Bagels, cream cheese & jam

Back in the day when MOH and I got together, and when we were ‘commuting’ between our respective houses one of MOH’s specialities was a bagel, cream cheese and blueberry jam. Something I’d not had before, but it was quite a hit. Initially this became a staple weekend breakfast, but over the years somehow it’s fallen off our radar, and I’m not really sure why.

Sometimes though life reminds you of these things, and circumstances even align. That’s exactly happened last week and resulted in a throwback breakfast, and very tasty it was too.

MOH had a planned trip to London, and as he would when we lived in Greenwich he stopped off at Brick Lane for some bagels. They really are the best, and I’ve an inkling that it was when we tasted these bagels (or beigels) that the shop bought bagels fell out of favour - there really is no comparison, trust me.

While MOH was in town I tested out my new preserving pan with the blackberries we picked from the local hedgerow following a recipe I’d tried before. I’m quite partial to a blackberry jam it seems, and had written about two on here before. This time I opted for the blackberry and lime jam, which simply adds lime zest to the jam mixture.

We picked about half a kilo of blackberries and that turned into two jars of jam - as you can see one’s a little larger than a usual sized jam jar, and there was also enough to fill a ramekin which we’d keep in the fridge and use immediately.

MY HOMEMADE BLACKBERRY & LIME JAM PICTURED ON ONE OF MY NEWEST SUSTAINABLE ‘KITCHEN TOWELS’ MADE FROM MY WONKIEST PATCHWORK BLOCKS AND OLD TOWELS SEWN TOGETHER. PRETTY AND PRETTY USEFUL TOO!

So with MOH bringing home the bagels, and my afternoon jam making - all I needed was some cream cheese, which fortuitously I had in the fridge. (It’s a great fridge standby and as well as on bagels, it’s also good for pasta and to make a quick cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese or lasagne - and it usually has a long ‘use by’ date too).

So Brick Lane bagels, cream cheese and homemade blackberry and lime jam (not the blueberry jam we used to have, but close enough) and what a breakfast it was. The jam even solicited unprompted praise from MOH, so a result!

Isn’t it great when circumstances align?

My garden in August

Well August was a funny old month, bringing all sorts of weather with it. Sun, wind, rain - and plenty of that, though I think we stopped short of hail and snow, I think. It’s been another month of getting to know my garden, and sadly suffering the loss of a plant we brought with us.

One that we’d had in a pot for a while, but clearly wasn’t happy with everything nature had to throw at it - we were surprised, but I think it was the wind that the rosemary most objected to. But it was a good prompt for me to move the pots back into the border to give them some protection from the sun and the wind, and to help them conserve water as when the sun’s out it’s been pretty warm.

I don’t think this one’s coming back!

In happier news, other plants have thrived. New ones have started to flower, and a yellow antirrhinum has self seeded itself amongst one of the (many) lavender bushes, and it’s been great to see the garden do its thing.

The pot of mint which I’d cut back before we moved sprang back into life and has at least tripled, as mint does. It too though was feeling the demands of being exposed in the warmer weather, and was starting to wilt a tad. Not wanting this, or any of my other plants from London to suffer the same fate of the rosemary meant the pots are all nestled among the more established plants. Though the morning after I’d moved them all I did wonder where they’d gone!

During August I had a week on my own at the house, and it was great to spend some time getting things straight(er). I’d planned to spend some time in the garden, but the weather scuppered me on my first home alone afternoon. Hmmmn.

The acer, outside our back front door, has had a mixed month. There’s been plenty of bright red new growth leaves, but there’s also been a few crispy and more battered leaves, though thankfully this one has picked up with some more regular watering.

We’d got out of the habit of watering the pots, which wasn’t such a good thing when the weather warmed up again. The outside tap on the side of the garage was a bit temperamental, and if you weren’t ready for it it would give your knees a quick wash as you turned it on. To combat this I bought a short length of hosepipe - because of course we’d left our surplus hosepipe behind as we didn’t think we’d need it - and it soon tamed the unwieldy flow of the tap.

It wasn’t all wind and rain though, there were days with blue skies, cloud and sun and plenty of time to sit and admire and enjoy them too. So it’s not all bad at all, in fact it’s rather good.

