A Little Box of Cosy Hugs

Hello Friends!

Thank you to everyone who left such lovely comments on my last blog.  Your words and kindness touched my heart.

Much as I enjoy playing with fonts, I like this one, Eagle Lake, the best, so I shall stick with it for a while.  It is a nostalgic reminder of my schooldays, when I loved my art class, especially when we had calligraphy days!  We only had black or blue India Ink, but oh, what fun making all those deliciously swirly marks on paper, and the joy of creating small panels of words was inspirational.  I was good at calligraphy, and was a much favoured pupil as I was allowed a pot of both blue and black ink!

We've had some lovely sunny days, mostly a little windy, but, oh! my! the temperatures have dropped like a stone, and my lovely neighbour over the garden wall and I are in full agreement, it's time to put away the Summer clothes and bring out our cooler weather things.  Sad, but true, although I see it as an opportunity to indulge in hygge!

When I first encountered that word, hygge, I didn't know it was pronounced hoo-gah, and I kept switching between higgie or hugger. Well, my pronunciation was off, but the concept was already here, for hygge, to me, is like living in a cosy box of little hugs that comfort us in the colder, darker days of Autumn, right through into early Spring. I have always lived a hygge life, it just didn't have a name before.

Someone is playing Peek a Boo!

I think hygge is a different thing for different people.  Some of the delights of hygge that are special to me are my warm, cosy living room with its heavy curtains that keep out the long, dark evenings; sitting by candlelight and burning aromatherapy oils; snuggling under soft, cotton quilts and pillows; sipping mugs of steaming hot chocolate; a nip of home made sloe gin from my hip flask on a long cold walk; the scents in the kitchen of pumpkin spice, cinnamon and nutmeg; reading books {especially revisiting the old, familiar stories of old}; and quiet, slow activities such as painting and colouring in, knitting, or sewing a cosy quilt.  

Hygge is a full cake tin or two, and baking my favourite cakes, such as Madeira Cake, rich and dense, full of ground almonds.  The kitchen fills with the fragrance of almonds and lemons when this is baking.  Madeira Cake is so called as it was once a favoured thing to eat with a glass of Madeira wine.  I'll second that!  

 My other favourite cake tin filler is Seed Cake. Another one that when baking fragrances the kitchen with the scent of Caraway seed and oranges.  Although both cakes look similar, they have their own unique qualities, and both are a perfect accompaniment for a mug of tea at Elevenses or Threeses.

It's taking a long walk along the Welsh country lanes, wrapped up warmly in a knitted hat, scarf and gloves, wearing my hiking boots with chunky socks that wrinkle around my ankles keeping out the cold as it nips at my feet, then coming home, rosy cheeked and red nosed, into a warm and welcoming cottage for a hot drink with a piece of cake, snuggling in my favourite chair by a toasty warm fire. 

I can tick the boxes for all of the above, except the toasty, warm fire, and that is something I miss so much, although the older I get I don't miss cleaning out the ashes and chopping the wood!

It's filling the kitchen with the fragrant scents, and hustle and bustle of baking for the freezer, and cooking up the hedgerow harvests.  I love making applesauce for the Winter days ahead, from my own homegrown apples.  This is a favourite gizmo of mine.  It's a very old design, although mine is new, and has remained unchanged for many, many years.  A true testament to "If it's not broken, don't mend it" if ever there was. Come apple season, I wouldn't be without it.  In under ten seconds, it peels, cores and slices a large apple.  Incredibly time saving when you have pounds and pounds of apples to process.

It's so many more than those things, and it will be uniquely different to all of us, so I hope you'll share, in the comments, your own personal hygge.

Over the years I seem to have accidentally fallen into collecting woollen blankets.  I don't know how it happened, it just did, and now I have quite a few, all travel and throw size so very useful to keep on my sofas and arm chairs if needed.  Some even roll up quite nicely to fit in a picnic basket or back pack too.  I'm saving the blankets for another blog.

Maybe Henry "Bomber" Hedgehog has one in his backpack? What do you think?  He's certainly all set for a day out rambling across the byways and country roads, with his binoculars and pipe, and his red beret.  Quite the dapper chap indeed.

Autumn days means time spent in the garden, when the weather permits, of course!  There's always lots of work to do, clearing and cleaning, and generally tidying up to tuck up and put the garden to bed for the Winter. Just the other day, I snatched a few hours between the winds and horizontal rain, and hidden away in a corner where I keep old pot and bits and bobs, I found this joyful bloom!

It's a deep pink Kaffir lily!  I already have the paler pink, and plenty of it too, for it spreads like wildfire, but I have always wanted this deeper pink, and it looks as if it's volunteered itself so I must find it a spot in the borders. 

Until next time

Stay safe and stay well

Deborah xo

Autumn Is Here

Hello Friends!

I do sometimes state the obvious in my choice of titles, don't I, and unless you live in the southern hemisphere, then Autumn is most definitely here.

This font is called Architect's Daughter. I am not sure how readable it is, but as I am still playing with fonts I'll give it a go, although I very much favour the last one, Eagle Lake. I wish I knew how to change the fonts on the headers and sidebars of the template though.

