Photo scavenger hunt: October 2015

It's the end of the month, which must mean it's time for the Scavenger Hunt. Not surprisingly, my photos have a very autumnal feel about them and several were taken during our walk in the woods last weekend. Thanks as always to Jill at Greenthumb for organising it: here's my entry.

Question: The split in this tree trunk looks just like a question mark.

Cream: The inner flesh of a horse chestnut case.

Number: 28. The number of starlings gathered on this telegraph pole.

Lattice: Wooden trellis at Tatton Park.

Familiar: Our usual path through the woods.

Ring: Ring, ring goes the bicycle bell.

Today: Pumpkin-spiced latte and an apple and walnut muffin - the taste of autumn.

Down: This stag was having a snooze down in the long grass at Tatton Park.

Writing: Letters carved into a tree.

Many: Layers and layers of fungi.

Broken: A wall which has collapsed.

Whatever you want: This little fellow was munching on a monkey nut. A lady had just brought a bagful and there were squirrels running in all directions with nuts in their mouth. Some ate them straightaway whilst others were burying them for later. This one was so cute with his white tummy.

I missed taking part in the Hunt last month and am so glad I managed to get my act together this time. If you'd like to join in with the November hunt, head over to the web site where you can see the categories and this month's entries.

Hope you all have a great weekend. As I mentioned last time, we're heading into the city for pizza and James Bond. Maybe a pumpkin cocktail or two as well :) x

Divil's nose

Today I thought I'd share with you a sweet treat for Halloween. And I have to be honest, it's purely because of the name: my Great Grandmother called it Divil's Nose!  It probably goes by different names around the country but this one seems to be unique to the Wigan area where she grew up. In fact, I found out that it also goes by the name of Singing Lily, possibly in honour of the Wigan lass, Lily Brayton, who was an actress and singer in the early 1900s.

But what is this Divil's Nose? Well, actually, it's what I've always known as a Chorley cake: a layer of raisins between 2 layers of pastry. A frugal dish born of a time when you had to use up every last scrap of food. The ingredients are simply:

Leftover pastry
Currants, or other dried fruits
Sugar
A knob of butter

Roll out the pastry into a round. Put the dried fruit in the centre, sprinkle with sugar and add a knob of butter.

Run a wet finger around the edge and then fold the edges of the pastry into the centre.

Turn it over so the folded edges are underneath. Roll out until the fruit shows through. Put on a baking sheet lined with greaseproof paper and bake in the oven on 160C/Gas 3 until lightly golden.

Serve as it is or, as we used to when I was little, spread with butter. Mum said mine was a bit thin and I'd browned it too much! Oh dear. It didn't stop her having a piece though :-)

However, she had no complaints about my second version. I wanted to spice it up a bit and, as Chickpea isn't keen on currants, use a different dried fruit.

Instead, I used chopped dates and soaked them in a good splosh of dark rum. Then I spread it out over the pastry as normal.

My pastry was a cobbler mix and already on the damp side. As I folded it in, the extra moisture from the rum made it tear. For this reason, I didn't bother to roll it out but just plonked it on the baking tray.

Rather more rustic in appearance but, oh so good! We actually preferred this version as the rum-soaked fruit made it moist and the cracks in the pastry made the buttery, sugary juices ooze and caramelise on the top. Yum yum yum! I'll be making this version again.

So there you have it, 2 versions of Divil's Nose. What is it called where you live?

I'll be back on Halloween but not with anything spooky: it's Scavenger Hunt time. In fact, I don't even know if we'll be doing anything Halloweeny as we're meeting a group of friends in Manchester for pizza and James Bond! I do have my pumpkin head boppers at the ready though...

See you on Saturday. Almost the weekend. Hurrah!

This month I've been...

Celebrating...at Mum and Dad's Golden Wedding party. This was taken before most of the guests had arrived. It was a lovely evening full of fun and laughter.

Admiring...the beautiful autumn colours. The photo of the rudbeckias was taken yesterday after a heavy shower which is why they're so wet.

Harvesting...elderberries to make elderberry gin. It should be ready just in time for Christmas cocktails :-)

Auditioning...fabrics for my latest journal quilt. I'm a tad behind as this one is for June!

Tidying...my fabric drawer after pulling out all those fabrics. So satisfying but, alas, unlikely to stay this way for long!

Starting...a new crochet blanket. The pattern is Maybelle Square by My Rose Valley. The yarn is Stylecraft Special DK.

Continuing... to crochet my other blanket. Stylecraft Special again.

Walking...in Tatton Park.

Listening...to the bellowing of a stag as he marked his territory.

 

Strolling...through the woods today and hunting for interesting fungus.

So that's been my month so far: a curious combination of lethargy and busyness. Apologies for not having been around much and for not visiting your blogs either. I'll try to do better into November. However, there's still a few days of October left and I'll be back later in the week with a Halloween treat. x

Golden celebrations

50 years ago today, this lovely couple walked down the aisle together.

