Over the last year I have enjoyed being a member of the WI and at the start of the year I decided to move over to Manchester WI. One of the first events I went to was a mad hatters tea party, held in aid of Oxfam and also International Woman’s Day. Read the rest of this entry
In my last handmade Monday post I mentioned about my entry for this years WI county Show in Lancashire. Well last Wednesday I made my way up to the Show, being held at Garstang Golf Club, to see how my postcard had faired against the other entries.
So this week has been a busy one, due to one thing or another, I’ve felt my stress levels rising and my usual calmness diminishing! Hopefully you have all heard about my news of the new venture I’m involved in, if not read about it here! So my time has been taken up with sorting out things for the new site – myself and my hubby are doing the design, meaning not much time for other things! It will all be worth it though!
I mentioned a while ago about how I had got involved with a secret knitting project as part of my local WI group (you can read about it here). Well the big reveal has happened and I can finally announce…drumroll please…
Last week myself and a friend were supporting our other halves at a cycling event at the Manchester Velodrome. With 2 hours to kill we decided it was the perfect opportunity to start our WI secret knitting project.
I am quite pleased as this week has been quite productive! I have more or less managed to finish all of the things I wanted to make for selling at Thursday’s craft fair. There were a few other bits I had ideas of making however with working full time, there just aren’t enough hours in the day for sewing!
As I mentioned yesterday and in previous posts, I decided to enter the Great British Food Festival cake off challenge. Feeling that I should honour my WI membership I entered the Victoria Sponge category. I was a little unsure as to what recipe to follow but after a few trial recipes I decided to follow the Great British Bake off recipe on how to make a traditional Victoria sponge, directed my Mary Berry.
I joined my ‘local’ Women’s Institute at the beginning of the year, deciding to go a bit further afield to St Helens rather than join the Warrington group. This was mainly because St Helens was a new group just starting out and the shy person in me liked the idea of not having to infiltrate groups that had known each other for years! Read the rest of this entry
Helen at Casa Costello recently posted about books by her bedside and kindly tagged me to do the same. So here we are…what I am reading at the moment…
I have literally just finished Before I go to Sleep by SJ Watson. This is the first book for the St Helens book group in March. I have to confess, I signed up for the book club as a few of my friends were doing it and I didn’t want to be left out! I wasn’t really sure if reading to a set time frame was going to agree with me. However I was really pleased to find the title of the book was one I has on my amazon wish list after hearing about it on Channel 4′s TV book club. It has taken me about a month to read, which is pretty average for me however it’s a proper page turner! I am so glad I have read it, as it’s not something I would have normally chosen and I would thoroughly recommend it. I can’t wait to discuss it with everyone at the book club and will certainly be looking forward to getting the title of the next book!
When we were given the title for book group, I was reading The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo. I have read all of his other books and The Redbreast is the first book that was published. I haven’t read the books in order, which hasn’t seemed to impact on my enjoyment of the books. However I think I am glad I hadn’t started with this book first. I had put it on the back burner whilst reading the book group book, and I am now reluctant to go back to it. Its not that it’s not a good book, just maybe not for me! I have always been the type of person who has to finish a book, even if I’m not enjoying it! I think though that when there’s so many books out there waiting to be enjoyed, it’s best not to waste time on ones that just aren’t right for you!
I am therefore going to start reading Faithful Place by Tana French. This is again an author that I have read before. She has published 2 other books which I have really enjoyed, so I am hoping this one will be just as good!
Although technically not on my bedside, these books are ones that I have on the coffee table at the moment. The 2 hairy bikers books are on loan from my mum, but after saying how much I like them she as bought me my own copies! The Perfect Pies book really is a pastry lovers dream! I am hoping to attempt making some meat pasties at the weekend, I will let you know how I get on! The Everything Alice book was given to me by Nic for my birthday. Since then I really have read it from cover to cover, over and over again! It’s such a great book and as given me a lot of inspiration for my sewing. It is definitely a book that makes me happy!
So there we have it, my current book life in a nutshell! I have decided to tag the following people, hoping they will also share what is by their bedside..
Nic at Nicsnotebook
Janine at Chouxchouxbedoo
Karen at All for Scone
Please feel free to join in even if I haven’t tagged you, I’d love to know what you’re reading at the moment!
Sarah x
