And I'm back

It has been 3 weeks since I have moved into my new place with my partner and as you can probably tell we have the Internet back so I will hopefully be doing more posts soon.

As I was growing up there was about 6 of us living in one house and then over the years with our partners moving in and then finding there own place, it went to about 9 people always coming in and out of the house, so there was always noise and someone walking in when you wanted to be alone. But now that there is only two of us living here it is still very strange as I keep expecting to have someone walk in on me when I am doing some writing or a video.
At the same time though it is so lovely to finally be able to be on our own and live our lives the way we wish to without disturbing anyone else. The area we live in is beautiful, they have a small walkway which has some trees next to a river, so I am not so upset about living the countryside as this little area seems just fine, it also has seats along the walkway so I sometimes just sit there and watch the river and just take everything in, it feels very peaceful.


I am starting to get back into my herbalism course now we have the Internet as my course is done online so I m looking forward to finally finishing that. I have also started to get back into some creative writing as well as cooking & baking. I feel so much more confident and at peace now I have the freedom to cook/bake whenever I want without feeling like I have to hurry.


I wont keep coming on here and updating each week how it is going here i know that isn't really interesting and not really needed. It is just because it is my first time moving out that I wanted to do a little update on that.
Hope you all are keeping well, I have a lot of catching up I need to do on here as well as YouTube!

Spring

At last spring has finally arrived here, the daffodils have risen and there is baby lambs in the field and all sorts of plants are starting to sprout up again. I took this chance (while the sun was out all day, no cold weather either! Just pure warmth from the sun, it was brilliant) to go for a walk, as I didn't celebrate the spring equinox I thought I would do it now. Why should I celebrate it when I cant see the signs of spring, it makes more sense to celebrate it when you know it is there in your area.
For the celebration I basically went for a walk, took a good hard look at everything around me, seeing what is growing, anything changed etc. As well as listening to what nature had to say, whether it was a message I needed to hear or just simply a song/story that they wanted me to hear. I wanted to walk for miles but unfortunately I couldn't due to my condition that I have which stops me from being able to walk too far.


Since spring is a time for new beginnings and changes to be made, I thought I would share with you all a big change that is happening for me and my partner - we have finally found somewhere to live! So by April we will be living in our new home, but not too sure on how soon we will have the Internet back so blogging & vlogging will be on hold until I can get back on.

Toad

 A couple of times I have been doing some journey work to find my animal guide. Each time I have gone I have met a toad. Before he was a little hazy, I couldn't really make out his appearance at all (or even remember what the toad looked like).
But when I went this time I made sure I took note of what the toad looked like, even if it was a certain colour and how he moved etc. So afterwards I regained my balance and took some time to steady myself and then decided to do some research on what it means to have a Toad animal guide.
Pretty much everywhere was saying the same thing:

Altered states of  consciousness, Earthly energy, courtship with sound, the need for self-examination and drawing upon your inner resources, camouflaging poison, changing luck, representation of the Moon and both Life and Death  (In alchemy the Toad signifies the dark side of Nature) 

Except for one site which helped me find what different toads actually mean when it comes to animal guides, and I found one that was very similar to the toad that is my animal guide.The Natterjack Toad, this toad is different to other toads as it prefers to run rather than jump, it can also climb and is a bad swimmer.
This type of toad pretty much teaches that even if you are a toad you don't have to remain toad like. I am starting to understand a lot more now why he is helping me with my journey so far.

Chocolate Brownies

As it was my brother -in-laws birthday yesterday I decided to make him some chocolate brownies as I knew they are his favourites from what I bake (the last time I baked these he took the whole box).
And I thought I would make a post about them, showing how I make them and what I use.

Ingredients

65g (2 ½ oz) butter
2 eggs
255g (8 oz) sugar
75g (3 oz) plain flour
5g (1 tsp) baking powder
45g (3 tbsp) cocoa powder
100g (4 oz) bourbon biscuits

Directions

Melt the butter and leave to cool slightly
Beat the eggs and sugar until they are light and fluffy
Sift together the flour and baking powder
Stir the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, bourbons and melted butter into the egg mixture. Mix well
Spoon the brownie mixture into a greased 20cm (8 in) square baking tray
Bake for 30 minutes
Cut the brownies into squares while they are warm, but leave in their pan until they have cooled completely.

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Today I was in the mood to do some baking, but most of the recipes that I had I couldn't make because of the lack of ingredients, so I thought I would leave it.
I saw a new post by towards-sustainability and saw on the "you might also like" list a recipe for Chocolate shortbread cookies. I also knew that I had all these ingredients, so off I went to do some baking :)

 

Ingredients

250g butter, softened

½ cup icing sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup cornflour
¼ cup cocoa powder

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160'C/ 320'F.

2. Place the butter and icing sugar in a mixing bowl and beat them until the mixture is creamy.

3. Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and cornflour. Then stir it into the butter mixture to form a dough.

4. Turn the dough onto a floured bench top and knead it lightly until it is smooth.

5. Roll spoonfuls of the mixture into little balls and place them on a greased baking tray, then flatten them slightly with a fork.

6. Bake them for 20-25 minutes or until they are firm. Remove from oven and let the cookies cool down on the tray. Makes around 30 cookies, or 40 small ones.

For me, it was slightly difficult to get the mixture into a dough, so my partner did some research and found that you could wrap the mixture up in cling film and squish it together, so that is what we did and then we made them into little balls.