Out and About....

Today I decided to drag myself away from the kittens and head into town to do something "cultural" ...

I headed to the Victoria and Albert Museum - I haven't been there for a while and wanted to see the 80 years of Faber exhibition and have a look at the frocks - always my favourite bit! I love the V&A shop ... I treated myself to a pair of button ear rings! They also had earrings made from zips!

After the V&A, I headed East to the Geffrye Museum over in Shoreditch (I don't venture to East London very often!). This museum specialises in "Living Rooms" and had rooms from various periods of history. At Christmas they have a Victorian themed living room decked out in all the lovely Victorian decorations! I must head back for that!

I picked up the latest issue of Time Out so that I can plan some other trips out for the rest of my week off ... I'm looking forward to reading about the markets as I am meeting some friends for a wander around Borough and Spitelfields markets at the weekend!

I will be sending off this little package to Greedy Nan tomorrow .... I hope that she likes it!! :)

A week off work ... and what shall I do?

Good afternoon!!

I am enjoying a lovely week off work ... and having worked eight days in a row last week - I think I deserve it!

Mr Plum is at work, unfortunately as he has a lower leave allowance than me ... so here I am, home alone (well - with two crazy kittens!) and a list of projects as long as my arm to do!! :) Where to begin ....

I realise that I promised you a giveaway back in August ... I didn't get very many comments on my blog, which was a little disappointing - but nevermind! Today I have finally got around to picking a winner!!! With a little help from Miss Pansy Plum .... more of that later!

So - what will I be getting up to this week? This morning we had our boiler serviced and had hoped to get our gas fire finally fitted - but that is going to prove to be more difficult and expensive that we first thought ... great.

I have just baked my first sponge cake for a cake competition at work ... and have enjoyed a lovely poached egg with mushrooms on toast for my lunch. I will probably pop out for a quick swim in an hour or so ....

Tonight me and Mr Plum are off to a special gig by Ian Brown - Mr Plum won the tickets and is very excited!! I last saw Ian Brown at Reading 1997 when he was still with the Stone Roses ... he actually stropped off stage in true rock star style mid set! I hope he doesn't do the same tonight!

I am planning to do a fair bit of tidying and sorting, a huge amount of knitting ... something cultural in town and just generally relaxing!

Okay ... on to the giveaway!!!!!

My five commenters ....

Here they are lined up on the sofa .... I wonder if there is a willing kitten who will help me pick the winner???

Of course there is!! Thank you Pansy ... and the winner is ...

GREEDY NAN!!!!!

Well done and thanks for reading my blog!

Autumn days ....

It's been a while since I last blogged ... not sure where the time has gone! I think it might have something to do with my (rather late) discovery of the Twilight Saga ... I have now read the three books which are out in paperback (and will see if I can restrain myself for a while longer and wait for Breaking Dawn to be released in paperback!). I even bought the DVD last week! For some reason these books and film had passed me by, but I picked up a copy of Twilight while walking in Guildford and am hooked! I am looking forward to the release of the second film in November!

This posting will be a bit of a catch up post! Here goes ....

I finally got to see the latest Harry Potter film! I know that it has had mixed reviews, but I thought it was fab!

Last night we had a new arrival! Yes ... finally, welcome to Plum Cottage Pansy and Twister - our lovely little kittens!!

Pretty little Pansy playing with my apron!

Gorgeous Twister!

We had a trip up North to visit the inlaws ... and watch the start of the round the world clipper race, a fly past by the red arrows ... of course a visit to Betty's in York! My favourite place ... we stocked up on tea loaf, parkin and a fat rascal!! YUM!

Mr Plum took some fab pics ...

I have also been busy harvesting my vegetables .... golden sunrise tomatoes and scrummy red peppers ...

More tomatoes and a green pepper ...

As promised ... here is the picture of my yummy coffee cake!! Mmmmm mmmm tasty!! You can never have enough buttercream!!

I haven't forgotten my giveaway! Sorry for being so behind with things. I will draw a name out of a cake tin tomorrow!

Coffee Cake on a Rainy September Day ...

I love Autumn ... woolly jumpers, big boots, hats and gloves all come out of the wardrobe. I almost froze to death at work today in my still summerish office clothes! What better way to warm up than get into the kitchen and make a cake!

