Yesterday my neighbour and I went to see the wonderful quilting work of the Corfe Quilters. The show as put on in aid of Motor Neurone Disease so we didn’t mind paying an entry fee and for the raffle and tombola, although we didn’t win anything.
The intricacy of the needlework was amazing, so detailed – they must have taken hours to make. The exhibition hadn’t been put on since 2019 due to the Covid Lockdown and some ladies wrote that their work had been undertaken during Lockdown.
Here are pictures of some of the lovely quilts.
There were lots more of lovely quilts but this gives you a flavour of the work.
Neil’s sister Carole is with us for the weekend so we went down to the coast, Seaton this time, to get some fresh sea air.
The flower beds were full of daffs and tulips.
It wasn’t that busy because it was still chilly and a little windy, but lovely to see the sea and breathe in the air.
All the beach huts were in place although not many people in them today.
A kind passer by took a photo of the 3 of us on a bench.
We walked along the promenade to the little cafe where we stopped for a coffee out of the wind.
I noticed a fish structure amongst the foliage.
The sun even decided to come out for a bit, which was great considering the forecast had been light rain, but we didn’t get any rain so were really lucky. It’s a joy to get away from the chores for a bit. Seaton only takes half an hour from here, so not far to go.
As it was a sunny Sunday we took ourselves off to Otterford Lakes to see the banks of snowdrops.
We were not disappointed. They were absolutely lovely, all amongst the trees.
We walked down to the largest lake which was so peaceful this morning.
The path to the other lake is closed for maintenance until 31st March so we just watched the ducks and listened to the birds. We were there early so there were not many people about.
On the way back up we passed a lovely load of logs which Neil would have liked to get his chainsaw to, but of course he can’t as these are on someone else’s property.
As we walked to the top of the path we could see the banks of snowdrops on the slopes. With the sunshine today, just a lovely thought that Spring is on it’s way.
If you too want to see the snowdrops at Otterford Lakes then come and stay in our B&B, its only a short drive away.
Yesterday, being a lovely sunny day and Valentine’s day to boot, we decided to go into Taunton and visit the museum and then have a lovely lunch.
The museum is housed in Taunton’s historic castle, and tells the county’s fascinating story from prehistoric times to the present day. Within the 12th century castle walls you’ll find contemporary gallery spaces and great family visitor facilities, all situated within the town centre. With an amazing nine themed galleries, each with its own distinctive character, there’s something for everyone to discover.
I was particularly interested in visiting the Costume exhibition called ‘In Fashion’ which explores how changes in society have shaped fashion from the late 1700s to the present day.
I took a few photos:-
There are other galleries, such as a military one, and others that track the making of Somerset from prehistoric times.
Here are a few other photos I took when looking around:-
It’s a great place to visit, and is even Free to enter although they do ask for a donation as it is run by a charity. If you ever get to Taunton then do be sure to have a look in.
Every year we buy a real Christmas Tree. Luckily there is a Christmas tree farm just down the road from us so that makes it easy.
We go for a Fraser Fir as I like a tree that smells like Christmas and also is tall enough without being too wide at the bottom as we don’t have a lot of space for it in the lounge.
So the tree arrived and Neil set about mounting it in it’s stand and checking that it was upright.
We took the netting off and checked again that it was straight.
I started the decorations by adding the lights, 360 coloured LEDs to be accurate.
Then the fun part of dressing the tree in lots of different decorations amassed over the years
until we ended up with this!
We keep it watered, it doesn’t drop much at all and keeps going for a long time, which is great as we don’t take it down until 12th night.
Last year we bought a polycarbonate greenhouse from Summer Garden Buildings in the UK. It was a devil to put up. Neil used a year’s worth of expletives in assembling it. Before we got all the panels in, the frame blew down in the wind. We had to sure it up from inside in order to put in the panels. Some of them never fitted very well and the consequence was that I couldn’t start off plants in the greenhouse until late Spring as it wasn’t finished in time.
We had a successful Summer of growing tomatoes, cucumbers, courgettes, strawberries and various flower plants. However now Autumn is upon us with it’s gusts of wind, we have had problems again. Four panels blew out this week.
Two of the side panels we successfully reinstalled today, but the two end panels were really difficult. Without disassembling the ends completely there is no way to get the end panels in firmly.
We resulted to remedial action by taping them in with gaffer tape. Not the prettiest solution but one to stop the wind ripping through the greenhouse again and pushing more panels out.
The long term solution may be to firm up all the way round with wood. At this rate it might have been easier to build a greenhouse from scratch ourselves. We just hope mending it this way will be secure enough for the Winter.
At the beginning of October we hired the apple pressing equipment from the Blackdown Hills Transition Group and had a weekend of apple pressing.
We had quite a lot of lovely apples on our trees this year.
So picking them was not a problem.
Next we washed them to get off any dirt, especially from windfalls.
We ended up with quite a lot of apples. We mixed both cooking apples and eating apples.
The next job is to put them through the scruncher, feeding them in a few at a time.
With the apples pulped we then put them into a press which is lined with a cloth, which then folds over before you put the lid down to press the pulp.
And so the juice comes out.
As you can see the weather was not in our favour so we are dressed up to beat the drizzle.
We put 5 gallons of juice into a vessel to turn into cider and the rest we bottled up in plastic bottles to store in the freezer which is now full!!
The next day we had friends round to press their apples. Lucy and Sue came first and were happy to do the scrunching and pressing themselves as were Liz and family.
There were further apple pressing days in the Blackdown Hills during October and on Saturday 22nd October it is happening at Stentwood. All good fun and lots of juice too.
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