RHS Harlow Carr

Nothing exciting this weekend, but good progress on a few things. We spent most of Saturday painting windows (a bit late in the year, but hey-ho), and have probably done a bit less than half. We had a day out on Sunday and went to Harlow Carr, which is looking lovely (as you might expect).

RHS Harlow Carr (© Ian 2017)

Most of Monday was spent with the bees, who are winding down for the autumn. And today was spent making a bit of progress on our bathroom renovation plan (ie, progress on making a plan), and measuring the garden paths. Having previously used forestry/hedging chippings for these, we're planning to upgrade to aggregate. It's more expensive in the first place, but shouldn't need replacing every few years, which is both a lot of effort, and ongoing expense. The trouble is getting a suitably large load here, given the access difficulties—and in deciding on a satisfactory type of gravel...

Houseguests

It's been a while, but we had many of our university friends here for the weekend; all on Saturday, and they left in waves on Saturday, Sunday, and tomorrow. It's been good to see them all!

Paint

So much paint.

It's been a busy few days, since David and Ann left, getting work done on the preservatory and workshop, mainly so that the dining room can be tidied (it's currently a warehouse of beehive parts, and some more domestic stuff that lives out there) before we have a house full of guests next weekend.

We've primed, painted, and top-coated the three walls of the preservatory that we've plastered, as well as painting the skirting boards. The floor, which was still bare plywood around the perimeter, is now also painted (in the same green we started with a couple of years ago). The two windows in the gable end of the room, which were still single-glazed, have been replaced by the ever-effective John, with double-glazed windows that match (kind of; they're landscape aspect ratio, unlike the rest, which are all portrait) the rest of the front of the house. They look really good.

In the workshop, as well as tidying and sorting, we've painted the breeze block walls, which were stained and sooty, and are now a lovely white. The ceiling, which especially near the boiler was horrible, was primed with some remarkably effective shellac based primer, and is now beautifully clean white. It looks so much nicer in there, especially after also painting the floor (concrete paving slab) with a green garage floor paint. It looks really nice, and will be a lot easier to keep clean, compared to eternally-dusty concrete.

We even got rid of a load of plasterboard scraps, which have remained unused since the big insulate and remodel, and are likely to remain so.

Lastly, everything came back in from the dining room, and the preservatory is starting to look really ordered, with a big stock of beekeeping parts and equipment arrayed along the front benches.

Visit

It's been a weekend of splendid relaxation, aided immeasurably by the company of Ann and David. There has been considerable coffee drinking, baked good crafting, game playing, and even a film (Monsters University, which was great fun).

Someone (who shall remain nameless) decided we should make eclairs. Chocolate and salted caramel eclairs. It was a fine plan. (&copy Ian 2017)

Frankly, more weekends should be like this.

Enjoyment only slightly dampened by a missing jigsaw piece (&copy Ian 2017)

In (belated) honour of Yorkshire Day, we had Yorkshire Puddings as all three courses of dinner.

Starter with gravy (© Ian 2017)

Toad in the Hole as a main (© Ian 2017)

And served with honey as dessert (© Ian 2017)

Plaster Progress

It's been a weekend of two main activities: working on the preservatory and workshop, and checking on the bees (which took most of Saturday, and a bit of Monday). The bees are doing well:

Bee hive entrances (© Ian 2017)

Work on the house is also going quite smoothly. We started by sorting out the workshop a fair bit— tidying, and moving things in order to build a stud wall dividing the workshop from the section that houses the boiler and where firewood gets stored inside before it's burned. We got most of the way there on Sunday afternoon, before finishing it on Monday afternoon, which let us get started with plastering. Both workshop and preservatory are done, barring the back wall of the preservatory, which we've had to store everything against. That wall will have to be last. Last thing was attaching skirting board—which always makes a really big difference to how 'finished' a room looks, I find. (Attaching it was a lot more fun with my nail gun. For the record.)

Dividing wall between workshop and boiler room (© Ian 2017)

Quick Shift

Just a quick move, tonight—moving the 'Iceberg' rose that has (frankly) languished in a barrel outside the utility room door for years into the colour wheel to grow up the pergola, and planting a variegated jasmine (Trachelospermum jasminoides 'Variegatum') in its place.

In the Ground

Shockingly quickly, we've planted out the purchases from yesterday's Tatton Park show. It's also entailed rather radically reducing the amount of white valerian in the herb garden (which has spread somewhat invasively), and moving—for example—the yellow lysimachia erupting in the red bed of the colour wheel to its rightful location (that is, the yellow bed) to make way for the much more appropriate Royal Bumble salvias.

