Reading Vlog | Bookcase Tour + Making Welsh Cakes!

good morning everyone i hope you're all having a good start to the week it's just after nine o'clock this morning and i've been admiring my bookcase because i was working quite hard yesterday i finally have started to tackle some of the bookcases in the living room downstairs which i've been meaning to reorganize a bit but it's taken me ages to get around to it and i've started off with this bookcase and i've been moving books from upstairs to downstairs and vice versa and trying to just get these shelves a bit more organized and get some of the books that i want to have downstairs downstairs so i thought i'd show you give you a little bit of a tour of this bookcase and show you what i've brought down and what my thinking was for what books i want to have in here so in this bookcase i've decided to have a lot of my sets of paperbacks i've also brought a few of my vintage adults and children's books down i had initially intended this bookcase to really just be for paperbacks you may remember that we had this bookcase specially made for down here and the shelves aren't very high so i'd originally intended this one to just be for paperbacks but they actually fit vintage books which are quite small well too so i have started to bring some vintage ones down here but there are still a lot of paperbacks so this set is still here and people always ask me about this set whenever they see it in a photo or video these are all of the pd james mysteries and they've got the beautiful covers done by angela harding which i love they're published by faber and i've got the full set i'm a big fan of her writing and it took me a little while to get this set but i'm really proud of it now so that's down here i've got my james herriot books as well and i've got my penguin english library set here too which i brought downstairs i've got some more i brought from downstairs i've i mean from upstairs sorry i've brought my willa casa set down i really like this set of her books they're really beautiful they're by vintage classics which i think is an american publisher but i just really loved this set of her work so those were some that i got quite a while ago now then moving along i also brought down my angela circle books i've also got my vintage angela circles up on that shelf so i've got all of those together down here now i've got all of my mary stuarts again this is a set i really adore by hodder and they've got very attractive covers as well really beautiful set of her books and i'm a big fan of mary stuart as you know so i'm pleased to have all of these down here i've got some of my british library crime books as well and my classic green veragos are still here another set that i've kept down here is my dorothy alsair's little peter whimsy mysteries those are all down here next to my elizabeth taylor set over there so i am essentially keeping a lot of classic sets of books downstairs you can see all of my elizabeth jane howard books are here and sybil marshall some rosamond pilcher and so on oh and over here i've got all of my dean street press books there's still a bit of a gap because actually i have to put a few more in so i've just left a gap there but they're all along there and what else over here i have my virago hard covers my verago modern classics which i love and i also have my little set of british women writers down here too so i'm quite happy with how this bookcase is looking now and it takes quite a lot of sorting and juggling of space to figure out what i want where and i do mainly keep my children's books upstairs but i did decide to bring a few my chalet school hardbacks down because i think they look really nice all on one shelf so i've got those at the top which i really like and it's nice to have a few more vintage ones down here on these shelves too but i also wanted to tell you a little bit about some books i've been reading this week because of course on monday it was saint david's day and st david is the patron saint of wales so i wanted to do a little bit of welsh inspired reading and i'm going to do a bit of welsh inspired cooking today too i'm going to make welsh cakes for the first time which i'm excited about but it feels very appropriate because i can look out of our window and see all of these wild daffodils blooming at the moment and the wild daffodil is the national symbol of wales and it just feels very appropriate to celebrate st david's day throughout the week a bit this week so i'll show you what i'm reading that's inspired by wells and then we'll make some welsh cakes together which i'm excited about mum's just come in i have it's admiring what do you think of the bookcase i think it looks great i love that you've put the sort of um oldest um challenge ones at the top yeah you've got all your um margaret bigs together here yes i love the margaret bigs yeah that's lovely i've had to separate them up a bit my vintage books but it's nice to have some down here i think of course and we've got mainly them upstairs yes yeah yeah and um i'm pleased to have all my sets down here as well the sets look great oh yeah you've moved these down yes most of them yes just got a few more to is it never hurry down yes yes it is i like that i like you've put the um some of the persephone classics yes i have yeah so yeah so i thought i would bring some of those down but if you hold the camera i thought i'd show some of my vintage ones too um i can't remember if i've talked before about the margaret biggs books i'm not sure but she's one of my favorite writers of school girl fiction essentially and the first one is the blake's come to melling you help me put these in order loves putting books in it i do it's one of my favorite things yeah can they see that clearly let me come in on that so that's the first one in the series the blake's come to melling and i loved these books so much when i was little that i actually found margaret biggs in the phone book you helped me find her number yeah i must only have been about i don't know 12 or 13. yes i think so and i found her from new york and she was very surprised but really lovely and i was so excited there was an author i loved who was still alive and um one of these she actually sent me herself i think new girl at melee which i didn't have and she sent me a copy that she had and it says with best wishes to miranda i'm glad you like the blake's margaret bix that's april 2002 that was just before we moved back to france from new york that's absolutely right wasn't that so cool kind of really kind and she