A surprise gift and other bits of chit chat

Special delivery

The postman delivered a small brown package for me today, I wasn't expecting anything,

so I couldn't wait to see what it was. Inside was this beautifully gift wrapped pressie. I knew at once who it was from because this person always wraps her gifts no matter how small, exquisitely.

I t was a surprise gift from my blogger friend Pam she makes the loveliest things. Inside the blue tissue paper was this little pin cushion with it's lovely beaded edges and complete with some bright coloured pins pushed in around a circle on the fabric.

On the other side is another coffee cup.

This was made from some fabric I had sent to Pam as a bit of a challenge, I had bought half a metre of the fabric to make something out of it, but I was stumped for ideas of what to use it for, so I thought I would share some with Pam. The fabric design is lots of squares of different brightly coloured coffee cups & saucers, and mugs. So when I sent some off to Pam, I never expected I would enjoy one of the results of her many talents.

Thank you so very much to Pam, and I look forward to her posting some other things she makes with the other pieces of the fabric.

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Baking

If you like baking, and especially like cup cakes for special events I can recommend this book. My son's girlfriend made him some delicious ones for his birthday recently using the recipe's from here. I was so impressed I had to buy my own copy to have a go at making something from it.

The best price seems to be from 'Amazon.co.uk' where I got it for £8.49 and no postage costs. It varies from £12.99 to £16.99 elsewhere. There are lots of lovely goodies to bake in here. bye the way 'The Hummingbird Bakery' is a famous bakery in London where they sell the cakes made from the recipes in this book.

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The Cutting Bed

Just to say that if you like dahlias, and want to add to your cutting bed then you can't get better than these 'Pink Giraffe' Dahlias, I cut them last Friday and they were already in flower for days before that on the allotment, and this photo was taken this morning and they still look fresh, I'll maybe get another day or two out of them.

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Harvests

A few photo's of the latest pickings from the allotment: some very large beetroots and two tiny ones pulled up accidentally.

Five very large tasty onions. I have pulled up around 70 ( drying off in the lottie shed) and still have more to pull, so shouldn't need to buy any for many months.



And last of all bags of French beans 'Fasold' I am picking these most days as I hate them to get too large, the runner beans are starting to come fast and furious now.


We all seem to have powdery mildew on our courgette plants which is slowing down the fruits developing, I look at other plots as I pass and everyone seems to have the same problem, I hope it doesn't spread to other squashes and pumpkins.

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Well thats about all my news over the last couple of days. The weather is foul, raining all day today so couldn't get to the lottie and I need to bring the onions home to dry out as they are overpowering the shed with the smell and the space they take up.