Time For Tea!

At the end of the summer I spent almost a week down at Paul's, it was lovely. Although I had already started my diet I knew I wanted a treat and I knew I wanted that treat to be a cream tea. My favourite place for cream teas in that neck of the woods is at Portland Bill but we really didn't want to trek that far out so it was over to Google!

I have to say that finding a tea room in Bournemouth is almost as rare as hen's teeth, almost. I managed to find a real gem of a tearoom called Frieda's.


I was like a kid in a sweet shop when I got inside and couldn't stop snapping away!


It was my dream tea shop.


Unmatched chairs and tables that went so perfectly together.


Bunting…who doesn't love bunting?


And a perfect afternoon tea.


With homemade cakes.


And scones!

The staff (Frieda's son and daughter) were so welcoming and friendly. They told me how the tearoom had always been there Mum's dream and she baked everything they sold.

Afternoon tea for two was only £15 so a complete bargain too!

If you're in the Bournemouth area then I can't recommend Frieda's enough.

Incidentally, I got back from my time away and lost 3lbs :)

I hope your week is being kind.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Another Great Weekend

This has been such a lovely, great weekend for me.  It started off with my monthly crop and, as I missed the last couple, it was great to catch up with all the girls.  I managed to be quite productive and get a couple of layouts done.

One of the layouts was for the monthly challenge over at UK Scrappers, the challenge was to use this sketch:

I love sketches, they're great if your mojo has done a runner!  I used the Fancy Pants Be You collection and came up with this:

I think the papers are perfect for this picture of my beautiful niece, Elsie.

After the crop I went to bingo where I was lucky enough to win £15, then a coffee (strange prize!) and then £320.  I went home to celebrate with Maddie and found out I'd won £460 on the lottery.  Having been a single parent for 13 years I can't tell you how grateful I am for this bit of luck, it certainly takes the pressure off of Christmas!

I hope that you've had a great weekend and have blessings to count too.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Garlic and Lemon Chicken

Here's another delicious low fat recipe that I've found which is free on the Slimming World plan.

You will need:

2lbs skinless, boneless chicken thighs.
1 onion
2-3 carrots
7oz green beans
1 lemon
4-5 sprigs of tarragon
Fry Light
1 bulb of garlic
1 1/4 pint of stock made with chicken Bovril
1tbsp of chicken Bovril
Salt and Pepper

Method:
Cut the chicken into chunks.  Peel and chop the onion.  Peel the carrots and cut into thick batons. Halve the green beans and chop the tarragon.

Fry the chicken and onions in a large non-stick pan using Fry Light.  When the chicken is brown add the carrots, garlic bulb, stock and Bovril concentrate.  Season, bring to the boil and reduce heat to medium.  Cover tightly and cook gently for 25 minutes.

Add the green beans and lemon and cook for a further 5-8 minutes.  Remove from heat and discard the garlic bulb and lemon peel.  Serve sprinkled with tarragon.

We had ours with jacket potato and mushrooms and it was the perfect meal for a chilly Autumn night.

I hope you have had a great week and have wonderful plans for the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Got My Mojo Back

I think the two month break must have done me some good because my scrapping mojo has come back with a vengeance!

Last week I actually took part in the weekly challenge over at UKScrappers!  The challenge was to have a Beatles song title on the layout, to use black and white, to have four or more lines of journalling and to include some circles.

I decided to hunt out a black and white photo because I'm not a big fan of black and white on a layout, I like lots of colour.  I found this old black and white picture of me aged five!

It was taken at my infant school and although 35 years have passed since it was taken I remember that the outfit I was wearing was bottle green, I remember my first teacher's name, remember how she reminded me of the wicked witch of the west from The Wizard or Oz and remember how I didn't like her much.  The photo reminded me of how I used to try and escape from school every lunch break and how I just wanted to be at home.  So many memories from one old black and white photo that I didn't even know I had until I went hunting.

I scrapped the original photo and you can see how the middle of the picture has faded compared to the edges that were protected by the frame it was in.  I almost cut the edges off but I'm so glad I left them now.

