Saturday 27 August 2011

catching up...

I seem to have loads I wanted to post about - there has been no time in the last few weeks. But... yesterday I handed in my dissertation, so hurrah! Might actually begin to catch up with myself now! It was a lovely feeling to pile up all the books and journal articles which were beginning to make a take over bid - now I just have to wait for the results with fingers crossed...!


This is a glance back at some of the university buildings as I walked back to work after dropping off my work - am hoping that, with the exception of graduation day next year, I might be done with this campus!

It was a strangely surreal feeling - there is such a lot of effort that goes into studying and then the actual 'hand-in' moment is something of an anti-climax! I really didn't feel like going in to work but enjoyed the wander back across the park; This little stream looked so tranquil...


Other things I've been enjoying this week:
...crab apple preserving from the garden. These are waiting to be turned into crab apple & chilli jelly...



And the finished article...


This year the little apples seemed particularly rosy and the jelly came out a lovely colour - yummy too!

As was the juice drink - the easiest recipe that just involved steeping the apples in a mixture if cream of tartar and boiling water then straining...


Bit like a cross between apple juice and cranberry juice drink - very refreshing and polished off before I could freeze any!

 ...sunflowers...


This is a little strip of field at the bottom of our garden which usually has oil seed rape, barley, wheat or sugar beet with the odd fallow year in between. In 18 years living here this is the first time I've seen sunflowers - what a feast for the eyes!



They are taller than me!

...gorgeous summer evening skies...


...dozy, chilled moggy...


...and son 3's 18th birthday...


Not quite sure how it can be possible that all my boys are now officially grown men!!! Seems no time since they were filling my time with lego, frantic 'little boy' activity and bedtime stories! 

Wishing you all a lovely bank holiday weekend!

Sx

2 comments:

  1. Wonderful photographs Sandra!
    Congratulations on finishing your dissertation. Not an easy thing for sure.
    I've never heard of crab apple chilli jelly.
    It sounds absolutely yummy!!

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  2. Well done on handing in your dissertation. You must feel strange now. I dream of the field behind our house being filled with sunflowers but like yours it's usally oil seed rape or winter wheat . One year we had corn on the cob & the children used to wade through the little paths with the plants towering over them.

    My first is now eighteen & second fifteen & both towering over me now. Happy birthday to your lad !

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