The end or just the beginning?

The late August Bank Holiday in England and Wales always seems to signify the end of summer, even though we all secretly hope that we will enjoy fair weather all the way through September. Many take the last opportunity to get away before the new academic year begins and the garden starts to fade as the number of new blooms don't quite keep up with the number that need dead-heading.

In some ways it has been a typical summer but in other ways it hasn't at all. When the sun has shone, I've lolled in a hammock; when the rain has poured I've baked bread.  There have been especially cool days and extremely hot ones and the rain always seems to appear just as the water butt shows signs of running dry. However, the garden seems a little confused, as am I.

Right on cue in May the tomato plants were planted out. They grew like Jack's beanstalk and began to flower; the fruit seemed slow to form but gradually grew... and then stopped...

In the middle of July, when I would expect to pick my first ripe tomatoes, they were still looking decidedly green and small. Since then they have appeared to be almost frozen in time. My heart began to sink and I made a concerted effort to eat up all the Green Tomato Chutney still languishing in the cupboard from 2014 to make space for the anticipated 2016 batch.

Decidedly green

Each evening I'd come home from work, make a cup of tea, and wonder around the garden looking for signs of ripening fruit. But nothing. Even the figs were ripening on schedule, with the first appearing in mid-August and the rest following in quick succession. I've picked 12 of the gorgeously squishy, sweet things this week alone and they still keep coming.

One modest-sized fig tree...

... producing fruit right on cue

Today's fig harvest

Just as I was about to give up hope on the tomatoes, one fruit began to show signs of orangey-life last weekend and it's now almost ready to pick. Its neighbour clearly got the message and is following suit and I've begun to see signs of others thinking about joining the party. Relief all around!

Signs of orangey-life?

Ripening for sure

Relief all round!

Oh, and the first sweet peas have also been spotted. Only about 6 weeks late! Well, better late than never. Perhaps this is a sign that this year's summer really will stretch into September. Let's hope so. But if it doesn't I can always amuse myself indoors making green tomato chutney!

Better late than never

Loafing around

The unseasonably wet and windy weather this weekend has somewhat thwarted my plans, and I know I'm not the only one with a lot of people putting off camping trips.

I managed to run some essential errands this morning without getting too wet or blown away but things seem to have settled down to an afternoon of steady drizzle with the occasional downpour. Any thoughts of venturing out of the house for a second time have definitely disappeared.

Although I tried to relax into an afternoon of reading I just couldn't stick to it and was suddenly gripped with the desire to make some bread.

So, with the Women's Olympic triathlon as my soundtrack I set about making a seeded cornmeal loaf, which is probably one of the simplest bread recipes I know, in spite of having a relatively long list of ingredients.

Pre-heat the oven to 190C or gas mark 5 and lightly oil a 1lb (450g) loaf tin.

Into a large mixing bowl sieve 175g strong bread flour (I used Dove's Farm gluten-free brown bread flour) and 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, then stir in 150g polenta, 1 teaspoon of caster sugar, 1 teaspoon of salt, and 25g each of pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, poppy seeds (reserving 1 teaspoon), and milled flaxseed (or seeds of your choice). Beat 1 egg with 150ml milk (I used almond milk) and 125ml yoghurt and add to the bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon to form a slack dough.

Transfer the mixture into the prepared loaf tin and sprinkle with the reserved poppy seeds. Bake in the pre-heated oven for 50-60 minutes.

Cool on a wire rack, although it's delicious served slightly warm.

A bag for a gift

I always like the idea of giving a gift in a gift bag but at between 80 pence and £2.50 a go it's a lot more expensive than conventional wrapping paper. I've therefore been thinking about making my own gift bags.

This weekend I had the perfect opportunity. I had a suitable size brown paper bag that I'd been given in a shop for a small purchase and had come across some left-over wallpaper. The wallpaper not only had a striking design but is thicker than conventional wrapping paper and so I felt it would hold up to being made into a bag.

I began by dismantling the brown paper bag, carefully prising open all the glued seams.

Next, I folded the paper handles out of the way and used it as a template to cut out a rectangle from the wallpaper.

Placing the paper bag over the wallpaper rectangle I then folded along all the lines of the original bag.

Re-checking with the brown paper template as I went, I used double-sided sticky tape to construct a new bag from the wallpaper.

The inside base looked a bit messy so I cut out another rectangle of wallpaper and stuck this over the bottom.  This not only hid the seams but gave a further level of rigidity and strength to the bag.

The next step was to add some handles. A few years ago I picked up a rivet set for the princely sum of £1.00. The set included 100 rivets so I wasn't expecting too much from it, and admittedly didn't get perfect riveted holes but they seemed to do the job. Lining up where I wanted the handles I punched 4 riveted holes along the top edge of the bag.

Of course, if your chosen paper is very robust you could just use a hole punch to make the holes. You could also cut your paper template about 3cm taller and fold over this margin so that your holes are punched through a double thickness of paper.

All that was left to do was to add the handles which I raided my ribbon box for.  As you can see in the photo I've a lot of ribbon! Some is left over from other projects but I also salvage ribbon from pretty much everything - boxes of chocolates, gifts, even those that come attached to the inside shoulder seams of clothes to keep them on the hanger. You don't need to use ribbon if you don't have any since buying it specially would rather defeat the object of making your own gift bag at a lower cost than buying one. Depending on the look you are going for you could use wool, raffia, string - whatever you have to hand.

If you think this all sounds like a bit of a palaver, it was all done in the time it took me to drink a mug of coffee - which I did as I went. I was pleased enough with the result to use it immediately. A friend who has been loving all my crocheted animals is about to move into a flat in a newly converted church. I thought it only right that her church flat should have a church mouse.

Wrapped and ready to go