Friday Finds

My weekend started on Friday this week, lucky me!
I started with a visit to my fav CS, and picked up some lovelys.

A pretty Royal Worcester shell shaped dish, the name on the bottom is Strawberry Fair what with my recent strawberry addiction I had to have it.

I also found an old Oxo tin, I have been after one of these for ages some sort of childhood memory has made me want one of these.

I also got a lovely glass jug, just right for Pims O'clock!! and as I was paying for my finds I spotted something in the cabinet below. I asked to see it and it was an old ladys tape measure, with an embroidered top. £1.50 bargain of the day.

Next town beckoned with my in laws, we had a lovely lunch in my fav cafe Pestle and Mortar. Then we went shopping!!! I got a lovely new Ironing board for my CK Ironing board cover!! Now Ironing will be so much more fun.

Peas Please!!!!

OMG!!! I've just got back from watering the veggie patch and look what I found.

Pea's & French Beans and lots of them, they sure weren't this big yesterday or even there!!

This is my first attempt at growing peas & beans and they are really quite self sufficient vegetables, the hard work is all in the prep with the cane tripods. Luckily Gav made the cane frames for me while I planted the seeds.

I also had to show you one of my sun flowers. Last year we had loads of random plates pop up in the veg patch, we pulled some out as we knew they weren't potatoes (which is what I had planted) but we left 3 to see what they were and up and out came beautiful sun flowers. We pulled them up when they died and thought of them no more. Until they started coming up again this year in the middle of the onions, potatoes and peas!!! I didn't have the heart to pull them out as they do look so beautiful when they come out.

I also wanted to show you my water lily that Gav got me for the pond, unfortunately the flower only blooms for about 3 days and its in the day time so I kept missing it as I was at work, luckily Gav took a photo for me in his lunch hour and it is beautiful.

Have a great week let's hope the sun keeps shining xxxxx

Jamie at Home

Ohhhhhhhhhh what an exciting day!!
I picked up my Jamie at Home goodies today.

I went to a Jamie at home party a few weeks ago and it was fab. So fab I am having my own party in a couple of weeks.

It was great fun, you watch a DVD of Jamie Oliver cooking an exclusive recipe, you take part in a quiz where you can win Jamie Oliver prizes. Me being a geeky cook won the prize at the party I went to, a cool spaghetti portion measurer, fab as I always cook too much. The products are lovely and as you can see I did purchase a few things.

The kilner jars are fab, glass with a ceramic lid. They come in 3 colours blue, pea green and cream. I got one of each of the larger jars and two of each of the smaller jars in the blue. I also got some tea towels ( bit of a thing about nice tea towels at the moment got CK ones this week too!!)

And I got the 4 exclusive recipe cards for the month of June. When I have my party I will get July's automatically as I am a hostess & a nice binder to keep them in. I also got the hessian shopper bag which was on special offer, it's not normally sold as the consultants get their kit in them. Well I you fancy a party check out the Jamie at Home website. I will post again after I have had my party.

Very excited to see all the goodies in the flesh again and get them in my kitchen.

Have a lovely weekend and a fab 4th July xxxxxxxxx

A Parcel for me....

My Cath Kidston order arrived today, I placed it last week on the first day of the sale. I know CK gets a lot of PR from us bloggers but I wanted to show you my Sale Bargains. So my order consisted of

A new Ironing bord cover in floral gingham (thought it might make the ironing more fun!!)

A First Aid tin in red stencil

Two packs of Birthday Buttons

A red star book bag

A pair of Gardening Gloves in mini dot green (A gift for some one)

Some tea towels in stencil & shooting stars

Not bad I thought for £40, and it's lovely to get a big parcel in the post, especially one with pretty presents for me in!!! If you have a spare 5 minutes and some spending money, have a look on the Cath Kidston website and treat yourself. My top tip would be to phone and place your order as they sometimes have more products in the sale than online.

Happy Shopping xxxxxx

Jam Packed!!!

I have defiantly recovered from Friday night's wine!!

I got up early and went car booting with Gem and Milo, a couple of bargains but not as many as my last expedition. A little jelly mold, a couple of old glass medicine bottles, and 3 tomato plants.

I was home by ten, Gav was up so we popped into town for a bit of retail therapy.

