Being a Domestic Goddess is Hard Work - and final photos from Ynyslas

I'll start with a quick round-up and then add some more Ynyslas photos.

Starting the Pontack Sauce.  I was half asleep and didn't read the recipe to the end, and had put the ginger and spices in a muslin square.  Recipe says to put in loose and strain off later, so did that.

Slicing shallots made my eyes water!

I had bought a big box of English eating apples for £3, and try as I might, I was losing the battle to eat my way through them before they got over-ripe, so I turned a good few pounds into Country Mincemeat (recipes later).

The two books in use last week.  The Farmhouse Fare one I bought back in the 70s and it is the book I probably use most for all sorts of baking and preserves.

Cook's  treat!

10 days' crochet and the round cushion cover is finished.  However, I bought a down-filled cushion which although it is 16" width, is DEEP and so I need to try and extend behind and beyond the pretty frill.  I am still unhappy about the middle - which the instructions didn't help and when I do another one I shall do it to a different starter instruction.

A quick loaf of bread was bunged in the bread-maker (including lots of mixed seeds and some tasty oat and bran flour.  This loaf says everything about what I dislike about machine-made loaves - sides cooked more than the top, and I like a good crust.  When I am not so busy I bring it up to dough and then prove again outside and cook in the oven.

The finished sauce.  I am going to make another batch with the elderberries I have in the freezer and cook it all up again to fill the jars completely.

Sock wool on the winder now.  I bought this in Hay last year I think it was.  Now I need to relearn sock knitting on 4 needles as I've not done any for several years.

Some cheap fat quarters from the car boot sale yesterday.  Christmas projects in mind, and the little sprigged piece for the 70s hexagon quilt.

Back to Ynyslas now.  Sea and some rafts of clouds overhead.

The soft pastel colours of Aberdovey across the estuary.

Remains of beach machinery - use unknown.  I could only think it may have been for reeling in Seine nets when fishing?

A wind-ruffled crow.  Other birds were far out on the sands and U.F.O.s.

Aberdovey again.

Looking back towards Ynys-Hir, where the RSPB Nature Reserve is.

One last look across to the Lleyn peninsula.  We will be back.

Afternoon at Ynyslas

We had occasion to go to Aberystwyth yesterday and thought we'd make a day of it.  We had intended to cut across country to Llanrhystud, but a closed road sent us into Aberaeron from Temple Bar and we drove up the coast road.  Here is the view looking North.

Leaving Aberystwyth behind us, we went a little further up the coast to Borth.  This rather unusual building - a Museum we wondered? - turned out to be the local  NISA supermarket.

However, the rest of the village was more traditional.

That sounds familiar!

I guess some of these cottages were originally fishermen's cottages and then other later houses were built in between them as progress reached Borth (e.g. the railway).

I loved the designs on this house - it made me think of patchwork quilts!

Anyway, we drove along to what had just been marked as a large sandy beach on my Road Atlas (unnamed).  Imagine my delight when we drove onto the beach and were greeted by stupendous views like these!  Looking inland along the Dovey estuary towards the Mountains.

Ahead of us was the town of Aberdovey, which I have driven through on my way to Towyn, but not seen from across the river like this.  It sits in Gwynedd, and is situated within the Snowdonia National Park.

This is a Nature Reserve too, but the birds were few in number yesterday.  I imagine in the winter it is a wonderful place for mirgrating birds or overwintering waders.

We climbed up amongst the sand dunes and I quickly understood how Ginger McCain got Red Rum racing fit by working him on Stockport beach!

Of course, most of the wild flowers of the sand dunes had finished flowering for the year, although the puffball thistle heads of the Carline Thistle still remained.

Looking south towards Aberystwyth and beyond.

Looking north - Towyn out of sight around the headland, and the mountains along the Llyn Peninsula far left.

More photos tomorrow.

Arriving soon - afternoon at Ynyslas

Back later with more photos.

Malvern, before it's a memory

As you can see, we had lovely weather on Sunday for the big Fleamarket there.  I went in search of views afterwards, driving along the back of the Malvern Hills until I could find somewhere to stop and a view which wasn't totally behind a screen of trees.  More at the end of this post.  The header, by the way, is also taken from the same spot.

A nice little assemblage of Kitchenalia.  I would have quite liked those sifters.

At the back of the sheds, some forlorn soft toys from bygone years.  The little dawg at the back was SO sweet.

Altogether now: "Coats comes up from Somerset, where the cider apples grow."  I was singing that all day.  I have no room in my kitchen for it, but liked it all the same, just couldn't justify spending £45 on it.

One of the better stalls.  He has some nice furniture and interesting things.

This was my favourite amongst the stalls though.  Some nice pieces of treen, two lovely horses top left by the flour bin, and some good stuff generally.

We had a lovely chat with the chap, who had come down from Yorkshire.  I was fascinated by the little "whisk" in front of the dark stool.  Apparently it came from Norway, and is one of those bits of inspiration (or desperation!) when a wife asks her husband to make her a whisk.  Stood up on end, it became obvious what it had been made from - a section from a well-grown Christmas tree!!!  Back left was a fabulous pestle and mortar (the latter made from a hollowed-oat piece of oak), and I also liked the painted candle box to its right.

A close-up of those horses.  I would have LOVED to get that little farm horse by the flour bin.  I should have checked the price. . . though looking sideways at it I think it is £40 or so.

A selection of quilts - though many of them were the modern Made in India patchworks which seem to sell dearer 2nd hand than they ever did new!

Some more here.  The yellow and pinks one is definitely a home-made quilt from the 30s probably, and I think the 3rd one from the left was too.

I quite liked this hand-made hexagon quilt.  It was £45, but having bought the partly-made one for a fiver first thing, I can now make that up myself instead.

'Yer 'tis - not a Granny's Flower Garden like the other one, but a nice one all the same with lots of Laura Ashley material in it.   I then had a wonderful time just going round all the stalls again looking for Laura Ashley or small print material to use, and came up with these:

The green print was £3 and the other two good lengths were £2 each.

This was the box of left-over bits of mostly Laura Ashley material, so will go into the main quilt in the fullness of time.  I like to have a hexie on the go - it's portable and I have LOTS of fabrics, including lots of 70s fabrics still which I can use up.

For £6 I bought this still-wrapped roll of 70s wallpaper ("Ascot") for our eldest daughter, as she has 70s china of a similar design and colourway and I thought would probably use this in her kitchen (perhaps on the cupboard doors).

I went to chat to the lady (Torquay Pottery collector) who I was talking with last time.  She showed me her rare (and valuable) vase which was one of a pair someone was buying off her.  I have committed it to memory and will know it when I see it if one turns up in my travels.

A sad reminder of a much-loved pony, whose hoof was turned into an ink well (common back in the day).  I have to say, Shamrock had quite the most low at the heel and long in the toe feet I have ever seen . . .

Then there was Jimmy, whose hoof care was also lacking, and he had a very upright boxy foot.

There seemed to have been a job lot of these skep style beehives, made from basketwork covered in dung.  European without a doubt.

Rocky Raccoon . . .

Lastly, some more splendid scenery.

I'd climbed up onto this pathway which ran alongside and above the road.  You don't know how much I wanted to just carry on walking and find my way up onto the top of the Malvern Hills.

Lastly, the Cats Cottage which is at Willersley, near where we turn off to/from the Hereford road on our way to Malvern.  It was still to be found with smoke coming out of the chimney and cats on the remaining upright window sill until a couple of years ago.  This is for Blue Shed Thinking who knows it well.