sent me a few christmas cards over the years yeah some letters and it was yeah really lovely she's written some new books in the series for girls gone by publishers which is really exciting it is it is all these years later she's able to add some more to the see to the series yeah and i haven't brought those down no no the vintage ones here how unbelievable i really love that series not so many people talking no and yet it's such a lovely series isn't it it is i think she writes about girls really well i love the characters in the books and they're set in cambridge i think yes i think so i think they were cambridge and they're just really really good so i always feel she's a bit underrated and um what other treasures do i have pamela brown i adored these when i was young too oh i remember the swish of the curtain yes you can get these in paperback yeah now that have been republished which is nice it makes them more available doesn't it we've got the set in paperback for reading yeah yeah reading as our reading cookies because we do tend to do that three copies as well as the vintage um but this is a very special book and she only wrote it when she was 14 or 15 something like that she was incredibly incredible and it's all about the theater and love for acting and yes those are real treasures as well and all of my shadows i've shown they must be almost 100 years old the first one is that right almost i think i actually have a first edition school of the chalet which is very prized by me let me get it down and i think it was actually 1923. wow so almost 100 years old wow um and this has all of the plates oh yeah quite fragile yeah but this is the first of course in the shallow school series there's no date but i think it is 1920 well almost a hundred then almost a hundred years old yeah anyway for sure i'm sure the girls girls got by will do something very special yeah yeah um and yeah this is one of my most prized books i think was that for your 16th birthday yes it was or or younger actually because did it come to new york i can't yeah yeah yeah because this was in new york i think yeah oh come in on that shall i which is lovely yeah aren't they old and the spine has something on it i think as well very faded now yeah yeah the original yeah oh this is just a photocopy dust wrapper yes i think it's so hard to find any with um a dust wrapper yes it is yeah but it just protects the boards doesn't it most most treasured books i absolutely love it and the inscription is amazing oh wow yes should i come in and just look at that oh look at that wrong writing incredible it is and it says christmas 1925 but i think this was published a bit earlier in 1912 yes i think i think it was i think that's definitely a first so it was 23 like you said yeah yeah a lot of those are very early they're all from the 20s and the early 30s yes some of them are quite fragile they're not all in the best shape but when i was little obviously girls gone by didn't exist no books weren't being republished and it was so important to me to get the originals that had the plates inside and they were unabridged as well as well of course as being on a break because you did have modern paperbacks but they were all abridged pretty much exactly so that's why all of these i got before i was 15 yeah so i haven't had them a long time yeah they didn't mean they mean home yeah yes exactly so it's nice to have a few down here and this is actually a lovely school story too oh my gosh this month masha now that you actually found um fairly recently i did we had this copy i think too we did we did it didn't come with us but it's still there i guess with the youngest lady but we've made medium weighting is there as well the sequel which is marvelous but the first one is masha and this is such a lovely read it starts in march so i want to reread this oh lovely that will be really nice and again we've got paperback reading copy we do yeah that's not so old though i think was that 60s do you think i think it was paperback no no like when was it originally published because it's of course uh 1968 yeah it's all set in russia yesterday which i love yeah yeah a sort of a school story in russia is a bit different different isn't it it is i love that one but anyway that's just a little glimpse okay but case and my vintage some of my vintage books lovely um anyway i have to get on with our day okay i've just stepped outside to show you some of the daffodils i don't know if you can see behind me we've got a little clump of them just starting to bloom under our cherry tree which is so lovely i'm going to go for a little bit of a walk and show you the daffodils that are starting to appear it's a bit of a misty drizzly day but it still feels like spring to see that glimmer of yellow it's so special i've just come back inside to this welcome site yes you've timed it perfectly oh i'm gonna have a cup of tea and warm up a little bit and what do you think about welsh cakes later i'm very excited about welsh cake me too i haven't either i'm really excited about this yeah tea first i've got my tea i've got the finer lips warming up a little bit it's lovely good [Music] so whilst i'm sitting here enjoying getting cozy before i make our welsh cakes for 11 days i thought i'd share with you some of the books that i've been reading um to celebrate saint david's day so two of them are by mabel esther allen i've got the whiddams went to wales by emmy allen and in pursuit of clarinda by mabel ester allen i actually finished this just before saint david's day i finished it on sunday i think and this is a really fun read i loved mabel esther allen's books when i was a teenager and i still enjoy rereading many of them if you like mary stewart then you would really enjoy maybe lester allen's books for young adults i think as well this is definitely a bit in the style of a mary stuart book it's about a young woman called lucy his family has gone to ten to a sick relative in the summer and she's left at home in their london flat she's feeling rather bored one day she goes out for a walk to cool off in hyde park and there she meets a young woman called clarinda lucy can tell that something is disturbing clarinda and what clarinda tells her horrifies her because clarinda is convinced that her uncle and aunt are plotting to murder her clarinda is a young heiress who is about to marry the her fiance and she's sure that her relatives are after her money before she turns 21 and will inherit it herself so it's very exciting and of course once corinda confides in lucy lucy does eventually believe