Lavender Outside

Lavender Outside, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

Lavender Jug and Pot

Lavender Jug and Pot, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

The sun shone.....

Lavender Jug, originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

We had a lovely weekend with friends in Henley, much excellent food was consumed and wine imbibed. The sun shone, the dogs were friendly and the pool warm.

This pretty jug of lavender was in our bedroom - how could I resist!

Summertime, and the living is easy....

It's been a lovely afternoon by the pool!




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The weekend starts here....

Fizz on the terrace in the evening sunshine with friends. A very good way to end the week!




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Fish and chips for supper.

We've had a very nice, and very greedy evening with our young chums Victoria and Paul partaking in a fish and chips binge. I love fish and chips but it's one of those things (like Cadbury's Swiss Gateaux) of which I limit my intake to a couple of times a year. I always manage to eat all of my chips and any leftovers too. Heinz ketchup is essential, as is salt and vinegar. I'd rather poke my eyes out than eat mushy peas or gravy. Now I feel utterly stuffed, but I spy a big bag of Maltesers by the kettle....

I'm off for a lie down now.





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A beautiful Treasury.

How's this for a stunning Treasury!  I've stopped posting each one which features my work as to be honest, there are too many, but I'll still be showing off the ones I think really stand out and this one certainly does.  My Love in a Mist print has been featured.  I think that the colour palate here is stunning, really fresh and unusual.  Those coconut lime verbena soaps look good enough to eat, rather like coconut ice!

A Hint of Green

by Erica Daley

Lunch at Love 2 Eat on Burton Road - Take Two.

I posted a little review of a lunch at a local cafe - Love 2 Eat a while back, you can see it here.  It had been a nice enough pit stop, a first visit to a new venue, but there were a few little things which just stood out for me and spoiled what would been a pretty good lunch.  Anyway, recently I had an email from the owner who had read my review and wanted to invite me and some guests back for another try!  I was very impressed with her response and one day when we had a friend over on a work day, I booked us in and off we went.

We were greeted with great friendliness and shown to a table which had been reserved for us, just inside the door with lots of room to spread out.  The lovely array of cookery books were there and I did get a good look at the Moro one this time!

I went for a baguette which is what I had last time, but on this occasion I chose the hot roast chicken filling as I've always got a soft spot for a bit of roast chick, and I could see them slowly and juicily turning in the rotisserie at the back of the tiny shop.  The menu listing mentioned 'lashings of butter' so I asked for somewhat less than lashings and for the mayo to be served separately (which is how it came anyway).  The boys ordered pies.....any excuse for a pie!

While we were waiting, we were pleasantly surprised by a plate of very nice brown bread, butter and some seriously good olives.  I tried not to eat too much bread before I had my bready main course, but didn't resist very well.  I'll definitely order olives on my return visit, it's one of my pet hates at restaurants and cafes when they promise you deliciously marinated olives, and you can taste that they are just out of the jar with that sort of 'instant' flavour you get.  These had a good dose of cumin seeds.  I do like to taste real, whole seeds on my olives.  Luckily I remembered to take a photo before they all disappeared!

 

My baguette when it arrived looked very tasty indeed, plenty of soft, just roasted chicken, no slimy bits in a slim brown baguette.  The salad was excellent, not a slimy letuce leaf in site, good green beans, little gem type leaves, nice ripe tomatoes and a few rather over rosted hazelnuts, which added a really good and unexpected depth.  The mayo was standard mayo which I don't eat, so I wasn't concerned with it.  I tried to stuff some salad leaves into the baguette as it only contained the chicken (and a very reasonable amount of butter!), but the bread sort of collapsed in a very messy and buttery manner, but I'm not afraid of getting myself messy by eating with my fingers so dug in and made a mess. I'd have liked to have seen some greenery bedded in under the chicken. But I am a pedant.  It was delicious and I ate every little bit.

The boys played with their food and made smiley pies!  They both had steak pies, one had very nice looking new potatoes and the other salad, they said they were very tasty.

Then is was greedy chocolate brownie and tea time for me.  The brownie was very good indeed and ate all of it.....My tea did not come with hot frothy milk this time!

 

So thanks, Penny for reading my original post and inviting me back for another lunch.  I hope you're more happy with this write up!  We'll see you again, perhaps for one of your evening meals next time?

Love 2 Eat
190a Burton Road
West Didsbury
0161 434 7077

Sunday in Harrogate - Toast and Macaroons.

We'd been at a homewares trade show in Harrogate for the afternoon on Sunday and were feeling a little worse for ware from the huge variety of junk and tacky we'd been looking at for several hours and we didn't want to head straight home as the weather had perked up and the early evening was lovely.  We rather conveniently parked near Toast where I indulged in a little retail therapy (spending some birthday money, thanks dad!) where I bought a fabulous long blue and white striped linen skirt

and an amazingly bright knitted linen top.

After this, we wandered up the hill to one of our long time favourites, the famous  Betty's of Harrogate.


