a country mouse and friends

Country Mouse and Little R had an absolutely lovely afternoon today. Poor Daddy Mouse is at work all day and misses all the fun. He gets to read about it later on the blog though, and eat the leftover cake, so that's ok isn't it?

We started the afternoon by baking an apple cake with the last of the apples we got from Granny and Grandado's tree. Country Mouse has made this cake before and will be doing so again as it is very easy and seems to turn out well. Surprise, surprise, it's a Fay Ripley recipe. You cream 150g of butter with 150g golden caster sugar. Whisk 3 large eggs and 1 tsp vanilla essence and add gradually to the butter/sugar until absorbed. Separately measure out 120g plain flour, 1 and a half tsp baking powder and 80g ground almonds then gradually combine that into the butter/sugar/egg mixture without over-stirring. Slice apples and arrange on top. Bake fan 160deg for about 45mins.

Below, one of the Pampered Chef gadgets I bought at the Pampered Chef/Jamie Oliver party a couple of weeks ago. It is very very very very sharp. These Granny and Grandado apples go a beautiful rosy pink when peeled but here I think they are bleeding.
The leftover apples worked in perfectly, with the very last slice of the last apple (after Little R and I had scoffed a few) fitting in just right.

45 minutes later it looked like this. Perhaps 40 minutes would have been sufficient.

When our friends arrived we went for a walk and a toddle round the village and to the new swing park. Little R and her friend had lots of fun climbing, running, throwing sticks in the river and putting stones up their jumpers and saying they were their babies. Country Mouse and her friend had a relaxing time talking about our current obsessions, which are charity shop bargains, blogging, baking and our babies. Some might say we need to get a life but hey, we're happy. Below, a pawfull of conkers.

The clouds have cleared at last after weeks of constant rain and a few days of absolute deluge, so it was especially nice to get out and about without being soaked. Below is a blurry photo of a freshly hatched conker beside a daisy. This was an attempt so show summer ending and autumn beginning in one neat little image but I think I need to look out the instruction book for my camera.

Below, a tree that fairies live in, according to Little R and her friend:

Below, a picturesque nibbled and faded mushroom photographed by my clever friend, who then gave me a quick and much-needed photography lesson. Fiddlesticks, it was me and not the camera all along.And on the way home, some beautifully rusty wrought iron. The roundels look like wee shortbread biscuits. Or perhaps they are basketballs about to be bounced behind the backs of a pair of slightly aggressive fish.

Then time for the apple cake, served on the 89p plates.

The leftover cake was too big for the tupperware storage box so Country Mouse and her friend had to have another slice to make it fit. We're very good that way.

a country mouse in a country park

This afternoon we went to a nearby country park. The park is the gardens and grounds of a large Scots baronial house so there are lots of odd little things to see, such as rickety hothouses (below) and old trees with huge trunks and twisted roots. The root in the photo above looked like a dragon's claw emerging from under the ground. The berries in the photo below looked like they were cuddling up to the hothouse glazing for a bit of warmth and tapping on the door - "let us in!"

The entrance to the walled garden. Shades of Frances Hodgson Burnett. I was looking out for Colin Craven rising from his wheelchair. Sadly there was no robin perched on the wall to show us where the key was buried, and no Dickon surrounded by his creatures. A magical book and one which I look forward to reading to Little R when she's big enough.

One of the last agapanthuses (agapanthi?), braving the wind and rain.

As well as the original hothouses (below) there is lots of Victorian wrought and cast ironwork, walls made of handmade bricks with old apple trees espaliered against them and some beautiful stone carving too. It's all very atmospheric.

The stone bench with wonky steps up to it (below) has been assembled recently from dressed stone pediments and lintels salvaged from some earlier structure. It sits on the edge of what was once an ornamental pond but which has now been turned into a maze (overgrown and very muddy) made of cobbles laid in the pattern of a celtic knot. There are a lot of water weeds and water loving plants around this area. Perhaps the pond was created in the first place because of a high water table in this spot. Little R thought that Tyrannosaurus Drip would love it.

A sweet little bird table, below. It kind of looks like it's been put together from various odds and sods of stone rather than purposely carved.

The rear view of the house (below). Note the solar panels on the roof of Rapunzel's tower. A few years ago, DH and I watched a production of Much Ado About Nothing in the garden of this house and were almost eaten alive by midges. I can hardly look at the place without flinching, even now. There were a lot of midges there today too but we had come prepared with some kick-ass anti-midge potion plus antihistamine cream (I'm allergic).

And back home, I came across a garden gnome painted by Little R with Daddy yesterday. He looks very pagan amongst the flowers. I love the autumnal shades of his hat, his jaunty yellow nose and the jolly red wellies. His name is Gnomie.