Homemade Bread Day.

November 17th is Homemade Bread Day and later on today, to celebrate, I'll bake a crusty loaf to eat with homemade soup for lunch.

I really enjoy eating baking fresh bread and of course we can buy beautiful baguettes and pains of various types locally, but really, is there anything to beat the smell of baking bread as it wafts through the house on a cold chilly morning in November?

I only started baking my own bread last year after being inspired by TV cook Lorraine Pascale.
The blog post that I wrote back in February 2011 has been the most visited of all my posts, receiving over 2000 hits since it was published!

Click here to read how she inspired me to get started

and perhaps you'll be baking bread today, too?

Joining Beverly @ How Sweet The Sound

for this week's themed Pink Saturday

"We gather together"

Sand Sculpture for Wordless Wednesday

This amazing sand sculpture situated in a corner of reception

welcomes guests to the Marriott Hotel & Spa, HHI.

Wordless Wednesday.

Historic Bluffton.

Whilst staying in Hilton Head last month we were delighted to discover that the 8th Annual Historic Bluffton Arts and Seafood Festival was taking place and that the highlight of the event, the Streetfest was happening on our 33rd wedding anniversary!

"Located just across the bridge from Hilton Head Island, Bluffton is a quaint, charming town. Antebellum homes, historic churches and unique shops line the moss-shaded streets of Bluffton's downtown historic district, offering a taste of Lowcountry living. Bluffton, a town whose name refers to its location atop a scenic bluff along the May River.
source: Visit Bluffton.

Calhoun Street in the heart of Old Town Bluffton, is lined with beautiful old homes and antique emporiums, it leads down to the May River and was the place to be on this beautiful, sunny day.

We had an enjoyable time browsing the booths of over 100 hundred local and regional artists and saw some wonderful pottery, ceramics, water colours and photography.

Many local restaurants were also there serving wonderful low country cuisine and seafood specialty dishes.

The Church of the Cross, at the foot of Calhoun Street was consecrated in 1857, the rose coloured glass in the windows came from England.
When Federal troops marched into Bluffton in 1863 they burned most of the town but spared the church, services resumed in 1870.
Since 1975 The Church if the Cross has been listed on The National Register of Historic Places.

Later, we took a one hour guided cruise along the May River.

Sadly, no dolphins came out to see us, but we enjoyed learning about the Bluffton Oyster Factory, seeing some of the nearby islands and learning a little of the area's history from our very informative Outside Hilton Head guide.

Joining Smiling Sally for Blue Monday.

.

Lowcountry cuisine in Bluffton, SC.

It's time once again for Wordless Wednesday, need I say more?

The food really is great!

Loggerhead turtle shells

Back home again after a wonderful time in Hilton Head, SC.
The weather was amazing, high 70's the whole time, except for the day before we left when Hurricane Sandy made it's presence felt with overcast skies and waves crashing along the beach.
On those sunny days the Senior Partner and I went for long walks along the shore stopping now and again to watch the tiny sandpipers dash around to avoid the waves whilst digging for insects and worms.
On two occasions we also spotted dolphins swimming quite close to shore.

Loggerhead Sea Turtles nest on the beaches of Hilton Head Island between May and August. An adult females will nest every two to four years, coming ashore between 4 and 6 times per season to lay eggs. Loggerheads typically nest at night, crawling to a dry part of the beach where females will dig a nest cavity with their rear flippers and deposit an average of 120 eggs. Once the eggs have been laid, the female throws sand to disguise the nest from predators and slowly returns to the ocean.

After about 60 days of incubation, the small turtles within the eggs begin to hatch. During the cool night, the 2 inch long hatchlings emerge from the nest, orient themselves towards the brightest horizon, and crawl towards the ocean. Once in the water, hatchlings swim many miles offshore where they will spend the next 25-30 years of their life growing to adulthood.

Coastal Discovery Museum, HHI, South Carolina.

The empty turtle  horseshoe crab shells that wash up on the beach fascinate me and they are the subject of my mosaic this week.

After all these years of beachcombing I always believed that the shell belonged to loggerheads.
Now, Keetha has corrected me and proved me wrong!
They are horseshoe crab shells!
Thanks Keetha for putting me straight.

I had hoped to join Mary @ the little red house for Mosaic Monday
but like thousands of others along the East coast of America
Mary is still without power and can only access the internet using her phone.
If you get the chance please stop by the little red house and give her a hug!

very soon it'll be island-time......

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY.

see you later........................

Old Fashioned Pink Rose

Possibly the last old fashioned pink climbing rose of this year was too beautiful to leave out in the wind and rain, especially after I realised how much it resembled a rose engraving featured in "Treasury of Garden Writing" a favourite book from the Royal Horticultural Society.
The Senior Partner offered to photograph the rose and book together so, I created a pretty vignette on a table in the dining room.
Since getting the new ipad a few months ago the SP has been learning several new photography techniques, he also took the photograph that I'm using as my new blog header image using the ipad.

He used something called PhotoToaster for the altered image above.

Roses by George Eliot.

You love the roses - so do I. I wish

The sky would rain down roses, as they rain

From off the shaken bush. Why will it not?

Then all the valley would be pink and white

And soft to tread on. They would fall as light

As feathers, smelling sweet; and it would be

Like sleeping and like waking, all at once!

Joining Beverly @ How Sweet The Sound for Pink Saturday.

Click on the link for lot's more pink.