Tatton also reinforced our desire to put alliums in, especially, the colour wheel. There are a few, but not that many. We're compromising the nominal colour scheme in the colour wheel in the first half of the year (when we find it difficult to get the full spectrum of flower), so long as it hits the right rainbow notes by July. Earlier in the year, I'll take flowers of any colour, so a healthy number of daffodils, tulips and alliums are probably going to grace the beds. Alliums were beautifully displayed by W S Warmenhoven at the show, so I expect we'll order a wholesale quantity of mixed bulbs from someone in the coming months.

W S Warmenhoven's allium display, RHS Tatton Park (© Ian 2017)

And daffs, if I can get away with it. You know how I love daffodils.

RHS Tatton Park 2017

This week's been the RHS Tatton Park show, and so for the fifth year, we went along to the last day. It was a really good show, as normal, and we were luckier with the weather than expected (the forecast a couple of days before was for heavy rain showers: we actually only had a few minutes of light rain at about 1400).

We made the most of getting there early and went straight to the floral marquee. I think that's best early, before it gets (a) hot, and (b) full of people. We found a number of things we wanted, including some selfheal (Rose and Blue Pearl varieties) to brighten the herb garden, some salvias (Royal Bumble) that will go in the colour wheel, and some blue-flowered garlic chives (also for the herb garden). It's a rather smaller haul than previous years (I think 2016 will forever be our high-water mark for purchases), but that reflects the simple fact that the garden, after eight years being here, is increasingly planted-up, and more space now comes either from replacing plants that die (or we grow bored of), or gradual increases in flower beds at the expense of lawn (see: mulberry bed in the games lawn).

Highlights from the show (all &copy Ian 2017)

Preservatory Plaster

Half of this weekend has been continuing work on the garage conversion, and half outside, mostly tending to the bees. The bees are doing fine, but the queen issues we've had are still working out (it takes a while to get new queens pupated, mated, and laying well), so it's quite intensive at the moment. Fortunately, the preservatory is going well. We've got all of the electrics sorted, now (sockets and lights), including new two-way switches for the lights in the preservatory and the workshop. Meanwhile, Liz has finished doing the base coat plaster (the one that bonds direct to the cement blocks), and is about half-way with the top coat. It's looking more and more like a real room!

Oxford

Yes, I know. It's been months and months since I last posted. I've got a few draft posts, that I need to fill out some details and add photos, before I put them up—but there'll still be a gap. I blame life.

Anyway: it's been a busy first half of 2017. This weekend was no exception: we were at home for two day, and in Oxford for two, staying with Katherine as she and Liz had a work thing on Monday. I had the day to myself, wandering round Oxford, which was good fun. I covered over thirteen miles, walking round the city and getting to know it, and was pretty foot-sore by the end.

The two days at home were fairly busy: some plastering, some beehive building (aided by a nailgun that Liz ordered for me, which makes the building considerably faster.

Magdalen College (© Ian 2017)

Ceiling in Magdalen College (© Ian 2017)

Gargoyles along Longwall Street (© Ian 2017)

Rose garden in University Botanic Gardens (© Ian 2017)

Wesley Memorial Methodist Church (© Ian 2017)

Oxford Castle (© Ian 2017)

Christ Church gardens  (© Ian 2017)

Brasenose College (I think!) (© Ian 2017)

Radcliffe Camera (© Ian 2017)

The Bridge of Sighs (© Ian 2017)

The Sheldonian Theatre (© Ian 2017)

The Natural History Museum (© Ian 2017)

Observation beehive in Natural History Museum (© Ian 2017)

Keble College (© Ian 2017)

The Saxon Tower of St Michael by the North Gate (© Ian 2017)

Faculty of History (© Ian 2017)

Advent 2016

Although last Sunday was the start of Advent, we traditionally decorate for Christmas over the first weekend of December, which is also when we usually celebrate Liz's birthday.

It went faster than it sometimes has, as we'd managed to do a thorough clean and tidy during the week, which meant we could get straight on with actual decorating.

The recently-enclosed front porch, where we've temporarily placed my plant stand (© Ian)

An extremely tasteful Santa painting adorns the hall (© Ian)

Dining room fireplace (© Ian 2016)

No, I've still not finished the wall hanging. But the grandfather clock is a good distraction. (© Ian 2016)

Giles the moose, who is going to need some sort of seasonal adornment (© Ian 2016)

Sitting room (© Ian 2016)

Fireplace with leylandii swag (much easier than holly) (© Ian 2016)

Kitchen (the tidy end) (© Ian 2016)

Cambridge & Scarborough

It's been a driving weekend: a trip down to Cambridge yesterday to meet Rachel and Philip's second child, a beautiful girl who arrived rather dramatically (and early), three months ago, but who we've not been able to travel to see. We had a lovely day with the four of them; and today we made a flying visit to Liz's grandparents in Scarborough, because her grandmother's in hospital. Necessarily, the two days out have rather filled the weekend!