I'm making my first ever coffee cake. While having a cup of tea and piece of coffee cake in Seale on Saturday - I suddenly thought "why have I never made coffee cake?" So here I am with my first ever coffee cake baking away. My parents are coming to visit this weekend, so another reason to get something yummy in the oven!

Here is the recipe:

175g self raising flour

1.5 tsp baking powder

175g marg

175g soft brown sugar

2 tsp instant coffee mixed with 2 tsp boiling water

Bung all the ingredients into a bowl and whisk until smooth. Divide between two tins and bake at 180/gas 4 for 25 minutes.

Sandwich together with coffee buttercream and a good dollop spread on the top of the cake .... decorate with walnuts, choc buttons etc .... picture to follow!!!

Our Kittens!!!

Here is a video of our little kittens .... we will be picking them up in a couple of weeks! They are so cute ... Mr Plum is in love with them!!!

The North Downs Way - Guildford to Gomshall

Well....Me and Mr Plum headed off to the start of the North Downs Way on Saturday and walked from Farnham to Guildford! The North Downs are beautiful ... mile after mile of beautiful rolling English countryside. We stopped off in Seale for a lovely cup of tea and piece of cake. This leg of the walk was 10 miles ... by the time we reached our B&B we were absolutely shattered! We managed to eat and then collapsed! I actually slept for 11 hours! Ha Ha Ha! But that's not all ... on Sunday we headed into Guildford for a yummy Full English breakfast at House Of Fraser and then started on the next leg of the walk ... 8 miles to Gomshall!! As you can imagine, we are both feeling a bit sore today!

I hope that you have all had lovely Bank Holiday Weekends!!

A Double Wedding!!

There is nothing more exciting than a wedding! Especially when it is one of your oldest friends ... and she is having a Jane Austen style double wedding with her younger sister!! The grooms are best friends which made it even more lovely! The sun was shining, the grooms were dashing and the brides were beautiful!

After the church, we strolled along the country lane back to the Brides' family home for a marquee reception in their (very large!) garden. The couples arrived at the reception by boat - fantastic!!

Here are the three sisters, and their dog - aren't they all gorgeous?

We had such a good time ... this was definitely the second best (after my own, of course!) wedding I have been to. It was a perfect day!

South Croydon Allotments Open Day

Today the South Croydon Allotments had an open day!

There is currently a 4 year long waiting list - and we are at the bottom! But we thought that we would sign up for a half plot.

Hopefully in four years time we will have left South London - but, just in case we are still here - we have an allotment to look forward too!

Just look at these lovely apples!

Some of the plots would have been worthy of a RHS flower show award!!!

Here is Mr Plum next to a huge Sunflower!

Out and about in London on a random Tuesday afternoon!

I had a half days holiday today ... me and a friend had decided to take one of our "random half days for doing something splendid". What a lovely afternoon we had!

Today we headed to The Women's Library to see the "Between The Covers" exhibition about women's magazines and their readers. It was very good (and most importantly - free!). I have done some research on 18th century women's magazines at University ... so it was good to revisit this topic. I would definitely recommend it if you find yourself in London with a spare hour to kill.

After the exhibition we headed towards Carnaby Street so that I could introduce my friend to "All The Fun Of The Fair" which was full of lovely little bits and pieces ... but I didn't get anything. It was thirsty work though, so treated ourselves with a cup of tea and a lovely cupcake in C'est Ici in Kingly Court ... very tasty.

We wondered around the lovely vintage shops and felt a little depressed that everything was so expensive ... and decided to start walking towards Victoria Station...via Piccadilly - a wander around Fortnum and Masons and a couple of delicious macaroons at Laduree!

Beer and Aubergines!

Another Sunday evening ... feeling worn out after a busy weekend! I wish that the weekends could stretch out for a bit longer .... anyway! Let me tell you what me and Mr Plum have been up to this weekend!

