Sunday 24 June 2012

Saturday Walk

Muse and I are attempting to make a good long walk a regular thing, Saturdays are by far the best day, for obvious reasons.  Yesterday, we (Holly too) walked nearly 4 and 1/2 miles.  We took the lanes from the Village to Pentwynmawr.  The day was gloomy but the rain stayed away whilst we were out.

Of course, the upside of so much rain is the lush greenery we saw everywhere, the hedgerows are full of wild roses this year and look so pretty illuminating the dark green foliage of the hedges.

Hedgerow Rose


Hedgerow Rose

Wednesday 20 June 2012

Things That Made Me Go Oooooo

So ... I made my ritual virtual trip to the Graham & Green site today, mainly to drool and mentally plop objects from this site into my home, here is a random selection of things that made me go Oooo ...



Monday 4 June 2012

Egg Whites

Just a quick post to show you how I used the remaining egg whites, left from the Creme Patissiere I made for the Strawberry Tarts.

Meringues, so easy to make and yummy.

Meringue Ripple

Meringue Sundae

Sunday 3 June 2012

Strawberry Saturday

I bought some sweet little tart tins I found when rummaging amongst the nick nacks in a Charity shop at St Ives, in February; with the intention to make something you might see at a French pâtisserie.  Now, please hold the 'something like' part of that sentence.   

I have never made sweet pastry before, nor crème patissière.  I am pretty happy with the results, what they lack in finesse, they made up for in taste at least, that is what my panel of experts tell me (muse and Mrs C).  



I found the pastry quite tricky to work with, even though I rolled it between 2 sheets of baking paper it still had the tendency to stick if it was rolled too thin.  However It was quite humid yesterday, probably not the best conditions for pastry, I could have left the pastry to rest in the fridge for a little longer. 





Recipe.







Friday 1 June 2012

Local History

I have almost recovered from my early morning trauma, to share some local history. The horrors of this morning are diminishing and can be described as the complete devastation of part of my newly planted vegetable garden and potted sunflowers.

The culprits? An army of slugs and snails! They have without mercy, chomped and munched their way through the big luscious leaves of my runner beans, peas and said sunflowers. [Revenge is mine!]

So, on to my short piece about local history. A couple of weeks ago we took a short trip up to the Church at Mynyddislwyn, St Tudor's, it's just a couple of miles from where I live and has great views of the valley below and surrounding area.


St Tudor's dates from 1820 but it was built on a structure dating from many hundreds of years before. Historians say that prior to Christianity the area was used as a site for pagan ceremonies and rituals.

There is a local legend that tells of the building of the original church:

The foundation stones had been laid and the builders had retired for the night. When they returned next day, the stones had been displaced and now lay some distance away from the intended site. Perplexed, they relocated the stones but the following morning found the stones had again moved during the night. The foundations were once more restored to their original position but this time the builders decided to keep watch throughout the night.

As they kept their vigil, a celestial voice was heard to say: " Mynd is y lwyn " meaning " Go below the bush " They realised that they were attempting to erect the church on what was unhallowed ground and were being directed to resite the structure. Plans were revised and the church was constructed in its present location.

The heavenly direction " Mynd is y lwyn " is said to have corrupted into "Mynyddislwyn" and hence given the area its name.