elderflower champagne bottles

I found in Waitrose just before Christmas some Sicilian fizzy lemonade with a cap with a rubber seal closed with metal (is there a proper name for this?).  I don't think carbonated drinkgs are very good for you*, but this is very nice, so an occasional treat will help me build up my stock of bottles for elderflower champagne making.

*I used not drink very much - if I waited till I was thirsty most of the year my first drink of the day would not be until 10am-11am in the morning.  I used fizzy water to train myself to drink more and changed to still water once I had succeeded.  Any beneficial effects to uping my water intake (improved skin and lighter periods) didn't happen until I was drinking plenty of plain water.   I like fizzy water so occasionally have it as a treat when I am out.

Snow in the city

Living in the city I am used to getting about when it snows.  Today I gave up half way to Chingford for my history group tet-together, mainly as I didn't want to be stranded there.  At first I was reading, vaguely aware of it snowing through the steamed-up windows, and that the bus moving slowly.  Then I realised how deep it had got.  I rang  ahead to find all the others had given up, so got off the bus, crossed over the road and luckily got a bus going to Walthamstow bus station within minutes.  The bus went carefully, and longer than usual to get over junctions but otherwise made reasonable time.  I was at the front on the top deck, and it seemed an old fashioned picture seeing the snowy landscape, and not at all like the London I am used to -  even though it snows in London most years, though you wouldn't believe this the way people (particularly the media) go on.

Walthamstow Central station is only 2 miles from home, so as long as I reached there felt I would be able to get home even if they stopped the buses).  But the buses were still running, so I waited - with a really pretty, snowy view!  The bus I got was terminating at the bus garage - just over half way, so when I got out I started walking.

There was a wagtail flittering about, its tail going up and down.  Strange to see it flitting across the High Road, especially in the snow!

Transition Leytonstone and Craft Group

Yesterday evening I went to the Christmas meet-up of the Transition Leytonstone Group at Ros's house.  As well as food and talk we spent a while discussing what Transition Leystonstone had achieved during the year and what we could do next year. The Steering Group has put on an average of one event a month but wants more people to be actively interested and participating in groups etc not just signing up to receive emails and occasionally attending an event.

I have volunteered to hold a recycle craft group at my house.  I am thinking of late March, so the house needs to be tidy and ready emough for me to get Ros to put the invite out to the email list late February.  One way of getting myself to do more housework!

But I do like the idea of my home being used a bit more, especially as it (theoretically!) large for one person

Using the garden for christmas decorations

Liked this on the telegraph website.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/8199558/Homegrown-style-Bring-in-the-garden-for-Christmas.html
My chinese lanterns grew this year but then died before flowering.

New Curtains

The Damart catalogue said "These fully lined curtains will drape beautifully and help keep the heat indoors."  So I expected them to be thicker than they are.  Hope they will be better insulation than the unlined velvet ones they've replaced  They are wider than the old ones so more folds. One of the double-glazed panes in the spare bedroom has lost it's seal, so I'm having terrible problems with condensation. It is supposed to be very cold tonight so it will be interesting to see the window tomorrow morning. .

Peanut quick bread to the wormery

The peanut bread (in the oven for an hour at gas mark 4 as per the recipe) was very over-cooked, so it's going in the wormery - one of the few times a wormery has proved useful.  As I waste very little food, almost everything I put in the wormery could go on the compost heap.

I don't know whether to try again at a little lower temperature, or try for just 40 minutes.

Peanut quick bread

I made this evening for the first time a peanut quick bread with peanut butter, roughly chopped, roasted peanuts and sugar. It's in the oven so I don't know what it tastes like yet, but the raw mixture tasted promising.

Lot of washing up though - large mixing bowl, small mixing bowl, measuring jug and loaf tin.

I wish loaf tins had their capacity printed on them rather than their packaging which is long gone!

Also potted up the crocus and hyacinth bulbs my neighbour, Dorothy, gave me for my birthday.  The potting soil she also gave me were just enough.  Outdoor bulbs but I have planted in pots for now, as ground frozen.  I'll find somewhere to put them in the spring.

blackberry vodka surprise

The sugar in the fig whisky has now disolve, so I put it away in a cupboard and found half a bottle of blackberry vodka  - the blackberries still there.  For a moment I thought it had been there for over a year but then remembered I'd just made a little this year to use up the some left-over vodka.  It should be ready to drink now! 

Cooking on my wood burning stove

I have had 2 tries at cooking jacket potatoes in my woodburning stove.  First time I left them in too long, which would have been OK in the oven but resulted in lumps of charcoal in the stove!

