Spring Lambs & the Cottage at Easter Time.

Spring has come to the cottage garden in it's loveliness.
Winter has departed & now the garden is softened with young green buds & leaves just about to open. It will not be long until the wild cherry trees in the grave yard behind the cottage garden are full of their beautiful dark pink blossom.
In the nuttery near the farm it is Primrose time & in the garden too. This delicate pale yellow flower smells so fresh & brings back fond memories of Springtime as a child.
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The Spring lambs are being born at the farm in the village, it is such an amazing sight to see these little bundles an hour after their birth.
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Mary doing her vintage puzzle from the 1940's, this was one of her gifts from us for her birthday.

Both of the girls do love vintage toys & games.

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A touch of Easter on the kitchen dresser.

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Easter touches on the Parlour mantle.

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I finished the little patchwork knitting bags for the twins for Easter.

I remember having this book as a child, the girls are so excited to get started.

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Making Easter fairy cakes for Easter Sunday & some for the villagers.

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The girls made five pretty plates to take to our friends from church who live in the village.

It brings such joy to my heart to see how full of life & happiness these little girls are & how much they want to give to other's.

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The village farmer rung us up so we could come & see the first Spring lambs & watch how the new mother's tend to these little lambs in the first few hours of life.

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There were lots of smiles.

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The sheep in the back ground are waiting for their lambs to be born.

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The twins making Easter cards.

Our dear friend Maggie from Ireland sent these craft kits for the girls to make.

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Easter Morning.

The air was damp for the egg hunt but it did not dampen the girls enjoyment.

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Soon this apple tree will be full of blossom.

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The Easter Lunch Table.

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Dene & Ellie made this pretty Easter cake.

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We had such a special Easter Sunday shared with Dene & Ellie & Harry & Kate.

After lunch we went again to the farm to see even more new born lambs.

These are Lincolnshire Longwool sheep, their babies are so beautiful.

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The sun came out & Daisy took this photo of us having a lovely walk around the farm's little lake.

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Empire Cake for Sunday Tea on a new cake stand I found at an antique shop.

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8 oz self raising flour.

4 oz margarine.

4 oz sugar.

4 oz sultana's & 2 oz's glace cherries.

1/2 teaspoon of mixed spice.

1 egg 

1/8 pint of milk.

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Rub the margarine into the flour.

add all the other ingredients 7 mix with milk & beaten egg.

Grease a 6 inch tin & line.

Bake at 350 o for 1 1/2 hours.

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I finished reading a set of Amish novels by Beth Wiseman & enjoyed them so much.

Now I am reading another Nella Last diary. As soon as I started I was back in Nella's life, she has such a beautiful way of talking about nature & her beautiful day trips to her beloved Lake District.

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Two beautiful books that I found for the twins.

They are about how we used to live one hundred years ago in a town house & in a country cottage, of course the cottage book was our favourite.

The illustrations are beautiful, there is so much to talk about in these books.

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Apple Crisp.

I had some apples to use up so I did a family favourite.

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Thank you dear readers for your lovely comments, each one is read & loved.

Enjoy the beautiful Springtime.

Fondly Michelle 

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A Week Full of Blessings.

I would like you all to meet George our little Kitten.

He is full of fun & keeps everyone on their toes.

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Little George is just eight weeks old.

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His name came from a vintage book that the girls have called Naughty George.

I do hope we don't have to use the naughty word though!

The twins love the Blackberry Farm series from the 40's & 50's.

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It was our eldest daughter Amy's 21st birthday this week.

She came & spent a beautiful day with us & we had a birthday tea.

Here are a few of the things I made for tea.

Strawberry & Vanilla cake, butterfly cakes, fairy cakes & cheese straws.

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The cheese straws are one of the twins favourite tea time treats.

 

Cheese Straws.

 

4 ozs self raising flour

pinch of salt

Cayenne pepper or Mustard powder

The twins only like mild foods so I use the mustard powder.

2 ozs margarine

3 ozs grated strong cheddar cheese

1 egg beaten

 

Rub the fat in to all the dry ingredients, then add the grated cheese & combine with a beaten egg.

Use your hands to combine like making pastry.

Roll out on a floured board & cut in to preferred shape, at Christmas we use little cutters.

Bake 400f for about 10 minutes.

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We had a trip to Anglesey Abbey on the Sunday after we went to Wimpole Hall.

This is another Estate owned now by the National Trust.

It has beautiful park land, a working water mill & house.

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A beautiful old gate in the estate.

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Lode Mill.

This is a lovely working water mill in the grounds.

We bought some flour that had just been ground.

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The miller bagging up our flour.

I bought a little recipe book from the mill, I can't wait to use our lovely fresh flour.

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Walls inside the mill.

Simple bunches of wheat.

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Walking though parkland towards the Abbey.

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Walking up the drive to Anglesey Abbey.

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The parlour.

This room had wonderful rich panelling all the way round it.

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The flower room.

They get all the flowers ready here for arranging.

The estate grows so many flowers, it was lovely seeing how they use them in the displays throughout the house.

The parkland was beautiful, the children learn so much from these days out with out even knowing they are learning.

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This is a fruit cake recipe I use but this time instead of fruit I added chocolate chips in the round cake & dried cut dates in the loaf cake.

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Corgi Cottage Soup from Tasha Tudor's cookbook.

This was the first time I have made this soup & everyone liked it.

Perfect with fresh bread.

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George had spotted a butterfly that had flown in, he does remind me of Tom Kitten.

 Perhaps we will have to stuff newspaper in the old range in the hall, we have a hole that goes right to the chimney pot!

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Little George has been sleeping on my lap while I have been writing this post, he loves to be loved & is such a funny little thing.

Enjoy your day.

Fondly Michelle

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