Random thoughts

Is it just me, or does anyone else detect some similarities here?!!!

Today, I am having a relaxing time, sorting out some recipe files.  I've got lots of Weightwatcher recipes culled from magazines, and I am getting them into order so I can find and use them regularly.  Also, I keep a recipe folder in a Word document, so if I find a recipe I like online, I can file it away for future reference.  This seems like a good idea, but there are some recipes on there I use repeatedly, and I have to open up the laptop every time I cook them, and sometimes the laptop is in danger of being smeared with eggs and butter!  To save my laptop, and my patience, I am gradually copying out my favourites whenever I have a spare few moments, and then adding them to my physical recipe files.

Here is the first one I copied out, a real favourite here at Letters From Home, I think it was originally from Attic 24  I do hope it becomes your favourite too!

LEMON DRIZZLE CAKE

125g butter

175g caster sugar

Grated rind and juice 2 lemons

2 beaten eggs

175g self-raising flour

A little milk

50g granulated sugar

• Cream butter, caster sugar and lemon rind until fluffy (You could put it all in food processor and give a good whizz)
• Gradually beat in eggs (add to processor and whizz)
• Mix in flour and add about 4tbs milk (yes, whizz again in processor) - mixture should be soft enough to drop off spoon when gently shaken
• Grease a 1kg/2lb loaf time (I usually line with baking parchment instead of greasing)
• Bake in moderate oven gas 4/350F/180C for 45 to 50 mins until risen and golden, firm on top.
• Just before cake comes out of oven, prepare lemon syrup: Heat lemon juice and granulated sugar gently until sugar has dissolved (45 secs in microwave and a good stir)
• As soon as cake is out of oven, while still in tin, stab it all over top with a skewer and pour over the lemon syrup.
• Leave cake in tin until cold (The cake will soak up all the syrup, even if it looks very soggy at the start)



Recipe for Life

1 cup good thoughts
1 cup of consideration
1 cup kind deeds
2 cups well- beaten faults
3 cups forgiveness

Mix thoroughly and add tears of joy, sorrow and sympathy for others. Fold in 4 cups of prayer and faith to lighten other ingredients and raise the texture to great heights of Christian living. After pouring all this into your daily life, bake well with the heat of human kindness. Serve with a smile.

Enjoy your day!

My Patio Allotment

(Google Images)

In the style of Lynn at her new blog, I am going to write about three reasons to be cheerful.  Number one - remember the salad leaves and carrots I sowed several weeks ago?  Amazingly they are all growing well, and we have had two meals from the salad leaves already.  When we have sorted out our camera, I'll take pics.  Meanwhile I have to make do with 'look alike' pics.

Reason number two is that I am going to become a Granny in September!  I have had many happy hours knitting and crocheting for this first, special grandchild.

The blanket I was crocheting is much bigger now and finally finished, ready for the new baby, and I have knitted this lovely little duffle coat with tiny toggles. 

My third reason to be cheerful is that lecures are over, and although I have not entirely broken up for the summer, my work schedule is greatly reduced for the next month, then I will have a break.

I feel like Miss Read in Farther Afield, describing the end of term.

"Of all end of terms, the most blissful is the end of the summer term, when six weeks or more stretches ahead, free of timetables, bells, children and their parents. (Or in my case, students!) Six weeks in which to call your soul your own, to enjoy the garden, to think about next year's border plants, and of stocking up the log shed, even, perhaps, a little house decoration and tidying cupboards....."

Ah yes, with my patio allotment to tend, and some pots of flowers here and there, and a lovely grandchild to look forward to in September, it's going to be a lovely summer!

And with more free time available to look forward to, you might even catch me here blogging again, I do hope so!



Gardening for non-gardeners

Hello, I've been gone such a long time, busy with family and work and life in general.  One of my latest adventures, shared with Mr Letters From Home, has been a brief foray into gardening.  Now, although I love all the domestic arts such as knitting, sewing, crochet, baking etc, I have never quite got ino gardening, it's never been my thing.  But this year the gardens were looking a bit sad, in need of cheering up, and a bit neglected, so we decided that despite our horticultural ignorance, it was time to do something about it.

