Back to school

The end of the summer holidays is always bitter sweet. Fresh new school uniforms, alarms set after being off for six weeks, shiny new black shoes waiting by the door. There is a certain excitement crossed with nervousness when you start a new school year. This year, in our family, it’s a little more as Alexander is headed to senior school! I can’t quite believe that he is as old as he is.

We have had a laid back, relaxing summer hols. Unfortunately, we were unable to get away for a vacation, but we enjoyed it none the less. The final main event was the LLanwrst Show. It was reminiscent of the Harvest Home show that we enjoyed so much in our old village in England. We all had a fabulous time, but Millie was the star of the show!

We entered Millie into the dog show and she was a smash hit! First, she won third place as child’s best friend. The boys took her around the show ring and had to answer questions about her and show how well they could handle her. As little Mil is so laid back she just took it all in her stride. Second, I entered her into the best cross breed category and she won first place! No one had even heard of a Norfapoo! I think that’s part of what makes her so special. Finally, the manged to win the main prize over all, best in show. She came away with three big rosettes and a silver cup to display for the year!

So, as we savour the last weekend of the holidays, we will look back fondly at the memories we made over the past six weeks. We have been blessed with an incredibly sunny day today and we intend to make the most of it. One last swim in the pool, a BBQ and sleeping in the tent in the garden!

We have loads of exciting things coming up in the months ahead! My family are travelling across the pond to come and stay, I have a mooting final to take part in, Alexander turns 12, and James graduates University with a first-class honours degree!

London's Calling

Our two amazing friends got married this weekend. We had a wonderful time travelling to London via first class train, thanks to Greg. We stayed in a beautiful hotel chosen by the couple, who's attention to detail for their wedding was second to none. Including handwritten notes for guests in their hotel rooms, to entire bottles of gin on every table. I also got a chance to snoop around their gorgeous London flat... oh to live without children, it would be nice to have pretty things. (Stewart- don't worry Rich didn't take anything.)
The wedding was beautiful; the ceremony was full of love and the day full of fun. I'm sure there wasn't a dry eye in the house during the speeches, and we partied till the next day. It was a wedding of two people who are so clearly in love and bring about happiness and smiles wherever they go. We wish them the utmost wonderful life together, and can't wait to see them again! Have a wonderful honeymoon guys!

Tomato & mascarpone sauce

(sorry about low res image)

Hi everyone. I had a couple requests for the recipe to my Instagram post. Truth be told, I didn't use a recipe. The quickest meat free meal we have in our house is pasta. I really avoid using jar pasta sauce where ever possible, with the exception of pesto. I make all my sauce the same way. The first step is to see what I have got in the fridge. The greenhouse has been so kind to us this summer and with a massive amount of tomatoes coming in daily, I had to pick something to use some of them up. One of my favourites is tomato and mascarpone. I text rich to grab some mascarpone on the way home. So the recipe is as follows.

Tomato and Mascarpone Sauce

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion or two shallots, sliced
• 1 or 2 cloves of garlic, diced
• 1 tbls of olive oil 
• 1/2 cup of white wine
• 3 mushrooms or more or none, chopped
• 8-9 tomatoes (small, or cherry), chopped
• 1/2 a tub of mascarpone you can also use plain cream cheese and it's just as nice. 
• broccoli, spinach, green beans (any tasty veg you want really, I used broccoli and spinach as that's what came in the veg box this week)

Method:

Add oil to hot pan and then add onions. Cook until softened but not brown. Add mushrooms and cook until softened. Finally add the garlic and cook until fragrant, slosh in the wine and tomatoes and cook for 4 to 5 minutes. add the mascarpone and your choice of veg and allow to cook until tender. If the sauce is too runny allow to cook longer until desired thickness is achieved. If the sauce is to thin add water (from your cooking pasta). Serve immediately, with hot pasta, gluten free pasta, gnocci, etc.   

That's it. Dead simple and easy for a quick yummy dinner. I had gnocci with mine and cooked separate gluten free pasta for my husband and son (Celiac disease). 

Hot Lemon & Honey

The past few days I have had a nasty cold, sore throat, cough. Getting a cold in the summer is not fun. However, the weather hasn't really felt summery so Its not too bad to be a cuddled up. When I was young, mummy always made me hot lemon and honey when I was sick, and now it's my go to poorly drink. I treated the boys and myself to some French toast, our favourite treat breakfast. It's super simple and takes no time. My favourite recipe is Nigella Lawson's Cinnamon plums with French toast from Nigella Kitchen. I love her! I tend not to use so much cinnamon though. However, I have a super quick healthier version which is just eggs, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg and cook it in a teaspoon of butter. I wish I could eat it everyday! I would share the recipe but I tend to just make it up as I go along, shoving in as much or as little as I want.

