Apple Cake and Scones

Quite a busy few days. Eldest son returned from Amsterdam to top and tail a photo shot he has been involved with for the last three months or so. Allied to which, and having not seen his younger brother for some months, the latter and his wife and our grandson visited Saturday afternoon, to catch up on things.

With the prospects of a family tea Helen decided to make a lemon drizzle cake. We had enjoyed a slice of the same at Waterstones in Horsham earlier in the week, and so, helped by the download of a recipe from BBC Food, a lemon drizzle cake was made. Just one thing. The recipe came with a suggested cooking time of one hour and forty five minutes. Wrong. It should read forty five minutes. Fortunately, after about forty minutes, Helen felt that the cake had cooked enough, and it had - so it was rescued just in time.

Our grandson, who is just eleven months old, is now armed with eight teeth - four top and bottom. He giggles and laughs a lot and seems interested in everything going on around him. He has also developed, over the last month, quite a fast crawl which I suspect, by the time we next see him, will have progressed into a "stand up and balance" - before falling back down again and crawling away.

One of the projects we have in mind to do, is build a model train layout - just in case our grandson becomes interested. Well thats my story. So this morning, on a whim, after seeing an advert in the County Times, and to get some ideas, we went to Midhurst to visit the Modellers Exhibition. Models of planes,trains ships - you name it they had it. Rather crowded and very smelly.

After no more than an hour we walked back to the car, down the wide Midhurst High Street, which in part can look both rundown yet stylish. Not a place to do serious dress shopping but certainly a place where, as a local, you are likely to bump into people you know and like - comfortable, no pressure shopping.

Before returning to the car we walked across the causeway to the ruins of Cowdray House and quite by surprise we came across the lovely "The Cafe in the Walled Garden" Clean, tranquil and with lovely traditional surroundings and friendly service. We had scones, which came warm, with cream and jam of choice - presented on designer white china. The feel of "The Cafe" for me added to the enjoyment of the food. The apple cake looks good too.

Directly from "The Cafe" you can walk into the walled garden. I understand that the cafe owners have been renovating the garden for the last three years or so and you can see the tremendous amount of work that has been gone in to the design and build of the box hedge borders and plantings. February is not the best time to see the garden but you can still see its potential and the love and care that has gone into it. This is going to be a gem. Just like the apple cake and scones.