Flutterby Patch

What a silly computer!

Yesterday afternoon my computer had one of its moods. Everything was working well in the morning but after lunch it decided it didn't want to access any blogs with 'typepad' in the URL. Any other blog, fine, any other web site, fine, but typepad...forget it. Firstly I made sure it wasn't a Typepad problem (it wasn't) and so I tried all my usual fixes but was unsuccessful. I did some washing, went shopping and generally kept myself busy, returning every so often to see if it had recovered, but it was having none of it.

And so in the evening I had to resort to asking my daughter for help. Young people must be sick of us 'oldies' seeking their advice but so many of them seem to have a second sense when it comes to computer problems. She lives some distance from home now but over lengthy phone conversions that lasted most of the evening she talked me through various tweaks, twiddles and virus scans and eventually all came right. I'm convinced computers know just how to annoy us and mine certainly succeeds from time to time. So for my clever daughter, for curing my computer ills yet again, a big.....

I'm having a blue day

It has been a blue day for me today and I've had great fun photographing a selection of my blue and white china and other bits and pieces. This activity was all due to being totally inspired by Rhondi's blue and white china so lovingly and artistically displayed in her beautiful home, see her blog Rose Colored Glasses. Like Rhondi, I adore blue and white china and have been an avid collector for many years. Some of it is antique (display only) but the remainder is dishwasher proof and gets thrown around quite a bit. I don't really have any favourite pieces but perhaps the piece with the most 'history' is the Tek Sing bowl. This was part of a huge cargo of porcelain salvaged from the sea bed in the South China Sea in 1999. The Tek Sing was a Chinese junk that sank in 1822 and unbelievably much of the porcelain remained intact and undamaged for almost 200 years. This little bowl would have quite a tale to tell.

1.Sundry china 2.Cup & saucer (1890s) 3.China cupboard
4.Mason's Ironstone jug and Staffordshire figure
5.Delft charger (1760s) 6.Blue glass
7.Dutch Delft houses and Swedish wooden painted horses
8.Bowl from the Tek Sing cargo 9.Another china cupboard
10.Toy sewing machine 11.Reference books
12.Millennium calendar plate 13.Stoneware jug
14.Snowdrop print 15.Teapot, tea bowl and plate C1760
16.Miniature Dutch Delft tiles and clogs

Well, I've had great fun as you can see but haven't done a lot of chores today so I'd better make up for lost time.   

Bread - the staff of life

Who invented the automatic breadmaker? Give him/her a prize. I have always been too busy (and lazy) to make bread the traditional way but since buying a breadmaker I have been making up for lost time. There are so many machines out there to choose from but eventually I opted for the Panasonic and cannot fault it. Making a standard loaf takes about 5 minutes to prepare and 4 hours to bake and there are many mouth watering variations to try.

For my standard loaf I like to make 50% wholemeal (ingredients above). I use milk instead of the recommended water (if I have enough available on the day). Pop all the ingredients into the pan, starting with the dried yeast, then the flour and finally the liquid. Place the pan in the breadmaker and switch on.

Four hours later the loaf is ready, light brown and delicious.

I use Carrs breadmaker flour which is reaily available from all major supermarkets. Carrs have an excellent web site with some mouth watering recipes to try.