Pixabella

Trimming the hedge is one of those jobs I look forward too. Unfortunately today was going to be the last time that I get to prune this particular hedge. This particular hedge has been one of my little projects this year because it looked to short and scrappy and provided a minimal amount of privacy.

I've spent a fair amount of time taking care of it as I wanted it to fill out as fast as possible. Since January it has grown so much and I am now proud to say it's looking so beautiful.

The trim today made the hedge look so impressive, even one of the neighbours complimented me on how good it looked. That gave be a real buzz, I can't wait to see the owners face. The hedge makes the front of the house look so inviting.

I am the owner will be overwhelmed to see the rest of her plants flourishing. The Bouganvillea is full of leaves which is in flower and the Lemon tree has doubled in size and is bearing fruit.

I hope the next person that moves in will care for the plants as much as I have and will have the opportunity to eat some nice lemons.

Last night I couldn't make my mind up about what I was going to make for dinner. The weather was overcast and it had rained a little and I really felt like a meal that wasn't overtop but wasn't going to take long to prepare.

As you do you I scouted around in the freezer and fridge waiting for an idea to come to mind. In the freezer I noticed I had one sheet of puffed pastry left and a heap of beef ground beef stock piled.

To me sausage rolls seemed like a great idea, but there was one slight flaw to my plan, I've never made them before. I love making new dishes so it was like always . I Googled for a recipe and started to compare the ingredients lists.

Having decided upon two recipes I wanted to combine certain ingredients to make my own flavoursome dish. The next step was to check the pantry and the fridge to see if I had all the ingredients to make the dish.

Whilst the pastry was thawing I gathered all the ingredients and started to make up the ground beef filling. With the filling prepared and the pastry thawed it was time to make up the sausage rolls.

I cut the pastry in half, long ways and separated out the two pieces. I also halved the ground beef and placed one half on a cutting board to shape into a long like snake. Carefully I picked up the beef mince and placed it on the pastry about a third of the way in.

Stretch the pastry over one half of the ground beef filling so it feels firm. With some milk and a pastry brush, brush along both edges of the folded pastry about 1cm wide. The milk acts like a glue to adhere the pastry together. Grab a fork and gently use the back of it to press the ends together.

The fork does leave lines in the pastry but it doesn't matter as that will become the bottom of your sausage roll. Now that you have made one of the sausage roll lengths go ahead and repeat the steps.

With both lengths prepared it's now time to cut the sausage rolls. I cut them into four which gave me eight sausage rolls about 8 cm in length. If you're planning a party you can cut them a lot smaller which also makes it go a little further.

Once cut prepare your baking tray with paper or foil and place the sausage rolls fold side down. Quickly whisk an egg and baste the tops. Basting the tops with egg will make the pastry turn a nice golden brown.

Turn on your oven and set it to 180 degrees celsius and bake for 20-25 minutes. Once cooked let sit for 2-5 minutes to crisp up and serve with a variety of sauces.

BTW the sausage rolls came out beautifully and I am so glad I added the extra ingredients to the beef. Next time I make sausage rolls I 'll be sure to hunt around for a gourmet sausage roll recipe.

A few years ago I stared making jewelry with beads and twine or wire, I even bought all the little crimping tools I needed to make some lovely necklaces.

The big problem I discovered though is that I really want to be able to buy my beads at cheaper prices, and many of my friends suggested I should buy wholesale beads online, and they'd buy their beads from me.

Well this sounds like a great idea, and a couple of artists I know would also buy their beads from me if I can get some beads of a high enough quality. To be able to buy diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and so many other stones at wholesale is pretty cool.

The most exciting thing for me though is the range of vermeil, copper, brass, and silver beads because these are what I mostly use for bracelets that I give to friends, and being able to add a few semi-precious stones in as a highlight really makes some very attractive jewelry.

Well that leads me to Beads of Cambay, a company that specialize in providing high quality beads specially for jewelers and professional designers. I'm particularly interested in their wholesale gemstone beads, in semi-precious or precious categories.

Ooh, and I mustn't forget, Beads of Cambay also stock freshwater pearls, and again, to be able to make necklaces, bracelets, or earrings using these quality items will be fantastic.

The kittens have discovered shoelaces, yup, the man left his sneakers at the front door instead of putting them in the wardrobe, and the kittens enjoy fighting the shoes and chewing the laces.

At first he said it wasn't going to be a problem, just leave the shoes, what harm can they do, they're only tiny and their claws and teeth aren't all the developed yet.

Oh how wrong he was. They haven't wrecked the sneakers yet but the almost new laces now look quite ratty with loads pulled threads, I think he might have to buy a new set in the next week.

Now we're thinking we need to buy some thin cord, like the type they use on venetian blinds and maybe tie a rubber chew toy onto it and see if that gets their attention. It would certainly be better than ruined sneakers.

This is our chance as blogger to unite in solidarity with people all over the world who also want peace and an end to war.

We're living in the 21st century and yet medieval ideas of conquest and domination of other people still survive. I'd love the see war and fighting permanently consigned to history in my lifetime.

Wouldn't it be great if people from Africa, India, China could all unite with people from Europe, America, Russia in one big race of people called human, and if we could all work together to find solutions to the problems of poverty and disease.

I know it's a utopian ideal, and maybe I'm being naive, but it's me greatest desire to bring children into the world and be able to say to them look those people over there, the pretty people with different costumes, they're your friends, go and say hello and play with their children.

My man calls me a romantic and a dreamer, but I think people need to dream, and it's all good.

Yesterday the man and I had a coffee in a local coffee shop and we were talking about having a barbecue with some friend to celebrate moving house, which we'll be doing over the next two weeks.

Rather than just have a BBQ and some drinks he suggested it would be fun to also make it special and put some decorations up, grab a new game none of us have played, or even ust make up some party style desserts.

As children we used to love fancy birthday cakes, cookies with icing faces, in fact it would be kinda awesome to mix a regular BBq with a kids birthday party, except without the kids.

He wants me to make up cherry crunch to dip apples on a stick into, I thought getting a big tub and filling it with water then bobbing for apples would be a great laugh and a great photo opportunity.

I said that when I was young I really used to enjoy trick or treating, and why don't we mix in some halloween games, after all the BBQ will probably keep going till after dark anyway.

Our friends are the kind of people who like to have a great conversation over a glass of wine and also enjoy the odd surprise. This house-warming party might end up being the best we've ever had.

This global money problem that everyone is talking about is very worrying, and since most of it is happening in the US which is still the world's biggest economy I do feel a little powerless to do anything.

I'm not American so I don't get to vote in their election, which sucks because the US economy has been mismanaged for so long and the rest of the world is also suffering.

President Bush this morning (probably last night American time) announced that he wants to rescue the US economy with an $800bn package to keep banks and insurers from collapsing. This is great news for us here in Europe since our banks have invested in the US.

It's interesting though, the US Treasury is going to take over mortgage debt from big insurers and banks and get some of the best fund managers to look after them.

Funny how the country that has been most afraid of nationalized industry has now bought in insurance company (AIG) and now looks like they're going to take on mortgage debt as well. Maybe a completely free market isn't quite so good for a country after all.