We started with the little rockery at the front of the house.  Here are the 'before' pics.

Some nice shrubs and a eucalyptus tree, but no colour - apart from brown and green!

Mr LFH covered the area with slate chippings, and we discovered some old cobwebby pots in the garage, which I cleaned up and filled with plants.  Now it looks like this!

We then turned out attention to the rockery in the rear garden.  There is no 'before' pic as I was so ashamed of it.  It looked like The Land That Time Forgot.  So we filled three wheelie bins with brambles, nettles and weeds, cleared the area, and covered it with bark chippings and found more pots and bought some more pretty plants from here and here.

By this time our confidence knew no limits, so the next step was to buy some packets of easy, quick-growing veg, and have a try at Growing Our Own.  I didn't want to spend a lot of money in case it all went badly wrong.  When I am buying yarn, I am happy to buy luxurious, expensive natural fibres, because I know I'll be able to create something lovely with it, but I am less confident with gardening, so with my 'easy seeds' I bought some plastic pots and compost to create my mini patio allotment.

Don't you love my trendy wooden markers?!

It has been a week now since we sowed the seeds, and amazingly nothing has died, I even remembered to water everything on most days, and some days it rained, so that gave me a day off.  There is no action on the carrot front, but there are little green fuzzy bits in the salad trough and bag, so one of these days I might be sitting on the patio, eating a meal al fresco, that includes some freshly picked salad leaves.  On the other hand, there might be some fat, happy slugs and pests wandering around the garden, thanking me for their dinner.  We shall see.

Any comments, advice or inspiration that you can give a clueless but enthusiastic gardener like me, please feel free to comment!

Oh, and another thing, even if I don't blog regularly, I do love to read your blogs, and if you ever feel like giving up blogging, please don't!

The Safe Place

I went to Jesus with a prayer
      Upon a suppliant's knee;
Low at His cross I laid me down,
      Nor asked His face to see,
Yet whispered in His ear the tale
      No mortal ear could bear:
The story of a faithless heart,
      And of its self-despair.

I told Him how my feet had slipped,
      How often gone astray;
How oft my heart refused to love,
      My lips refused to pray.
In stammering words that none but He
      Hearing could understand,
I made complaint of careless work
      Done by a careless hand.

Of wasted hours, of idle words,
      Of love oft waxing dim,
Of silence when a warmer heart
      Had testified of Him.
I owned my weak and selfish ways;
      How often all day long,
Moanings and sighs had filled His ears
      To whom I owed a song.
And what said He? What whispered words
      Responded unto mine?
Did He reproach me? Did His love
       On me refuse to shine?

Nay, thus He spoke, and bent Him low
      To reach my anxious ear,
My child, thou doest well to lie
      As thou art lying here ;
I knew thy human weakness, knew
      Each lurking bosom sin,
Knew it, and yet in loving grace
      Thy heart I stooped to win.

I knew that thou wouldst often fall,
      Poor work for Me wouldst do,
Wouldst give Me only half thy love,
      Give praises faint and few.

And yet I choose thee. Be content
      And since thou canst not fly
To heights by dearer souls attained,
      Let it suffice to lie

Here at My feet; it is the place
      To which My loved ones flee;
They find it sweet, and so shalt thou;
      'Tis a safe place for thee.
Yes, it is sweet, and it is safe!
      And here will I abide;
Sinful, and yet forgiven, sad,
      And yet so satisfied.

Let us take our lot in life just as it comes, courageously, patiently, and faithfully, never wondering at anything the Master does.

Elizabeth Prentiss

This weekend we are enjoying lovely sunshiney weather!  Enjoy your Sabbath rest today, and may you experience the peace of God filling your soul to the brim, and the joy of the Lord, which is your strength.

The Faithful Word.

In these days leading up to Easter, I'm reading "Seeing and Savouring Jesus Christ" by John Piper.  He asks the question, how can we really know Jesus?  And Is the Bible reliable?

