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A Magpie

12 Jul in Brush Cottage | Comments (0)

It was a day of antique hunting with Katie.

I came home with pretty, pretty teaspoons….

Ornate silver knives, which you can never have too many of….

Those shoe lasts – which I could kick myself for not buying the last time I saw them….

and the sweetest antique silver locket….

I fully accept that I am a true magpie, and am drawn to the shiny stuff… it was however Katie who brought home the feathers today!

The rest of the week is not looking nearly as rosy.

The Sun is Out! The Sun is Out!

29 Jun in Brush Cottage | Comments (1)

The sun comes out and I rush into the garden and try to get all arty with my camera

Stick with me – normal jewellery related blogging might resume… then again it might not.

There will be absolutely no pics of Poppy on the blog today. This little baby bird was having it’s first “This is how you fly” lesson with it’s mother this morning when a certain hairy one brought it down to earth with a thump. There was a rescue.

Purple Hebe

20 Jun in Brush Cottage, Flowers | Comments (1)

There is a respite from the relentless rain we have been having, so I took lunch outside today. This purple Hebe is in full bloom and smells wonderful.

It was full of little skittish butterflies, which would all lift off whenever I tried to photograph them…. I got this one though!

These guys paid no attention to me and just carried on carrying on….

There was other gorgeousness outside as well.

Australia’s Live Animal Trade

03 Jun in Brush Cottage | Comments (0)

One of the blogs I follow is Australia’s Faux Fuschia. I love her sense of humour and straightforward way of telling it like it is. I don’t like leopard print, and my fingernails only see nail polish on the rarest of occasions, but I still love FF 11/10. It’s often a bit of pink, enjoyable, fluffiness in my day.

Recently, she started writing about the revelation to hit the Australian cattle industry. Live animals are shipped to Indonesian abatoirs, where it appears that they are quite literally tortured to death. There are photos and videos. Most of which I am sorry to admit, I cannot bring myself to watch.

There does not seem to be much coverage of this in the United Kingdom yet. It also appears to be a contentious issue, with the respect of religious practice being an issue as well as having political implications.

But at the heart of the matter, is that animal cruelty is something I feel very strongly about. There are petitions you can sign and donations you can make to help animal rights groups raise awareness and try and get the export of live animals banned ( New Zealand has already banned this). Unfortunately, all of these are only open to people living in Australia.

Please let me know if you know of anything that we as foreigners to Australia can contribute to putting an end to this abhorrent system.

Cardinale de Richelieu

26 May in Brush Cottage | Comments (3)

Last year for Fathers Day I bought my husband David his favourite rose – Cardinale de Richelieu. It’s a Gallica rose, with the most intense colour, a dark grape and a wonderful fragrance. It’s in flower at the moment and the bush looks amazing, full of buds and blooms. I wanted to use some of the flowers for a dinner party we had last night to celebrate my father in law’s 70th birthday.

The stems are a cluster of buds and blooms, but with very short stems, so you are limited with ways of arranging them. I used 2 vintage silver goblets, filled with oasis, that held the short stems really well and topped the roses with Alchemilla and stems of catmint flowers.

I also used a bloom to top the birthday cake.

Happy Birthday Dad!

Alresford Rotary Club 10km Road Race

09 May in Brush Cottage | Comments (0)

This year I have decided to take part in the Alresford Rotary Club 10k run. Since 10km’s is a little bit out of my comfort zone, I thought that I might need a good incentive to keep me and my battered old knees focused. I was reminded of a friend, Clare, who until recently lived in our village with her two lovely daughters, Grace and Alice.

Clare’s 10 year old daughter Grace was diagnosed nearly two years ago with an extremely rare degenerative kidney disease. Because the condition is so rare, there is currently no research being undertaken into new drugs to treat it since there is no commercial benefit to the drugs companies in this area. The drugs Grace is already taking are helping to slow down the progress of the disease, but it is currently unknown how long it will be until her kidneys fail and she is on full time dialysis. To date, with the drugs available right now, nobody has lived past the age of 32.

Grace understands she has a kidney condition but does not yet know the full extent of it, or the longer term implications.

The Kidney Research Foundation is able to provide scientists to research Grace’s specific kidney condition, if Clare can raise sufficient funds to cover these costs.

It would be wonderful for me to help Clare raise money to help Grace, and others like her, to achieve a healthy, long life.

I would be so very grateful if you could consider sponsoring me doing the Alresford race by donating whatever you can using Clare’s Just Giving Page – http://www.justgiving.com/clare-acklam/

If you do donate anything, even if it’s only a Pound, please leave a message on the page or drop me an email, so I can say Thank You!

I’ve said it before & I’ll say it again

05 May in Brush Cottage | Comments (0)

Gorgeous, with the big coat on…..

And gorgeous with the big coat off…….

Things to do in Newton Ferrers

28 Apr in Brush Cottage, Links | Comments (4)

Newton Ferrers is a small village in Devon. We visit intermittently as my mother & father in law live in the area. This is the first time I have been there in summer (yes, we are calling it that!). We crossed over the estuary via the ferryman – a charming man with the enviable job of ferrying people back and forth over the water. A lot of the property on the other side is owned by The National Trust and there is a clifftop walk, that takes you to Wembury beach.

At the moment, the cliffs are dotted with patches full of bluebells, worth the trip if you want to see them en mass.

Wembury is a nice beach, very busy on the day we were there and dogs are allowed throughout the year, a real plus for us.

However…… about Cornish Cream Tea, the stuff of myth and legend……

I have up until now, not really understood what all the fuss was about. The only scones I have eaten just taste like bicarb, I don’t really like cake, hardly ever eat jam, and cream just gives me sinus problems, so all three put together don’t really float my boat. But David and Tessa would probably sell their souls for baked stuff and had been waxing lyrical about a real find they had made in Newton Ferrers.

So after our walk, we dropped in to Tearoom On The Green.

The tearoom is run by the friendliest people, is clean, attractive and very welcoming. It is however tiny! I think it only has 4 tables inside and 2 outside. Fortunately we were there during the week and were seated immediately. We did have some other things to eat, which were delicious, but you come for the cream tea – don’t you?

The scones were served warm, were freshly baked and delicious, not a hint of bicarb and crusty on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside. Cornish cream is well on the way to being butter, and while I couldn’t eat it often, it is perfect on a warm scone.

Apparently there is protocol regarding the correct way of smothering the scone – I don’t know which is which – the Cornish put the jam first and then the cream and in Devon, it’s the other way around – is that right? All I know is, it all went down the same way….. very nicely!

Easter Cupcakes

24 Apr in Brush Cottage, Flowers | Comments (0)

When you are as deficient in baking skills as I am,

you are forced to resort to trickery and other methods of prettifying….

Hellebores & Baking

03 Apr in Brush Cottage, Flowers | Comments (2)

All the fancy schmancy florists on Twitter are doing it, so I am too………

There has also been baking. The kind I like – where you can cover a multitude of sins with some artfully arranged fruit, a sprinkling of icing sugar and some pretty flowers.

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