Isle of Purbeck

Whilst we were in Dorset over the New Year period, I enjoyed some delicious ales, from Badger of course, but more interestingly from the smaller Isle of Purbeck brewery. I tried their bitter named, Fossil Fuel and a lighter golden ale as the name suggests, Solar Power.

Having researched the brewery since, I realise that they're actually a microbrewery and brew just 4 of their own real ales. The brewery is located within Bankes Arms Country Inn on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset. The brewery also produces their own real ale mustards, pickles, marmalades and sauces!! This pub is definitely on my list of 'to do's' for this year, and in August they hold a four day beer festival which is great as it's right near the beach, perfect for soaking up those long summer evening rays!! Ahh.....

Brew

One of the things on my to do list was to brew my own ale, and as lazy/busy as I was last year, I didn't actually get round to doing it, so I've decided to kick off this New Year by being much more productive (and frugal!) and I've finally bought my first kit! Yay!

Simon claims to have made his own brew many times but as this is our first attempt together, I've decided to make a kit so we can see and understand how it all works - perhaps then we can get into making up our own recipes. We've chosen this kit, Woodforde's Wherry Best Bitter -

It's a no sugar kit which should turn out at a pleasant 4.5%, but we've added a little honey to the fermenting container to make it a little sweeter / stronger, it's just an experiment so we'll see how it turns out!

I haven't got my camera to hand today, so no photos I'm afraid, but I'll be keeping the blog updated over the next week or so to show how it's coming along!

Exciting!!

Sam the Shepherd's Hut

Happy New Year everyone, I hope you all had a great one!! We very much enjoyed ours and I can now tell you where we decided to spend it - Sam, the Shepherd's Hut at The Old Forge Bed & Breakfast, Compton Abbas, Dorset.

Peace. And. Quiet. Wonderful!

Sam is a wonderful restored shepherd's hut, beautifully equipped with all the necessities - double bed, wood burning stove, table and chair, wine glasses, homemade rock cakes, lanterns and board games. At first we thought it was a bit mad to go at this time of year but once we got the fire going it was really warm and cosy inside.

Simon in Sam -

It was so nice being on the farm too, the Old Forge has free range black hens, 3 dogs, 2 horses and a donkey, Scrumpy Jack -

The breakfasts Lucy, the owner of Old Forge cooked were delicious and hearty. All ingredients are locally sourced, eggs from their hens, apple juice pressed from apples in their orchard and mushrooms, tomatoes, bacon and sausages (although being a veggie mine were just Quorn) from local organic farms. Lucy also makes her own marmalade and relishes, which were also delicious!!

Some more photos of Sam -

The views.

The inside.

Across the field from Sam is Rosie, a lovely old red wagon that is also available to rent out (if there are 2 couples, you can hire both the hut and wagon for a discount). You can see more photographs and read about it on the website, but I took a peek in just before I left - here it is!

Happy New Year!!

Fed up with the push and shove and general hullabaloo of London on New Year's Eve, we've decided to get away from it all and spend a couple of nights in the deepest, darkest countryside of England... more on that to come (next year) but here's wishing a very Happy New Year to one and all! Chin chin!

Retro Christmas Decs

Talking of handmade Christmas decorations, I spotted this little fellow on Simon's parent's Christmas tree on Boxing Day and wanted to share him with you! Simon made him when he was at nursery school all those years ago... Just amazing! I know who I'm going to rope in for making decorations next year!

Christmas Decoration Making

On Thursday I spent a wonderful evening with my good friends Kate & Chloe enjoying good food (the first proper feasting of this season), drinking mulled wine and making Christmas decorations for our respective trees.

I made some spiral shapes from beautiful patterned origami paper that Chloe found in Muji and will now thread them with cotton to hang from the branches.

Here's a picture of them:

And HERE's a good tuition on how to make them and put 6 of them together to make a star!

Secret London

I've been asked to arrange our Christmas work party this year and whilst researching, I remembered a very good book my friend Caitlin showed me a couple of years ago - Secret London.

They have a website HERE and it lists all interesting, quirky and hidden attractions in London and is a very good source of ideas for things to do! There's a lot of places I didn't know existed and houses that I didn't even know I could go into!!

Badger Cross Stitch

I spotted these two little fellows hiding in a nook when I visited my good and talented friend, K, one half of Magpie Inventions at the weekend.

Hausu

Meet Snowy, the cat from the hilarious Japanese comedy horror movie, Hausu from 1977. Just have a watch of the Killer lampshade scene! Amazing!

Lampshades

Talking of lampshades, at the weekend, my friend Chloe and I traveled down to Lewes in East Sussex (I just can't keep away from that place!) to visit basket maker extraordinaire, Annemarie O'Sullivan to learn how make our very own (lampshades)!

We were both really excited about this course and had been looking forward to it for a couple of months! I went along with an idea in my head of what I wanted my lampshade to look like, pretty much like one you may have found in a home in the 70s, incorporating traditional basket weaving techniques, but wasn't totally clear about the shape I wanted.

When we arrived we were opened to a whole world of different ideas; techniques, materials and shapes from the books Annemarie showed us, to the different examples she had, both lampshades she had made herself or picked up from various places. There is just SO much you can do, the possibilities are endless. I discovered weaved lampshades, lampshades made from willow, cane, round shades, long shades, different coloured shades, more sculptural shades... I very nearly became completely overwhelmed by what can be achieved, but I regained control and stuck to what I first envisaged, so the only aspect that developed was the shape I wanted it to be. For this, I was inspired by a willow pot in Annemarie's kitchen, it was lovely and rounded and I could see the shape being able to work as a lampshade, yes, this was the one, so I measured out everything and got started!

It was really nice, because Chloe had similar ideas, in terms of the materials and techniques she wanted to use for her lampshade, so we were able to talk through our processes together, and it was so great to see them both taking form - Chloe opted for a beautiful organic, pumpkin shape. And in the end, they both turned out completely different from each other, and also slightly different from what we had expected, each with a character of their own completely!

Here's just a few photos of our progress throughout the day...

Selecting your willow...

Securing the base

Weaving the first band

Weaving the second band

Finishing offA lampshade!