Cozy February Days & A Day in Lincoln.

With snow on the ground we have just enjoyed being at home this past week. 
There has been a lot of baking, knitting & reading going on.
We have been discussing all that we are going to plant this year in the vegetable garden, a strawberry bed is something we would love to add.
Flowers are popping their little heads up all over the garden, you can see the garden coming back to life.
~

Sweet Snowdrops from the garden.
~

The postman brought me a couple of lovely parcels, one with three 1940's Woman's Weekly magazines.

They are full of knitting, stories & baking, so many ideas & inspiration.

~

The second parcel was a huge batch of early 1950's Stitchcraft magazines.

So many lovely cardigans to knit & some pretty things for the twins too plus a few recipes.

~

Seed Cake ~ Miss Marple's favourite cake.

~

I have been wanting to bake seed cake for quite a while, so at the weekend I made one for Saturday tea.

It was a simple cake to bake, it turned out very soft with a mild caraway flavour.

~

Seed Cake Recipe.

~

Cream together 4 ozs of margarine with 4 ozs of sugar.

Add two beaten eggs a little bit at a time beating all the time.

Stir in 6 ozs of self raising flour, 1 full teaspoon of caraway seeds, 1 oz of mixed peel & one tablespoon of tepid water.

Spoon into a lined 7 inch cake tin, sprinkle sugar on top & bake for one hour.

~

Boiled fruit cake made using dates & prunes. 

This is a cake out of Ruth Mott's cook book that I have changed slightly from sultanas to dates & prunes. I still make it the same as Ruth did but it is nice with the different dried fruit for a change.

~

My first vintage tea cosy.

~

 I have only crocheted granny squares before so I bought a little book on crocheting & worked out how to make leaves & flowers using the pattern.

Kitty chose the flower tea cosy pattern, now I am on a cherry one that Mary has chosen, they are both from 1940's patterns.

~

It has been nice to make some smaller items & fun for the girls to look through the vintage patterns we have.

~

Stone ground bread rising.

~

All ready for tea.

~

Dene & Ellie came to visit us on Sunday & spent the night. So on Monday we all took the girls to The Museum of Lincolnshire Life in Lincoln.

It was cold at first then the sun came out & it was a beautiful day.

It was lovely to be outside after a cold week inside.

~

The museum takes you through many era's of life in Lincolnshire which is a farming county.

~

Lovely old shelves in the Victorian kitchen next to the range.

The girls found it fun to find so many items that we have at home.

~

Beautiful sunlight.

~

I love these old  wagons used for harvesting wheat.

~

The old co op shop.

Old packaging has such pretty muted colours.

~

The view at the top of Steep Hill in Lincoln.

This is called the cathedral quarter.

All the shops and tea rooms are so pretty.

~

Half way down Steep Hill, it is very steep.

~

Time for afternoon tea at Bunty's Tearooms.

They use vintage china & pretty old tablecloths.

~

Can you see how steep the pavement is outside the tearoom.

We all had a lovely day, it was so nice to get out with the sun shining.

After our afternoon tea we went to a few vintage shops, I found a sweet old knitting bag with wooden handles & Ellie found a beautiful vintage pearl necklace.

~

It is back to being cold & damp now in our small part of the world, we were truly blessed on Monday with the weather.

~

Thank you dear readers for all your kind words,

 I love hearing from you all & about your lives.

Fondly Michelle

~