I've got back into scrapping so much now that I've even started thinking about my Journal Your Christmas album!

I hope your week is going well
Thanks for stopping by
Jo xx

Halloween

It's the first Sunday of the month so that means only one thing, it's time for Storytelling Sunday over at Sian's.

This month the storytelling has arrived at the same time I was about to start scrapping some pictures taken at a Halloween event in 2002.

My friend Lynne had stumbled upon a village with a great little pub that was having a Halloween party.  She said it all looked so fantastic that she'd booked us rooms at the local hotel so that we could join in the fun.  This was long before Halloween had really got big in this country so it was a bit unusual but, as it was one of our favourite nights of the year, we were certainly up for it.

On the weekend in question we packed our bags and Maddie's witches costume and headed off to Stockbridge in Hampshire.  The pub was called The White Hart and the efforts the landlord had gone to were amazing. The whole place was decorated with ghosts and goblins, skeletons and witches, giant spiders and cobwebs.  Games were laid on for everyone to join in and my layout shows one of those games:

The game was to turn your partner into a mummy with the aid of a toilet roll.  Maddie stood still while Lynne did all the hard work of wrapping her.  The winners were the first ones to be totally mummified, they were plenty of laughs being had by everyone and in the end Maddie and Lynne won first prize!

Maddie also went on to win the fancy dress competition and some other games so we returned to the hotel weighed down with her prizes! I think the landlord of The White Hart had made sure that all of the children there won lots of prizes :)

It was such a lovely place, so welcoming and so much laid on for us but the funny thing is I've never been back there since.

Even though Maddie is 18 now we still enjoy Halloween very much and have made it a tradition to watch Hocus Pocus every year on the 31st October.

Head over to Sian's now to tell your story and to read the stories of everyone over there who get together on this day to tell a tale or two.

Thanks for reading mine.
Jo x

Diet Coke Chicken!

A couple of months ago I decided enough was enough, I was useless at losing weight alone and I joined Slimming World.  Since then I've lost over one and a half stone and I've been cooking a lot more.  Don't get me wrong, I cooked all the time before but I have always preferred baking cakes and cookies to just making dinner.  Since joining SW that has changed and I love looking for new recipes for dinner.  I found one that I just had to share because it's fun, easy and delicious.

All you need is:

Chicken, I always use thighs because they're more juicy but you can use 4 chicken breast, 6tbs of passata, 1tbs of Worcester Sauce, mushrooms and a can of diet coke.

Roughly chop the onion, mushroom and chicken (I always use scissors to cut the chicken because it's quicker and easier).

Spray a non-stick pan with Fry Light (this stuff is great because it tastes good, it's low in calories and you never end up with a load of greasy washing up!) Add the onion and fry for a minute or two before adding the chicken.  Once the chicken is brown add the mushrooms:

Cook through before adding the passata and Worcester Sauce:

Give it a good stir and then add the whole can of diet coke:

At this point it doesn't look pretty but pop a lid on the pan and leave it to bubble away over a medium heat for about 25 minutes giving it the occasional stir.  The sauce will start to thicken and the more you cook it the thicker it will get until it looks as delicious as this:

I hope you give it a try, if you do then let me know what you think.

I'll be back next Friday to share another great recipe I found.

Have a great weekend.
Jo x

WOYWW

Thank you for the comments and welcome back on my last post, I'm pleased I took the plunge!

With that in mind I thought I would jump in and join WOYWW again over at Julia's blog.

I've moved a few bits from my craft desk and have currently set up home on the dining table. At the moment it looks like this:


I recently found some great Halloween photos so I treated myself to some Halloween stash, believe it or not in the mountain of stash I have there was nothing Halloween related!


So now I have the photos, the papers and embellishments and I'm hoping to come up with a layout in time for Story Telling Sunday over at Sian's blog this weekend.

Looking forward to visiting your desks later, remember to pop over to Julia's and share yours.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Jo x

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