Herb garden II

End of March I decided to remove the grass on the steep bank outside our kitchen door and instead plant some herbs. At the time it looked a little bare but just look at it now two months later!

Bicycle Village

As everyone knows I like cycling and here I'm trying out a micro-bike displayed at the Bicycle Village 2011 event. I went to promote the mountain bike skills courses but managed to try out some of the bikes that were on show. The small bike was surprisingly comfortable and a lot easiest to cycle on than the penny farthing I had a go at later!

Wisteria flowering!

I am so delighted to be back from holiday in time to see our wisteria flowering! This is the third spring we live at this house but the first time our wisteria has decided to treat us to its beautiful cascading flowers!

Spring sunshine!

Today the weather is absolutely stunning, which gave the opportunity to not only put up my new washing line but also try out my new camera. The old one sadly couldn't cope with the dampness of my backpack while being used on the mountain biking courses so I've ended up buying a waterproof and shock proof Olympus, not the highest spec or anything but robust enough to be used outside (even when the weather isn't as nice as today!).

Herb garden

Gardening on a steep slope isn't easy! Thankfully the garden has many levels and has been landscaped very well apart from a grassy slope just outside the kitchen window. While lawns can be beautiful when newly mowed and properly looked after, the patch visible from our window never quite fell into that category (being on a steep slope didn't help!) so finally after two years I decided to turn it into herb garden. It has been a pleasure to remove the grass and slowly work from one end to the other filling in the border with lovely fresh herbs. I've only done about a third of the area yet but a trip to the garden centre yesterday resulted in a large purchase of more herbs and the odd rockery plant which should be able to cover the remaining area! And it is conveniently located just outside the kitchen!

Veg patch nearly ready!

William's cricket area proved to be too small last summer as the balls just kept going outside of the enclosure and nearly over the roof tops. Lily the dog enjoyed being the best (and only) fielder and managed to find and bring back most of the stray balls that rained down over the rest of the garden. This year, after having waited two years, I will grow some vegetables instead and have constructed a few beds as well as planting some fruit bushes. I made good use of today's spring sunshine and carried a few buckets of wonderfully rich and rotten horse manure from the neighbours manure heap. Back breaking work, as most gardning is when living on a steep hillside, but definately worth it as I'm already excited about all the vegetables I'm going to grow this year.

Airkix fun!

In Manchester there is an indoor skydiving centre called Airkix, which uses a big fan to create huge wind speeds that lifts you off your feet simulating a skydive without the hassle or danger. William got scared of the loud sounds from the fan and decided not to have a go last minute (although we saw children as young as 4-5 years old having a go!) so I got the opportunity to have several goes and it was fascinating to learn how to move around and control your position in the air. At the end the instructor took me up to about 10 meters and down again really quickly which added an extra thrill to the session. If you get an opportunity to try this do it, but you have to book well in advance as it is very popular especially at weekends! You'll never forget the feeling of flying! But don't worry I'm not going to take up the sport of parachuting anytime soon!

Showing John the trails!

The weather is getting increasingly drier and sunnier so John took a day off work and we went for a long mountain bike ride around Chinley Churn and Hayfield. We could hear the helicopters going back and forwards to Kinder Scout and at first we thought there might be a big rescue operation taking place, but then realized they were only carrying flagstones for the foot path restoration up there. John did really well and rode loads of quite technical descents and we were nice and tired when we arrived home 32 km later.

Up to the Downfall

A cancellation meant that suddenly Saturday was free. John went out for a long ride on his road bike with his friend Mike and I suddenly thought: Why not walk up to Kinder Scout and have a look at the downfall (the waterfall from Kinder). The plan was not received well by William who rather would have liked staying in front of the TV, not at least since the weather looked gray, misty and drizzly. But half an hour later we were walking along Kinder reservoir and once we left the road I found it almost a struggle keeping up with him and Lily, they were like two mountain goats. Just as we reached the top the mist cleared and we got a beautiful view over the Peak District and the Cheshire plain. The downfall was in full flow and the wind picked up but by walking fast and jumping from rock to rock we stayed warm until just before the end. Just under 4 hours after setting off we walked in to the warm and welcoming Sportsman for a pint and a meal and were joined shortly afterwards by a tired John and Mike. Perfect Saturday, and hopefully it will be easier to persuade William to come walking next time!

Half-term cookery fun!

It is half term this week and William's friends are away skiing and the weather is rubbish! The TV and games console has been on way too much so today I thought we'd do something more creative: design a scary three course dinner for John this evening!

First course turned out to be "Volcanic eruption" using the duck eggs we were given to us by our neighbour topped with salmon caviar with the colour of lava.

The main course we decided to call "Caterpillar surprise" since it was pork fillet medallions and black pudding slices mixed up to look a bit like a caterpillar. These were resting on cauliflower puree to keep them still and served with pan fried leek and mushrooms and a cream and tarragon sauce. The photo was too repulsive to post on here but the flavour was very good!

The best to last and this was William's favorite dish: "Eyeballs in blood soup" which was ice cream balls in strawberry puree.

William produced a lovely looking 4 page menu while I did most of the cooking.  Although William did actually did some washing up!

 But fear not, it won't appear as B&B food anytime soon, unless specially requested by 11 year old boys...

Getting to grips with html!

Ah, time has finally come to get stuck into the computer side of things. A good website is everything these days as that is were you can not only provide all the information that will help people decide whether our cottage is for them but also help them contact us and not at least find us!

As with everything in this house we prefer to go back to basics rather than pre-fabricated so that is why I've decided to learn html. In a way it seems like just another language with its own vocabulary and grammar but the advantage is that by testing and loading up the webpage after each little change is like having a very patient native speaker interpreting your every word literally. After a few hours of mostly trial and error and occasionally going to on-line tutorials I've finally manage to re-design our website. New colour scheme, different pages and also with a calendar to show availability. 

When I get tired of the mouse I'll just hand it over to the cat.....