The official, astrological start of Autumn was barely days upon us when we had our first taste of late Autumnal weather.  We've had two or three days now of the kind of unpredictable weather that changes within minutes, and have had horrible, short, sharp hailstone showers that I'm glad I was not caught out in!

From this {short video which I hope will work for you}

To this

to this

In minutes.  It's ridiculous.

I have done a little decorating for Autumn. I think it always helps cheer me up as the stormy days and longer nights come in.  I don't have a lot of Autumn decorations, but this Summer, hidden away in the attic, I found a big box of all sorts of pine cones I've gathered over the years.  They've all been thoroughly bleached and oven baked to make sure they are bug and disease free, and might be why they've kept so fresh for so long too.

If you knew how much I love pinecones, you'll know I could barely contain my excitement.  Just look at them!

There are teasels, walnuts, a few conkers, and maybe an acorn or two

Lots of different pine cones, all deliciously Fibonacci and so many shades of brown!

Then, there are these, my pride and joy, the Big Ones, which I've photographed alongside a medium jar Yankee Candle for size comparison, I guess they are around ten inches tall.

Little beauties, aren't they, although not really so little?

I have a little, antique, Deacon's bench in my hall, and have added some artificial sunflowers {the most realistic ones I could find} and some felt, crochet and pottery gourds.

I took the Autumn patterned fabric cloth away, it made it too cluttered.  I will use it elsewhere.

I also like to bring out books that are seasonally themed, and found this lovely one on my shelves, which covers all the seasons, so is aptly named, The Seasons. It is a charming anthology of {mostly} poetry with scenes of a bucolic nature on every page.  Some are in delicate colour, most are monochromatic.  

We'll take a browse through some of my other Autumn themed books in the coming weeks.

Since I had the gas fire taken out, the grate has looked rather bare and unwelcoming, so I've filled it with pinecones.  It looks so much better, and I do believe The Pretty Baa Lambs approve. 

Some individual photos of some of the more interesting pine cones I have collected.

Although not specifically autumnal, I found this little cup and two tiny saucer-like plates in a charity shop a good while ago, for just 50 pence. The colours and leaf pattern just say Autumn to me.

For fans of the Great British Bake Off, or Great British Baking Show as it's known across the Pond, isn't it great to have it back on our screens? Finally, a small sense of normality, and what a sacrifice they all made, being locked away for the duration of the filming.  I feel like dancing, and already disagree with the judges! 

Miss Emily E Claire and Beatrice Badger are so happy, they baked their own cake to celebrate.  

I confess, I am very fond of Emily, I rather fancy myself in that sweet, window pane check dress, apron and mob cap!  The little board is a plaque that belonged to my Grandmother, a gift from one of her sisters.  I come from a long line of good cooks!

By now, I am sure you've all heard the joyous news from Buckingham Palace that Princess Eugenie and her husband, Mr Jack Brooksbank are expecting their first child in the New Year.  Finally, some good news to hear, and to look forward to.

Until next time

Stay Safe, Stay Well

Deborah xo

Still Playing in New Blogger

Hello Friends!

I am exploring the new Blogger.  I am sure we all are now.  It has it's faults, there are many, but I've found a lot of great, new features too, such as a very easy way to change your fonts.  As a calligrapher, I can't resist a font!  This is called Eagle Lake.

I am having fun with it, are you?

I can change the colour too, which I could do before but it didn't hold when published.  Let's see, shall we?

I can now add emoji's.  🐻🌈💗

And, I discovered I can now add photos directly from my Google account!

My favourite magazines for Autumn

These will be mostly square, not oblong, as they are linked from my Instagram account: countrywaysandcottagedays

New Blogger is getting more exciting than it was, and the more I  play, the more I like, and I am starting to like it!  A lot.

Enough about that for now, I am sure we'll all be sharing more things as we discover them, and persevere with the new interface.  Soon, we'll wonder why we didn't like it!  I know I'm in the Honeymoon period with it right now. 

So, let's play with the pictures.  Here are some random ones imported from Google.

We hardly ever get Autumn colours where I live, and these were taken a few miles inland, on my two hour journey to visit my darling mother.  I remember the day so well, the sky was clear and blue, a perfectly comfortable Autumn morning.  My spirits were high with the beauty of the day.  Little did I know that in a few weeks my heart would be broken.

As you can see, they can now be custom resized to fit using drag handles, no longer just small, medium, large, and extra large.  Of course, you still have the small, medium etc. options available if you don't want to use the drag handles.

My little helper getting into mischief

My favourite sunflower socks and although resizing is easy, don't do as I did here {for an example} and drag to resize from the middle.  Unless you really do want to distort your image, use the corner drag handles!

My other favourite flower socks 

Japanese Wind Anemones

Ruby red apples on the bough

Small handful of late ripening strawberries 

More rosy red apples to harvest

Wild blackberries, juicy jewels of goodness

I will get back to more normal things next time, but am happy playing in new Blogger finding all the features and experimenting.  Hope that those of you who've struggled soon find yourself settling down with it too.  

I don't know about you, but I find the "undo" feature a very useful tool.

Until next time

Stay Safe; Stay Well

Deborah xoxo