A Lovely Day III

So last post I mentioned that my mum and sisters were coming up to visit for the day. It was lovely. We started with tea and these bisuits...


I found the recipe on the Lakeland website. It's like shortbread, but flavoured with almond extract and topped with flaked almonds. You make the dough into balls and flatten them with a fork - giving Almond Fork Biscuits. They're good. I got fifteen out of this recipe and they're almost all gone. They're easy and yummy - try them!

Anyway, moving on from the biscuits... After a while T came home and had lunch with us, which was lovely, and then after he'd gone back to work we spent the afternoon crafting and chattering.


It was so lovely to be able to spend the day with them.

Round Up, Roll On

Following on from my last couple of posts, this weekend was full of happiness. It was ram packed with friends, games, food and fun. We had some friends staying over, we caught up with others, we planned a holiday, we got excited about weddings. We talked craft, food, games and life. All good things.

On Sunday afternoon we went over to T's parents to put up, clean and dry out the tents they'd lent us for our camping trip. We stayed for games and dinner - delicious roast! On the way home, T pointed out that we hadn't eaten a meal alone all weekend. Dinner last night was special in its ordinariness - we snuggled up on the sofa with our bowls of chicken rice.

This week I am excited about:

New challenges

Seeing Mum and my sisters

Fun things in the mail

I have just started reading Beijing Coma by Ma Jian. I'm not very far into it but so far it's pretty good. I know almost nothing about modern chinese history so I think it will teach me a lot. Has anyone else read it?


On with the week!

The Happiness Files

This is a new topic for my blog, but something I've been thinking about for quite a long time. This week I was inspired to start writing about it by two things.

Firstly, I saw this on PostSecret:


And secondly, I saw this quotation*:


So this week I wrote about a few little things that made me happy. And I would love to know some of your thoughts.

Do you agree with the PostSecret card and the quotation? What does happiness mean to you?

Small and Happy Things

This week...

I started reading The Grace Outpouring by Roy Godwin and Dave Roberts. This book is amazing, I was late to Besom because I couldn't put it down this morning. Wow. Just wow.

Yesterday...

I baked these chocolate chip muffins for my homegroup and we had a great discussion of Colossians 1:24-2:5.

Today...

I photographed this:


What made you happy this week?

Autumn Camping

This weekend was our home group's camping trip. It felt longer than a weekend somehow, maybe because we crammed so many different things into the weekend. I was so happy that it didn't rain. It was cold though, very cold. It's all about layers. And eating plenty. We definitely ate plenty. The only slight downside was that it took about half an hour to heat the water for tea and hot chocolate. But apart from that - the food was good...



Despite the cold, autumn is a lovely time of year for camping. Crunchy leaves and cool air. We were surrounded by beautiful autumn colour. Birds flying south, a grasshopper visitor and a butterfly. Nature is truly lovely.


It was a lovely weekend.



That said, I enjoyed my warm soft bed last night. And my cup of tea.

My Evening

T and I spend most of our evenings together. It doesn't often happen that one of us goes out somewhere alone. Last night, he had one of the sporadically organised boys nights. I think they're supposed to be once a month, but seeing as it's boy organised, planned and run...it becomes a little less regular.

He left at about 7.30pm and once I'd cooked dinner I curled up on the sofa to watch the second part of the latest BBC adaptation of Emma. Ahh, a sofa, blankets and a period drama. What more could a girl want?

When that had finished I began making blueberry muffins from this recipe. I'd seen on sale blueberries in the supermarket earlier in the week, and was reminded of the delicious raspberry muffins we were served for breakfast on our anniversary weekend away.


I had to try. And this is how they came out...


I'd have liked if they'd risen a little more, but we tried them this morning and they were good. I'm definitely excited about the muffins-for-breakfast idea.

I also put our honeymoon photos in to an album last night - T went shopping and came back with these. I will put our wedding cards into the black one when I get some more time.


Finally I rounded off the night with a call to my sisters. I only got to talk to one of them in the end but it was so lovely to catch up with her.

Now I'm off to fly solo at Besom for the day. This weekend brings a camping trip with friends. Hopefully it won't rain all weekend and I'll have some photos to share next week. Have a lovely weekend!

Appreciation Revolution

I'm guest blogging today over at Life's Chocolates. Usually you'll find a lovely lady called Sam over there writing about life, work, friendship, family, and a whole host of other topics. Lately Sam's invited some other bloggers to borrow her space and write on the topic of appreciation and she kindly asked me to join in!

