As with all knitting, there is much more sewing, and/or, sewing in of ends than one first imagines, unless your one of the clever Americans who knits everything in the round, starts top down and adds sleeves as you go and then you just have a little kitchener stitch to deal with under the arms,  which depending on the way you roll may or may not be a good thing.

The blanket is finished, well almost finished, a three hour film may do the trick. 

If you look carefully there are two ends to sew in at every corner, I’m not even going to try and do the maths for 130 squares, its A Lot.  And with the best will in the world there is no point in rushing it with gritted teeth just because I’m sick of the sight of the thing – or is that just me.  I’ll take it slowly and allow the feeling of slight sadness to develop, the sadness where I know I won’t be playing with this beautiful yarn any longer.  Although the plus part of a blanket is that I get to look at it everyday as it will be pride of place in my living room.  Not stashed away in a wardrobe waiting for winter, like alot of my woollies are. 

And then I have to wait and at the present time it takes about five years, before the pain of tackling such a large project passes and another blanket catches my eye which I simply have to make.  Its nearly finished, I’m so excited.

I had a good sized butternut squash that was waving to me from the larder.  (a glorified laundry basket in the cupboard under the stairs)  And I’d been umming and arrhhing about what to cook with it when I decided that a curry with lentils and coconut might go down very well.  And so it was I chopped onion, ginger, garlic and chilli and cooked them off, adding a tin of toms, a mug of desicated coconut, the chopped up butternut squash, tomato puree, curry spices, add some, taste it, add some more, is normally my favoured way of adding those – don’t add cloves though, never, never add the cloves..  Added lentils and lots more water and cooked gently, stirring so that it doesn’t stick.  And then with a final flourish of a big handful of chopped up fresh corriander, dinner was served.  And it was so much better than it looks.  I served some to hubby when he visited and he is a confirmed carnivore and he loved it !!!  It is one I will be doing again.

When ever I pop into John Lewis, I have to go and see what these ladies are up to. 

Will it be something for the day, Or maybe something a little more daring.

Who knows, but I do know one thing, they are sure to be having some fun.

I keep meaning to write about my small garden and the constant supply of beetroot, courgettes and beans.  At the moment I am getting just enough to keep me going through the summer and it looks like the vegetables will continue to provide for at least another month or so.

Its amazing what you can pop into a border.

I was walking through the local indoor market after swimming when my eye caught huge bowls of peaches going for a pound.  They were glistening with juice and the chap had cut one open to show how beautifully ripe they were, they would not have lasted another day in the heat of the market,  so I quickly bought some and hoped they wouldn’t perish on the way home.  I guzzled three down on the way home!, and then when home I looked at my bounty.  There were eighteen left, they were a good size as well.  The best ones, I popped into the fridge and the ones that had taken the odd knock I popped into a pan to warm with some sugar, allowed the sugar to melt and then took it off again and whizzed with my hand blender.

I then separated a couple of eggs and whisked the whites into stiff peaks.

and then mixed together with plain full fat yoghurt and the peach puree

and froze.

And then later I had this,

which was delicious, tangy and fresh.  It has eventually set into something much more solid, but its still gorgeous and it is worth the effort of hacking bits of when in need of a mid afternoon treat.

The blankets progress to date has been slow, gallivanting around at the weekend tends to but a stop to any significant progress. Much as I dream the elves are hard at work crocheting all night, it turns out its just the cat having a midnight prowl and no miraculous progress has been made with the blanket by morning.  I’ve promised myself a couple of hours every evening this week to try and break the back of it. 

We nearly did have a disaster though, I’ve got six more strips to go, plus crocheting around the outside and I’ve only 2.5 balls of the cream left…  So I have been working my way through the directory of outlets of the most recent Rowan book and low and behold Colourway.co.uk  had the dyelot I needed.  So pleased, crisis averted.  

Just a flash of colour from Greenwich Maritime, Tall Ships sailed past, the Cutty Sark looked glorious and the festival village was fun, I just forgot to take more photographs.

The downside, the queue’s, we missed out on going to see Dar Miodziezy, although we had booked our timed ticket online, their system had broken down so the queue had become over an hour long.  And it was the same for the queue’s for the river boats servicing the piers, hey ho, a lesson learned, pick the first tickets of the day and get up early!

I love Greek food, out of all the cuisines available that I am aware of, I mostly turn to the Greeks when I need a hit of fresh salads or to find new inspirations for seasonal fruits and vegetables that I might have raved over in their first flush and guzzled them down, but I now need an extra zing to make me appreciate their beauty once more.

I use Vefa’s Kitchen by Vefa Alexiadou as my main source of inspirations for vegetables during the summer months.  Personally I think Italian food can get too heavy with their pasta and pizzas, its not what I want to eat in the summer.  The Greeks favour much lighter dishes, with fresh fish, meats and cheeses as their main components, with salad dishes and rice, I just prefer it.

But one thing I absolutely adore is Dolma.  I love the zingy taste of the vine leaves and when my neighbour gave me permission to pick a few of his, I was a very happy girl.

As you can see they are very young leaves, if they had been any older I would have blanched them, but I just picked out the hard stalks in the middle.

Chopped an onion and sauted it, added some uncooked rice, took it off the heat, added another drizzle of olive oil and started to roll them.  There are recipes to add pine nuts or raisins and some cuisines make a meaty version, but I just like a plain Dolma.

Then place some of the older leaves at the bottom of the pan before layering up the stuffed vine leaves.  Give it a good squeeze of lemon, I only had limes, but it did the trick, add double the volume of water to rice and then a bit for luck, clamp the lid down and cook on a gentle heat until all the water is absorbed.

They were lovely.

To go with it I made a simple runner bean and chick pea stew, made from runner beans from the garden and flavoured with onion, tomato, garlic and fresh thyme also from the garden.

Simple, yet perfect.

I found that the true beauty of using the Docklands Light Railway to return from our adventures looking at the Tall Ships yesterday was the way the railway track had been elevated on long sections, it was a pleasure to see yet another view of London.

Especially when we released we had crossed that footbridge in Canary Wharf just a few weekends earlier.

And a snap of Canary Wharf tube station, I know I was mesmerised by the glass canopies and inside it is space aged streamlined metals.

But some of the best bits are when we go through the stations and your able to see the structures,

I find it quite entrancing and could probably sit on trains all day.