Apples Apples Apples

I have finally got round to using up some of the apples that were brought to me by my parents the other week. I have adapted this recipe with  around 650g of apples instead of 900g, a bit more sugar (I might have misread the instructions to cook the apples with only a portion of the sugar!) And mixed the apple mix with the oats rather than having it in a layer. And as is always the way with my oven cooked for longer!

They turned out lovely, if a little chewey in the centre.

I also made a chai syrup from this recipe I stopped at the stage of adding milk. Strained the lot and added to a pretty bottle.
Put a little in a glass and topped up with milk :D Delish, and considerably less sugary than the starbucks version!

Now off to the first dance class of the new term :D

Presents from home

Yesterday my mum came by to drop off some of my sisters clothing and other accumulated treasures and she brought some fruit from their garden with her.
Well I say some fruit. It was quite a lot!
Two a bucket of cooking apples, a bag full of eating apples, some Rose hips, a trug full of two different types of pears and yet another type of eating apple.

Now I just have to figure out what to do with them all!

Instagram

Well I thought I would share a few photos with you.

I have recently downloaded the instagram ap onto my iphone and have had some fun with it.

The second of my orchids from IKEA has re flowered. I love these plants they are so bring and really have been worth the money. 

I have one that I cut down when the flowers were over and hasn't re grown yet, this one I didn't get round to cutting down in time and it sprouted a shoot from part the way down the stem. :D

I am getting slightly worried about my tomatoes not having time left this autumn to ripen, and if the weather does turn showery like it has been threatening then that is cause for concern about blight.So with this in mind I picked on of the tomatoes to have a go at ripening it inside. It is still green and solid so this experiment is definitely still ongoing.

This is a slightly more random photo and taken in my iphones normal (and not very good) style. But good news I finally found a coat I liked which didn't cost an outrageous amount of money. :D Autumn is coming fast and I am looking forward to this because I get to wear snuggly jumpers and ... warm coats, but I decided I needed a coat which was a bit brighter than my plain black one I already had. 

I have a white one with black polkadots :o shocking I know! But the sleeves are too tight on this to wear it with any form of jumper so it is more of a summer evening coat. 

Here is my new Autumn Winter coat:

Birdsong and coffee cups

Well hasn't the weather been interesting lately! What is it with us British and discussing the weather? But with hurricane winds and torrential down pours in the last week its not that surprising that it is featuring in a number of gardeners thoughts.

Thankfully today the weather is gorgeous again, and I have the doors and windows open to try and get the house a little airing. Although there is a little chill in the air at the moment. This is nice as it gives me excuses to wear nice snuggly jumpers and boots :D

Sitting in my kitchen next to the open doors just now birdsong in the garden caught my attention and I looked to see a robin perched in the plum tree singing its little head off. It is so nice to see that there is a lot of wildlife here still. And what is nicer than a short distraction from work in the form of birdsong. 

I have been making this morning and am in the process of creating a set of coffee cup sleeves...

Remembering them...

Well it is hard to believe that 10 years have gone by since the devastating attacks in America on 9/11. 

Its one of those days where everyone knows where they were when it happened. We don't seem to have many of them now, and when we do they are only really for sad things. The other one I remember is the death of Princess Diana. The most recent one will be the royal wedding, it is nice to have a good date that pulls everyone together.

Remembering where we were when we heard the news is all part of remembering the people it affected most. 

I was 14 at the time and was in school, one of my friends was off ill that day and we kept on receiving updates from her as it was happening because she was watching the news. It didn't sink in properly that it was really happening until I was in the car on the way from the bus stop to a dentists appointment and heard it on the radio.

My thoughts are with those who lost people that day. Sue posted a lovely poem and I echo the sentiment.

Outdoor Tomatoes

I have tried growing tomatoes for the first time this year. Unlike a lot of gardeners out there I don't have a greenhouse, I have a weird plastic tent thing that I used to start some of the seedlings off this spring but that is no use for fully grown plants. And isn't very good in strong sunlight as it seems to melt slightly.

So I have had to grow my tomatoes out in the open and hope that they didn't get hit by blight or anything nasty like that! This does mean that my garden seems to be slightly behind other gardens as I have not had any ripe fruits yet.

But I do have my first ever green tomatoes growing nicely :D Happy days!

I do have my tomatoes growing slightly weirdly, I haven't taken out all the side shoots as I didnt have the support to grow them that high and am more interested in number of tomatoes than the size of each of them. 

I may yet regret this decision :p

 

And yes I do have bright orange nails!

 
Fruit on the golden cherry tomato plant still very deep green but hopefully lightening soon :D

Fruits on the Beefsteak tomato plant, some have started to lighten already but some are still a deep green colour. The fruit on this plant came out first and so is further along in the ripening process than the other plant I believe. 

The only down side is where the plant is located this one gets a few hours less direct sunlight than the cherry tomato plant. 

Only time will tell me how this will actually affect the fruits.

Absence

Recently I have not been on here at all. I have been having some personal issues and so have been hiding away in my own little world at home.

On top of this I have been ill too and was confined to my bed for nearly a week! Overall not so much fun.

I will be back soon with an update on the veg in the garden. What went well this year and what didn't.

I will leave you saying that there has been some progress on my tomatoes which is wonderful, there are a number of green fruits teasing me. I am waiting for them to turn red...