A Snowy Walk.

The snow from the weekend had mostly gone by yesterday, but today we got more. N and I had a snowy walk to the local toddler group this morning.

His Fireman Sam brolly kept him nice and dry.

The snow was falling in big fat flakes and I had high hopes of it getting nice and deep (I like snow, just so long as I don't have to drive in it).

I photographed it on and off during the day from the living room window...

The first flakes starting to fall at about breakfast time.

Beginning to lie just before we left the house for toddlers.

Early afternoon, as thick as it got - not very! It turned into disappointingly soggy and wet snow.

Later on the sun came out.

Hmm, I wonder if that'll be the last snow before Spring finally arrives.

And Then There Was One...

Finally, the last of the Christmas gingerbread men has now been devoured.

These were great to make with the children as the dough was very forgiving and could be rolled out many times over without falling apart. At the time I felt I'd made far too many of the things and we did get rather fed up eating them, however, they remained fresh and crunchy inside their tin and still tasted good when they were rediscovered earlier this month. (Recipe from Bake by Rachel Allen).

Continuing with the baking theme, this is the first year I have actually remembered to make pancakes on Shrove Tuesday.

Admittedly they were of the Scottish variety but nobody here minded. Pancake and crumpet terms can be a little confusing - in Scotland what we call pancakes are small and thick (called scotch pancakes or dropped scones elsewhere) whereas our crumpets are larger and thinner, and the very thin pancakes normally associated with pancake day we'd probably call English pancakes or crepes.

More food! I was very lucky in a prize draw held to promote Fair Trade and won a fantastic hamper full of goodies. Lots of chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar and honey, yum!

I was also lucky to find Feast in a charity shop for£5. It's been on my wanted list for a while. It's a lovely book to browse and I've already made a couple of things from it (ham in coke & parsnips with maple syrup) so I'm pleased with it.

Another lucky charity shop find. Brand new and only 50p, Snapdragon has a lovely blog here.

It's a bit of a random catch-up post I'm afraid. I've been busy recently with orchestra events - we were hosting players from the Leipzig Academic Orchester, Germany and we've had three rehearsals, a ceilidh and a concert all this past weekend.

We also had snow! This is it just starting to fall before I left for one of the rehearsals.

We ended up with around 3" - enough for a spot of sledging in the park, the above photo is of hubby & A heading home after the sledging.

The crocuses!

Last Week...

From the week just past...

...Tuesday was beautifully suuny and noticeably warmer than normal. I hung out the first washing load of the year though the sun wasn't quite warm enough to dry it properly...

...but it was warm enough for us to play in the garden with no coats. I even did a spot of gardening, just some weeding and clearing up (a drop in the ocean really!).

The crocuses still look lovely though.

First ladybird (on an enormous dandelion which I tried unsuccessfully to pull out, I don't like them)

The patio is covered in squished dead leaves. I think the hydrangea petal skeletons are very pretty, I do like them!

I've been having a bit of a clear out of the house (not quite a Spring Clean but perhaps we'll get to that one year). I've finally managed to list a few items on ebay and a big box of books has been divided up between friends and the charity shop though I seem to be doing my best to replace the books already.

First off is this one, bought from ebay (seeing as I now have money in my paypal account from selling on ebay it's almost as though it's free!). I've not had much of a chance to look at it properly yet though first impressions are good.

Next are these two, bought for £2.99 each in Aldi's today. The knitting one is subtitled "Easy Fun for Everyone" - I'm not too sure about that! Perhaps one day I'll find knitting fun and despite the dodgy yarn colours and model styles featured in the book there are a couple of things I would like to try to knit at some point.

Cathy from One Pink Goose is partly responsible for the next set of books, all illustrated children's books. On a recent blog post she featured a book with lovely paintings by Mary Fedden. After a little hunting around I discovered that Mary Fedden had also illustrated a children's book and I found a cheap copy via Abe books.

It arrived the other day and on opening it I discovered it has been signed by the author and illustrator which is a lovely bonus.

Cathy also featured a card by Jane Ray who is probably my very favourite children's book illustrator. So (again cheaply via Abe books - their prices can be even cheaper than the 1p books from Amazon as the sellers can set their own p&p costs so they can be less than the £2.80 minimum set by Amazon), I bought Jinnie Ghost (here's an amazon link).

I just love the details in Jane Ray's artwork.

While I was at it, I noticed the seller had "A Child's Book of Blessings" which is illustrated by Olwyn Whelan who I also like, so it came too.

A is at the point of starting to read paperbacks but fortunately does still enjoy picture books (so long as they're not too babyish!) so I'm able to indulge my fairly recently discovered love of illustrated children's books for a little longer. Until I had children I hadn't realised what beautiful books there were out there, and a lot of them available very cheaply second hand.

OK, one last, unrelated bargain...
...whilst on a storage box buying mission to Ikea I discovered these lovely throws reduced to £2.99, available in blue, beige or green (which I bought), too late for this winter but should be of use next winter.

Other, not so good, news - hubby fell badly from his bike yesterday evening (he commutes to work by bike three days a week) and has broken his collar bone. Fortunately that's all he has hurt and he and his bike were delivered home by a very kind motorist who saw it happen (just going too fast round a roundabout, no cars involved).

Sunday Morning Bike Ride

Birdsong and brightness - the two things which I immediately notice outside this morning.

I set off about 8am, the glorious sunshine encourages me.

At the junction at end of this road I turn left, the road then climbs quite steeply through and beyond a nearby village.

Looking across the strath during the climb. The folly can be seen in the centre, standing grey amongst the many white farm buildings dotting the hills.

Over the top and I reach the reservoir. Wild geese are honking loudly here.

The favourite gate post.

Copper hedge, green fields and red corrugated iron barn.

After this point I follow some new-to-me roads. They're nice enough but rather unremarkable and I don't bother to stop to take any photos for a long while.

By this point I'm starting to head back towards home. This lovely little beech tree catches my eye - a couple of little beech nuts still remain on the branches amongst the swelling leaf buds.

I stop off at the nature reserve and pop into one of the bird hides which affords some nice views of the loch. There is a heron in the middle distance on the far left of the photo.

Branches, I just thought they looked nice through the letterbox shaped window of the hide.

Snowdrops carpet the woodland floor. I can hear woodpeckers drumming.

Then straight back home along the cycle path, passing to the north of the folly (I passed to the south of it on the way out)

20.5 miles (I remembered to switch my bike computer on this trip!).

My Japanese Flower Scarf...

Is it finished yet...
Hmmm...

This morning I hastily struck some more grumpy poses whilst adorned with crocheted items, and concluded that...

...it needs to be slightly longer so that I can wear it thrown over both shoulders. Another one or two flowers required. Now, which colours to pick and do I have enough yarn...

(The pattern is the one currently doing the rounds of many a crocheter's blog courtesy of the links provided in this post by Lucy of Attic24.)

Yesterday afternoon we had a little hint of Spring. It was sufficient to encourage me out for a walk with N.
We checked out the new slide in the park though neither of us was brave enough to give it a go.

Freedom!

Such a gorgeous day. The sun shone and made tree trunks and branches beautiful against a pure blue sky. It was relatively warm too...

...enough to make my crocuses finally flower.

So pretty, they deserve two photos.

Later that evening...
...we celebrated hubby's birthday. Inspired by the recent partaking of a delicious cake a German friend had made I attempted a Donauwellen (Danube Wave) cake using this recipe. It wasn't a complete success - my tin was too small and my buttery custardy cream was too runny. But it tasted nice enough and I have eaten far too much of it already. I would have another go at some point but will try a different version.

Off now to check out my yarn situation.

Enjoy the weekend!