Making Good Use

Bullseye

And we officially have a ripe tomato.  Very small, very red and very tasty.  Can't wait for the rest of them to ripen up now.

Fool

In a bid to have a change from just stewed plums I thought I'd get all creative this morning and make a plum fool.  Not having made a fool before I checked through some recipes on the internet and they seemed pretty darn easy - just stewed fruit swirled round with wipped cream.  So off I pop to Aldi to get a few bits and bobs (the milk having turned to cottage cheese literally overnight - how did that happen in a fridge!) and got myself some single cream.

I get back home, decide to make an iced lemon cake (the organic unwaxed lemons were looking a bit 'tired and emotional' and needed using up) so got out the hand mixer.  Great thought I, I'll check which attachments I'll need to whip up the cream later on.  Whaaaaaat!  Apparently you can't whip single cream!  Thinking this was some over-fussy manufacturers hype I double checked with my Mum and, nope, you can't whip single cream - only double or whipping cream.  B*ggerations.  So it'll just be boring old stewed plums again for pudding tonight.  Or a slice of iced lemon cake.

Sunday Bargains

Yesterday, for the first time in quite a few weeks, we went to a car boot sale.  The weather was just right for it and there were masses and masses of both sellers and buyers - probably the biggest boot sale of the year as yet.

I found a few new tops for my nephew and half a dozen or so books which I hoped would be good for re-sale (they weren't, and are now in the shed awaiting a trip to the charity shop.)

I also bought a huge peg bag full of old wooden pegs for £1.00.  That should put a stop to my obsessive colour matching when hanging out the washing as it will now just be a choice of wood or wood!

Then there was the enormous bottle of Vidal Sassoon shampoo for 20p - very nice and has made my hair lovely and silky, six bottle of various posh French ungents - 20p each, and a small tub of Body Shop Body Butter for 30p.  If nothing else at least I'll be smelling sweet in the next few weeks.  (The Cath Kidston towel was a birthday present and is so nice I don't want to use it as yet.)

Fungi Fabric

I picked up this mushroom and toadstool patterned tablecloth a couple of years ago and apart from making one small cosmetic bag from a small bit of it the rest has just been lurking in the fabric boxes ever since. 

All of a sudden I got the urge to make a cushion cover from it.  The front was cut from two triangular corner pieces to try and make the best of the red polka-dot border.

The back is my usual simples (as the meerkat would say) envelope-style opening cut from the middle portion of the cloth. 

The feather cushion pad was a recent charity shop buy and was inside an Ikea / Cath Kidston Rosali cushion cover which was subsquently sold on ebay for a nice profit so, technically, the cushion pad cost me nothing.

I'm quite pleased with how it all turned out and the cushion is certainly livening up my dark green settee very nicely.

Brimming Over

This is the second of the salad leaf pots I planted out about six weeks ago.  I would guess the (very shallow) pot is about 18 inches in diameter and it's really brimming over with salad leaves. 

We've pretty much eaten all the leaves from the first pot now, although as I was quite careful cutting the leaves with scissors some of them are sprouting up again so all is not quite finished there.  Yesterday I planted up another two shallow pots with salad leaf seeds and still there are loads left in the packet.  I'm not sure how much I paid for the seeds originally but I do remember they came from Aldi a couple of years ago and were sold as part of a 'grow your own salad set.'

I've also just planted up a small wooden container with coriander seeds which I hope might also be a good addition to salads.  They were part of a 'grow your own herb set' from Woolworths which I found at the 'Coffee and Jumble' the other week.  I assumed the seeds would be long out of date and really only bought it for the container but, nope, the seeds have got a use by date up until next year, although I have had good results in the past with seeds that are a couple of years past their use by date.

Flushed with my albeit small gardening successes this year I'm already keeping my eye open for some really large pots which I can plant up with runner beans and sweet peas next summer.  I've never had any success at all with sweet peas but, fingers crossed, in a pot, in a fairly slug-free area, they might do OK and I do love their sugar-sweet colours and their beautiful scent.

The First of Many

Yesterday I picked in the first colander-full of plums, the first of very very many I would imagine.  The poor trees are simply groaning under the weight of all the fruit.  Indeed, one of the larger branches has totally collapsed since I was away and has pretty much sheered off under all that weight.  Sadly, the plums on the most laden tree are not ripe as yet so I'm hoping there won't be too many snapped branches before they are ready for picking.  As luck would have it the rotary clothes line is managing to prop up some of the heaviest branches so those should remain OK.  Hanging out the washing is becoming more and more tricky but that's a small price to pay for so many plums.

I stewed up this first lot (very yummy with a dollop of clotted cream on top) and also gave a bagful to the next-door neighbours.  When I went shopping I bought in four bags of preserving sugar - I'm determined to give plum jam a go this year and wouldn't mind trying to make some Chinese-style savoury plum sauce too.  My fingers are itching to have a go with the jam and I may just be tempted to make a couple of jars from the already ripe plums - just to see how it works out.

Although we've not had the 'barbecue summer' so widely predicted by the Met Office in April, the weather we have had seems to have suited the fruit trees very well.  Some of the apples are so large they look like they could be ready for picking - although early August does seem a tad too soon to me.  Anyone know if apples can be picked this early?

In Praise of the Humble Jumble

Mum and I managed to get to a jumble sale this morning, and rather good it was too.  August is an unusual time to hold a jumble sale (traditionally they seemed to run from early September through to April), but this one was in aid of urgent repairs to a church organ which had been damaged after the lead was systematically stripped from the church roof.  The full story can be found here.  I can't imagine what sort of low life would want to strip the lead from a church roof, nor how they can live with their consciences, but, sadly, it seems to be an all too common problem these days.

Anyhoo, Mum and I very much enjoyed ourselves as the jumble sale was very neatly laid out and there weren't too many other people pushing and shoving so it was easy to have a really good look around.  We spent about three-quarters of an hour there and came out well pleased with our finds.

I found some pretty vintage 'Bristol Pottery' coffee cups and saucers and a couple of other bits and bobs

Including this unused vintage tweed purse.

All in all Mum probably did better than me as she got a new and unused salad spinner ('Swiss Made' so probably not cheap originally).  I would have snapped it up myself as I could do with one at home but it was a bit bulky to lug back to Essex on the train.  She also got a nice cloth bag (now hanging out on the line) and a double leather photo frame (for yet more photos of DN.) 

There had also been a gorgeous circular bevel-edged wall mirror which both Mum and I had picked up and checked out and which both of us put back - now both of us are wishing we'd bought it as it was really nice.  But that's the one downside to jumble sales - he who hesitates is lost.