Oops it was rather muddy.

We went down to the cottage before tea to see our friend. To say the least it has rained here in the last 24 hrs, it was running down the pavement like a river yesterday afternoon, and maybe our decision to take a walk along the river was a bit silly, because gosh it was rather muddy.

I guess the cattle must be back out in the fields, and talk about churned to mud. I am just glad we did not have the children with us as we would have had to turn back as it was rather dodgy for us let alone them. At one point I thought my welly was staying stuck in the mud, but thankfully it decided to come unstuck.


We squelched through the gateway which was bone dry last week.

It was rather deep and squelchy.

The grandchildren were playing  here last week, this was the river bank. under inches of water. 

 But there was a lot of nice nature to see while we were out. 

The blossom on the trees was beautiful.

Fungi growing on a tree at the side of the river, it was the size of a very large dinner plate.

The moss on the walk back up is a beautiful shade of green.

This was the state of my wellies time we got back to the cottage.

But it was a lovely afternoon and it got OH and the cottage resident out for a walk. 

Project 365 12th - 18th May

Sunday was another 11 hr shift at work, and so the photography gets as exciting as a cup of spearmint tea. The spearmint coming out of the garden now it has started growing again.

a refreshing cup of spearmint tea

Monday

Had the children over for a while as their mum had to go and do a favour for a friend. Very little toys left here at the moment, but they managed to play nicely with the train set for quite a while. After that granddad amused and educated them with old episodes of the likes of Andy Pandy, Rainbow, Captain Pugwash and even watched Paul McCartney's The Frog song.

playing nicely with the train track, mayhem broke out later. 

Tuesday

As we are due to move we have people viewing our house, and so hubby decided we needed some fresh flowers in the living room, and I quite liked the colours of these.

starting to loose some of the colour.

Wednesday

Cant say as I have noticed these at the cottage before now, this is a picture of the inside of a yellow tulip. Was hoping to find a bee inside one but no luck.

Thursday

As I have had to send back my faulty food processor and I have not decided which one I want to replace it with yet my friend Sam recommended one of these just for creaming and beating. Not quite a food processor but works great to make meringues with, and for a fiver you cant complain. Also trued it out to cream butter and sugar with, works great there as well.

Friday

Daughter No 2 is off to a new life in Oban this weekend, more about this in another post later in the week,  and so her and her boyfriend came over for a meal before they went. Here is the dog after his walk.

Saturday

A book from daughter No2 to help with the current cooking regime. Not had chance to read it yet but should be very useful. Thanks Tweeze.

Rhubarb Syllabub

As the rhubarb keeps growing, I keep picking it and am joining in again with  May's Recipe for life challenge.   The ingredients for this month are rhubarb, a lemon and a spice, and so I have made a nice refreshing rhubarb syllabub.   This is my second entry into May's Recipe for life challenge.


Ingredients
 for the fruit base

6 sticks rhubarb sliced
2 apples peeled and chopped 
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 oz fruit sugar

for the syllabub

1/2 pt  "syrup" from the cooked fruit
1/2 pt alpro soya cream
1 pack gelatine
1 oz fruit sugar.

For the meringue

2 egg whites
1 oz fruit sugar
grated rind of a lemon.

method

add the cinnamon and fruit sugar to the rhubarb and apples and cook for 10 mins in some water. Leave to cool. Once cool pour the mix into a sieve to drain the juice from the fruit.

Split the fruit into 6 sundae glasses.

Make the syrup that you drained from the fruit up to 1/2 pint, add to a pan and bring to the boil.
Remove from the heat and quickly stir through a pack of gelatine, stirring well util all dissolved. Leave mix to cool. 

Once tepid beat alpro soya cream until  light and airy, and then beat in the fruit syrup. 

Pour on top of the fruit in the glasses.

Meringue

whisk the 2 egg whites until light and fluffy
stir in the lemon rind and
add the fruit sugar and re-beat until light and fluffy.

Place on baking parchment and cook for approx 1 hr at 100 oc.
turn off the oven and leave for another 2 hrs without opening the door. 

Once cool crush and place on top of syllabub. Or place a whole meringue on top. 

My meringues browned more than they should have done, probably because of the fruit sugar I used.  There fore they were a bit softer than they should have been, so I used mine whole instead of crushed. 


The syllabub was light and airy, made for a nice sweet and the cinnamon enhanced the flavours without being over powering. 

Baking snacks for a diabetic - scones

I have done a lot of reading in the last few weeks, learning about low GI products, what a diabetic can safely eat and what is best avoided. Been looking at adding more fibre into the diet as well as fibre is usually has a low GI  and maintains more regular blood sugar levels for longer.

Spent a lot of time looking at food labels on packets in supermarkets as well. My normal is looking for Bob friendly allergy free foods and I have never really taken much notice of fibre and sugar levels cos if we were to do that the poor boy would probably starve to death.

 Been looking for healthy snacks to encourage OH to eat regularly as he is terrible for eating an unhealthy breakfast and then going six or eight hours eating nothing, Spent time looking at some of these breakfast biscuits, and so called healthy snack bars most of them are high in fibre designed to sustain for four hours, but the amount of sugar in them is horrifying.

So with that in mind I made two different varieties of scones and a prune  loaf.

