Stella

Staycation 2021 – Day 5 (Ely)

Monday, 21st September 2021 – Ely After returning from Goodwood on the Sunday, Monday morning saw us getting off to a slowish start and heading east towards Cambridge and beyond. Our destination was the city of Ely, in Cambridgeshire. Now you may think “city = large centre of population” but actually what it means is…

Staycation 2021 – Day 1 (Tinwood Estate)

Thursday, 16th September 2021 In the face of Covid, and the resulting price hikes for any form of accommodation in the UK (because the owners/landlords know they have a mostly captive audience), we decided we would have a genuine staycation and would spend a week or so at home, going out for the day to…

Home 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 135 – 142)

Sunday, 9th May 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 135 – 142) You thought it was all over, didn’t you? Well, it is and it isn’t. We still have the front porch to remodel, the patio to be built outside our new bifold doors to replace the hole that is currently there waiting…

Travel 2021 – Towcester Wildlife

Sunday, 3rd April 2021 – Towcester Ever since we locked down back in 2020, 13 months ago, we have been taking regular walks in the local parks, including the water meadows, and along the stream that borders the parkland next to our house. In all that time we have made occasional sightings of the local…

Home 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Bargain Furniture Find)

Tuesday, 9th March 2021 – Furniture Find I’m not a great one for antiques or vintage stuff if I have to hunt it out, but we do have one or two pieces that seem interesting, and just every so often, something comes along that you’re not expecting. There’s a space under the window in the…

Food 2021 – Banquist, Jitin Joshi

Saturday, 6th February 2021 – Banquist, Jitin Joshi Banquist have been consistently good through the entirety of the lockdowns/pandemic stay at home sessions, with a number of excellent meals curated by some very well known, well-regarded chefs. The latest one was the work of Jitin Joshi, former executive chef of Gymkhana, a Michelin starred Indian…

Home 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 130 – 134)

Sunday, 28th February 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 130 – 134) And so, as of 26th February, we no longer had any of our possessions in storage anywhere! It’s an excellent feeling, as well as a substantial financial saving. Needless to say there was still a deal of work involved in getting…

Home 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 125 – 129)

Sunday, 21st February 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 125 – 129) Monday was quiet enough until midway through the afternoon when the men from Harrison and Rowley turned up with three containers of our possessions. We persuaded them to move the old cabinet that they had brought back just before Christmas along…

Home 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 118 – 124)

Sunday, 14th February 2021 – The Great House Extension Project (Days 118 – 124) On Monday last the lovely man from Hillary’s Blinds came back to fit all the curtains apart from the one that needed to be redone because it was too long. That won’t be back until the 18th of February at the…

Food 2021 – The Great British Chefs Cookbook Club (The Pie Room by Calum Franklin; Moorish by Ben Tish)

Sunday, 31st January 2021 – Recipes (The Ultimate Fish Pie; Slow-Cooked Fish and Shellfish Stew with Saffron and Star Anise) At the start of the month it was announced that we could cook from any of the books that have been the previous books of the month. As a result I just kept right on…