If you've found your way over here from Life's Chocolates, thanks for visiting!

And in the spirit of appreciation - right now I am appreciating the delicious smell of the chicken I threw into the slow cooker before I went out this morning. I love the crockpot...and I love that it's name always makes T laugh.

Life in Colour

Besom has a day of prayer today. I spent extra time there on Friday afternoon setting up for it, and loved being creative with the different areas of the hut. I have to head over there in about half an hour. As it's a late start today I decided to use my extra time productively by doing some cleaning. I'm on a bit of a clearing, tidying, re-organising kick at the moment. I'm hoping to repaint some drawers this month, and I cleared some messy paper filing trays this weekend.

My lovely Besom boss also brought five of her ballgowns over for me to try on as I'd mentioned a fancy wedding we're going to in November. I had a lovely dressing up session in the evening.

We went to visit T's parents on Saturday and I swapped Human Traces for Beijing Coma by Ma Jian. (I liked hearing some of your reading thoughts last post. You're obviously better at seeing books through than I am!) We went for a lovely autumny walk in the woods and enjoyed the colours...

I Read

I finished Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris yesterday. It has been a welcome break from struggling through Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks. I'm not enjoying it at all, although I remember getting a comment a few months ago by someone saying they loved it. For me, so far, the characters aren't engaging and I don't particularly find their studies of asylums and methods of treatment very interesting. So I'm not a fan.

I've been reading it anyway though, mainly because I didn't have another new book to read. I'm quite happy to go back to old favourites, but it's never quite the same once you know the ending, is it? That said, I re-read Little Women recently and adored it. I'd forgotten how much I loved it. Afterwards I went straight on to Good Wives, the sequel and liked that a lot too. I think I'll have to hunt out a copys of Little Men and Jo's Boys.


As we visited my parents this weekend I have a new borrowed book to get stuck into - A Parrot in the Pepper Tree by Chris Stewart. I've read his previous book, Driving Over Lemons and enjoyed it - it's quirky and amusing, so I have high hopes for this one.

I'm not sure I'll go back to Human Traces. Unlike Chris Stewart's books, there isn't much humour in it. I like to giggle, or at least smile while I'm reading. It's not vital, but it definitely helps. I have no compunctions about giving up on a book. I'll try most things but if I'm not enjoying it, I don't feel I have to finish. Zadie Smith's White Teeth was another one I started but didn't get on with.

What about you? If you've started a book but aren't enjoying it, do you need to finish it? Or are you happy to give up half way through like me? What would you recommend if I was to go book shopping, what should I look out for?

A Card, Some Rain, A Book.

We spent two really lovely days with my parents and sisters this weekend. We ate, played games, snuggled on the sofa and watched films. I even made some cards with Mum - I was especially pleased to make the last wedding card for our trio of upcoming weddings. The bride and groom are stylish and creative people and I was lacking in inspiration until I saw some lovely papers in Mum's supply. Once I had all the elements it still took ages to figure out a layout, but we had fun doing it and here's a little look at it.


Today it has been dripping rainy wetness all day. I loved it. It makes sitting on the sofa now feel even more warm and snug. New stripy socks also made me happy today.


I am reading Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris. So far I like it, although I have a strange feeling that I've started it once before and didn't get very far. Just a hint of deja vu - but clearly this time it's gripping me more. I'm intrigued by the secrets and hidden past that the narrator is hinting at.

My Life is One Third Food?

Should I be concerned that eight out of my twenty four September photos are of food or drink? Or should I just face the fact that I am very interested in food and move on?


Oh well, I love my September collage. So many good memories in there. I have an impression of it being a less than easy month - being ill and having school related struggles but there was a lot of good stuff in there too. A lot of time with T. A lot of craft. And, ok, a lot of food.

October, I'm looking forward to you already. I'm going to be less rigid in my photo taking but hopefully I'll have another collage at the end to remind me of the best bits.

Last night T and I went babysitting. At this house, the babysitters are always well looked after - food and drinks are left out for you on a tray in the kitchen. The seven year old had added something to it yesterday:


{Please don't eat all the minstrels please leave some for the CHILDREN}

Today: packing for our weekend visiting the family, and some shopping. Have a good weekend!