Reasons to be Cheerful - New Years Eve Edition

Hey friends. It's New Year's Eve and about 8.30pm as I start to craft this post, and this will be the extent of my celebration tonight. Watching TV, crafting blog posts and reflecting back on my year whilst enjoying an espresso martini, that I hope will be OK with the ibuprofen I took earlier as I have a poorly knee. 

I really don't mind that I'm not out partying as it has been the strangest of Christmas times. Covid ripped through the community where I live and by Boxing Day we had around 40 people either positive or isolating. Thank goodness we were closed for business and have around 150 bedrooms, so everyone could safely isolate. It did mean that not many of us were left to hold the fort and to ensure that around 60 people were fed and taken care of.  As always, I'm so proud of each member of my family, who stepped up and did what they could to ensure that even one person's day was a bit brighter than it could have been. 

We're now coming out the other side and the General Directors are back on-site to manage the situation and people are reaching the end of their isolation and testing negative so they can come back to regular life. I have been so astounded and grateful that no one in our family has tested positive, neither by regular LFTs nor by PCR test. I think I can safely say God's hand of protection has been upon us. 

We haven't completely escaped ill health though as my hubby has a nasty cold and I've done something to my knee, which means I have pain, tenderness and numbness in my knee and leg. I think God is telling me to rest up, which is a shame as I really fancied heading to Birling Gap tomorrow, just like I did last New Years Day. Oh well, there is always another day!

Before Covid struck it had been a very nice December and I wanted to share a few photos for future memories and give thanks to the Lord for some great times. Despite my parents/ brother not being able to come for Christmas and our Christmas and New Year plans getting cancelled I have had one of the best December ever and that is a testament to the work Christ has been doing in me this last year. 

A Week of Reasons to be Cheerful

Home sweet home and the sun is shining!

It's time for our weekly dose of cheerfulness and I am feeling a lot more like myself than I did last week. Sadly my lovely aunt passed away, so I'll be heading to her funeral on Tuesday but I'm so thankful she is no longer in loads of pain.

Here's my week of cheer -

Thursday - I had a good session with the little boy I coach through the charity TLG. Then in the evening I headed to Tesco whilst my girls were at Guides and I got a new coat for the Spring. It is raspberry coloured and I love it.

Friday - We headed out for a meal for my friend Annie's birthday and the food was exquisite. I had a chicken breast stuffed with spiced lamb and spinach and coated in a mild curry sauce with pomegranate seeds, sultanas and sunflower seeds.

Yum, Enjoying Fresh Pressed Juice

I live in the most wonderful community. Once a month all the families meet to purposefully do something to get the children together who live on-site, there are now 17 of them and they range in age from 8 weeks to 14 years. It isn't easy to try and arrange something they all want to get involved with and to be honest my JJ has pretty much bailed out as the nearest boy in age to him is about 11 years younger!

Sometimes these meetings are real corkers, in the summer we had one where they all slid down a hill on a massive tarpaulin with water, last month they swam and had chips on the beach and this time we headed down to our walled garden. We have a fab couple here who manage this walled garden as an employability project to help people who are long-term unemployed develop new skills and regain confidence. It has been such a success since it started three years ago.

Last year at Harvest time Nick got all the children to help pick the apples so they could go off to be juiced as we have our own Ashburnham Place apple juice to sell. This year he went one better as he had invested in an apple press so we could juice our own.

First off the kids got the last of the apples off our trees and then picked some beetroot and rhubarb to compliment the apple and provide us with a variety of juices.

Then it was time for us all to set to work and get the fruit ready for juicing. First, the fruit all needs an external wash.

Then it needs chopping into smaller rough pieces so it can easily be shredded for juicing. 

Once the apples are shredded up they can then go in the press and the heavy works starts but it is so satisfying watching that juice come running out.

The finished products, we have apple juice, apple and rhubarb and apple and beetroot, which was really delicious and of course looked beautiful too.

Thanks so much to Nick for a wonderful educational time. 

Why not pin this post for later?

Embrace Autumn - Our Walk at Home #CountryKids

Now I realise not everyone is as lucky as us and doesn't have this kind of walk on their doorstep but literally everywhere is beautiful in the Autumn.  Even in massive cities there are public parks and green spaces where the leaves are changing colours and falling from the trees.

I swore when we moved to our unique home 27 months ago that I would never take the beauty of this place for granted and I don't think I have but our walk yesterday did make me realise I have also not been making the best of it and getting out enough.

It is probably six weeks since I have last been for a really long walk and taken my camera with me. The girls and I rediscovered the grounds at our home on this Autumnal walk and had loads of fun too. All these photos are taken around the estate that we live in.

The beauty of the Kitchen Garden

I often see the posts linked up with Mammasaurus linky 'how does your garden grow?' and normally I'm left in awe of the great things that people are doing with their outdoor space. Since moving we have spent an immense amount of time outside but we no longer have a garden we have to tend. We now have 220 acres that someone else tends and within that we have a hedged private garden we can use but again it is lawn mown for us. It is a bit of a dream come true to be honest, after all who likes to mow the lawn?

I have found I've missed growing my veggies though and tending my flowers. I think next year I'll be taking a patch in the staff garden and doing some growing, for now I have been enjoying looking at the fruits of other peoples labour.

The pictures below show the kitchen gardens that are tended by the grounds team here. The vegetables get used in the main conference centre and the apples are juiced to make apple juice which is sold here. Can you spot what is being grown at the moment?

and we have the dahlias and sweet peas in the summer too to allow for the insects and cross pollination to occur.

and here are a couple of the plots ready for the next batch of planting and you can see my house in the background.

I bet you can see why I like it here so much!

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