My boys

I am really enjoying the last few weeks at home with these cuties. I really can't believe that they will both be at school in September. They are such wildly different characters. I love them to bits! 

Have a great Friday.  

My little allotment

Way back in March my wonderful husband agreed to make me some raised beds for my garden for my birthday. It was a fun and exhausting project, but has paid off ten fold. The first task was to figure out how many raised beds we could fit. I came up with the plan and trolled Pinterest for ideas and plans. In the end I decided on two 3 foot by 6 foot, one 2 foot by 6 foot and a larger 3 foot by 9 foot one at the top. I measured up the ground and marked it out the string so we could see what it was like. We kept it like that for a while to get used to it (We are doing the same for the pond we are going to dig out). The next step was to source the timber. We had to find affordable, untreated timber that was going to last. We got lucky! We took a trip to B&Q and found massive lengths of decking on sale. It only issue was getting them home. In the end Rich and I had to cut them all up outside the shop into the pieces we needed for the beds and then get them in and on the car.
Once home the work began, I made two of them and rich the others. We used 2"by 4" as corner posts and dug them into the ground. Rich did the final fitting and leveling off. They were in place and I loved them. Then we had to fill them. This was an expensive venture. We got two tons of top quality soil. The only problem was the company delivered by pallet and and had to deliver it to a level area. So in the end they were able to put it across the road in the lay by where we park. We live on a rather busy road and I had to lug two tons of soil with a wheelbarrow and spade across the road and through the garden. I finished in about 10 hours. It was hard work but it was done. By this point I had already planed the whole garden and every plant that would go in in the first year and it was nearly time for planting, I'll save that for another post. We have had a very successful first year in the garden, with plenty more still to harvest. It's been very exiting and therapeutic few months, but I am constantly learning.

Little Ladies... hopefully!!

We have expanded the flock. We know have a total of 7 Chickens! That's 7 eggs a day, that's 49 eggs a week, that's 196 eggs a month! I kept telling myself we would expand slowly, but who am I kidding, chickens are amazing. They are so sweet and all have different personalities. Ginny and Princess and really changed since Ginny passed there  seems to be a constant battle of who at the top on the pecking order. They fight over slugs where there are two and tend to peck each other when eating. They aren't rough or vicious at all just letting each other know I'm not backing down. So we are going to have a world of fun introducing the new five girls in a couple weeks time.
For the moment, they are in their separate house and run and are in quarantine. It won't be long and we will move them to the outside of the big girls run for a few weeks, then we will but their run inside the big run and keep in there for a few weeks and then see how they get on.
We are all very exited about the new girls, I say girls but there is a chance that they could still be cockerels. Unfortunately, we would defiantly not be keeping any cockerels, and they would be returned to the farm. So the little *fingers crossed* girls names are-

Where did summer go?

It's been a long summer. The weather has been okay, not very warm but not too much rain. We have been having great fun, with days out, and a trip to Weymouth. There are plenty of jobs in the garden to do. In March Richard made me some raised beds and they are doing really well. We've got Peas, Leeks, Parsnips, Courgettes, Lettuce, Cabbage, Carrots, Herbs, Sweet Corn, Kale, Onions, Garlic, Butternut squash, Pumpkins and swede. We also have had a great crop of beans this year. We grew Potatoes in sacks and the green house is full of tomatoes and cucumbers. I have had great success with many different flowers this year. I planted up some hanging baskets that are flowering well. 

On a sad note Ginny my beautiful Rhode Rock, got poorly and passed away. We noticed she had lost weight and separated her from the others. I hand fed her for four days and tried a few different treatments I read online, but unfortunately she passed in her sleep. We wasted no time in filling the void in our hearts with some babies, 7 week old chicks. I will post some pictures of them soon. 

Thumper is going through his yearly molt and looks a bit scruffy. He's been a very happy boy and is doing well. My little boys are getting bigger and bigger. Luke is starting school in September and I will be back at University. Time seems to fly by these days. I've got lots of projects lined up and hope to post some of them on here. You can follow me on Instagram @sarahcouling for updates and fun stuff more often. Finding the time to blog is harder than ever right now, I would promise to make an effort to post more often, but I always do and then fail to follow through. *face-palm*