He explains that God opens the eyes of our blinded hearts to see the glory of Christ shining through His portrayal in the Bible.  We do not need to pray for a special whisper from God that Jesus is real.  We can look at the Jesus of the Bible with eyes of wonder, eyes wide open, and fill them with the full portrait of Jesus provided in the Bible.  As we read and see, the Holy Spirit opens the eyes of our hearts to see the self-evident brightness of the divine beauty of Christ.  When we see Jesus for who He really is, we savour Him.  That is, we delight in Him as true and beautiful and satisfying.  This leads us to honour Him, and to walk joyfully in the narrow way of love.

Reading this book is really helping me in my serious quest for well-founded, everlasting, love-producing joy.  Everything is at stake.  There is no more important issue in life than seeing Jesus for who He really is and savouring what we see above all else.

Today I sat in the sunshine and read the last dozen or so chapters of Luke's gospel at one long sitting, to get my heart into the message of Easter.  The resurrection never fails to fill my horizons with wonder and joy and hope and longing and gratitude.

Have a relaxing weekend my friend.

I'm still here!

I had no idea I would be away so long - I would have warned you!  But I have still enjoyed reading all your lovely blogs.  My working week has been gradually growing over the term, but thankfully I break up for Easter on Thursday - yay!

I have big plans for the hols, which mainly involve crocheting my spring blanket, which is growing apace -  more news and pics on that later, some knitting, and tidying up the front garden.  I've taken some 'before' pics which I'll put up when I have some 'after' pics, but to get the after pics I actually have to tidy up the garden!!!

I suppose I could get a pic of Kew Gardens from google as my after pic, but I know my clever readers won't be fooled so easily.

Here's a wonderful Christian resource to look up that I regularly enjoy: 

http://www.girltalkhome.com/

As this Sunday is Mothers' Day in the UK, I will have the immense pleasure of having all my children here at home for the weekend, which I am so deleriously happy about!  It's so wonderful when we are all together.  Our children have always been very close, so it's lovely as parents to see them having fun together, and to hear them upstairs having a laugh together.  Very grateful to lovely son-in-love for sparing our daughter for the weekend.  He's an excellent cook, so at least we know he won't starve without his wife!  Hope you all have a good weekend, whatever you do.

Anyway, I've had a loooong day, so my bed calls, I'll be back soon!

Resting in Him

Just taking some time out for a breather today.  Feeling a little under the weather, so enjoying a looong lie in bed for a while!

Enjoying reading through some of the many words I write in my journal.  My journal is an A4 size page a day diary.  As I read through my Bible, I write down any verses that are particularly relevant to me that day. 


 Psalm 80 v 3 and 18 - "Restore us, O God, Cause Your face to shine, and we shall be saved!...Revive us, and we will call upon Your Name."

And I've been reading a little of Amy Carmichael - "Sometimes in prayer, it is difficult to find the words.  Often our Lord Jesus turned Bible words into prayer.  The Psalms were the prayer book of the Early Church.  It is ours still.  We cannot ever fathom the depths of this book."

Bishop Moule said that a hymn book was a good prayer book too.  They offer words to us when we have none of our own.

I am very grateful today that daily God restores us.  Nothing is impossible for Him. 

Isaiah 26 v 3-4  "You will keep him in PERFECT PEACE,
Whose MIND is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.
Trust in the Lord forever, for in the Lord Jehovah is EVERLASTING STRENGTH!!!"

I am feeling better already, I have read and prayed and thought and learned and blogged my way out of feeling 'under the weather', and ready to get up now and start that casserole that's waiting for my attention.  I work all day on Tuesdays to Thursdays, and sometimes part of Mondays and Fridays too, so I have got into a good habit of filling my slow cooker with good things on my home days, so I have something home-made to heat up when I am busy.  Tomorrow night, when I walk in the front door at around 6.30 pm, I'll be very glad that casserole is there!

Be encouraged, be strengthened, accept the perfect peace of God today my friend.