Stories

View all posts by Alison Allmand-Smith

I found these pictures today and they brought back some very happy memories of many years ago. This was our first AGA and we chose to have it in Racing Green.  We bought it reconditioned, although it looked absolutely brand new and never let us down.  The people who had lived in our house before […]

We went clay pigeon shooting and it was a lot of fun! More later!  View all posts by Alison Allmand-Smith

This is such a beautiful book! I bought it on Monday in Waterstones when the shops reopened; I couldn’t get in there quickly enough! Well done to Sarah Wyndham Lewis and James Weston Lewis who have written and illustrated it (respectively) superbly! 

I love World Book Day and frankly, every day is a book day for me as I’m a book obsessive through and through. With that in mind, I was delighted to be able to take part recently in the very first installment of the Institute of Leadership & Management’s Virtual Book Club. Leadership Development | […]

I can’t get enough of this salad. This is the second time I’ve tried to replicate my favourite French salad made with lettuce, fennel, red onion, chicken & fresh basil pesto. This was definitely a big improvement on my previous attempt. The first picture I’ve used is while I’m still preparing the salad and before […]

Hi everyone, I am so sorry not to have a blog post fro you today. I am having trouble with my computer, so it’s going in for a service. I do have some really fun things to tell you about though, so please come back and by next week I should be sorted (hopefully)! The […]

I’m sure you’re wondering why I’m blogging about a Christmas jumper in January, when Christmas has already passed?! Well I bought this lovely Christmas jumper from the The Airborne Shop , the official shop for the charity SUPPORT OUR PARAS (which supports thé Parachute Regiment & The Airborne Forces) before Christmas to wear and blog […]

It was my father-in-law who introduced me to the world of home grown produce and stewed fruit. When I was seventeen, I went onto a Christian sports camp in North Wales, that he and my mother-in-law ran, and ended up in the kitchen a lot, watching and helping him cook.  Try to imagine a mad […]

Please allow me to introduce you to the first of my tea towel designs. I will share much more on this later, but this design along with lots of other designs, I created about ten years ago when I was attending an absolutely superb online surface pattern design course with exceedingly talented and renowned British […]

So I’ve started making this exceedingly palatable and refreshing smoothie again recently from Kimberley Snyder’s excellent book ‘The Beauty Detox Solution’. The recipe I follow is her ‘Glowing Green Smoothie’ recipe removing only the spinach which I find a little hard on my digestion. The inclusion of an apple, banana and pear really balances out […]

I’m kind of obsessed with light and the selective lack of it. I guess most artists and photographers are to a greater or lesser degree. I took this picture of our garden about five and a half weeks ago in the early evening and I love the way the low beginning to become more golden […]

For those of you who read my first China & Hong Kong blog post you will know that it was around this time last year that I visited there with my husband and brother-in-law. I apologise for taking so long to write part two, especially as I absolutely loved both countries and can’t wait to go […]

My landlady from university kindly gave me a joyously received bowl of this one day, after I had walked the three and a half miles back from campus to where we lived. I had never eaten basil pesto before (didn’t even know what it was) and I was absolutely blown away. She generously proffered the […]