Spring is in the air...

I guess this pelican, pictured on the banks of the Murray River, trying to look totally nonchalant as the seagulls have moved in, and succeeding I think is perahps not quite spring, but it certainly was in the air this day. I didn't see another pelican, so obviously it wasn't time to choose a partner pelican at this stage. Just thinking about it!

This blog was meant to be a celebration of spring, with photos of all our spring flowers around the garden, and elsewhere, but, as usual, I have lost the photos that I added to an unknown file somewhere in this computer. I keep forgetting to name the new uploads and therefore lose them. I suppose I will learn one of these days. I get sooooo frustrated by it all!!

So let's move onto afternoon tea. This time, I chose to use some of the blue cups, on a hand stitched bluebird cloth, which I hope you will enjoy.
For those of you out there who may be interested in recipes, the following is a cookie recipe which I discovered on a sheet of paper in a book a very elderly friend gave me in the 1960s. I found it about two months ago, and have been making these very easy, very economical biscuits ever since. I suspect that the recipe may well date from the 1930s It is very tasty, so I do hope you enjoy! I tend to double the recipe and do all sorts of things with it, including beating a meringue of the left over whites and spreading it on top of the biscuits before putting them into the oven. It is just something a little bit different. Sorry about the weights being in the old imperial, but that is how old the recipe is, and I can't be bothered working out the metric equivalents. Too tired!

VANILLA BISCUITS.

Ingredients:

4 ozs of Self raising flour, 2 ozs butter, 2 ozs sugar, yolk of 1 egg, vanilla essence to taste.

METHOD:
Cream butter and sugar and add yolk of egg. Beat well and add vanilla and flour. Knead lightly and roll into thin sheet of pastry. Cut into circles (or any shape) and glaze with the white of egg (unbeaten). Put a piece of almond on each biscuit and bake in a moderate oven for 10 mins. They should be light brown. when cooked.

(They are very nice with glace ginger added to mixture, put together with butter icing flavoured with vanilla, or lemon juice, or with meringue spread on top before baking.)

We have been busy around the garden and, I actually planted 11 new shrubs this week, and he has placed more around awaiting my expert attention. This weather really makes me want to be outside, doing interesting things. We went along to a meeting, with youngest grandson in tow, to listen to a friend speak about Australian native plants. Now grandson is a great fan of this particular friend of ours, and spent most of the time sitting up close and personal as he was presenting his talk. I finally coaxed him down to sit with me, but that was boring. Far more fun being with our friend. But he was busy talking and not paying the right attention, so young grandson asked, quite loudly, 'When is he going to stop talking, grandma?' Friend eventually wound up and showed some slides, but eventually harmony was restored and grandson helped friend clean up all his samples and is looking forward to seeing him again one of these days.

Anyway, enough. I am going to track down these 'demned elusive photos'. 'I seek them here, I seek them there, these demned elusive photos.' (apologies to Scarlet Pimpernel!)