Summer's End

Summer has come to an end once again & the kitchen garden is giving up it's wonderful delights. It is delightful to see how well the marrows, beetroot, tomatoes & potatoes have done.

The days are becoming shorter & have a faded deep glow to them. Hay & wheat is all harvested now & the fields all now have their earth all turned & ready to lay bare all Winter.
There has been an abundance of hedgerow fruits this year & the robins are back in the garden watching you work.
Holly berries are everywhere on our trees that line the front of our garden although at the present they are hard little green berries waiting to ripen into the pretty scarlet colour that we know so well.
The Hazel trees in the lanes & our garden are fruiting well, the squirrels & rabbits are making the most of the fallen nuts.
~
Tomatoes from our garden.
~

Harvesting beetroot.

~

We have an abundance of raspberries so I made some muffins.

~

The girls sunflowers have been blooming lovely.

~

I made a honey cake from Beatrix Potters Country Cooking Book.

It was a lovely cake, I used honey from our village. We have a man who has bee's & just lives behind the church.

~

Molly Cake.

A lovely lady on Instagram made this so I looked it up & used the Waitrose recipe online.

It turned out lovely & uses no fat or eggs.

~

A lovely walk last week over the wheat fields, the weather was warm & breezy.

We have never seen cows before in this field, it was lovely to see them.

~

The twins enjoying a ride on their scooters along the lane.

~

The simple beauty of golden wheat.

~

Daisies & wheat.

The wild flowers are beautiful in the fields around us.

~

One of the wheat fields halfway through harvesting.

~

We spot some blackberries on our way home almost ready for picking.

~

Home grown Victoria plums, hedgerow blackberries & home grown raspberries make such a pretty colour for chutney.

~

I have never used berries before in chutney. The colour was so pretty & it smelled wonderful when cooking. It is quite a runny chutney, we will see in a month or so when we try some if I will make it again.

~

Daisy passed all her GCSE's, we are so proud of her.

She is now going on to study her A levels.

~

Over the Summer we have been decorating our bedroom.

There were ten layers of old wallpaper over the beams so it took some work.

The quilt is very precious to me, I made it over a few pregnancies all by hand.

~

I thought you would like to see our little 1930's electric cooker, we use this when it is to hot too light the wood fired cooker.

~

Victoria Sponge.

I make this using the sponge recipe I have posted before.

~

The apples are nearly ready for harvesting.

~

The end of our garden is such a magical place.

~

Sun shining through our hazelnut tree.

~

Fresh eggs.

Thank you ladies.

~

The twins enjoying the last week of Summer after we hung the wash out.

~

Sweet George.

~

Fresh raspberries for the twins breakfast.

~

The marrows have done so well this year, I am trying to think of different ways to use them.

~

Plum & greengage Crumble.

A few ladies on Facebook & Instagram have asked for the recipe.

This is the crumble recipe I use all the time, sometimes I add a few oz's of oats.

Rub 5 ozs of self raising flour & 3 ozs of butter together.

Then add 3 ozs of sugar, if using oats then mix them in now.

Sprinkle sugar over fruit & then crumble mix.

Bake in a moderate oven for about 45 minutes.

We had it served warm with cream.

~

Ruth Mott's boiled fruit cake.

I make this often & would advise anyone to get her book.

~~

Victoria Plum Jam.

~

I do love the sweet taste of this beautiful jam.

~

All ready for the pantry shelved.

Both our eldest Son's gave me pretty Cath Kidston jam covers as gifts, they look to pretty on the jars.

~

A few readers have asked for a selection of my favourite cookbooks so here they are.

I do have a cupboard full of cookbooks but these are the one's I use all the time, as you can see Ruth's book is in there.

Sorry it has taken me so long.

~

I love this time of year when we harvest the fruits of our labour.

It has taken me a while to do this post sorry, the laptop lost it & I had to rewrite it.

Fondly Michelle

~

The Last Weeks of Summer

Summer is coming to an end here in the Lincolnshire Wolds, you can feel it in the air some days. Warm winds are gently blowing around the garden & leaves are slowly beginning to turn golden.
The wheat fields will very soon be harvested, a few more days of sun will turn the last few hints of green to yellow. The wheat ears sway in the breeze making a gentle sound as we walk over the fields.
~
Summer days here have been filled with enjoying our garden, harvesting, family visiting us & days out with a picnic.

~



Sweet little cheese biscuits for  tea using a wartime recipe.
~

We took a trip down to Norfolk to view a pre war car & on the way back we stopped off at a National Trust property called Oxburgh Hall.

~

The gardens were beautiful even in the English rain.

~

A National Trust plant stall, they had a wonderful books shop too, the twins got some beautiful 1950's book's.

~

The beautiful interior.

They had so many beautiful pieces of furniture.

~

The girls looking at the moat around the hall.

~

The beautiful dining room.

~

The Library.

There were so many beautiful old books in here, I could have spent all day in this room.

~

The wet vegetable gardens with lovely box hedging.

~

Wonderful old potting shed & rhubarb forcer.

~

We bought the car we went to look at.

Here she is just after being delivered with Andy, Dene & Ellie going for it's first drive.

She is a 1939 Wolseley 10, we plan to use her for shopping & trips locally after we have done a few bits to her.

~

Lemon cake for tea.

~

We went to a medieval village day at Tattershall Castle.

There were so many interesting things going on.

I love seeing candles being dipped.

~

Preparing food.

~

Cooking apple & raspberry pastries.

~

Our last gooseberries harvested.

They made two crumbles, one went in the freezer for when Grandad visited, he does love Gooseberries.

~

Andy's parent's visited from Scotland for five days.

Here they are on a beautiful walk past the farm pond & through the wheat fields.

~

A beautiful summer's day.

~

We saw this lovely family having a walk around the pond.

~

Kitty looking towards the wheat fields.

~

Glorious afternoon sunshine.

~

We have never seen a lilac poppy before, the girls dresses matched.

~

It was such a beautiful day, so peaceful & quiet.

~

Kitty playing with a thistle head.

~

The cottage garden has been giving us some beautiful blooms for inside.

~

We had a beautiful day in Cambridge with Andy's parents & Dene & Ellie.

Dene & Ellie live quite near to Cambridge so we met them there.

The weather was beautiful.

~

Punting on the river.

The old college buildings were beautiful.

This is Kings College, Andy's uncle studied here.

~

Gazing in wonder.

There were so many beautiful shops, us girls treated ourselves at Cath Kidston.

~

Historic streets.

~

Beautiful bridges.

We had a lovely picnic on the green under the tree's.

It was such a special day spent with family, we were all tired when we arrived home.

~

This is the first year we have grown onions, they are now drying in the sun.

We are so pleased with how they look, I hope they taste good too.

~

Muffins made with our abundance of raspberries.

I treated myself to a new tablecloth & oven gloves while we were in Cambridge as mine had worn through .

~

I hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of Summer.

It is a very busy time for us & this post has been a little late in coming.

I have started a Facebook page & an Instagram account too which I do update more often.

The buttons for these are at the top of the page.

Fondly Michelle

~