Friday Five: Flowers, Fruit and Veg Collages

We were given another bunch of flowers when local daughter did our shopping.

Our Berkshire daughter who is staying with us brought us lots of goodies for house and garden including a pretty succulent plant in a ceramic pot and her home made blackberry and fig jam.

We've also been blackberrying when we stopped off for a break during a drive out in the countryside yesterday.  We'll be making an apple and blackberry pie using the blackberries and some of the apples that our daughter brought with her from her home.

The poppy that popped up in the vegetable patch has finished flowering now, but once the seed heads dry out I shall be keeping the seeds.

We've been enjoying and sharing the home grown produce. The cherry tomatoes in the above mosaic are called Honeycomb.  The plants were given to us by local daughter and Mr P has grown them on.

We bottled more of the tomatoes the other day to put in the store cupboard using a variety of the large tomatoes; San Marzano, Gardener's Delight, Big Boy.  The tomatoes are pricked and boiling water is added to skin them easily.  Then they're cut up and simmered for 30 minutes before bottling in sterilized glass jars that have also been pre-heated in an oven so that they're hot. This helps with the vacuum sealing when the tomato mixture (with optional fresh basil leaves added) is put into the jars and the lids are tightened.

Thanks for coming by.  Have a lovely weekend!

P.S. I deleted someone's comment by mistake and did not note who it was - sorry.

Edensor, Derbyshire

Although we didn't have a lot of time to visit Edensor I was pleased that we were able to park in the shade of a walled bank by St. Peter's Church and take a look around.

This small estate village which is pronounced 'Ensor' is set in parkland owned by the Devonshire family and the stately Chatsworth House is only a short walk away.  The original village was located elsewhere, between the river and the road through the park.  The sixth Duke of Devonshire decided to rebuild and remodel it within a gated and walled enclosure where thirty-three houses could accommodate mainly Chatsworth staff and pensioners.  Joseph Paxton who remodelled and landscaped the gardens at Chatsworth chose the site for the new village and John Robertson of Derby provided the designs which he had in a book of house plans. It's thought that the Duke looked through the book and chose designs ranging from Norman to Jacobean, Swiss-style to Italian villas.  The 14th century church was retained, but only about 30 years after the completion of the model village it was replaced by a much larger church designed by George Gilbert Scott. It was built on high ground and the tall spire can be seen from many directions when walking nearby in Chatsworth Estate.

the entrance to the village

The village green looking back towards the entrance to the village

 and the parkland of Chatsworth.

one of the houses by the entrance gate

a view of one of the houses from the top of the bank

by the flight of steps to the north entrance porch of the church

detail of one of the entrance porches of a house

the back entrance to the churchyard

Joseph Paxton and Kathleen Kennedy, the sister of the late US President Kennedy who was married to the eldest son of the 10th Duke, are buried in the churchyard, but again there wasn't time to look for them on this occasion. The interior of the church and the Cavendish monuments must be interesting to see. Here is a link to read more - St Peter's Church, Edensor.

Leaving Chatsworth Estate I hope that we can return sometime.

I hope you enjoyed a glimpse of Edensor and some of the houses there.  Have a good day!

Another Family Outing

We enjoyed another outing yesterday. Our Berkshire daughter is now staying with us for a few weeks. Our drive over to Bakewell to meet up with our son, wife and grandson was scenic as usual, but quite misty in places.  There was a slight drizzle which is called 'mizzle' here, being a combination of mist and drizzly rain.  However, by the time we got to Bakewell it had cleared and we had a good chat over a tasty lunch.  Our son went off to queue up with the usual face covering involved to get a couple of Bakewell Puddings and I had a quick wander by the river and then took a short cut through some beautiful public gardens to get a photo of the parish church, All Saints.  I didn't linger as the family were waiting back at a car park, but it was good to be back in Bakewell again.

The Bakewell Pudding:  Bakewell claims to be the home of the authentic Bakewell Pudding. The recipe was originally something of an accidental invention of the 1860s.  A visitor to the Rutland Arms (then called The White Horse Inn) ordered a strawberry tart, but the one that the cook made was enjoyed by the guest and later it started to be sold in The Old Bakewell Pudding Shop.  Ingredients include puff pastry, raspberry jam and a paste made from almonds. The Bakewell Tart that has icing and cherries on the top is a variation, but we shall enjoy the traditional Bakewell Pudding (pictured above) with a cup of tea today.

Thank you for your visit.  I hope you have a good week.