Second go I had them starting to go black on one side and not properly cooked the other.

I don't intend to have another go unless there is a power cut when I will make sure the potatoes go in the middle of the hot ashes/burning wood.

Yesterday I put a small pan of water on top of the stove.  It took a while but it did boil.  That means I can make soup, etc, if needed.

There are lots of adverts for woodburning stoves in magazines such as Country Living, but none for accessories.  Aren't there enough of us?  I was wanting a trivet for the top of the stove, though it seems I  don't need one, so the lack has saved me money!

Christmas cards

Another year and another attempt at making my own cards.  The ones I made last night are better than usual so might actually get sent to a few sympathetic friends.

Very simple: bright blue, A4 paper folded into 4, a white dove shape glued to the front, then a red, thin card heart glued to that.

The paper is left overs/scrounged, so I had to pay only for envelopes and glue. If I had to buy materials I expect it would turn out to be more expensive that buying cards (and no contribution to charity), and probably no more environmentally friendly.  But making things, being creative, is important in itself so I will definitely have another go next year.

I went to "the "Try Drawing" class at City Lit this year, with "Drawing 1" class next Spring so, who knows, I might be drawing next year's cards!

Snow in the city

It is so much easier to move about in the city in snowy weather.  Especially for me as I live two miles from the Victoria Line - all underground so as long as the drivers can get in it runs, and I work just over the road from the station at the other end.

I was brought up in a hamlet at the bottom of a steep hill.  One snowy day the taxi taking my mother into town to collect us all from schools closing due to the weather only took her as having reached her he wanted to get out of the village himself!

My father was very proud of his town and country tyres that meant he could get up hills on the few occasions it snowed, and up muddy slopes - much more frequently encountered in West Cornwall.

I wish I was able to feed the birds, but there are so many cats using my garden.  My neighbour once carefully put up a feeder where cats couldn't climb up to it, and found her cat bringing in birds - she was climbing up the other side of the tree to above the feeder and then leaping down!

fig whisky

I got some tidying done today, but, as I suspected, not very much got rid of.

I have started some fig whisky using a recipe from the December issue of Country Living, though missing out the orange rind.

I love country liquors.  I picked some lovely large sloes this year, but didn't have any gin.  By the time I remembered to get some I realised I should have left the lid off the container to give the sloes a chance to dry out, as some had gone mouldy and I dared not risk the rest.

The Country Living recipe says ready in a month, but I usually leave for 3.

Clutter busting

Tomorrow there is a tube strike in London.  Rather than risk cycling along the tow path in the dark or frost I am having the day off and hope to do some tidying.  I hope that I will find stuff to throw or recycle in my efforts to clear some of the clutter so living in my home will be easier, I will be happy having visitors without notice, that stuff I don't need but others do will find a new home.
I have been trying this for years and it doesn't feel I have got very far.  It doesn't help that the number of my books creeps, and sometimes jumps, upwards and upwards. 
I haven't got round to putting stuff on Freegle yet, but I have responded to wants.  On Friday someone wanted a sledge for her 3 young children for when the snow came.  I have had a sledge in the basement that came with me when I moved 14 years ago.  I hesitated, but the nearest usable slope is 3 miles away, my friends who would go sledging don't live locally, so I took a deep breath and responded.
I have two main problems.  One is all the stuff for the puppet show I have never yet produced.  I am not yet ready to admit I never will, so all the material and bits to make puppets are kept.
The second is all the stuff that is not rubbish enough for the bin, but too rubbishy for the charity shop or Freegle, especially it is not something that would be easily replaced if I did want it in the future.  I can sort through masses of stuff but get rid of very little.
But I will keep trying......

Why I have started this blog

I was brought up in a small village in Cornwall and moved to London for work.  Although I appreciate some aspects of London living very much, I miss the country.  I have a small vegetable patch, make elderflower champagne, slow gin, pickles, occasionally bread, etc.  I do crafts.  I like walking and cycling. I am interested in gardening for wildlife, particularly for insects (too many cats to want to encourage birds). I am trying to be green.  If we are to have a sustainable future we need to make cities become sustainable, healthy, interconnected communities.  The carbon footprint of individual city dwellers is lower than those of country dwellers.  Average US city dwellers' carbon footprint is 14% smaller than the average for country and city dwellers combined.  New Yorkers produce just 30%  of the emissions of the average US resident. (New Scientist 6 November 2010)
I hope this blog will encourage me to do things that are on my to-do list; that it will connect me with others doing the same things with similar ideas, so we can encourage each other and help each other.