A Saturday Morning's Walk.

Over the weekend I drove out to the Oxfordshire countryside with my sister & mum. I decided to take my new camera, the Canon 1100d, and share the photos with you.

The Aston Rowant Nature Reserve is placed just above the M40 at Junction 5. 

After parking the car, we headed down one of the many trails. This is what we found: 

The views are pretty incredible.

I wondered how many people travelled past us whilst we sat being blustered by the wind.

We headed back past car and through the woods. Tilly, the dog, had so much fun sniffing around the bottom of the trees. 

The sunshine peeping through the trees warmed our hearts. Dreaming of the summer.

 

 

We made full use of the split-trees from the recent storms.

 

The fallen trees had attracted people to chop up the wood, we were thinking of heading back to chop some up for the kitchen. 

We decided against it.

 

 

Tilly was hoping for some treats as a reward for being such a good model.

She got one.

 

We headed home, washed down the boots, the dog, and ourselves and cooked up some pancakes before settling down on the sofa for the afternoon. 

A pretty good Saturday in my opinion. 

Lydia

x

A Weekend At Home.

I thought I would share with you and average weekend for me when I'm not working. They are usually filled by trying to relax, but socialize at the same time!

 

Whenever I get time, especially on the weekends, I make time to spend some time walking Tilly, always wrapping up in a coat & scarf. I love scrambling over stiles and into woodlands.

Saturday was spent tidying up the kitchen and drinking coffee. It was crazy to see how many dishes, pots, pans that my parents have collected of the years that they have been married.

Sunday is always a time to head to church and socialize, today was spent having lunch at a local pub getting to know knew people in the town.

Sunday evening's for me are spent joining in with Lifestyle Bloggers Chat on Twitter and writing up new posts.

I hope this post has shown how I spend my time, what do you do when you have nothing else planned?

Lydia

x

A Day Celebrating All Things Agricultural.

Hello Lovelies,

I am very sorry that I haven't blogged so far this week, however, I have been a little busy starting a new job. This job has made me a very happy person because it means I am still doing aspects of what I love in my time away from university. 

Over the weekend, I visited The Henley Show. This is annual celebration of Oxfordshires agriculture and farming communities. This year was a first for me and I thoroughly loved it. 

If you were anywhere in the UK on Friday you would know that there was a serious amount of rain pouring down which put my friend from coming with us, but being in the country seems second-nature to me so rain is not an issue! Anyway we didn't have any rain on Saturday at the show :)

There were lots of activities going on, such as an equestrian competition with show-jumping and dressage (I think!), there were local farmers there selling chickens as well as showing their cattle off, as well as a group of dancing sheep...

Unfortunately for us the sheep didn't feel the beat in the music during the performance but it did not stop us from having a good ole' laugh. 

Walking around the site we had the lovely music of Lucky To Be Alive, a function band that are really good! 

Another part of the show we took interest in was the dog show. We entered Tilly into the Prettiest Bitch contest in the novice category. She didn't win and I don't think we will get to Crufts with her, but how could you say this gorgeous pup isn't pretty!?

We took in all aspects of the show and spent some money buying Christmas Presents for friends and just had a really fun time. Here are some of the things on display:

 This shampoo smells so good! We spoil our dog a little too much sometimes.

 

I think if I was going to own a tractor, I would buy a pink one too :)

There was some abnormally large fruit & veg in the produce tent.

If you want to visit your local country show, a full list can be found here;

http://www.countryshowguide.co.uk/

Bye Lovelies 

x

Bank Holiday Baking.

Hello everyone,

I am sorry I haven't posted in a while, life has been a little quite whilst I am still recovering from having my leg cast off, however, I am nearly there and am looking forward to getting out more and more. 

As it has been a bank holiday weekend, I thought I would make the most out of it and do some baking, trying out a recipe I have never used. My sister, Naomi, has used it before though and she does it well. I am talking about the Hummingbird Bakery's Red Velvet Cupcakes. I have bought these cupcakes from the bakeries around London and they are divine!

Here's some of the baking from today:

I found the recipe quite simple to follow, however I think I used the wrong food colouring so, these red velvets, aren't red. I found the recipe for the icing did not work well, maybe this was due to me using a handheld whisk instead of a stand-alone mixer? Let me know if you can make a good cream cheese frosting :) 

The finished product. A brown, chocolatey, yummy, red velvet cupcake, perfect with a glass of wine to finish off a lovely bank holiday weekend.

Bye lovelies 

x