Five things that made me smile this week

Look at this face. How could she not make you smile? The mud on her nose is from investigating a mole hill – she is doing her very best to keep us safe from these terrifying creatures…

Finally, finally, finally my tomatoes are starting to ripen! I’ll be extremely lucky if half of them actually ripen, but that will give me an excuse to make some green tomato chutney.

Despite not having the best outcome from the vegetable garden this year, the runner beans are doing brilliantly well and there really is nothing better than eating something you’ve grown yourself from seed.

Earlier this week I got a call from the handsome one telling me not to cook and to be ready when he got home as we were going out – the best kind of call in my opinion. So we we popped down the road for supper at the Red Lion in Long Compton. One of the many fabulous reasons about living in the Cotswolds is that you’re spoilt for choice of where to visit – our biggest decision was deciding where we were actually going to go. The Wild Rabbit in Kingham? The Norman Knight in Whichford or what about The Fox at Oddington?

We decided on the Red Lion as we hadn’t been for a while and I was hoping that the fire would be on – unfortunately it wasn’t, but we’ll have to go back when it is.

It really is a lovely, cosy pub and the food was great! I started with the ham hock terrine, the handsome one had the beer-battered samosas that were on the special board, followed by a burger and I had the chicken schnitzel off the specials board with lemon and cranberry sauce. It worked really well and make the dish feel much more fresh.

Making my autumn wreath has been a true highlight this week – it was so easy to do and I felt quite virtuous foraging all of the produce I needed to make it. Looking forward to making the Christmas one now!

And last but not least, I’m loving the changes of season. There’s an abundance of berries, the sloes have appeared, the conkers are getting bigger, the leaves are turning and there’s a change in the air and I for one, cannot wait for the temperature to drop just that bit more so I can justify popping the word burner on!

Have a lovely weekend!

A x