We were in the new Montpellier Cafe Bar which has appeared since our last visit, it's in the area where the shop area used to be, on the ground floor at the front, the shop has now moved to the other side at the front where they have expanded into the next door shop.  It's what they are calling a 'Continental Cafe Bar' and it's great, just a smallish range of delicious open sandwiches - Peter had the crab, prawn and avocado one which was on a lovely thin sliced sourdough and came with some very nice, if slightly gritty leaves.  As well as the open sarnies, there's a small range of very delicate cakes and pastries and I chose the fresh raspberry macaroons which was one of the most yummy cakey things I've eaten;  the raspberries were rich red and soft and squishy with that lovely tartness mixed with rich sweetness that you don't often find in raspberries which I often find disappointing.  In the centre of the fruits, hidden, was a small but perfectly formed dollop of rich and delicious raspberry butter cream, just enough to give it a lift.  The macaroon itself was as light as a feather with a lovely fruity flavour and altogether it made one of the best cakey things I think I've every eaten!  It's not a cheap place for a bite, but the service is so perfect and and the setting so lovely that it really doesn't matter.  Top marks!

First post from iPhone to Blog

Has this first mobile post worked?


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Location:Nell Ln,Manchester,United Kingdom

More pink tulips!

Field of Pink., originally uploaded by Eyeshoot Photography.

Here's another of my brand new pink tulip prints.

It's titled 'Field of Pink' which is a little more creative than the previous one - and you can find it here.

New Floral Print

I've created a new set of spring tulip prints, two pretty in pink and two darker and greener. I really like the way that the textures have given interest and depth to the soft backgrounds.

I've called it Single Pink Tulip, which I know isn't the most creative title in the world, but at least it's descriptive.  You can find it here.

Clevedon Pier

Clevedon Pier - $35

I've reworked a photo which I shot way back in 2007. I love to rediscover photos which didn't really work for me at the time of shooting but have something to offer later. This was actually shot on a beautiful day with a perfect blue sky with fluffy white clouds and I really like how it's now moody and stormy!

Birthday Weekend

It was my birthday on Saturday and we had a great day!  We had booked a table for thirteen of my favourite people at our local choice for dim sum and when we were all finally seated a chopstick waving eating frenzy ensued, we had food arriving at the table from the steamer trolleys and the rather more unhealthy fried trolleys almost as fast as we could eat them.  There were some old favourites and a few new dishes as well as some delicious choi sum with garlic from the main menu.  The table looked like a bomb site by the time we had finished!  The only problem with these sorts of meals is that they're over all to swiftly with no pudding and wine to linger with, but then it just means that there's more of the day left to enjoy.

We made it back to ours to enjoy pink fizz with mum's famous chocolate cake in the sunshine on the terrace.  The cake was a surprise and a very nice on too, in fact it was so tasty that I totally forgot to take a picture, which is a shame but I won't forget!  Everyone stayed until we had to chuck them out as we plus two others were to drive to Liverpool to see Laura in her promenade performance of Walking Through Windows at Liverpool Cathedral which we hadn't managed to get to all week and Saturday night was the final night.  We made it in to the very last performance which started at 8pm and lasted for almost two hours after starting late.  It was a really interesting evening, highlighting the good works by the women who are commemorated in some famous stained glass windows at the cathedral.  We saw Kitty Wilkinson in her bath house (where I had to do some scrubbing!), Elizabeth Fry in a convincingly nasty prison cell, there was an encounter in the rather more comfortable surrounds of philanthropist Angela Burdett-Coutts' parlour as she told her story of massive inheritance and how she spent it! There was a rather lame piece of installation art about Dame Julien of Norwich which didn't really make much sense to me, it also looked a bit sad in such a spectacular location.

The show started and finished late and by just after 10.30 we were happy (if rather coldly) seated outside The Quarter which is rapidly turning into a Liverpool favourite for late night noshing. The menu is mainly pizza and pasta with a few 'proper' dishes on the specials board, but we all had pizzas which were very nice indeed. We were frozen by the time we had finished, so no pudding just a weary drive home. 

Sunday started with a frenzy of photography at the desperately unglamorous, slightly smell, itchy and damp Withington Pumping Station (I shoot at all the nicest places!). After a fun filled couple of hours there, we stumbled across the Beech Road festival in Chorlton where we grabbed some tasty Jerk Chicken from one of the many street cafes and had a good potter around. After a quickly restorative snooze at home, my parents came to collect us for a supper at Wagamama, which was, as usual, delicious. A leisurely Cointreau (of three) in Castlefield sent us to our beds.

Lost For Words?

It's been a while since my last blog post......quite a lot's happened since then and I've let things slip a bit on the blogging front!  Anyway as a small attempt to make up for it here's a photograph I shot on a grand day out in Liverpool last week.  We went with friends to see the Picasso exhibition at the Tate which was followed by a long and tasty lunch at the newly opened Jamie's Italian.  I've only just started to sort through the photos from that day and here's a taster!

Lost For Words - £23.26 ($35) in my Etsy Shop!