Country Days in May

I always think May is the loveliest of all months.

Here at the cottage all those beautiful May flowers are in full bloom with all their perfume, the beautiful Lilac scents the garden.

We have many bushes of white & lilac.

Butterflies have gathered & this time of year are laying their eggs.

There is much to do outside, the sunflowers, marrow & bean seeds that the twins have planted are now popping their little heads out of the soil in the greenhouse.

Sweetcorn is ready to be planted & the tomatoes are growing well.

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The cottage garden is an abundance of blue's at the moment.

Bluebells & sweet Forget me Nots.

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A light fruit cake from a wartime leaflet.

This recipe used very little sugar.

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Coconut Buns for Saturday tea.

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We had a lovely few days when Andy's parents visited from Scotland.

I made a wartime dinner of potato & cheese pie.

This was found in a new wartime leaflet that I found a month ago.

We were given a huge bag of potatoes by the local farmer so this was an ideal recipe to try. lots of mash potato.

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Mash some potatoes, mix grated cheese, salt & pepper in to it.

Then layer potato, slices of tomato, potato again then top with more grated cheese.

I did use more cheese than the recipe called for with it being a wartime recipe.

It was very tasty, Kitty who is not a great meat eater loved it so I will be making it again.

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Planting cress .

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They chose some antique tea cups to sow them in.

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The girls cress in egg sandwiches for Saturday tea.

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I received some lovely old magazine's from the 1930's & 1940's in the post, also a new knitting book.

The knitting book is full of vintage patterns & some useful information on using vintage patterns.

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More rhubarb & more jam.

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Another batch ready for the pantry.

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Another tea cosy, this time I chose Spring colours from some left over wool.

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A quick chocolate cake for tea.

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An afternoon spent making pretty dresses.

They love cutting & glueing.

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A little early morning visitor in the rhubarb patch.

The baby rabbits are so sweet but they do like the beetroot seedlings, so Andy has been making arches from chicken wire to protect them.

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Danny turned fourteen on the 12th of May.

He chose a chocolate cake with butter icing & sweets on top.

We had a lovely evening celebrating with family.

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Trying out different ways of using my basic bread dough.

I used cinnamon, sugar & butter to make a cinnamon swirl loaf, we toasted it for Sunday tea.

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Freshly cut Lilac from the garden.

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Wellington Cake.

This is a cake I have never baked before, it is an old 1950's recipe.

It was as light as a feather, I will make it many times as Mary loved it.

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Recipe for Wellington Cake.

8 ozs self raising flour.

pinch of salt.

4 ozs margarine.

8 ozs sugar.

1/4 pint of milk.

2 eggs.

Cream the margarine & sugar together. Then gradually beat in the beaten eggs. Fold in the flour & salt & then add milk to give a soft dropping consistency.

Bake for 30 ~ 35 minutes in two lined 8 inch cake tins at 375 degrees F

Sandwich together when cooled with jam or other filling.

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More experimenting with my basic bread dough.

This time I added sultana's, cinnamon & honey.

The girls do not like mixed peel so this recipe worked out well for them.

They made a lovely breakfast treat.

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Learning to crochet.

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I made a couple of dish cloths, I am hooked & find it so much quicker than knitting especially for things like dish cloths. I have bought the girls some crocheting hooks & they can't wait to get started on some more dish cloths.

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Thank you my dear readers for all your lovely comments, I do love to hear from you.

Enjoy this beautiful Springtime day.

Fondly Michelle

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