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I have tried tomato sauce on marked brass, but it didn't really work, however now I'll try brown sauce instead.  We have various bits of brass and copper, including the front door knocker, also an Arts & crafts Hugh Wallis copper tray with steel inserts and an Art Nouveau Scottish planter.  Planished Brass and copper are not easy to clean!

I don't like the wadding brass cleaner, which breaks off into little bits as you polish.  For silver I have one of those metal plates with holes in it which you put into a bowl of hot water with your silver cutlery, etc.  It's magic!

The Turkish Delight proved to be a bit too much for me - very fancy with things like various nuts and rose petals in it and rolled in coconut, which I really dislike.  It's nothing like the old Fry's Turkish Delight!

Although we have escaped much of the rain felt by other areas this week today is rather chilly.  The sun has popped out from time to time from behind the clouds, but although we are forecast to have a dry week ahead, we are told that the temperature will be around 16 degrees.  Time for the central heating to go on, I fear.

Panic set in least night when the internet was down and it was still down this morning.  We do a lot of things online, including banking, but Plusnet were very helpful and manged to restore it via the phone.  They are sending an engineer round tomorrow to see what the problem might have been, though they suspect it may be the router.  It's frightening to see how much we depend on the internet these days.

What an awful week TY! I do hope next week and beyond are more pleasant for you.
It's warm and sunny today and people are wearing summer clothes again. We are busy planning for our long-delayed holiday abroad, now that I can get holiday insurance, also for a visit from some old friends.  This morning I hopped onto the bus taking me to our nearest city in order to exchange a sweater which I bought last week in my usual size from a shop I use regularly. When I got home that day I tried it on and found it to be enormous , so had to make the return trip to exchange it.  It must have been the style or something, because I found that the size that fitted me now was two sizes smaller than the size I had originally bought.  It's a very long time since I was wearing clothes labelled that size!

Planning for our friends' visit ( we are offering a light lunch) I am going to give them a Greek salad with fried feta cheese and various nice breads, followed by German Apfelkuchen (apple cake - there are plenty of apples around) with whipped cream. (I'm trying to keep up with Viktoria's menu reports).

My son and his wife have just returned from a holiday in Turkey and while they were away we have been feeding their cat.  We were rewarded with a large box of Turkish Delight - not the pink and yellow stuff you can buy here, though,  this has all sorts of colours and nut fillings and is very fancy.  This is the real Turkish Delight, he says.  I don't think it will last very long. 

Well, autumn has arrived and I'm wearing warm clothing now and thinking about putting on the central heating already.  We've had plenty of rain, heavy at times, and it's very windy, too.  A busy time to come before we go away.  Hair cut this week and manicure next week, courtesy of a voucher from my daughter.  What they will make of my poor nails, I can't think, when they are used to doing fancy stick-on nails and colouring.  I'll just be looking for a nice shape and a pale shade of varnish. 

Friends from our previous home town have invited themselves to lunch next week, so I'm pondering over what to make for them.  It will be something simple, that's for sure, but I know they are big meat eaters and we aren't. And I shall have to make a pudding of some sort, but that will be cold and made in advance, I think, though I would like to make something with those lovely plums that are around at the moment.

Keep well and warm, folks. We have winter ahead of us.

It certainly is wet!  It doesn't seem to have stopped raining for a couple of days after a beautiful warm, sunny day on Saturday, when people were streaming onto the beach.  And it's chilly, too.  I have put my summer clothes away now and am reviewing my winter wardrobe before going shopping in the nearest city for various things that you just can't find in our country shops (unless you want to pay inflated prices at exclusive boutique type shops).  The rain was so heavy yesterday evening that we couldn't hear the sound on our TV!  Today it is just steady solid rain. 

The grass has turned green again, after becoming almost white in colour.  There are still a few veg in the garden to be picked - leeks, some greens, though they have been well chewed by invading Cabbage White caterpillars.  Herbs such as Marjoram and some kind of late flowering chives are hampering my path to the compost bin and attracting insects in the short periods when the rain stops.  I have been bitten by one of them on my neck, I think on one of my trips to the compost bin!  There are a few late roses battling on.  Good old Zepherine Drouhin, fragrant and thornless, is still climbing up the side of our summer house.  It's my favourite, especially because of the lack of thorns.

But where are the birds?  The only ones we have seen around, apart from those dratted seagulls,  are pigeons and noisy jackdaws in a neighbour's tall copper beech tree.  Even our friendly robin has not been seen for a while.  Blackbirds, blue tits and sparrows are nowhere to be seen.  Our garden plants are organically grown, so there are plenty of insects for them to eat.