National Trust / Weather - Spring is Here!

We went to the fantastic gardens at Nymans and Wakehurst Place on Sunday. They were heaving with people and we only just managed to scrape into a place in the car-park at Wakehurst...

It was beautiful. As I have said before Nymans is our favourite National Trust place to visit. Judging by the number of cars queing when we left at about 11.30am so did everyone else love it. Lots of coffee and cakes with a lunch thrown in - a lovely way to spend a spring day. My phone camera managed to snap a few shots but then died on me. I am not lucky with gadgets - I seem to have some aura of messing them up. Same with watches!

Here is the National Trust site for Wakehurst :
https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/wakehurst-place/

Here are a couple of pictures of our lovely sunny day.

Amazingly strong sunlight through trees by a waterfall

Rhododendrons at Nymans March 2014

My Current Reading

I said I would take a Blog break but I can't settle. The weather is too nice and I am getting slightly into writing on here like a diary! I guess that is good for my life writing criteria...

I am doing an exam next week for my other course on 'Voices and Texts' and am trying to get into revising but there is always something better to do. I've been gardening since Friday. It has been such a temptation to get outside. Good for the soul and Vitamin D levels too. That's my excuse for lack of revision anyhow.




I have been reading a lot of Irish writers lately for some reason. I have always loved Cecilia Ahern and Maeve Binchy (bless her soul). My current favourite has to be Kate Kerrigan and I cannot wait for her new book to come out this year (I think). I adore her characters especially Ellie.

For my autobiography/ biography reads I am reading Iris by John Bayley. So far I do prefer the film but as my favourite actors are in it so that is likely why. John Bayley's A Memoir of Iris Murdoch - of his wife is so beautifully written. A sad story for anyone; all the more so as Iris was an incredibly intelligent philosopher and writer. I feel anyone who has known or is dealing with this disease should either read of watch the film. I lent this from the library as a lot of my books on my bedside are from there too. I must remember to return one by Thursday! You can also lend DVD's from the library remember only £3 for a whole week. They do deals in the school holidays which are useful.


References
Bayley, J. (2012 [1998]) Iris A Memoir of Iris Murdoch, London, Duckworth Overlook

Beautiful irises

Pancake Day - Sad Face : (

Little pancake sad face came out like this!

I don't like making pancakes! I've done American, blueberry, sweetcorn and many more and I always dislike the procedure. This year my daughter has helped with the flips. She is ace at that bit! I can't flip and they always fall apart. We have done small pancakes this year in our little frying pan. I turned this one over and there was this sad face looking at me. Had to share!

Butterflies and butter cream

Butterfly Cakes

Today has been a lovely day. Birds woke me up at six in the morning rather than my Lumie light. I know now that spring is on its way officially. The Lumie light is amazing for the winter. You can get them from places like Amazon. It has to be one of my best Christmas presents the husband ever got me. Loss of sunlight affects me greatly. I can highly recommend it for insomnia too. If SAD is an issue then chocolate, cakes, baking and this light are very helpful. Now blue skies are here. Let's hope for longer than one day...
As I have said before I love to bake and these little cakes are simply great. They take only a few minutes to make. The recipe varies from book to book but this one involves hand beating rather than the electric mixer; so good like the old days. It was from a book my daughter had when she was little. We still like to use it.  I used to love baking as a little girl and it is a family tradition carried by us all. Although now I do find beating butter cream is very hard with butter, even at room temperature. I may have to learn to ask daughter to help with that now. She likes to bake but I tend to wash up... Like my Mum did when I was a girl. 
I am doing life writing on my course at the moment. It is hard to write in prose but I find blogging a useful tool which I can reflect back to. We are asked to do a diary for two weeks; so I will not be blogging for a while in case I want to use material for my assessment. I am finding this part of writing tricky. Looks like poetry will be my form of expression for this coming assessment.