The tiny crab apple tree continues to do well. I think it won’t be long before the crab apples are ready to harvest - my plan is to make some crab apple jelly (what else?!) when the time comes. But until then we’re enjoying looking at its branches which are laden with fruit.

The olive tree in a pot is also thriving. Previously it was bald on one side where it had been deprived of sunlight on all sides. Here, it’s on the corner of the path and gets sunlight from all around. I’d cut this back a fair bit for the move, but we’ve got new growth that’s easily 30cm or so. It’s still leaning a bit, but not everything can be fixed in a couple of months.

Last month I shared plans to tackle the buddleia which was growing and growing and taking over one of the borders outside the gate. I’d hoped to pot it on and save it, but when I started to cut it back once the flowers had gone I realised that if I gave it a severe prune then it would probably be ok to stay where it was.

So that’s what I did, and it seems to have gone OK. Which is good news as the amount of bees and butterflies that visited were definitely worth keeping it for. I also know that it aims to self-seed as much as it can, so next year I’ll be ready to pot on some of those seedlings, which were starting to make themselves at home throughout the gravel, along with the weeds!

I’ve a feeling that weeding that gravel will become one of our biggest jobs in the garden, the one that’s never ending but also quite satisfying. You know the sort!

Welcome to Bosworth Life

Well hello there.

If you’re reading this then it’s all gone to plan (or as to plan as it could have gone) and I’ve refreshed my blog to reflect our recent house move.

I’d been Life at 139a for ten years, which is a long time and although I’d never felt the need to change before now, now feels right.

When we first started to look to move house people were quick to ask if I’d change my blog name - back then I was ‘no, why would I, 139a can be a virtual space for wherever we go’. And in some ways that’s true, it has been a big part of our life for the twenty one years we lived there, but we were also so, so ready to move. It wasn’t until we got to Nottinghamshire, that I realised I was also ready to move my blog on too.

So why Bosworth Life?

I was always going to keep the life element of my blog name, as the things I cover are more wide reaching than just house and garden, and I didn’t want to feel constrained by a name. Bosworth is part of our address here, and so it was a fairly obvious choice.

Our new house is a new build barn, which is quite an unusual concept, and I toyed with variations about life at the barn, life at the new build barn and many more. But none felt right, and some felt quite similar to names that were already in use. That was a disappointing find, as when I wrote the post sharing that I was mulling over a blog name change, that was where I thought I’d go.

But it didn’t turn out that way.

I checked various names with Bosworth, and I was sold when I realised the .life suffix worked with it. It may not be as normal as a .co.uk or a .com suffix, but it is a lot cleaner and it makes me smile.

A cleaner look and feel

Now I like stuff, and I like my stuff - but something strange has happened as part of our house move. Like many people moving we’ve gone through years and years of ‘essential’ items pruning as we go, recalling memories and finding plenty of things we’d long forgotten about.

I thought we’d been pretty ruthless, but as we unpacked in our new house with its bright, white spaces we had a rethink, and have got rid of a load more stuff. We’ve been here two months and are only just getting some pictures on the walls. And we know that all we had before won’t all make it onto the walls here, which is another surprise to us both.

And so it makes sense for me to refresh the look and feel here too. The old logo was pretty minimalist, but this one feels cleaner and brighter - though I realise some may say dull (and that’s ok just please keep it to yourself!).

So what’s next?

Now I’ve got this new space set up I’ll also be changing my social channels (wish me luck!), but I’m also hoping that the refresh will inspire me to share more about our move, and our new house. For some reason I’ve held back as it didn’t feel a good fit under the Life at 139a banner, which given what I said before about it being a virtual 139a is odd, and that cemented the idea of a new blog name.

We’ve also got a whole new area to explore, so that’s exciting too. The countryside is right on our doorstep, as is the local history - the last battle of the War of the Roses, the Battle of Stoke Field took place close by in 1487. Newark is less than four miles away, Nottingham about seventeen miles - and there’s plenty more to explore in between and beyond.

I’ve also - finally - got a dedicated craft room here, so no more having craft supplies scattered between rooms, and it seems I’ve been collecting a fair amount of stuff, so I’ll be aiming to use some of that too as well as finish the projects I have on the go, and start some of those that I’ve planned. Though be warned, that list has grown!

So exciting times, and I can’t wait to get started - thanks for being here to see how it goes!