Today’s guest picture comes from our daughter Annie who has been baking bread.
I had a day full of action but very little of it was in front of the camera – it was not a case of “Lights, camera, action!”
It was damp and drizzly after breakfast and there were still occasional mournful cries of geese to be heard. It seemed a good day to have coffee with Sandy and he dropped in on his way to Carlisle, He brought a gift of Christmas cake, made by a friend who doesn’t like Christmas cake and whose husband can’t eat it for health reasons. In spite of this slightly dubious pedigree, it tasted very good.
When Sandy left, I set about making marmalade and as this involves a lot of sticky work and a sharp knife, I didn’t have the opportunity to pick up my camera or look out of the window for a while. When I had got the mixture simmering, Mrs Tootlepedal kindly agreed to watch over it, while I went for a pedal.
The drizzle had gone and the clouds had lifted and as the thermometer showed nearly 10°C, it would have been a perfect day for cycling if there hadn’t been a twenty to thirty mile an hour wind blowing.
As it was, I put my head down and pedalled three times up and down the road to Wauchope Schoolhouse, keeping as far out of the wind as was possible. On one of the repetitions, I went though the town and out of the other side just for a bit of variety but I don’t have any time to spare and got back home after 22 miles in perfect time to add the sugar to the pan and cook the marmalade.
I took only two pictures on my ride, one at each end of my up and down route.
I had a look for some birds while the mixture was boiling but there was not much to be seen and not much light to see it in anyway as the skies had clouded over again.
Once I had potted the marmalade…

…I had a shower, came down to have a cup of tea with Mike Tinker who had dropped in and then played some enjoyable duets with my flute pupil Luke and finished the active part of the day with a plate of venison stew which Mrs Tootlepedal had cooked for our tea.
All in all, it was a useful and sociable day, even if there was not much of a photographic record of it.
I did get a sort of double flying bird of the day picture but the main thing that it shows is that I have lost a perch from the feeder. I will have to remember to look for it tomorrow.
I should say that Sandy has posted a couple of splendid galleries of his trip to Thailand which can be seen here.
Well, the marmalade is a good record of a day well spent.
Now that you have the marmalade made, you’ll have to get the bread maker out and whip out a few loaves of fresh, homemade bread to put the marmalade on!
We are still eating the marmalade that I made last year so bread and marmalade have been regulars all year.
That bread Annie baked looks scrumptious. It would go well with that marmalade you made.
At 300 miles apart, it would need a long arm to stretch out to butter it.
That bread looks absolutely delicious as does the marmalade.
I look forward to testing the marmalade when it has had time to settle.
Bread and marmalade, how well you sandwiched your post!
Ho ho indeed.
I hope, bread could taste amazing. Thanks.
Annie said it was good and I believe her.
Now if you can just move that marmalade up several photos and apply it to the bread . . .
You and my sister Susan think as one on that matter.
The shots of the countryside are always beatiful to see, but especially since it’s supposed to snow a bit here tomorrow.
I agree with everyone else, both the bread and marmalade look delicious. I might wish I had some tomorrow.
The marmalade will have to wait as I have just found a pot in the cupboard from 2017 which will have to be eaten first.
That bread looks delicious! 🙂
I wouldn’t have minded having a slice.
I did see Sandy’s blog about the elephants in Thailand. That seems like a very interesting experience!
An impressive batch of marmalade!
He says the whole trip was the experience of a lifetime.
Well done with the marmalade. Annie’s bread looks most professional.
Marmalade always looks so sunny…it’s all that cold-fighting vitamin C, I guess. Despite the lack of photos, it sounds like a day on the plus side of the ledger😊
It was and has been duly entered as such.
I do enjoy following your day in prose and photography
It is an honour to have a reader with such good taste in wine.
🙂
Love those flying birds searching for their perch! The marmalade looks excellent and the bread divine- tragic that they are not in the same house.
So true….but I have a bread machine.
The bread and the marmalade look both so yummy delicious!!
The marmalade looks delicious!
The test will be in the tasting!