Sunday 26 June 2011

cooking by candlelight

When the electricity is needed somewhere else i have to light a candle!



and the bricks go down!

Sunday 19 June 2011

Embercombe,Devon

Yesterday me and a friend went over to Embercome in Devon to take part in their midsummer fair.It was not a great sucess for us finacially - too many creative types making their own stuff and not wanting to buy it off us!

As the sales weren't exactly overwhelming we both had plenty of time to wander around and take in the other stalls and events.

My favourite was the sycthing demonstrations as our 1 year old strimmer has just broken wand will probably end up 'scrapped' I was impressesd on how easy the cutting seemed to be.Apparently its all in the knee action!

Embercome is an education center and smallholding with space for meetings and events think I they also welcome volunteers to help them.

Abruzzo Trip

It's over a week now since we got back and I'm still feeling tired!But that could be connected to the Craft Fair yesterday at Embercombe in Devon.More on that later.

The journey out in our van was as usual pretty tedious but we were lucky to have glorious weather and we stopped for our picnic lunch in Gurtnellen in Switzerland. The town is just off the autostrada for St Gotthard and is in a truly stunning poistion by a river.This was probably the high point of the journey with the low point following the next morning at 5am when we got diverted into Ancona when the motorway suddendly closed!No diversion route of course.

At the house nothing seemed too wrong -it's been a long winter and I was so pleased to be able to buy the bricks or mattone for our living room floor.





It took three trips in the Berlingo to bring them all back but seeing the floor actually laid before we came back to England was a huge thrill!




Of course I can't forget that it was my 50th birthday in May. We spent the day in Rome and had a picnic in the Forum followed by an afternoon on the Palantine Hill.


That evening we went to have a Pizza at one of Rome's 'best' Pizzerias:Da Baffetto.

Let's just say the staff there arent 100% customer centered (an American couple decided they couldn't cope and walked out)and it was a long wait but we enjoyed a totally different experience from eating in other Rome restaurants.I'd go again but early because its packed out after 8pm.




photos Simon Read