The Season has finished and the Rain is coming

Wednesday we drove down to Leigh-on-Sea for the day

Based ourselves at our friends home as they were away again

Once I had had my charity/thrift shop fix we spent the rest of the day walking

I like the atmosphere at this time of year

Everything seems deserted and ready for the Winter sleep

In the afternoon we walked further along the Thames Estuary

The weather was a little stormy which gave me the opportunity to take some

photos of very interesting skies. I just love skies and

Wednesdays skies did not disappoint me.

We also managed to walk in between the showers so did not get wet.

So come with me and enjoy the peace and tranquility

This is an old tram used as extra storage space in the gift shop

My husband in the background practicing his German on some German tourists

He was very pleased that they thought he was German

All those changing skies were snapped within the space of 20 minutes

Lower Slaughter, The Cotswolds Pt 3

Lower Slaughter is one of my favourite villages in The Cotswolds.

There is not a gift shop or cafe to be seen.

Both the gift shop and tearooms are hidden behind the water mill. In fact they are part of the old water mill.

Here are a few of my photos so that you can stroll around it with me.

Keep coming back and in the end you will feel you know The Cotswolds.

Spider Poem and September Garden

The garden is beginning to close down now for Winter, but there is still some colour as you can see.

It is also the time for spiders.

I have begun a poem about spiders and wonder if anyone would like to finish it.

This morning we had a "Line Squall" pass through the garden. It lasted about 90 seconds but looked and sounded quite scary. Nothing damaged except garden littered with rose heads.

Some places in the country had mini tornadoes and they did have damage.

The Spider

Oh! Spider, spider how I hate you
Running around my bedroom floor
And then I watch in apt amazement
The emerging patterns on the garage door

Up and down and back and forward
Tirelessly your web you make
Nothing stops you ‘till you’re finished
Or I step outside and the thread do break

To break the web seems to me disaster
Delaying your supper by many hours
But it seems your patience knows no limits
As you begin again......................

I am a Snapdrago What Flower Are You?

I am a Snapdragon! What flower are you?

Just a bit of fun if you have time to do it.

Lemon & Cranberry Cake with Kath Kidston

Saturday I made a Lemon and Cranberry cake.

I got the recipe from Cherry's blog at Tales from Pixie Wood.(I have known Cherry since before she was born)

I was just planning to freeze half when Janie phoned to say they were in the area and would come over for afternoon tea.

Just in time! Great cake and an opportunity to play with Oliver.

Do you like my new Cath Kidston pinafore?

I bought it at a designer outlet on the way home from Oxford.

The teapot was handmade and hand painted in Sweden

A present from one of the many guests who have stayed in our home over the years

Cranberry and Lemon Cake

Heat oven to 170C

6 oz butter 6 oz caster sugar 8 oz self raising flour
1 tspn. baking powder 3 eggs grated rind of 1 lemon
4 oz dried cranberries

Whiz all ingredients in a food processor.
Pour into 2 x 8 inch shallow cake tins and place in oven and bake approximately
45 – 50 minutes
When cool, sandwich together with strawberry jam

Winchcombe, The Cotswolds, Part 2

A little more on the Cotswolds.

Today we are in Winchcombe.

This pretty town was affected by the severe Summer floods.

The town itself is on a hill which meant that they were cut off as the roads in and out were flooded.

One of the residents told me that they had a very difficult time.

For us we had a lovely day. We combined this visit with a visit to Sudeley Castle which is on the edge of this small town.

Will keep that for another post.

For those that know Marion of Reflections through the Seasons (see sidebar) this is the town she lived in when living in the Cotswolds. How could she ever leave?

I guess because she moved to the Welsh mountains which have a beauty of their own.

Post Holiday Fervour

Surprising how coming home after a break gives one renewed enthusiasm for the neglected household chores.

This week I have springcleaned the kitchen (was that for last Spring or next!), defrosted my six foot high freezer, cleaned out 2 fridges and Alan has cleaned the oven.

I have also put the garden to bed for the Winter.

I still have not cleaned out the kitchen cupboards, that can wait until next week.

Then and only then can I say that I have finished my spring cleaning.

I have the answer as to why I was having problems getting proper E-mail blog comments.

They were just coming through without links and partly coded. Having said that when I returned from holiday, I had an admin mail from my server telling me that I was running at full capacity, I suddenly figured out what might be wrong, and I was right.

My son-in-law had been sending me lots of videos of darling little Oliver and instead of saving them to my hard drive, I had left them all in Outlook. I quickly saved them all onto my computer hard drive and the next day all my comments came through as normal.

So the moral of the tale if you are an avid blogger like me is, don't let your mail box get overloaded.

One thing I want to do as soon as I can, is get to grip with Bloglines.

I know that will make my blogging life easier.

I will get Cotswold photos sorted as soon as I can.

For the moment I will leave you with a picture of some cards I sent to friends today. Why does everyone's birthday come in clusters?

Something else I need to do, get my card stock up again.

Also a picture of the Pyracantha in my son's garden. On visiting to feed the cats I just could not leave without taking this shot.

Bibury Village, The Cotswolds, Part 1

Thank you so much to everyone who wrote wishing us a good holiday. Much appreciated.

We last spent a week in the Cotswolds 19 years ago. As the area is only 3 hours from home (if the traffic is ok!), it is somewhere that we have driven through on occasions, but this time we really wanted to explore every nook and cranny as much as possible.

Our last stay there was very different to this time. We stayed in Sherbourne House, a Stately Home which had been the ancestral home of Lord Sherbourne and he had died leaving no heirs. The house had been bought by a very wealthy billionaire from America and it was his son who invited my family to holiday with them there.
This is another story which I will post sometime when I can get to scanning the relevant photos into my computer.

The Cotswolds is an area of undulating hills, nothing above 1000 ft, but the combination of the terrain and the colour of the Cotswold stone makes the cottages and villages very picturesque. Add to that the streams and beautiful rivers and narrow lanes that run through it all, make it a very special place indeed.

It is sheep grazing country and much of the area was built by the wool merchants of days gone by.

It therefore seemed very relevant that we stayed in a cottage on a working sheep farm.

As I have well over 300 photos I will deal with one place at a time so don’t know how long it will take to cover it all.
I will probably be interspersing the posts with other things so just keep visiting and hopefully you will catch them all.

These photographs are not in the right order, I just wanted to get them posted quickly.