Waterlogued in the Cotswolds

A few watercolours done of the Cotswolds.

Bacon In the Oven

I love streaky bacon. I don’t particularly love cleaning up the mess on the cooker afterwards though. But there is an easy, mess-free way to do this. Pop your streaky bacon on a foil-lined baking sheet, and you’ll find that this same bacon hardly shoots a drop of fat anywhere. Yes, it will sizzle and…

Kuekenhof Gardens, Holland – A Photo Journal

On our way back home from Denmark in April, we stopped off to visit Kuekenhof Gardens in Holland. Kuekenhof is open to the public for 8-weeks every spring. The gardens are an open-air display for Holland’s best bulb producers, who spend most of the year when the park is closed to the public refining their…

Two Photos from Fyn

Fyn is the area of Denmark where my husband comes from. It’s a lovely area, a small island, with rich history and scenery that inspired Hans Christian Andersen to write. Here are four photos that I took recently while we were clearing out my mother-in-law’s house, who recently passed away. If wishes were houses, this…

Home Improvements: Drip Drying

We’re in steady squeegee mode as the windows, door handles, worktops, and light fittings drip moisture as the plaster rendering continues to dry. If it this were summer, I’d open all the windows so things could dry faster, but it’s late winter and the temperatures are still below freezing. I prefer to view icicles outside,…

Home Improvements: Plastered

Home Improvements: Plastered The boiler is running perfectly, and it’s as quiet as a mouse compared to our previous 20-year-old monster. We’re told that it’s also more energy-efficient, and that our gas bill should reflect that. Well, perhaps it would if the weather was spring-like, but we’ve been plunged back into winter. It started snowing on…

Garden Diary: February, Week 1

Welcome to another gardening year. Hurrah! We had snow in January. Lots. But that was January. Now it’s February, and there are signs of spring popping up all over the garden. The temperatures are still what you’d expect for a properly calibrated freezer, but that aside, there’s no denying that spring is just around the…

A Few More Hawaii Photos

I’m drip-feeding these holiday photos to you for fear that everyone who stops by for a read will groan and growl … because no one likes looking at other people’s holiday photos .. and I reckon this doubly applies if you don’t know any of the people in the photos, which of course is one…