Cheese scones

2 oz stork margarine ( virtually dairy free so low cholesterol)
6 oz light brown self raising flour ( note when sieving this for lightness in scones the healthy fibrous bits dont sieve, so I just stir them back through)
2oz  oatbran and oatgerm
pinch salt
1/4 teaspoon mustard powder
1 oz cheese grated
5 fl oz semi skimmed milk ( I used lacto free so I could eat them with the cheese in)

Method

• Sieve flour into a large bowl, add oatbran and oatgerm and rub in margarine.
• add pinch salt, mustard and cheese and mix gently
• stir in milk to achieve a soft dough
• roll out on a lightly floured board and cut out using pastry cutter. 
• place on a greased baking sheet, brush the top with milk and
• cook for approx 12 mins at 200 oC

Cherry Scones 

4 oz stork margarine

dried fruit and the cherry milk

12 oz light brown self raising flour ( note when sieving this for lightness in scones the healthy fibrous bits dont sieve, so I just stir them back through)
4oz  oatbran and oatgerm
3 oz coconut sugar
1 oz freeze dried cherry powder
12 oz semi skimmed milk
1 oz dried cherries chopped

1 oz mixed vine fruits
6 apple rings cut into pieces 

Method

• stir cherry powder into milk
• Sieve flour into a large bowl, add oatbran and oatgerm and rub in margarine.
• add sugar, and dried fruit and stir through
• add cherry milk to achieve a soft dough
• roll out on a lightly floured board and cut out using pastry cutter. 
• place on a greased baking sheet, brush the top with milk and
• cook for approx 12 mins at 200 oC

cherry on the left and cheese on the right

Win a personalised print from Name Art

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If I was to choose one I quite like the baby footprints,

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Project 365 5th-11th May 2013

Well what were we up to this week?

Sunday
As the night are getting longer and there is much more time to get out after tea we went for a walk along near the river and scrambled down to the river bank itself to get a picture of the old bridge just past the cottage, but could not really get a good angle to get a worthwhile picture, but I quite liked this very useful hand rail to help you up and down the steep slope to the river

Monday
We went to Minishant for a meal, we were going to have a meal at the Riverside Inn but it is closed yet again for refurbishment. Have never really bothered to stop in Minishant before now, its one of these dinky little villages that you just slow down to 30 mph to go through and speed back up at the other side. But we were very well impressed with the food, all made freshly as you wait. Just a small place, approx 28 seats if memory serves me correct. They were quite happy to offer alternatives for creamy mash and allowed me to have sorbet instead of ice-cream with my fruit salad. We would recommend the pace, and go back again.

Tuesday
The weather was gorgeous, the warmest driest day we have had so far this year, and Son No1 decided he fancied a barbecue  So he bought the food, we supplied the portable barbecues  and a very pleasant afternoon was had by all.

Wednesday
We had a few nice sunny spells in between the rain showers, and I just liked these chimneys against the blue sky. Not a cloud in sight.

Thursday
Daughter No2 wanted to borrow the carpet shampooer, and so got  daughter No 3 to drop it off as she borrowed it a few weeks back. Again it was a pleasant evening that followed a wet day and so we said we would meet her for a stroll along the beach with her dog. These two horses were also having a stroll. Would make for a nice picture.

Friday

Joined up with daughter No1 and the grandchildren tonight for a beetle drive in aid of a local charity. Must admit this was a first for us as none of us have ever been to one before, It made for a fun evening.  You can read all about it here if you wish.  Here are the kids recycling their beetle sheet into a paper hat under the tuition of granddad.

Saturday

Here is the bottle of brandy I won in the raffle last night, and I also won the toiletries bag for getting the highest overall score for the beetle drive.

A fundraising evening for Islay dog rescue.

Lorraine, our hostess for the evening. 

We saw a beetle drive advertised locally to raise funds for Islay dog rescue. Their motto is "bringing dogs into the light". 

None of us have even been to a beetle drive before but we decided as it was for a good cause and it was local we would go along and support them. Lorraine was our hostess for the evening, Lorraine is one of the founding members of the company. She explained this was the first beetle drive that the charity had tried, so it was as new to her as the rest of us. 

my beetle sheet

The beetle drive was a noisy boisterous affair, with a lot of encouraging shouts going on. This game is great because the children stand the same chance as the adults. 

Sadly none of us managed to compete any of our beetles first, this honour went mainly to a table of three girls of approx 10-11 years old.  We had eight games of beetle in total. After the games we had to total our scores, and I won first prize for the highest overall score. We had a buffet, followed by three games of bingo, and all of this for £5 per adult and £3 per child. 

some of the raffle prizes. 

After the bingo we had a raffle, raffle tickets were extra. We took along a couple of prizes to add to the

raffle, a few small competition prizes that I won earlier in the year.

the parent of the children gave her permission for this picture. 

The raffle was brilliant, one of the young boys picked the winning tickets out, and some of the younger children distributed the prizes to the winners, well apart from the alcohol in glass bottles. Some of the prizes were dog related, a microchip voucher, and some dog training. as well as a voucher for a pole dancing lesson. 

I won a bottle of brandy in the raffle. 

A fab evening for a great cause. Need to look out for more beetle drives as that was good fun

the charity's van. 

Islay dog rescue work specifically with "death row" dogs.  These are dogs who have served their seven days in dog pounds and are due to be put to sleep.  We thought if we could rescue, assess, veterinary health check, de'flea, worm and neuter/spay them then perhaps we could find them suitable homes.
We made links with an organisation in Lancashire called Homeless Hounds....... Since then we have rescued many dogs from both Homeless Hounds and All Dogs Matter (based in London).  Although we try to make it a principle that we don't take on rehomes (ie. people who no longer want their dogs or can't cope with them) we have done this on several occasions.

The Story So Far!
Our first, official rehome was on 19th September 2011 (Oscar).
By 31st December 2012 we had received 158 dogs through the doors.  Most of these dogs have been "death row" dogs, therefore their lives have been saved.  These dogs would not be alive if not for the continual support of you!!  From the bottom of our hearts, and on behalf of the dogs, we thank you.By 30th April 2013 we had rehomed 193 dogs

You can find out more about this charity on their home page here. They also have a list of upcoming fundraising events.  or follow them on Facebook to see what they are up to