Family visit

I've just returned from eight nights in Devon with my daughter and grandchildren. My son in law was moving his work premises over that period so I went down to help her out while he was working late and then to go camping with her and the children over the bank holiday weekend.

We had pretty good weather until the last two days so we managed to pack in lots to do!

                              

Gilby enjoying hot chocolate and marshmallows after a particularly chilly out door swim

         

We went to the beach twice

                                    

                                     

Gilby drew the whole family flying in his paper 'plane

                                     

They have a bell tent so I needed to have a scheduled meeting with my son in law before the camping trip to be told how to pitch it :)

                                     

It took me less than 30 mins start to finish with just a little help putting the centre pole in place. These tents are great!

                                   

We chose the site because it has a heated outdoor pool but we managed to pitch near the corn fields and away from the busy part. The children are great campers, staying up late each night to toast marshmallows on the camp fire and sleeping in late the following mornings. My brother, sister in law and some of their family joined us the second day and it was great to be together which doesn't happen often enough.

                                      

Polzeath Beach is on the north coast of Cornwall and where lots of surfing takes place.

                                      

                                      

The children were happy to get back to see how Snoopy had fared without them....not sure how Snoopy felt about their return ;)

Both our daughters celebrated their wedding anniversaries last week, I was able to baby sit for hose in Devon while they went out for dinner together, my daughter in SA and her husband took their boys out for dinner with them :)

                                      

Jesse looking very smart for his meal out

                                      

Joe showing me something but I'm not sure what :)

I'm not back home, it's always good to get back and we have lots on but I do miss my lovely family and am happy we had such a great time.

new recipe book

I found this recipe book recommended on Instagram, I rarely buy myself recipe books as I have some beautiful books that my children have bought me over the years. But this one uses mainly unrefined ingredients like spelt flour and honey or maple syrup in place of sugar etc. which appealed to my taste

It's called Love Bake Nourish by Amber Rose

I began with making the Honey & Lavender tea cake which is delicious and then Apple & Honey muffins which are equally as good.

I will include the muffin recipe below but if you love to bake and would like healthy alternatives to the usually extra sweet cakes, muffins, cookies etc, I would recommend buying this great book. 

The photos are wonderful too and so make the book lovely to look through.

                            

                  

                                

                     

Apple & Honey Muffins

125g unsalted butter, softened

150g whole grain spelt flour, sifted

2 large free range eggs

1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder

185g honey

60g ground almonds

50ml while milk

Finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon and 1/2 unwaxed orange

Unrefined icing sugar for dusting if required

For the apples 

2 eating apples (I found one was enough for 12 muffins) cored and thinly sliced

20g unsalted butter, melted

1.5 teaspoons of rapadura or unrefined castor sugar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees

Place apple slices in a bowl, pour over melted butter and sprinkle with the sugar. Coat the apples well and lay slices in the bottom of muffin cases

Cream butter for about 4 mins add a spoonful of flour and beat briefly, add eggs one at a time and add more flour if mixture is curdling

Gently fold in the rest of the flour, the baking powder, honey, ground almonds, milk and zest 

Spoon mixture into muffin cases (I like to use a nice cream spring release scoop to do this) and bake for 25-30 mins

Holiday

We have just returned from a sixteen day 'holiday'. We spent the first nine days in Devon and Cornwall, mostly with our daughter and her family. The sun shone and we had fun in the pool, Molly helped with podding the beans...this was the first time Molly had met the children and they hit it off big time! She especially loved Gilby and followed him everywhere.

My daughters garden has lots of beautiful hydrangea bushes, I had meant to pick some to dry but forgot 

The children have had pottery classes since the twins were two and are very capable now

We made a delicious cake

We visited the woods and met the Gruffelo, we played hide and seek and hubby and I went out for dinner with great friends who we don't see often enough since we moved from the South West

We then travelled up to Wales to visit our little cottage and do more work, we put the bedroom carpet down and the bed up! We put up a shelf in the bedroom, made from a lovely piece of driftwood we found on the beach back in March....knew it would come in handy :)

We had one day off working on the cottage and met up with my sister and her husband. We headed for the coast and after having a picnic on the sea front we explored the lovely little harbour town called Aberaeron, we loved it there and will visit again. 

We then drove back through the beautiful Élan Valley, the sun shone and the drive was spectacular 

, we stopped off for a cup of tea on route.

This area is just a few miles from our cottage, we really didn't know the area when we bought the cottage and are so happy with where it is

Hubby finished the tiling and showed me how to do the grouting, it's harder than it looks! We just have to lay the flooring then the kitchen is finished. I have been looking for a Welsh wool blanket to make a curtain to cover the front door that we don't use, eventually I found one that is both big enough and a fairly neutral colour. 

I realise I have repeated the curtain photo but as I am using the blogger app I couldn't go off the page to delete it from the collage without having to re do the whole page!!!

My husband used to be a plumber before going into the ministry, pretty handy when it comes to renovation work :) he has fitted a new toilet and basin, and laid the flooring which us grey stained laminate. Just the bath to replace then the bathroom is finished. The garden was looking pretty too.

So we have a few jobs left, the local carpenter that we found, replaced all the internal doors to lovely old latch doors and will fit the oak flooring in the lounge and the slate flooring in the boot room which will be a huge help. 

For now we are back home and back to church work tomorrow 

. I hope you are all enjoying your summer :)