On Friday night we headed up to the Great British Beer Festival at Earl's Court. You may remember me telling you about last year's festival (have a look here)...this year's was just as fun! There was a gang of us - friends from University and work ... and we tried lots of beers. A year on from last year and I am a bit more of an experienced ale drinker!! I quite often join Mr Plum in a nice pint of ale after a long walk ... so I didn't just stick to the pale ales and fruit beers. My favourite beer this year was "Hooky Gold" brewed by the Hook Norton Brewery - Hook Norton Brewery is quite near where my parents live - I think that we will have to organise a tour of the brewery soon!

WOW! Look at this wonderful aubergine! It is so big! I have four more growing too! It is currently being roasted in balsamic vinegar and will be used on a pizza tomorrow night!

Today we have just been pottering about ... and doing what is becoming a bit of a Sunday evening tradition in the Plum household ... sticking on an MGM musical, making a pot of tea and getting out my knitting.

And a new series of "Jam and Jerusalem" with crumpets and cheese ... a perfect way to end the weekend!

Don't forget to enter my giveaway in the post below! I should have told you what my favourite tipple was! I love a nice cup of Yorkshire tea ... or a cool glass of prosecco ... or champagne ... or a lovely cosmopolitan ...........

Random things to do on a Wednesday lunchtime when you find yourself near Waterloo station and my first blogiversary giveaway!

On a muggy Wednesday lunchtime, I happened to find myself near Lower Marsh Street, near Waterloo ... what a find this little street is! Of course, there is the wonderful shop calledfull to the brim with beautiful yarns and this lovely book which I stood drooling over for a good few minutes ... what a lovely Christmas pressie this would make (Mr Plum?)

It is called "A Stitch In Time" and is full of beautiful knitting patterns from 1920-1949.

There were also lovely vegetarian cafes, pretty gift shops and a wonderful looking deli ... I hope that I find myself around Lower Marsh street again! Apparently there is a very good market, but it looked like it was packing away for the day. What a gem!

Otherwise this week has been rather quiet! I had a red spider mite scare on Monday ... and spent an hour spraying my lovely aubergines with soapy water to get rid of the blighters. I did try to take some pictures, but it wouldn't work ... but have a look at this wonderful blog which helped me solve the problem. I think the aubergines will survive. I have moved them out of the greenhouse and they are now living on the garden table .. in the pouring rain ... hmmm

Tomorrow me and Mr Plum are off to the Great British Beer Festival! We went last year and had a great time! I will blog about that later ... but to celebrate my first bloggiversary which was yesterday I am inviting all my readers to enter into a giveaway! Not sure what I will be giving away, but please leave a comment telling me what your favourite tipple is! I will pull a name out of a cake tin next Friday!

Weekend antics in rainy London town

I love the weekends!!

Friday, 5pm and I managed to escape work and head home for a lovely weekend!

On Saturday morning we headed into town to visit the J.W Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy. I love Waterhouse. Especially "The Lady Of Shallot" - so was keen to see this exhibition. I wasn't disappointed! There were so many beautiful paintings that I hadn't seen before. I think that I would have like to have been one of Waterhouse's mythical heroine's!

Next we headed up to John Lewis as I needed to visit the haberdashery department! While there I got completed distracted by the Kim Hargreaves book "Thrown Together". A wondrous collection of 16 vintagey pieces ... I'm going to have a go at knitting this cardigan! What do you reckon? Overly ambitious? Oh well ... I need to move on from baby clothes!


We finished off the day by meeting friends for a trip to The Proms! Fantastic! Proms 22 was the MGM Musical Prom and featured vocals by Curtis Stiger and Seth MacFarlane! Yes ... Seth Macfarlane from Family Guy! He even did a Stewie impression in the finale! I love musicals (and am sat here watching "High Society" while typing away!) - to this was a perfect evening! You can listen to last night's concert on the iplayer ... I would definitely recommend it! Follow this link for MGM musical delights!

The weekend did not stop there! This morning we headed off to visit a friend of Mr Plum's ... who's cat has just given birth to eight of these ...

awwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!

In four (or so) weeks ... we will be coming home with these two cuties!!!!

We have names the ginger kitty "Marmalade" (original, I know) and the tabby "Crumpet" ... this may be subject to change! I wanted to call the tabby "Sparkle" - but Mr Plum insisted on a breakfast theme!!