Happy 50th Anniversary, Mum & Dad!

Tonight we're having a party with about 60 family and friends. There will be balloons, banners and booze, karaoke and dancing, and enough food to feed everyone for a week! A quiet weekend to follow, methinks. x

Trails around Salford

I mentioned a couple of posts ago that Chickpea and I had continued our journey along the Irwell Sculpture Trail. Today (well, end of August really) our adventures take us to urban Salford.

The first couple of sculptures are in Peel Park behind the Museum and Art Gallery. At 11am on a sunny Saturday, it was deserted apart from a few dog walkers.

This is the rather grandly titled Monument to the Third Millennium which was inspired by the park being regularly flooded by the river Irwell in the past.

If you look really closely, you can see that the brown steel is shaped into fishes surrounded by the blue-grey swirling water.

Next to it is Fabric of Nature by Julia Hilton, looking sadly neglected and vandalised. It's only when you see what it looked like when it was first installed, how much of the brickwork and metal sections are missing.

In the centre there used to be an etching of a dandelion. The text which swirls around the middle says “We are but whirlpools in a river of everflowing water.  We are not stuff that abides, but patterns that perpetuate themselves”.

Around the edges are metal panels etched with leaves of trees found in the park.

We had planned to go to the Art Gallery at this point but it was still closed so we decided to head over the river to explore.

Once there, we found an unexpected bonus.

In a loop formed by the Irwell is The Meadow, a new park which has been planted with wild flowers and houses a pond, benches, footpaths and sculptures.

It's still a work in progress but we were thrilled to stumble across it.

Thankfully, by now the Museum and Art Gallery were open or, more to the point, the cafe! A coffee and sandwich later, we were raring to go and explore the collections.

Our favourite part was Lark Hill Place which is a recreation of a Victorian street. It's set at teatime on a winter's evening which is why it's so dark. Most of the shop fronts were rescued from demolition as were many of the fixtures and fittings.

Chickpea loved the sign in the pub saying that children under 13 would not be served!

I think my favourite was the cosy worker's cottage. I much preferred it to the grander Victorian parlour. Maybe a reflection of my own humble roots?

After a look around the picture galleries upstairs, and a couple of purchases in the craft shop which I will reveal at the end, it was back to the trail.

Next stop is Rise by Liam Curtin. The artwork which wraps around the bottom of the building commemorates the trade union movement - the building was formerly the HQ of the Transport and General Workers Union.

The writing is a verse from Percy Shelley's 'Mask of Anarchy':

“Rise Like Lions after slumber
in unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you.
Ye are many, They are Few”

I didn't realise until I looked at the web site later that the panels light up at night and change colour.

Next to the 1825 church of St Philip's with St Stephen is the next sculpture.

Seed by Andrew McKeown is an iron sycamore seed. Originally it was bright yellow! I much prefer the natural rusty colour it has now.

And onto the final piece which is in Islington Park.

The mosaic was originally created in 1992 but became damaged.

In 2010, the Friends community started a project to restore it.

The middle section had to be replaced. The new design was inspired by The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett who lived in the area as a young girl.

I didn't realise until I was writing this up that the park was once the site of a chapel and 17,000 residents were buried there between 1829 and 1858. Shocking numbers and even more so if you'd seen how small the park was.

A sobering thought to end on so let's lighten the mood. I promised to show you what I bought at the Art Gallery.

I couldn't resist this lampshade decorated with 6 machine-embroidered hares. It was made by Jill McCarthy and now sits in my living room. I love it!!

I also couldn't resist this beautiful drawing of a kingfisher is by Caroline Daly. I only bought a card but there were also framed and unframed prints for sale (also available on her Etsy site). The detail on them is stunning.

So that's 5 out of 13 clusters which we've now visited on the Trail. Plenty more to discover and to lead us to new places.

This weekend we stayed very much with the comfort of the familiar and went blackberry picking in our favourite local spot. I hadn't intended picking any this year but it was such a gorgeous day that we decided to head out to the fields. We didn't really expect to find any either as it's quite late in the season. The bramble bushes though were laden with fat, juicy berries and 3lbs of them came home with us.

I also spent time working on a journal quilt and should have something to show you soon. I know I've been pretty absent lately - a combination of back-to-work tiredness and lack of inspiration I think. In fact, this month will be the first in about 2 years that I won't be posting an entry in the Scavenger Hunt. Until this weekend I'd barely taken a photo all month. I wish I'd had my camera with me this evening though as the sunset was stunning. I didn't get any photos of the lunar eclipse either. I did set the alarm for the early hours and managed to drag myself out of bed but only to peer out of the window for a couple of minutes before climbing back under the duvet!

Enjoy your week. I'll be back on Friday. x