Day in the life of Polly

My morning starts at 8am when I start gathering supplies for the day with my super cool trolley. I'm lucky enough to only have a short walk into work and its through the beautiful Cathedral grounds. I start with the supermarket for bread, milk, salad etc things that need to bought fresh every day. Next I head to the butchers, Appleton's, this is a local pork butchers, that was established in 1867, they sell the all time best ham ever. Fact. Next on to the bakers, Thomas, this is also a local bakers, and have great teacakes which go down a storm in the cafe. Next I pop into the green grocers for my free range eggs, and then off I go to the cafe.

The next hour or so is busy setting up, baking scones, icing cakes, making sandwich fillings, and any other jobs that need doing. 

10am, open up the cafe, there are usually a few regulars loitering around by this time and I set about getting them there orders that they don't have to even ask for any more. 

On busier days I have staff come in at 11am, not wanting to sound cheesy but I have the two best girls working for me. They are so lovely, reliable, great with customers, hard working and best of all we all have things in common, it's great to get to work with people who inspire you and like the things you like. 

In general it's pretty steady all day, lots of tea is poured and scones are served, the good thing about Ripon is it doesn't really have a 'season' it doesn't get mad busy in the summer but then it doesn't get really quiet in January, I love that it just ticks along all year at the same pace, it makes for a reliable income to say the least. 

By 4pm I slowly start closing down the cafe, it closes at 5pm, and usually I'm away by 5.30pm. I either head home to make soup / jam / chutney or stop off with my friend Beth at our local watering hole, the One Eyed Rat for a quick half a cherry beer and a pickled egg...today is one of those days... Xx

Display Clipboards

Our house has a long corridor going between our bedroom and bathroom. I knew I wanted a collection of something along both the walls of the corridor, but I didn't know if I wanted a collection of art or photos. I also wanted it to be quite versatile, and perhaps a little random, so that it would be easy to change, depending on what collection of photos / art are taking my fancy. 

So after a good ole search on Pinterest at gallery walls etc, I decided a row of wooden clipboards on each wall would be perfect. This would mean I can easily change what's on the clipboards without damaging the walls. It also means I can layer up what's on the boards, ie a photo with a scrap of fabric or some art and an inspiring picture out of a magazine. I have already changed the boards around several times, and intend to do so many more times...

Egg Custard

I never used to like egg custard, until, I made one myself. The double cream can be substituted for single cream or even milk, but hey, the deluxe version is so much better! 

200g shortcrust pastry

600ml double cream
4 tablespoon sugar
4 eggs
Grated fresh nutmeg

Line a 9" loose bottomed tart tin with the shortcrust pastry and blind bake for 12 mins then remove the baking beads and bake for a further 8 mins.
Meanwhile gently heat the cream and sugar in a pan on a low heat until boiling. In a separate bowl whisk the eggs. Gradually whisk the cream and sugar into the eggs. 
Strain the cream and egg mixture into the pastry base and grate fresh nutmeg on the top.
Bake at 170 C for 25-30 mins, until golden and doesn't wobble in the middle.

Visiting Friends

Last weekend I traveled south via a bus and three trains to get to Chelmsford to visit Hayley, my long standing friend from uni. It was a scorcher of a weekend and was lovely to catch up.

On the first evening, after being supplied with a couple of pints of raspberry beer to get over the ordeal of a cancelled and over capacity train journey, we had a little BBQ in Hayley's back yard. Hayley had kindly made my room up all pretty with fresh flowers and a magazine to read, it's the little things that make you feel really welcome.

The following day, after a little lie in, we headed for brunch in an ace cafe called a-canteen. I had a delicious smoothie and portobello mushroom, spinach and poached egg dish, perfect brunch material.

Once we were full up we headed out into the burning 31 C heat for a little Hayley style tour of Chelmsford, which mostly included all the places Hayley has worked, but mainly to see her current place of work which is called 'make do and mend'. A little shop on the edge of town that holds all kinds of lovely workshops, it's a lovely bright and inspiring workshop, if your ever in the area you should defiantly check one out. You can see their full range of courses at www.makedomend.com

Then time for a rest, more beer garden beer? Okay! Then to a little mini festival that was being held for charity in a local pub. The day pretty much carried on like this but with a snooze in between! lovely, hot, chilled and with good people watching! can't ask for more than that! 

The following day we went to London to visit my sister Becca, after lunching on the common we hired the Barclays bikes and rode to Battersea for a car boot sale. I don't have many pictures of this as cycling and photo taking does not sound safe. Then more pub, wobbly ride home, (only joking, don't drink and cycle), then Pato cooked us Argentinian food and we watched ghost busters, and by watched I mean slept while it was on in the background. 

Monday morning I had a quick scoot around the V&A but I mostly just like the fashion exhibition then 25 trains and 17 buses home! (Slight exaggeration, slight). 

Gooseberry and Elderflower Jam

A glut of gooseberries from Mum's allotment and plenty of previously made elderflower cordial meant there was only one thing to be done.... Jam!

We used a Delia recipe found here - I won't repeat it but I will say that we had a LOT more gooseberries and so had three times this recipe. We used two jam pans and it probably took about an extra 40 minutes to set. Hatty makes a lot of jam and her experience is it often takes longer to set than recipes suggest. See her previous post here for lots of jam making tips.

 

Now we have quite a lot of jam... some will go to the café but we might have to think up something else to do with the rest - Queen of Puddings anyone?

 

Emily x

 

Paper Pom Poms

I have two sisters, both scared of balloons, one incredibly so, therefore a room full of balloons and babies was a no-go for Millie's birthday. Instead I opted for paper pom poms, much more 'classy' and impossible to 'POP'!

I'm amazed (and a little annoyed) that I didn't discover these before our wedding because they are so easy to make and pretty cheap too. I made up for this previous lack of knowledge by going a little bit paper pom pom crazy.

You'll need:
8 sheets of tissue paper per pom pom (I used the big sheets you buy for wrapping and I got them from Amazon as they were cheapest)
Some wool (colour coordinated if you like but not necessary as you won't see it)
Good scissors
Invisible thread (for hanging)

Here's how:

1. Take your 8 sheets of paper and fold them in a concertina, approximately 5cm wide
2. Tie a piece of wool around the middle, not so tight that it bunches the paper but just enough to hold it together. Then shape the ends - see image below for different shapes and the effects.
3. Carefully fan out each side and begin to separate the pieces of tissue paper. This is quite delicate but don't worry if it tears a little as you won't be able to tell. Do four on each side, then turn over and do the rest.
4. Fully separate all the pieces of tissue and fluff about so they look full and you can't see any gaps or the centre wool.

Cutting the ends to different shapes in stage 2 gives your pom poms a different look...

 

Finally... display your pom poms! I made a rainbow (obviously) along my mantel and down our stairs. I also had some hanging from the washing line, although not for long as it started to rain!

 

 

Emily x