000) and we regularly had a large overdraft.
Now we live on Jon's earnings as a self employed engineer and we do not have an overdraft, I manage the money, hence my efforts in the kitchen.

It is priorities and I embrace the challenge.
Being able to share and learn with my blogging friends keeps me appreciative and focussed.

Sharing the past couple of days and what a couple of days they have been
I have kept in touch via the comments but here is what we have been up to!

Phew!

Do I ache this morning!
What a weekend!

On Saturday I went for the daily walk with Wilma, but took along a bowl to collect some brambles.

When I returned home I picked some of our elderberries, plums and apples.
I decided to have an experiment.....

I cooked the apples, not too much as I like them crunchy!
Then added the stoned plums, brambles and elderberries.

I always keep some short crust pastry in the freezer,
so whilst I was working in the garden I defrosted the pastry then made a pie.





The red syrup you see is a sugarless jelly crystals, no sugar was used in the pie!




Delicious!

I said to Jon, this would be called Autumn Pie! LOL!

Jon was fitting the doors in the shed which he has worked on whenever he wasn't working..
just look at it now!




Getting back to Saturday, I worked in the garden all day, whilst Jon worked on the shed.
I will show pictures of the garden later in the week.
To be honest our garden does leave feeling overawed at times and I have to tackle it in small projects as it covers one third of an acre.

When the phone rang at 4pm I knew it would be Nick, from hospital radio.
It was an Environmental Focus this week.
My focus was "Foods for free"

I shared my recipes and had a good chat with Nick.

Saturday evening we were both exhausted.
The lamb which had been in the slow oven all day tasted wonderful.
I added some raspberry jeely crystals to the lamb stock, together with some bovril beef extract...try it!

Awesome!

Sunday...up early as I cooked Jon a good breakfast.
Really easy in the Aga...popped the bacon and mushrooms in the top oven, boiled the water and put in pan, cracked open & dropped an egg in...1 minute later, perfect poached egg!

After breakfast Jon fit the doors which turned out to be a tricky job, hence us not going out on the motorbike.

I set to planting my bulbs...
WELL IN EXCESS OF 300!

We had the radio playing, my favourite garden accessory!
A solar radio!

BBC Radio 2 was celebrating its 40th birthday!
I urge you to click here
and listen to the music...Ed Stewpot was amazing! Bringing back so many memories!
I was singing as I pegged the washing out between planting bulbs!

I had a trip to the rubbish tip in the pick up and finished the weekend with a take away pizza.
We were both exhausted!
I ache this morning but can't stop today as it is DIY today and my sister in law is coming over to help me!

We are hoping to have a day out on the motorbike this week which will be a nice little break!

I will be back with my garden pictures and ofcourse there will be my K photograph which I captured over the weekend! It was delicious! LOL!

When I say captured, I mean on my camera!

Watch this space!

Dx