Hygge, brownies and a naughty doodle!

At the weekend I love to take my mug of coffee back to bed and enjoy the newspaper (delivered to my iPad) in a leisurely fashion. This morning I was intrigued by an article about the Danish word hygge (pronounced “HUE-gah”) – used to describe the ritual of enjoying life’s simple pleasures. It struck me as a very good description of life here at Bustle & Sew HQ ….

And is probably familiar to you too. My mum used to call it “making the most of what you have” – just a few more syllables than hygge(!). The spirit of hygge definitely inspires the contents of the Bustle & Sew Magazine, though I have been calling it a “celebration of all I love about life here in the English countryside” – again quite a lot of syllables! Although the magazine began as a simple collection of the newest Bustle & Sew patterns, these days there’s lots more between the covers for readers to enjoy – including this lovely recipe from Debbie for delicious Chocolate Cinnamon Brownies in last month’s issue …..

If you’d like to make these for yourself please just click on the image above to download the recipe as a pdf file. Definitely lots of hygge in chocolate brownies!! (pdf now altered to include the missing cinammon!)

 However there was one resident at HQ this weekend who was definitely not making the most of what she had – who definitely wanted more – and that’s the mischievous Matilda (Tilly) the goldendoodle.  She’s been staying here for a few days while Rosie and Dan are away and as usual has had no hesitation in making herself at home ….

I have given up trying to enforce the no dogs on sofas rule where Tilly is concerned!  She is also a little doodle who loves her tummy – in fact it would be fair to say that she is a bit greedy.  She knows not to beg, but if you are eating she will sit and stare at you very hard indeed trying to will your snack to fall out of your hand to the floor.  But I couldn’t understand why she was staring at me so hard this morning.  I was making a couple of pincushion mice, trying out a new fabric that I thought might be good to use for our workshop in October …

I turned it over and over in my hands – but no – it looked like a perfectly ordinary (though unfinished) mouse to me.  But then the penny dropped!  I always put a little circle of card in the base so the mouse will sit nice and steady without the stuffing causing the base to bulge and mouse to wobble.  I didn’t have any new card so I had cut a piece from … the empty dog biscuit box.  Although to human eyes and nose it seemed perfectly clean, that greedy little doodle had clearly picked up the scent and was regarding my mouse as a tasty snack!  This is the look she gave me when I told her she was mistaken…..

I don’t think she was feeling the hygge!!