Hot cross buns and Easter egg trails

Happy Easter! I hope you are enjoying a long weekend and a bit of a rest today.

This week started off quite well. I had an unexpectedly free day (when I thought I would be finishing my research proposal, which I had somehow sent in a day early), so I decided to bake. I was in a baking mood after making Debs Dust Bunny's crumb cake muffins a few weeks before - I was halfway through an essay and wanted a break and a snack. I made these in 45 minutes!

So this week, I baked some fancy-pants Earl Grey and orange hot cross buns to take to my friend's in the evening. They looked nice and they smelt amazing while they were baking...but they tasted a bit meh. Maybe I needed to steep the tea for longer and use more orange zest. Also, I am really rubbish at any kind of proper bread dough - I don't have the patience to knead thoroughly for five minutes, let alone ten.

As it happens, my friend had also planned to have hot cross buns, and had bought some from the supermarket and from Konditor and Cook. I was bunned out by the time I left! I picked a primrose from his garden when I left - it had such a delicate scent.

My friend gave me some lemon chiffon cake in lieu of an egg, which was much appreciated later in the week. Coincidentally, I noticed a Twitter friend had just been to a Konditor and Cook piping class. Becs (who I met at the Depressed Cake Shop in Bromley) came away from her class with a Curly Wurly cake and two trays of brownies!

For years, I have wanted to take my autistic sister on an Easter egg hunt. She has never been on one, and there is not much that she is enthusiastic about, but chocolate is one thing. She was in a good mood on Good Friday, so we went to the Red House in Bexleyheath, which was doing the National Trust egg trail. The house is gorgeous - it was created by and for William Morris, in collaboration with his architect friend, Philip Webb. Fortunately, the grounds aren't too big - I think my sister would have been impatient otherwise! We went around with our piece of paper and I asked her to stamp the paper every time we came across a stamper along the way. She got a bit fed up of doing it towards the end, so I finished it for her. After a tea break in the cafe, we went back to the start of the trail and I asked her to give in her completed trail. The lovely ladies there (I don't know if they were staff or volunteers, but they were so friendly and a real credit to Red House) went to get her prize and one of them said, "Have we got a blue one?" because my sister was wearing a blue jacket. My sister doesn't often look pleasantly shocked, but she was upon receiving her egg! She obviously thought that the trail was just me trying to get her to do something educational/nature-based.

The next day, we went to Hall Place to do their trail. Theirs was much more spread out - I saw a few little kids crying because they'd gone around once and hadn't found all of the letters (which spelled out a phrase)! My sister also got fed up halfway through, and so I had to run around in the drizzle and finish it off for her so she could get her prize.

I took a few moments to appreciate the spring beauty in the gardens - lots of pretty heather, magnolia, and the start of apple blossom.

 There were also strong-scented hyacinths and narcissi, and cowslips in the open and nestled amongst the hyacinths.

And here are some Easter leftovers: too short stems of forsythia, scented 'Double Smiles' narcissi and 'Atlantic' muscari, all from the garden or greenhouse.

I love how the forsythia and narcissi are the same vibrant yellow! Perfect partners for Easter.

It's starting to feel like November

I got a bit of a shock to my system on Monday when I was cutting foliage for the museum, and began to really feel the cold. It didn't help that every time I cut down branches of eucalyptus or magnolia, I got a load of cold rainwater falling on me too!

That night, I went to my first football match in a couple of years (fortunately it was an away game in glorious South East London), and tried to remind myself that it wasn't that cold; my first ever game was at the end of November in Sunderland, before Grand Central ran direct trains, and I remember the bitter cold as we waited for our connection at Newcastle. It didn't help that we lost 4-1 and Roy Keane (allegedly) resigned by text message afterwards! Also, on Monday, there was a lot of jumping up and down, which also keeps out the cold. I was very glad of the win, even if we didn't exactly play well enough to deserve it.

At the Garden Museum, I seemed to have one minor incident after another, with me managing to forget German pins, extra reel wire and extra ivy, and running out of recycled floral foam. In the end I did a foam-free arrangement for the porch with bowls and chicken wire. It's not my favourite way to do flowers, especially if it's a low arrangement, but apparently it's more eco-friendly. Here it is coming together...sorry about the light. I forgot it gets dark soon!

And finally:

And here are the reception flowers. Lovely scented narcissi and alstromeria, mixed with eucalyptus, magnolia, recycled physocarpus sticks, and a berry that I don't know the name of.

Lastly, a few of the cafe table posies.

If you are out enjoying fireworks or a bonfire tonight, stay safe, and have a good Guy Fawkes' night!

More photos from RHS Hyde Hall

It was a sunny and windy day when I visited RHS Hyde Hall for the first time last week. Many of the daffodils were almost finished, but there were tulips, forget-me-nots, blossom, camellias, and sweet-smelling magnolia.

Hyde Hall comprises many different gardens, including a dry garden, since it is situated in an especially dry part of Britain, and an Australian and New Zealand garden.

These fiery-looking plants are Uncinia rubra 'Belinda's Find'.

Here is Pittosporum tenuifolium 'Tom Thumb'. I have 'Oliver Twist' pittosporum - are many named after children's literary heroes?

A beautiful sight of hellebores, narcissi and muscari.

This stunner is Erysimum mutabile (wallflower).

Summer promise: alliums, dianthus, nerines, wisteria, a garden full of roses and clematis, as well as a wall of roses, including Rosa helenae.

The sight and scent of the apple blossom and viburnum was gorgeous.

There were also fast-moving rabbits and stationary Easter bunnies. If you visit now, you might see both!