Countryfile Live

Good morning all! I hope everyone has enjoyed the weekend sunshine, it was glorious here in West Berkshire/Oxfordshire and I heard that it's meant to get even warmer towards the end of the week. Just to say a special thank you to Dawn and to Jo for your lovely comments on my last blog post, it really was appreciated!


We had a great day out to Countryfile Live on Saturday at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. It's the first time they've done this event and I think it was a huge success for them, though a few glitches with parking and layouts perhaps to think about for next year. We got there at 10am in order to spend a good amount of time there and we went prepped with a picnic blanket, plenty of water, Barry's collapsible bowl (best purchase I ever made!) and money of course! Barry was very excited to be walking along beside us, meeting lots of other people and dogs and other animals too - he got a kiss from a very cute Berkshire Piglet at one stage! It was a very hot and sunny day, a lot warmer than expected for lots of people so I'm glad we went prepared. It was easy to get down the pretty bridge and river area so we visited there often during the day to let Barry cool off properly in the water. He loves a swim and fetching a stick! (video on my Instagram if anyone's interested - @handmade_em).

There was lots going on at the event and plenty to take part in which is what made it such a great day I thought; fairground rides, lots of agricultural machinery to look at, local food produce stalls, Adam's farm area with lots of different livestock to see, an equine area and a dog area, not to mention the fantastic craft stalls. It was great to see stands such as The Woodland Trust so busy with people getting involved in planting more trees, we even took part in a quiz - I need to brush up on my tree knowledge! We enjoyed watching a few different events in the many arenas and enjoyed a very tasty hog roast roll for lunch followed by some lovely ice cream made in Yorkshire. We saw Adam Henson in the livestock area cuddling some cute Berkshire piglets. It was the Gloucester Old Spot piggies that I fell for though, they've always been my favourite pig breed, closely followed by Tamworths.

I most enjoyed the huge array of craft stalls on offer; it was nice to see so many artists, crafters etc. and even better to see their work and watch them making some too. I chatted with a few artists - I fell in love with so many pieces of artwork and I like to let them know how lovely they are. I only wish I could afford to buy them all! Sadly our lifestyle doesn't stretch to becoming avid art collectors, but I'm determined to save up for a few pieces in the near future. I was especially taken with Debby Mason's beautiful sea-inspired artwork. It's very rare you see Whale art and I'm obsessed with whales - Jack had to tear me away eventually! There was a beautiful Blue Whale piece and after dogs and horses they're my favourite animals. It's definitely going on my wishlist! These are a few other stalls that really stood out to me on Saturday, do take a look in case any of their wonderful items appeal to you too:


Debby Mason Artist
Hogben Pottery
Sally's Shed
Emily Cross Ceramics

Concentrating very hard in case I drop any of my ice cream!

It was a really great day and I'll definitely be going again next year and I would definitely recommend it to you all. We got home at around 5pm on Saturday feeling very tired after all the sunshine and walking. Barry had a snooze on my lap all evening but was back to his usual energetic self by Sunday morning! We had a quieter day yesterday; we went strawberry picking with a few friends, I cooked a roast dinner as we hadn't had one in ages and we also bought some bargain plants at the local garden centre, all of them 50% off. I got them all planted up before spending the remainder of the evening sprawled on the sofa watching some of the Olympics. Go GB! With a big cheer for William Fox-Pitt one of our GB eventers! 9 months ago he was in a coma after a bad fall while eventing in France and it's been a tough time for him to get back to the level he was at and now he's currently sat in gold medal position after dressage, with Cross country later today! I'll definitely be tuning into the cross country this afternoon while doing some crafting!

Have a great week everyone!

Em x

Jack's Birthday

I've been terrible at blogging recently and I can't believe how quickly the year is passing! I'm going to get back into the swing of things now that jury service has finished.


It was Jack's birthday on Tuesday; I'd already given him his birthday presents a couple of weeks before as they were too big and too heavy to wrap (a huge metal toolbox/cabinet on wheels and a telescopic ladder, both of which he had asked for), but I did take him out for dinner on Tuesday and we decided to go somewhere different and so headed towards Oxfordshire and the Thames to go for dinner by the river. We had a nice dinner in The Swan at Streatley, before having a little stroll by the river to walk some food off. It was a nice hotel/restaurant in a lovely setting and Streatley and Goring are very picturesque, with lots of big expensive river-fronted houses.

After our meal we headed home and our friends popped over for a slice of birthday cake and a game of Shuffleboard. Has anyone else played it? It's a seriously addictive Dutch game where you push wooden discs down a table to try and get them through holes at the bottom for varying points (probably a terrible description of how to play the game)! I bought us a beautiful handmade beech Shuffleboard and we've enjoyed having a game each evening. I'll try and get a photo of it next time we play it.

Birthday Boy!

I spent all of Monday afternoon baking Jack a birthday cake, along with over 100 sausage rolls for him to take into work with him, as requested by his work colleagues who love my homemade sausage rolls. The cake was hard work but it's possibly one of my best cakes to date when I look back and compare it with the previous birthday cakes I've made Jack over the past nine years. It's a 4-layer chocolate 'drip' cake; the layers were sandwiched together with whipped cream, then the cake was covered with buttercream icing and a chocolate ganache drizzled over the top. I then made some chocolate shards (Hotel Chocolat eat your heart out!) and decorated the top of the cake with these and various other chocolate goodies. Jack was amazed with it and I'm pleased to say it tasted great, though too sickly sweet for me so I only managed about half a slice! I made Jack take the rest of the cake to work the next day to get rid of it - we're both trying to be really healthy before we go to America next month! I've included a couple of photos of the cake below, hopefully I'll get a recipe up soon for you all!