1 new top, and a new purse from TKMAXX, a pair of jeans from the YMCA charity shop and a beautiful silver ring from the jewellers. Not bad for a Sunday and all that before 1pm.

I did have a power nap (as Gav calls them) when we came home, think I over exerted myself this morning.

Then came the first try at Strawberry Jam making. My BF Gem came back round and we started the experiment together.

With yesterdays strawberry's all 4lb of of them & 2lb's of Jam sugar and we were off.

I went with the recipe on the back of the Jam sugar and kept my fingers crossed.

I have been collecting Jam Jars since Christmas in anticipation of the summer fruit season, so we got them out and did as Nigella does and ran them through the Dishwasher to sterilize them.

I started by blitzing the strawberry's in the food processor, then putting the pulp into a large pan with the 2lb's of jam sugar. Warmed the pulpy mixture until the sugar had dissolved and then let it come to the boil.

We let it come to a rolling boil for 4 minutes then took it off the heat.

I tested it on a saucer and it set. Hey presto homemade strawberry jam!!!!

We filled 11 Jars, Gav helped with the baking parchment circles for the top and we popped the lids on while the jars were still hot.

Then with my new found burst of energy, I planted my tomato plants and watered the garden.All the plants are doing well, we dug up some more potatoes and I have a few french beans on the bean plants, loads of peas and lots of little courgettes.

Popping noises have been coming from the kitchen all evening from the jam cooling, I did have a little spoon full on a slice of toast just to check it was edible, which it defiantly is.

Thanks to Pixie Dust at Faerie Nuff who gave me the inspiration to go fruit picking and to try my hand at Jam making x

Have a good week xxxxxxx

The day after the night before!

Well I shall start by saying sorry I haven't posted anything in the last couple of weeks but it has been hectic in the Chez Sophie house hold.

Mum and Dad came to stay, then we had friends fly in from the states, work all week and then the weekend. Finally I have time to post!

Friday night turned in to an impromptu party in the garden, no time to cook so Pizza was delivered and wine was drunk, Lazy I know but some times you just have to give in to the take away!

Sore head in the morning but nothing that a bit of sun shine couldn't sort out.

We decided to go for a drive and see where it took us, we started at the garden centre then decided to go fruit picking at our local Pick Your Own farm, I was reading Pixie Dust's post on The Great Strawberry Project and have been bugging Gav to take me ever since. I haven't been fruit picking since I was a little girl!

The sun was shining and there was a really good choice of fruit and Veg to pick.

We picked Black Currents which were as big as Blue Berry's.

Red Currents which looked like Ruby's glistening in the sun, poking out between the leaves on the bushes.

And lush ripe Strawberry's.

One for me one for the pot, you know how it goes!!

Well now all I need to do is make Jam!!!

Lets see how tomorrow pans out and then maybe I will post about Jam making.

Have a Lovely sunny weekend xx

Car Booty!!!

In a moment of madness Saturday night (after a few glasses of wine) I agreed to get up early on Sunday and go car booting.

Well it was worth it, up and ready for 9am (I know not that early) I was picked up and off we went to the car boot.

Milo the chocolate lab came to for a walk and we set off down the row's & row's of summer sellers.

My finds for the day encluded the following.

Some dinky little kilner jars, 10p each so I had all 4! Great for when I start Jam making.

A little heart shaped cake tin 25p,

A cream milk jug 50p. Total spend at that stall £1.15.

A few rows on I spotted an old cook book amongst a box of books, it's called Cookery Illustrated & Household management, £1 so I had that. I'm always intrigued to see what recipes there are in old cook books. I also found an old fashioned Cadburys tin 50p. Total spend at that stall £1.50.

Second to last row and I happened upon an obviously bored husband with 3 beautiful white painted ornate mirrors, two oval ones and one oblong one. So I asked the question "How much is the large mirror" thinking to myself it will be way out of my budget but worth an ask and guess what £5.00! Well I handed the bored husband a fiver and walked proudly off with my bargain of the day. I'm afraid that it has replaced the round gold mirror which was Gav's Grandma's but that will have a new home somewhere else.

So my new bargain mirror has pride of place in the blue room, above the newly installed fireplace.