Victorian Christmas Market, Fairies in a garden, Gingerbread Men & Blackberry Ice cream Recipe

I shall do my little rant, and then I will get onto the nice things.......

Oh !!!what a week last week was, it started of awful with my big PC having the black screen of death , and me thinking, as was DH that the motherboard had blown. Bless him he lent me his, but oh it was so slow and glitchy, and it just wouldn't let me do all the things that I love doing, like making cross stitch patterns, and it also didn't have my Paint Shop pro so I couldn't get and do anything graphics wise. It took me nearly quarter of an hour just to open each email. Nightmare.

However, DH after finding out that microsoft had issued a couple of security patches which some people in the techie world thought were not good, and gave people black screens of death, he decided to ring them, and try and get the PC sorted(but it wasn't that). To cut a long story short he played around with the workings of the PC, and discovered that 2 sticks of memory which he upgraded my PC with some weeks ago, had blown their solder completely off.

Now my PC Lives again !!! and I am over the moon.

What a clever hubby I have.

Then to top it all my 13yr old Stuart was riding home ,on the pavement luckily, an he caught his foot under his bike wheel which made him fall off, and parts of his bike and his glasses went into him whilst skidding along on his face, and shoulder. Luckily he was not badly hurt, just bruised, and grazed badly with a black eye. He had the day off school on Friday to recuperate, and to go and get new glasses, as he can't see too well without.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friday morning we woke up to a heavy frost. I went out to help clear the car, and DH's lorry off before work. This was the heavy frost we had glaze the whole of the car.

On Sunday was my wedding anniversary, and I had thought since last week when we went for a little ride in the country that I would like to go to a Victorian Christmas Market which was to be held on Sunday at a little village which nestles within the rolling hills and dales of the Devon Countryside fairly near to where I live. The village is called Stoke in Teignhead, and is like one of those typical chocolate box villages which you see of Devon.

We had a leisurely breakfast, and then went slowly driving down the narrow country lanes. When we arrived in the village there were many cars parked all along every road that you could see. We managed to park, and walked back to the village hall, which was a very new building, but on an old design in keeping with the village architecture.

Inside the village hall there were tombolas for Christmas hampers, wines, and lovely gourmet things..... stalls which were selling small gifts which were very nice presents for stockings, home made preserves & pickles, handmade cushions made from Sari silks, speciality fireworks, and much much more to mention. Some of the ladies attempted to dress in Victorian dress, but not very successfully, however I did find one man who had tried. His photo is below, stood very proud in his bowler hat.

Outside was a man selling Hot roasted chestnuts, a stall where a man was selling hot spit roasted pork which could be eaten in a roll. There were stalls of locally produced wines, and beers, of Barbecued Choritzo and pickled garlic, and a butchery stall where you could buy locally produced meats; sausages of every flavour, some made of pork, and some of venison.

The stall that I made a beeline for was a very Christmassy feeling stall with all sorts of trifles, the pictures of which are below.

Needless to say a lady just has to buy something for her stash, so hubby bought me two reels of the braid that was for sale on this stall.

This was a Stitchery of an Angel which I made into a small quilted picture, and a pendibule which I made for a dear friend Margaret in Australia. I can addthis now as she has now received it.

Going back a day to Saturday after shopping I had the cooking bug, and I made some Gingerbread men and ladies which I yet have to decorate, and I also made a Carrot cake which for some reason this time turned out a bit heavy.

On Sunday I made some delicious ice cream from blackberries which I had gathered in the summer and had frozen.

This is the Recipe

Blackberry Ice cream

250g (8.75oz) Berries defrosted, or fresh

125g(4.5oz) granulated sugar

I tablespoon lime juice

200cc(7floz) cream ( whipping or double)

100cc(3.5fl.oz) whole milk

Clean the berries, or defrost completely. Puree the Berries,with the sugar and the lime juice. Pour the milk and the cream into the mixture. Make sure that the ingredients are thoroughly mixed.Pour into an Ice cream machine that is switched to firm setting and leave to churn for 40-45 mins.If you don't have an Ice cream machine, put in the fast freeze part of your freezer in a suitable container, and mix with a fork every 2 hrs to break down the ice crystals.

Enjoy!!!!!