Making the chocolate shards was fun!

Em x

Dog Walks: The Ridgeway near Wantage, Oxfordshire

As one of my new years resolutions for 2016 is to take part in the #walk1000miles challenge, I'd like to incorporate that into my blog with the new addition of a blog feature that focuses on the many dog walks we do. I love exploring new places and Barry loves walkies so it seems like a good idea to blog a bit more about specific places we visit on our walks. Most will be local to us, but we are planning a few walking holidays this year hopefully.

Today Barry and I have been on our own all day as Jack was working and then went off to see the David Haye fight tonight and so I decided to explore a different area of The Ridgeway. It meant a car trip to get there but only eight miles down the road so not too bad for Barry who detests car journeys. The travel sickness doesn't seem to be too much of a problem now, it's rare he's sick. He does however get himself into a terribly anxious state, bless him. We've tried everything we can think of, everything recommended to us. It's such a shame as we feel so sorry for him, but at the same time we want to be able to take Barry out and about and so we have to just keep persevering in the hope that the frequency of trips will mean that at least he's used to car journeys. If anyone has any tips at all then please do comment as I'd love to know what has worked for your dogs.

It was a beautiful day up on The Ridgeway; frosty and sunny. The ground was still frozen even at about 3pm as we left and Barry had great fun discovering that puddles he usually loves diving into were in fact covered with ice. We didn't bump into many dogs on our walk, but we did bump into lots of walkers with their maps. It's always nice to see lots of people making the most of a good day weather-wise to get out into the fresh air.

We walked past the Lord Wantage Monument; this memorial sits high on The Ridgeway overlooking the valley down towards Wantage. It's a memorial for Lord Wantage, a soldier who was one of the first to be awarded the Victoria Cross in the Crimean war and was one of the founders of the British Red Cross. More info can be found here. We carried on along The Ridgeway for a while before I took a bridleway off to the left in the hope of eventually doing a big loop (I'd always rather do a big circular route than have to turn around and go back the same way, means you see more).

We walked through some lovely wooded areas before coming out onto a farm track which I eventually discovered was the Lockinge Estate. It has quite an interesting history and is still one of the largest estates to this day. They had a dairy, estate yards, stables, all in beautifully restored buildings. We walked around various areas of the estate, skirted on the edge of a village called Ginge and into Lockinge itself. The scenery was stunning and it was so peaceful.

Can you see the rhino statue in the garden?

 

 

We eventually made it back to our starting point and I think we were both grateful to see the car after over 6 miles of walking - even Barry didn't make much noise on the short journey home. First job was to give Barry (aka mud monster) a bath and then he wrapped himself up in his blanket in his bed and snoozed while I caught up on some housework and other bits and pieces. I had a jacket potato for dinner tonight, one of my favourite dinners! I've since been reading through cookbooks while catching up on the new BBC series, War and Peace (which is very good by the way).

 

Both of us snug in blankets post-walkies, you can just about see Barry!

 

Tomorrow's plan is for a shorter walk, followed by some crochet - I'm determined to get my blanket finished, so hopefully I'll have photos to follow soon.

 

#Walk1000miles total to date: 65 miles (long way to go yet!)

 

Em x

Blenheim Horse Trials

Sorry it's been a while since I last did a blog post, I've been in France all of last week which was lovely. Back to reality today, but the sun is shining which is making this Monday much happier :-)

A couple of weekends ago we went to the cross country day of Blenheim Horse Trials (three day eventing), held at Blenheim Palace. I'm a horsey person, though sadly don't have my own anymore so these events are perfect for me to get my horsey fix. We used to go to Burghley Horse Trials every September without fail when I was growing up, but sadly Burghley is too far away now so I was keen to see what Blenheim was like as it's much nearer to us (40 mins down the road). Our friends were visiting for the weekend from Cambridgeshire so it was lovely to make a day of it and we couldn't have wished for better weather. We all came back with tanned faces and weary legs!

This was also Barry's first horse trials and he loved it! There are thousands of dogs at these kind of events and cross country day is fantastic for walking the dog around a beautiful estate while watching the eventers too. Barry wasn't too keen on the horses thundering past but I'm glad he didn't take too much interest in them (some dogs manage to get off the lead and chase after the horses!). He loved meeting so many dogs and even found some water to have a swim. I was very angry and sad to hear just how many tannoy announcements there were though for people who had left dogs in their cars. I cannot begin to understand why you'd bring a dog to an event like this where they are most welcome (but kept on a lead) and then leave them locked in a hot car?! It was particularly warm that day too and police had no choice but to force entry into a number of cars to rescue distressed dogs. As I say it makes me very angry, especially as the fields where cars are parked are at least a ten minute walk from the jumps and shopping tent village.

Barry post-swim

 

Eventer galloping past Blenheim Palace

 

There are lots of shops and stalls at Blenheim and I had a lovely time browsing the big craft marquee for ideas for me and also gift ideas. I don't like to mention Christmas too early but I'm trying to be really organised this year and make lots of presents as opposed to just going to the shops and buying everything, so that means I need to start early!

 

British rider Oliver Townend

 

We had yummy hog roast rolls for lunch and Barry's pleading face meant he got some of Jack's ice cream afterwards!

 

 

In all, we had a really lovely day. It was tiring with the heat (we'd all dressed for rain and chilly weather) and all the walking, but the fresh air was lovely and we all slept well that night. I'm hoping to visit Badminton Horse Trials next year; they're held in Gloucestershire so not too far away. I've got a couple of horsey friends who I'm hoping will come with me too as it's always fun with a group of you.

More blog posts to follow when I get a moment, including a post on our recent little holiday to France :-)