A rather nice cake, some flowers and a Crispy Greek style pie!

I do have rather a lot of recipe books, especially ones with cakes in, plus a large ring binder file and saved ones online, so choosing a cake to bake can take rather a long time. Do I go for a new one or a well tried and tested? last week it was the later. Due to strike action the library where we have our knit and natter was going to be closed so a leading member of our group asked us all round to her garden instead. Now although I hadn't ever had a good look round this garden I knew that it was a very, very nice one and big at that. The whole idea of knitting and nattering in a garden like that seem to lend itself to a rather nice cake so I decided on raspberry and white chocolate, here is the recipe

and here is how it looks stage by stage

and of course the finished cake

You do need to keep an eye on it after about an hour and I do tend to make one large and a small just so I can put one in the freezer. I have only ever made it with frozen raspberries as it says but if you try fresh let me know how you get on.

Now our garden is nothing compared to the knit and natter one but this year I am making a real effort with it. It's nothing exciting, north facing, on a slope with a very uneven partly subsided lawn, no interesting corners for pots or step ladders like this

A few paving slabs outside the back door which don't get the sun till the afternoon and then looses it as it goes behind other peoples trees in the early evening BUT despite all that I have got some flowers this year in fact I have picked my first bunch of sweetpeas today, here they are

and here are some of the others I've got 

The fushia was in a pack of 4 for £1-99 from Lidl , likewise the geranium below. Pretty good value I think

The clematis is called Rebecca and was bought for me by David to climb up the pergola he was going to build(?) several years ago, in the end I just planted it outside the back door. I though I had lost it this year, it had been lovely last but no sign of life in the spring, then I spotted the tiniest of green and it came back to life but with only the one flower -you can just see it at on the left side of the wall at the top of the picture

I guess these are some sort of lily, I was asked if I wanted some plants when I went to the garden centre and these are what came up. Lovely colour and rather gorgeous.

I've got a bit of a thing about hydrangeas at the moment, think it's something to do with David's father planting so many in Ireland. I've noticed some lovely coloured ones around, there is a beautiful purple one in the garden at the clinic which I am going to have a go at taking cuttings from. 

I am also growing courgettes again so I can make courgette and ginger jam. They are very tiny at the moment, but am sure when we get back from our trip to Ireland they will be ready for jam making

I made my Greek style pie, my first go at using filo pastry which I did not find at all easy as all the layers were stuck together.

 I think it looks a lot better in the pictures that what it tasted like, mainly due to me putting too many layers of pastry in as I couldn't separate them!. Don't think I'll be doing it again, you may have better luck.

Well it's all go @ number 6 for the next few days/weeks. We have Jonathan's graduation on Friday, a family party to celebrate my cousin and family being over from America and then we are off to Ireland for about 10 days so the next time we speak it may well be August, when I will be telling you something rather special, so good bye till then. L Anne x