Here's a gratuitous cat shot to finish off this post! We are about to tuck into Blackberry Crumble (with berries picked from our garden, of course!)

I hope that you have all had lovely weekends!

Today's Harvest

A week on from catching the lurgey (NOT S.F) and I still feel a bit ropey ... I went back to work on Wednesday and am thinking that maybe I should have just spent the rest of the week in bed! Feeling full of cold, combined with three days of social events (dinner with a friend down from Wales, dinner with my three oldest and bestest friends and work friends round for SingStar) resulted in me not having the energy to get out of bed until 5pm last night! I just felt terrible :( I was back in bed again at 9.30pm..... Anyway, today I am still feeling shattered, but have managed three hours gardening in the rain this morning!

Here is what I have picked today ....

Some peas, a couple of carrots and two teeny weeny red onions....

1 kilo of Charlotte potatoes, and

1 kilo of Red Duke Of York potatoes .... I'm still not convinced that the potato barrels are good value for money ....

Sleepover Swap - the package I sent .... and more knitting!

Over the last few weeks I have been putting together a parcel full of lovely bits n pieces for Nicola from Smilernbp - my partner in the Sleepover Swap. Here is what I sent her (here is a link to Nicola's post .... she liked it!). Now that I have sent the package off and Nicola has received it I can talk about my latest knitting projects!

You may be able to spot some little baby booties and a knitted flower .... I am very proud of those! I have wanted to be able to knit flowers for so long! I have tried to teach myself to crochet - but can't get the hang of it at the moment ... but love knitting flowers! One bootie is slightly larger than the other ... but I really enjoyed knitting these too! Now ... what to knit next ...

More bunting and a stripy armchair!

I'm feeling a bit sorry for myself ... having looked forward to a lovely long weekend off work - on Friday I started feeling a bit achy and by Saturday had to spend most of the day in bed with an awful cold. It has been the worst cold that I have had in a long time ... checked the NHS Symptom Checker and it said that I had Swine Flu. Oh No!!!!! I couldn't get through to my GP or NHS Direct and as I wasn't feeling "seriously ill" I just dosed up on flu relief, drank lots of fluid and slept ... slept for most of Sunday too (so missed the Lambeth Country Show which I had been looking forward too and had to miss going to see Harry Potter last night - £20 wasted).

This morning I am feeling much better, still full of cold but not as exhausted as I had felt on Saturday and Sunday (although, haven't actually got up yet!). How are we supposed to tell the difference between normal flu and swine flu when the NHS symptom checker will say that you have S.F with just normal cold symptoms? I think it was probably just a bad cold ...

Mr Plum spent yesterday giving our hallway a new coat of paint - and was a good opportunity to declutter. We will be finally hanging our "Keep Calm" posters which we bought ages and ages ago! It will look lovely!

I have spent this morning sitting in bed and finally getting around to sewing my red bunting for the kitchen onto ribbon ... the poor little triangles have been stuck in my sewing box since the great snow of February!!

I will add pictures of the bunting in situ once we have cleared the kitchen ... it looks like a bomb site at the moment with lots of decorating stuff in there! Apparently, according to my Mother-In-Law it looks like a bomb site most of the time ... charming!

We also bought a new arm chair from Ikea to replace our large Pier Papasan chair (anyone want it?) We bought the stripy covers a week ago and hired a car on Friday to go to the tip and get rid of some junk and took advantage of having transport to pick the chair up ... isn't it lovely?

Veggies

I have just been out to give my tomatoes a bit of a trim and tie them in ... I have been neglecting them for the past week as it has been too wet to venture out into the garden ....

Here are the peppers and aubergine ... they are doing really well! Looking forward to picking some of the veg in the next couple of weeks!

I am very excited to report that I have a ripe tomato!! Finally ... I was a bit worried that I wasn't going to get anything, and I am still a bit worried as I only have a handful of green tomatoes growing on 8 plants ... hmmm - maybe I am being too impatient! I begrudge having to buy tomatoes from the supermarket when I have so many plants in the greenhouse! Anyway, have a look at this beautiful "Golden Sunrise" tomato ...

Here's my little veggie patch ... courgettes are taking over!

Lovely peas!!