Home again, home again.

Yep, we're back from sunny France and things have been a bit flat. Ricardo has been doing his books with much swearing and I have been re-hemming curtains endlessly. I did however manage to rouse myself to make one new cushion.
However being in a small workroom with one small window looking out onto a courtyard/carpark just isn't the same as a pale lavender coloured one that smells of seagrass with a view on the same level as the swallows.
In the mean time I have become slightly obsessed with trying to make Macarons. it's well worth salivating over the pictures and descriptions of the flavours at Laduree
I made my first attempt today with a pale pink variety. Sifting...Piping...and cooking. They worked out just OK...a bit soft in the middle though.Now I've purchased a silicon baking mat and some coloured paste instead of liquid food dye. I'm raring to go on the next batch.Which will be pistachio flavoured.
Who knows, I may even get them to look like this...

Post holiday blues post

It's been frosty & cold & bloody miserable round here. So hard to come back from a holiday. All goofing off, sunny weather & no housework.
How does one delight in one's surroundings wherever one is in the world?
Spring is starting to comee through though. There are primroses out in my backyard and all the trees in the hedges are starting to be puffs of white. My morning walk now contains fields, cows, rooks, frost and the odd pheasant. No longer rosellas, cockatoos, heat, sisters & nieces.
Ricardo is working over at a nearby village called Great Ellingham, soundproofing the belltower. I have been over to help him for a couple of hours. There are 60 steps up Great Ellingham tower and no step is the same height or width as the next one. Bloody difficult to carry a sheet of plasterboard up when there's no handrail and no lights.

THE COLD

My reason/excuse for not blogging is that I've had "The Cold.
What a bloody pain in the arse it is. I've had sore teeth too and so haven't even had the consolation of eating yummy things. I can't be bothered doing anything, even looking at the washing basket makes me feel exhausted. I just hope it's gone by the 8th December when we fly off to Singapore & Oz, I couldn't stand coughing on all those orchids. So boring.
There was some consolation last night as I got up in the wee hours (turned out it was actually only 11.30 pm) to cough unrestrainedly. There was a marvelous programme on Television with that complete Dish Ewan Mcgregor on it, called "Long way down". He and a fellow rider, Charley Boorman riding motor bikes on a 15000 mile journey from John O'Groats to Cape town. Amazing stuff. It made me glad to have a comfortable house & a warm bed to go back to when the coughing stopped.