Simple Cottage Day's

The weather has turned now & Summer is a distant memory.

We have had a wet week here in Lincolnshire & have spent some beautiful days inside baking & doing crafts.

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I have a love of old pieces of furniture.

This is the hand carved top of a wall cupboard in our parlour dated 1640.

I would love to know the journey these pieces have taken.

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Dried Honesty from the garden.

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This is the only original window we have left in the cottage with some of the old hand blown glass in it.

It is hard to see but one piece has been initialled & has the name of our village on it.

Even writing on glass they had such beautiful writing.

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Pumpkin ready to make pumpkin butter.

We will enjoy it's beauty for a week or two first.

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The area beside the inglenook fireplace.

Antique bonnets & aprons hanging.

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I love our old stick back chair, George does too as it sits next to the range.

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Two little boys sleeping in the kitchen.

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Bobby bless him he does love to sleep.

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The Ewe's are back in the field behind the hens.

They make such a gentle noise when I am hanging out the washing on these wonderfully breezy days.

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Our bare graceful old walnut tree in the morning sun.

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I used some of the lovely stone ground flour we bought at the Lode water mill to make some pastry for pies.

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The pastry turned out very crumbly using the flour so decided to make two rustic apple pies with it as we still have so many apples.

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They turned out lovely & tasted good too.

 I sprinkled demerera sugar on top.

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Kitty fancied a plait loaf for her lunch.

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George really likes to curl up in the rug hooking basket.

Since finishing my jumper I am back to rug hooking.

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Chocolate brownies.

This is a simple recipe that the children love.

 

Put all the ingredients into a bowl & mix for 2 to 3 minutes.

 

1 1/2 cups of plain flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

2 cups of white sugar

1 cup vegetable oil or melted margarine

4 eggs

1 cup of chocolate chips if desired

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

 

Bake in greased tin for 30 minutes at 350 f

 

I do change the recipe sometimes by adding dried fruit instead of chocolate chips.

 

Cool & cut.

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The twins made little harvest mice from fir cones they found in the garden.

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These beautiful old fir trees line the back of the garden between us & the grave yard.

The girls so love to gather the fir cones.

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Thank you dear readers for all your kind words.

If there is anything you would like to see in a future post please let me know.

 

Fondly Michelle

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Autumn Day's

 

Everything is changing so fast as Autumn takes a hold, the air has a damp chill in the mornings & I have been getting the cottage ready for the cold dark days ahead. The wind has a howl to it & makes a beautiful sound coming down the chimney.  I do love these days in front of the fire & just enjoying home.

How the garden has changed in the last couple of weeks.
The beautiful morning sun rising up over the cottage.

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George playing in my rug hooking basket.

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Cold Tea Cake.

I have never made this before & as we all love tea bread I thought I would try it.

I found the recipe in a 1980's Cook book called Farmhouse Cookery.

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It turned out wonderfully & I will make it again & again.

It was so soft & the fruit with being boiled was very juicy.

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I finished my jumper this week , it was my first time at knitting a vintage pattern & am very pleased with how it turned out.

I started knitting a couple of years ago & have so much to learn.

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I used three 1940's navy buttons that I found in an antiques centre.

There is a simple double crochet around the neck.

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The girls chose some pretty fabric for me to make them new dresses. They really enjoy going to the fabric shop & seeing all the prints.

I have used this pattern a few times now, it is simple which is wonderful with having to make two.

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Saturday was a family fun day run by our little group of churches, the theme was harvest & planting.

We all had a lovely morning filled with bread making, seed pictures, planting cress & making a large scarecrow.

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Daisy helping Kitty to make a small scarecrow.

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Concentrating on their seed pictures.

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Stuffing the large scarecrow.

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It was lovely to gather with dear friends & celebrate all things harvest.

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Thank you kind friends for all your beautiful comments, I enjoy reading them so much.

Fondly Michelle

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Glimpes of Autumn at The Cottage.

I love this time of year, all the warm colours & a crisp feel to the air in the early morning's. I do love to walk into the garden early in the misty morning & just take in all the beauty that is around us. Our Old English Walnut tree has lost all it's leaves now & stand's tall in all it's bare beauty with squirrels running up & down it's branches. They are such fun to watch carrying on with their busy little lives.

 

A little rabbit hiding something in the ground.

Our garden is full of rabbits & squirrels this time of year hiding all the nuts from our tree's.

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Where I write.

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I love small old bibles & have them tucked away in the bureau.

The larger one on top of the bureau was sold in Horncastle our nearest small town & dates from 1838.

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Beautiful handwriting.

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Fresh wholemeal bread for tea just out of the oven.

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Gourds & wax corn sitting on Grandad's dresser.

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The mantle piece in the parlour with small touches of Autumn.

I found the little Georgian cup at an Antique shop in our small market town.

They have a big outside yard & a lot of items are 50p.

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This is the back of our garden with hazelnut tree & a small gate which leads to the side grave yard of the church.

It is such a pretty area with so much history.

There is a small pine spinney there were rooks nest.

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Our hydrangea's are late this year, I am watching them to see when they are ready for drying.

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The roses are still blooming, we have so many old varieties in our garden & I have planted some new one's. Oh I do love roses, the old one's smell so beautiful.

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We are overflowing with apples this year, this tree has done so well.

Luckily I have a small cook book with just apple recipes.

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I made a cinnamon apple pudding this week, it feels so good to use your own produce.

It is a simple recipe just sliced apples, sugar & cinnamon then topped with a sponge mixture which is 4 ozs self raising flour, 4 ozs of butter, 4 ozs of sugar & 2 eggs, a little milk if needed.

Bake for around 45 minutes at a medium heat.

We had this with custard as Kitty loves custard.

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Apple slices for tea.

I bought the little apple recipe book when we went to Woolsthorpe Manor last year which was Issac Newton's birthplace & home.

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Apple slices with a lemon glaze.

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I found some check fabric the other week the same as the other two curtains in the sitting room.

We had the fabric in our old house for the hall window so I had cut them in half when we moved to the cottage to make curtains for two windows.

I was so pleased to have found the same fabric & this week made curtains for the long window by the hearth. It gives that corner a much warmer feel.

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I finished reading all the Nella Last book's & found them truly wonderful, I got a kindred spirit feeling from them, in so many places in the book I felt we were so much alike.

My new book to read is The Garden Cottage Diaries 'My Year in the Eighteenth Century' which is full of wonderful photo's.

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The book is by Fiona J Houston.

For a full year she took herself back to the 1790's lifestyle of her rural ancestors.

She wore home made clothes, learned crafts, ate from her garden & cooked on a fire.

This book is full of history, folklore & practical tips.

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I am really enjoying this book, it has some simple recipes in it too.

When this book arrived Kitty could not put it down, she was fascinated with the photo's.

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Thank you dear friends for all your beautiful comments.

 

Fondly Michelle

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