FAST FORWARD We lost a few months there

Signs of Winter: Ma's hellebores are loving it here in the Midlands;
the Wood Shed; dry grass that looks like straw and red berries on our holly tree

Real life has such a pesky habit of getting in the way of one's virtual one.

Just as I was getting a really good head of steam behind me with the blog, then all kinds of real things happened including school holidays, packing up my 86 year old Mother's home in Cape Town and Tyler visiting for a few wonderful weeks from the island.

Life in the countryside is anything but tranquil. We've started our building work on the house and I've been a bit distracted by the garden, which I endlessly and happily pootle around in channeling Vita S-W. Oh how I love my garden! It definitely is a middle aged, middle class woman thing.

We've now had our first frosts and Winter appears to be looming, if not already here - the dog's water bowls were iced over this morning. All those lovely Autumn recipes I'd been fiddling around with already seem a bit obsolete as I lost a few months there.

I'm also re-discovering South African cooking (which is mainly of the hearty variety anyway ) and am slightly obsessed with dishes such as roasted honey pumpkin with ginger & cinnamon and Waterblommetjie Bredie (water lily stew) among others. Being basically New South Africans, the boys are completely in love with all things biltong, rusks and boerie rolls, so it's a well-appreciated journey that I'm on.

To be honest, not much in the way of innovative cooking has been happening in this household recently and it feels like I've been churning out cottage pie and roast chicken  ad infinitum. Last night I got all fancy again (it was Use-Up Wednesday) and chopped and grated away with alacrity until I ........burnt it all as I got distracted on Pinterest pinning a whole lot of delicious looking South African recipes. Tyler found this very funny. Sigh. Real life can be so tedious.

In my defense I had made Ballymaloe's Irish Stew the night before with some gorgeous best end lamb chops from Merrivale Butchery and the dogs were thrilled to have charred Greek brinjals for supper tonight.

I've collected some wonderful Autumny-Wintery recipes which I'm busy trying out and the local seasonal selection at the moment is inspiring:

Pomegranates
Mushrooms
Figs
Jerusalem artichokes
Chestnuts
Beetroot
Apples
All manner of squash and root vegetables 

all in abundance here in the Midlands. The trout season - caught prolifically in all our local dams and rivers - has kicked off and soon there will be game: Venison, guinea fowl and quail plus more.

Winter is also a time for puddings, hot picnic food and chocolat chaux - all rather popular in this home. We particularly love eating out next to bonfires and Tyler is here for the whole of August, so there will be lots of that. I've already made some forays into Malva Pudding Country (deemed not as good as Michaelhouse's by our E Blocker) and I'm itching to try a few more such as Lemon Souffle Pudding and Sticky Toffee.

Rather excitingly I have some commissions to write and I'm looking forward to organising a couple of fun shoots, a bit of travel and this whole new side to my life.

So we're back on the bus and off we go through our first Midland Winter, house building and a few other adventures.