Weasels (dead one), wassups, bees, knitting, reading - oh, and a bit of baking

I woke early this morning - 2 hours before my alarm was due to go off.  I had things on my mind and knew I wouldn't get back to sleep.  Some friends of ours were due at 11 a.m. and I had things to bake. I'd made a Raspberry and Lemon cake yesterday, and a failed loaf of bread in the breadmaker (a smidge too much yeast I think as it overproved and collapsed), but I needed to make some Scones in payment for a chair they had recaned, another loaf of bread, and a traybake for Sunday when we have another Fair.

Windfall Apple cake as a traybake.  One half for the freezer and the other to cut up and hand around to friends on Sunday.  Plenty of windfalls out in the garden - well, Jackdaw-falls really as they are devils for pecking at the fruit.  The insects get their fair share, with all the half-destroyed fruit on the ground becoming a cafe for wassups (as we used to call wasps when we were younger), and the Hornet (in flight sounding like a jumbo jet by comparison) has been munching them too.

Then it was a successful loaf of half and half bread, mixed and raised to first rise dough in the breadmaker and then whisked out and knocked back, and put to prove a 2nd time in the tin before proper baking in the oven.

I finished off with using up some sausages as a batch of small sausage rolls, and left-over pastry sprinkled with cheese and baked up too.  The mountain of washing up was almost a welcome change after all this baking.

Below is a photo of the tiny Weasel that Alfie cat brought home (with much proud yowling) on Wednesday.  It was as dead as a doornail - I think they had just crossed each other's paths and then it was bye-bye Weasel as Alfie is a hefty lump, and used to catching well grown rabbits.

Today I gave myself the afternoon off.  I felt I had earned it, and the weather is SO glorious it would have been a crying shame to have spent a moment longer indoors.  So I took the lounger out to the patio, where I chased the sun around all afternoon, so hot at one point I even put on a SKIRT for the first time this year (too cold in summer), and I would do a few rows of knitting, and then read a bit of the biography of Coleridge Annie's daughter gave me last week, then back to the knitting.

It was so peaceful, and the air was full of birdsong, especially several Robins who have territories in the garden.  One loves to sing from the top of the telephone pole in the corner by the farmyard.  At one point some Long-Tailed Tits flew over me, and then a WaterWagtail serenaded me from the power line.  I was sat by some Sedum which is in full bloom right now, and there were always 10 or 12 honey bees on it throughout the afternoon.

When the sun disappeared behind the house, I changed into my trousers and followed it to our South-facing yard, where I absolutely roasted - it was still 70 deg. or more at nearly 5 p.m.  I was TOO HOT (in October!) and had to give up and come indoors.  I am NOT complaining, and this weather can carry on as long as it likes as it's like the first couple of days of July all over again.

The knitting is coming on well and the extra ball of cherry red wool I needed arrived today (Lanark Mills, I recommend them highly).  Another of the unfinished things I inherited from Annie was a big basket full of balls of wool and a half-finished teddy.  Looking through it today, I noticed a 2nd teddy's head had been started (one is finished and stuffed) and a jumper had been knitted, so I have two to finish now.  The cherry red wool is for a little teddy jumper, and is knitting up beautifully. Photos over the weekend.