Just a few veggies!

Well, Christmas & New Year seem a distant memory now.....not that I'm complaining....it all goes by in a bit of a blur for me (& not because I'm in a permanent alcoholic haze either!) so it's always good to get back to normal, although the house always seems too quiet when the family all leave!

Of course in typical UK fashion, we didn't have any snow at Christmas, just rain, rain & yet more rain, but we have it now...just a little bit late!

I should be thinking about making Valentine & Easter pieces but instead, I'm thinking of summer & harvesting all these lovely fresh veg!  Yeah, right, I should be so lucky....last year my poor vegetable garden was more like a swimming pool the whole summer & to venture into it at all, I almost needed flippers....even the runner beans that usually grow through anything, failed miserably. I think I was lucky to get around a dozen beans from 6 plants! So these little offerings are some of what I hope I'll be harvesting this year.........

A New Year & A New Direction!

Does anyone else feel like me...that they just don't know where the time goes (a great Dylan/Judy Collins song!)? I can't believe that the last time I actually had the time to blog was over a month ago, not that I really have time right now either, with a houseful of family (11 of us, I think!), a joint cooking in the oven & the veggies to get preparing, while the men are in the local rugby club discussing the important things in life that will no doubt get sillier & sillier as the pints are consumed!

A girl needs a little bit of peace & quiet though & before I start the marathon of feeding them all, here I am with my laptop, some nuts & a LARGE gin & tonic, making a very quick blog post...if nothing else, just to let you know that I am still alive & kicking......just!

I have had absolutely NO time to get my clays out to make food as the making of the real thing is almost all consuming with so many hungry people in the house  BUT since my visit to the desert in March I've had a couple of schleich kitties sitting on my workbench waiting to get a nice wooly coat. They started life as conjoined twins, but after a few operations with my scalpel to separate them & a little bit of clay to give them new tails & the odd new paw, they were ready to "get dressed"!

Scraps has been a little naughty & raided the wool basket, getting himself wrapped up in wool in the process!

While Tiger has been even naughtier & has pulled over the goldfish bowl when no-one was looking but is sitting next to it trying to pretend that the overturned bowl, with fish flapping in the water has absolutely nothing to do with him at all!

I can see that there will be more little animals getting new coats in 2013!

A Christmas Commission!

At Last! A finished Christmas cart...there were times when I didn't think I'd actually ever get it finished! I seemed to be making & icing cookies for weeks & was at risk of severe eye strain in the process :-). I do hope my mini friend who commissioned it loves it as much as I do....but then, if she doesn't then I get to keep it myself because I don't think I'll be making another of these in a hurry!

Ta Da..complete, but difficult to photograph!

Cookies, cookies & more cookies!

A choccie Santa, gingerbread men & gingerbread house!

Sun, Sea & Sand....(& plenty of Mojitos!)...here I come!

It's that time again, thank goodness, when I'm off to the desert to stay with my youngest & the new baby....not so new anymore, but 6 mths old now & becoming her own little person. So I thought that before I go ( a week today & too much to get done before then...help!) I'd leave you with the last few things that I have been working on!
Recently, apart from a slight diversion into toffee apples, or caramel apples as they are known Stateside, I've been in a really fruity mood!

                                                           An overload of fruits!

                                                        A bowl of pears with a branch.

 

 A bowl of plums & a branch!

                                                 A bowl of cherries & a branch......this is getting monotonous so, finally, "Making Toffee Apples" featuring a magically "floating" apple in the process of being covered in yummy toffee!

These will be appearing on eBay in the near future, after all, I need to be able to pay for my holiday in the desert! LOL

It's been ages........

Where on earth does the time go? I can't believe that it's so long since I blogged...it seems like only yesterday that I was making fruit trifle, not over 2 months ago! It'll be Christmas before I know it!

I've been making some Halloween "bits" recently, even though Halloween isn't big over here in the UK, it's still fun to put some pieces together!

 Indispensible for any self respecting witch.....some severed fingers preserved in formaldehyde!

 Some moist Graveyard brownies!

& some good old cupcakes decorated for Halloween with a fondant witch's hat!

Fresh fruit trifle!

I've had the resin out again & this time there were no heart attacks or any other distractions to bother me...apart from the fact that I swear I'm beginning to go rusty!  It has not stopped raining for over 2 weeks now & when I say "raining", try thinking monsoon-like rain.....but without the heat! It actually stayed dry yesterday so I managed to get the grass cut in most places...there were other parts of the garden though that were no-go areas...unless I wanted myself & the grass cutter to sink, never to be seen again!
I began to get excited today.....grey skies, but no rain....how silly can I be.....guess what...yep.... it's absolutely chucking it down again

Anyway, even though it is a dessert that I wouldn't thank you for.....I can't stand anything "cakey" in desserts & the thought of soggy sponge fingers drenched in alcohol, lurking in underneath the lovely fruit filled jelly & whipped cream, is enough to make me run a mile!

I much prefer the miniature version of it......it's not edible & therefore safe!

Hundreds of clams, setting resin & heart attacks!

This time last week I was totally oblivious to the chaos that was going to engulf me the next day & was happily making loads of tiny clams.....a long, drawn out process where each shell is made separately, baked, a tiny clam added, baked again & then finally the 2 shells put together &baked once more.  On the Monday night, I heaved a sigh of relief...all was ready for mixing the resin the following morning & FINALLY putting the "Making Clam Chowder" together!
Tuesday morning dawned with still no inkling of things to come...the hubby seemed his usual self & went off to cut his elderly parents' grass (taking advantage of a very rare dry day!) & I happily mixed up the resin for the chowder.  BIG mistake!

I had just filled the pans & sour dough bread bowls & was just about to add the prepared clams when he came home.....now anyone who works with resin knows that there is a "perfect time" to add things to it to stop them sinking to the bottom & out of sight.....my resin was just at that stage when my hubby decided that he would suffer an MI (heart attack)...pretty inconsiderate timing I would say! :-)  You can imagine the organised chaos that followed....a call to the ambulance service...2 of which duly arrived, which was just as well as the ECG monitor in the 1st one kept saying "No Battery", 20 mins later we were off with blues & twos blaring to our nearest cardio hospital 45mins away.  I've always wanted to be an ambulance driver as in no way could I be described as a slow driver & am in love with the idea of peeps getting out of my way when I want to get somewhere! LOL......getting to ride in one was the next best thing I suppose!

4 hours later the hubby was out of emergency surgery having had a 12" clot removed from his coronary artery, a stent fitted & saying that he felt better than he had done for a long time! You'll be relieved to know that he came home 2 days later & almost a week later seems to be making a very good recovery! Just as well as you might have guessed that I'm not the best nurse to be had!

Meanwhile back in my workshop, my resin had set beyond the point of being able to add anything to it & I was about to despair....all that work wasted...see why I call the timing inconsiderate! LOL.....the good news, however, is that with a bit of effort, I managed to save all my work of the few days before & against all the odds, my clam chowder was completed....& I had enough clams left to put together a pan of simple steamed clams.  So all is well (at the minute).........both hubby & clam chowder are well!