Handy household tip

"Maaamaaaaaaa, the stud button has just come off my jeeeeeeans!" My fourth child would sing down the stairs at 7:10 in the morning.

"No problem, I have a spare one in my sewing box. I 'll just come upstairs and find it. You can replace it while I get the sandwiches ready for school."

Three hours and a different pair of jeans later...

With at least fifteen different pairs of jeans of all shapes, colours and sizes I couldn't possibly know from a glance what was what. Do you find yourself in the same predicament? Even if you do have time (lucky you), you still have to sort out which little bag of extra buttons/studs/sequins belongs to which jeans/jacket/dress shirt, etc. This can take up so much of your day that you start to wonder whether it's really worth all the hassle... would be quicker to go buy...just sew anything... nobody's going to look, bla bla bla...

So I have recently come up with a very obvious solution. As you take the bag off the newly purchased item, pop a little note in with the spare parts, mentioning the colour, item, size, brand or store from which the item was bought, add the name of the person to whom the item now belongs and keep it in a safe place.

The only comeback with this, of course, is that you now have to remember where that safe place is! I keep mine in my sewing box which is actually a big tool box. Something big and bulky enough not to lose easily!

You will notice that there is no name on two of the packets. That is because I am the only person likely to wear a black blouse or a dress cardigan in this establishment, especially if it's from Mango!

Have a great day : )

Friday fun fact #10: Chestnuts and conkers

Just two names for the same thing? No, there's a difference. There is one huge difference. Simply speaking, one is edible and the other is not. Take a look at the photographs, both from Google images:

Chestnuts

Conkers

Indeed, they have only two things in common as far as I know - their colour and the fact that they are around at the same time of the year, namely late September through to the end of November, depending on the weather and where you live.

Now the reason for the confusion could be put down to the fact that conkers are also called horse chestnuts. This name probably derived from the fact that, although the fruit is poisonous to humans, due to saponins, it can be given to deer, cattle and horses. Apparently, it gives a horse a lovely shiny coat.

When I was a little girl in short, white socks we used to wait with impatience for conker time to come around. On my way home from school there were a good few conker trees and I managed every year to fill my school bag, day after day, with these lovely, shiny treasures.

What would I want them for, you may be asking. Well, it pleased me simply to admire their beautiful colour and handle them. I used to take a tissue or a clean hanky and 'puff and shine'. Most of all I liked to find the unopened ones and be the first to discover their simple beauty.

But above all, I picked them to have conker contests with the boys in the playground and sometimes even with my brother. I wasn't much of a 'girlie' girl to be honest and this was something I was good at.

To prepare a conker for the fight one had to string it - make a hole through the middle, thread a string and tie a strong knot. You then wound a good part of the other end round your fingers and you were ready for the battle. The opponent had to simply let his conker dangle at the end of the string and inwardly squirm at every hit!

The contest consisted of taking turns in bashing your opponents conker to smithereens. If you missed the opponents conker then it was his turn to bash yours and so on till one or t'other would completely break apart and fall from the string.

If your conker won two battles it was classed as a two-er, if five battles, then you had a five-er, etc.

How did you know if the conker was a good one. Well, before the hole was made one could tell by the weight. The heavier they were the more solid they would be inside. If in doubt, you put it in a bowl of water. If it floated it was no good. Next, if when you made the hole, the skewer went through too easily, then that one was also discarded. Obviously, the best conkers were the heavy, solid ones.

So far this article consisted of refreshing my girlhood memories. But now if you care to look here you will find more information about conkers. If you look here you will find out more about sweet chestnuts, sometimes called Spanish or Portuguese chestnuts (I didn't know that!). Although their names are similar, the two varieties of tree are only very distantly related.

Have a good Friday and a pleasant weekend.

Violets in November

Yes, we really do have violets flowering in the garden and yes, it really is the end of November!

Cassie's blueberry tea cake

This is an absolutely delicious cake - one that we enjoyed for dessert yesterday lunchtime! Cassie is a bloggie friend and mother of nine from down under. She posted it on her blog a while ago. I have subsequently tweaked it a little to suit product availability and I've also renamed the cake in her honour.

O.K. so I could have made sure the cake was in the centre of the plate before taking the photo...

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:
1 cup  sugar
1 lemon, juice and grated rind
125 g butter or margarine
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1 tsp. vanilla essence
1/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 2/3 cups self raising flour, sifted
1 punnet fresh blueberries (or canned blueberries, well drained)

Method:
1. Mix sugar and lemon rind in a bowl.
2. Add butter, eggs, lemon juice, coconut and vanilla essence. Mix well.
3. Add flour and fold into mixture.
4. Pour batter into a greased oven dish, cake molde or similar.
5. Sprinkle blueberries over the top of the batter.
6. Bake at 170º C for 35 minutes or until wooden toothpick comes out clean.
7. Sprinkle sugar over the top of the cake and leave to cool. When cold, remove  from dish and serve with cream (optional!)

      
Notes

# I prefer to use plain or all-purpose flour and add a chemical raising agent or natural yeast.
# I use a sachet of vanilla flavoured sugar instead of the essence, which I
cannot find as a regular product as yet.

Footprints

Amazing architecture

Look at this photo. This is just how I saw my keys last night, from my horizontal position. I was lying in bed, about to turn off the lamp, when M. came in the room to say goodnight. He said "Mama, look how you have left your keys."

Before I 'grabbed and ran' this morning, I quickly took some photos - one with flash and some without, hence the different colours. But notice one thing. The point of the black ended car key is through the hole of the door key. How did I do this? Is this the result of having a BK for supper??? Maybe I should do it more often...

Simple Bible verse and yet...

He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him.

Proverbs 18 : 13 

How many of us try to finish off other people's sentances before giving them time to do it for themselves? How many of us are judging or preparing our replies before we have even heard what the issue is about?

Yes, I'm guilty. I know I have often done this, yet it's a verse which I have read time and time again. This is one more bad habit which I have to try and conquer.

From the archives: Black Jack

This is a photo of a rather impertinent Black Jack, a cat we had a few years ago...