Harrogate and Baking

We went to the Harrogate Christmas Market yesterday, which was a lot of fun. Harrogate's a lovely town, and the market enabled us to get very close to finishing our Christmas shopping.

Today was a pleasant day of baking. Baking many things, many involving pumpkin (we have a pumpkin feast planned for Thursday evening).

Spiced Pumpkin Scones (© Ian 2016)

These we accompanied by spiced apple and pumpkin muffins, pumpkin and sultana cake, apple and Cheddar bread, and a pumpkin pie.

We also made several bottles of apple purée to store for later (hot bottled and heat treated), and a 4lb batch of apple butter (NT Preserves recipe).

The latter was delicious with crumpets, which were the other thing we baked.

Pumpkin and Sultana Cake

• 300g self-raising flour
• 300g light muscavado sugar (we used soft light brown)
• 3tsp mixed spice
• 2tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 175g sultanas
• ½ tsp salt
• 4 eggs, beaten
• 200g butter, melted
• zest 1 orange
• 1tbsp orange juice
• 500g pumpkin purée

Heat oven to 180°C. Butter a 30x20cm baking tin.

Combine the dry ingredients.

Add everything else other than the pumpkin.

Fold in the pumpkin

Pour into the tin.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Pumpkin Apple Streusel Muffins

• 2.5 cups plain flour
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• ½tsp mixed spice
• ½tsp cinnamon
• ½tsp nutmeg
• ½tsp ginger
• 1tsp bicarbonate of soda
• ½tsp salt
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1 cup pumpkin purée
• 2 cups grated apple

For the topping:

• 2tbsp plain flour
• 2tbps white sugar
• ½tsp cinnamon
• 1tbsp butter

Heat oven to 175°C. Oil a 12-hole muffin tin.
Mix dry ingredients; combine wet ingredients separately. Fold together. Pour into tin.
Rub the butter into the other streusel topping. Sprinkle onto the muffins.
Bake for 35–40 minutes.


Spiced Pumpkin Scones

• 2 cups plain flour
• 1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1tsp cinnamon
• 1tsp baking powder
• ¾tsp ground cloves
• ½tsp ground ginger
• ½tsp ground nutmeg
• ½tsp baking soda
• ¼tsp salt
• 225g unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• ½ cup pumpkin puree
• 3tbsp milk
• 1 large egg
• 2tsp vanilla extract

Heat oven to 200°C.
Combine dry ingredients. Rub butter into them. Mix the wet ingredients, then stir into the dry to form a soft dough.
Shape into 12 scones (either roll out and cut/punch, or just form them freestyle).
Place on baking sheet and cook for 10–12 minutes.

Honey

We had a fun trip to the Ideal Homes Christmas Show yesterday, picking up a few presents for people—and a moose for us. For no better reason than we liked him.

Giles the Moose (© Ian 2016)

From the ridiculous to the sublime: we managed to get our new grandfather clock working this afternoon. As we thought, the chains for two of the weights had got jammed too high: my theory is that it was wound with a little too much enthusiasm, and the chains pulled too far, which sprang the hooks off the weights' rods. With a little care and persuasion, and aided considerably by the fact that the case has the removable side panels I hoped it would, we were able to work the chains down fair enough to rehang the weights. There's a bit of damage to the brass shells of the weights, but it's pretty cosmetic, and I've been able to resecure the weights (luckily, the threads don't appear damaged by being yanked free).

It's now up and running, and we'll next check whether it keeps time.

This afternoon's project was processing our first batch of honey from the bees. This has been sat, still in the honeycomb, for a few weeks since coming off the hive. First step is to slice the top off the comb (the cappings) using a large serrated knife. The frames then go into the centrifugal extractor, and are spun round to drag the honey out of one side of the comb. We flip them over, and do the other side, before draining the honey from the tank. From fourteen sides (two frames were only filled on one side), we've got about 14lb, which is a good rate. The cappings are now in a sieve, draining the last of the honey, and then we can clean the cappings and melt them: this wax is, typically, the 'best', as it's only been in the hive briefly (so less time for bees to traipse muddy feet over it), and only for honey (the comb that's used to raise baby bees gets dirtied from the process). It will probably be very light in colour.

A comb of honey ready for uncapping and extracting (© Ian 2016)

Snow

It's only been a week since the first frost of the winter, and now it's snowing.

The Herb Garden (&copy Ian 2016)

The Orchard (© Ian 2016)

The house in the snow (© Ian 2016)

When I commented on the colour being ephemeral, I didn't think we'd only have ten days more of it—but you'll see the Virginia Creeper is bare, and the acers have lost most of their leaves, too.