Primal Squirrel

At about this time, every year, my inner squirrel comes to the fore.  With the lengthening shadows and shortening days, the end of summer is marked by the countryside providing a last gift before it closes down for a long winter's sleep.  My instinct to lay down stores for the colder days ahead of us really kicks in and a bag of fallen apples given by a friend or an afternoon spent foraging for blackberries triggers my urge to make jam, chutney, pies and cakes.  Providing a warm and comfortable home for my family makes me cast a critical eye over our worn furniture, blankets and cushions.  Time for an injection of creativity!

On being given a huge amount of apples and rhubarb, the most pressing thing was to cook them before they went off and I could decide what to do with them.  I stewed them both without sugar and then left them covered in the kitchen overnight.  Next day saw me scrubbing jars and filling 4 of them with rhubarb and ginger jam.

This morning I awoke with the express intention of spending the day turning rhubarb and apples into jam, scones and pies.  The rhubarb, apple and mixed spice jam was achieved easily, but from then on things went rapidly down hill.  Rhubarb scones were next on the list, but the discovery of an empty egg bucket put an end to that idea.  Moving on then, to apple and rhubarb pies for the freezer.  Pea made the pastry and we lined two pie dishes with it and popped them in the oven to bake blind.  Some time later, we opened the door to discover a cold oven and completely un-cooked pie cases.  The oven had chosen that moment to break down.  Oh....NO!  I had in the meantime been attempting to make butter using a pot of left over single cream.  You put the cream in a jar, screw on the lid and shake like mad for about ten minutes, after which time you will hear a soft thud against the lid; this is your butter!  It then needs washing and patting in your hands for a while until all the liquid has gone, then it is ready to use.  It's great fun and very satisfying...usually.  Today, however, it didn't work.  So what with the lack of eggs for scones, (good thing too as it turned out), the refusal of cream to turn into butter and the breaking down of my oven, I was not feeling very fulfilled with my winter preparations.  In fact my primal squirrel was thinking of going for a lie down, prior to hibernation.

Enough of the food thing, time to turn my attention to soft furnishings!  I can sew well enough to please myself although I don't believe I am good enough to win any prizes.  But that's fine as I won't be entering any competitions.  The cushions and blankets that grace our furniture all year round are looking a bit jaded and, well quite scruffy.  Not the kind of thing I want people to see.  The dogs lie on them, which is quite disgusting and they spend most of the time on the floor as the children push them off complaining that they fall off anyway.  So, with the onset of a new season and with it, new cosy colours, I am intending to make replacements.  I raided my stash and have found, what I believe to be, some nice combinations that will lend themselves very well to becoming cushions and quilts to keep us cosy over the coming months.

I have stitched all the fronts together by hand and now need to find suitable fabrics for the backs.  Then I have to find feather pads with which to stuff them before they can take up position on the chairs and settee - and absolutely no dogs allowed.  They both have very comfortable beds of their own anyway and do not need to slob about all over my lovely new things.

So at the end of a disappointing day, I am a bit tired and fed up.  Not much got done, but an awful lot of time was wasted.  Hate days like this, but it could always be worse.  On top of all that, my lovely (expensive) toaster gave up the ghost yesterday with a flash and a bang and this evening I discovered the necklace that I wear everyday had broken.  My brother gave it to me on the birth of H1 and I love it.  Thankfully, it broke while I was sitting reading rather than when I was walking round the field.  I would have been really upset then.  My new oven is due tomorrow and the pastry for the pies is in the freezer, so all is not lost.  Every cloud has a silver lining, sometimes we just need to look hard to find it.

Hope you have a lovely day and thank you for reading.xxx