her and then clarinda vanishes and lucy enlists the help of her rather handsome next-door neighbor and they set off with his sister as well in pursuit of clarinda so it's a really great blend of mary stewart meets a bit of agatha christie almost and it's just an exciting read for young adults what i love most about mabel esther allen's writing and it's partly why she reminds you mary stewart as well is she has such a great sense of place and this adventure takes a reader from london to the chiltons to wales and there's a really lovely and very exciting bit in wales where lucy ends up hiding in an old national trust property in the depths of wales and that's where clarinda has been sort of smuggled by her relatives but all comes right in the end of course but it's just really atmospheric a great gripping sort of light read but i really enjoyed it and i really loved the descriptions of wales in this book too and then i'm currently reading the windham's went to wales which is one i haven't read before this is the girls gone by edition of the book and this is for younger readers than in pursuit of clarinda which is really for teens this is for a bit younger but it's so far it's a really charming family holiday story it's about the family the windhams who go to wales for the first time for their summer holidays and they absolutely fall in love with it they stay right by the sea in a charming little white house and they get up to all kinds of adventures climbing the hills and mountains around them they have the ambition to climb um mount snowden which i'm sure will lead to some adventures to come in this book and they learn some welsh songs that they sing and it's just a really charming story and makes me really want to visit wales she describes it all so well and maybe lester allen herself lived in wales for a bit and really loved whales so she writes about it with a lot of affection which is wonderful too so and thoroughly enjoy enjoying this one and then i also just wanted to share one of my very favorite books set in wales is the owl service by anne garner this is one of the most atmospheric books and a brilliant pick for younger readers it's a great ya novel i really recommend it it's very good for adults to read it too and like i said this is set in wells and it brings in a lot of wealth welsh mythology as well into the story which is so fascinating ghana just does it so well and it's a really exciting tense quite scary book it's about um a young girl and her brother who are staying in their sort of country house in wales and a friend of bears is the son of their sort of cook housekeeper so there's a bit of tension between these three and then what brings all of this tension to the surface is the discovery of an old china service in the attics that have the print that form an owl around the plates and suddenly the girl seems to become possessed and she starts drawing out these patterns to make owls and it all takes a bit of a darker turn from there but i remember the first time i read this i found it so eerie and just such a gripping read and i really recommend it i reread this last summer and was just amazed all over again one of my very favorite books set in wells so there's a bit of literary inspiration for st david's day and yes i'm just thoroughly enjoying mabel esther allen this week and getting into her books again they're all so good and i do recommend if you can find some second-hand copies they're well worth seeking out um the owl service is still in print which is wonderful too so yeah some recommendations for you now i'm going to get on and make our welsh cakes okay so i'm ready to make welsh cakes now so excited about you're going to read the instructions guys i'm doing it which is great so i've got all of my ingredients laid out here i've got sugar flour baking powder mixed spice that's all mixed in together here and i've got currants butter lard and egg and a splash of milk if i should need it sounds delicious so what do i do first so you can mix the dried dry ingredients see it says chip the flour sugar mixed spice baking powder and a pinch of salt into a bowl and with your fingers rubbing the butter and lard until crumbly great this recipe i just found on the bbc website by the way so i'll link to it in the description box down below in case you feel like making welsh cakes this week too yeah i'm not going to attempt the welsh the welsh pronunciation all right so just mixed in the sugar with that and then i'll add the fat yeah and i just washed my hands so i'm gonna rub that in yes have you read in pursuit of clarinda i haven't i can't wait to do it yes you're really lying i think it's going to be great really it wasn't one that when i was reading them was available no it's really hard to find grey ladies have republished it oh that's reading it made me want to watch a hitchcock film just that just the cover looks so 60s doesn't it so it's first question 66 yeah yeah just right the 60s that one and um it is all the descriptions of clothing in it i mean it's quite dated yes yes it's time but i did enjoy some of the descriptions of the clothes and i thought was really interesting that um the national trust house that really features yes in the book it is there isn't a real one in west no no but it is based on one that she saw oh lovely wow and i can't remember the real name of it over the top of my head something like old morton hall or something oh wow um and i really can't wait to go and we can travel you're right old morton hall in cheshire yes that's it and the introduction is by scott thompson of midfield middle ground yes who's done all those dean street that's right that's right yeah so this must be one he did for the um yeah fabulous yeah but it was a lot of fun and then the windhams went to wales it's just so sweet oh i bet that is that one i have read have you yes yeah a long time ago now and they've got the original wood engraving in illustrations how lovely yeah it's really charming yeah i don't know when this one was originally published let's see if it says oh yeah yeah i'll say i don't know from 1948 it doesn't feel like it's older that one yeah i think that's one that i definitely was in our library when i was growing up yeah yes yeah well i'm just going to carry on rubbing this in until it looks like breadcrumbs and now it resembles fine breadcrumbs so i'm going to add the rest of the ingredients okay so it's looking like fine bread crumbs this is lovely i know it smells really nice it does so next you've got to pop in the currents and mix them in and then it says work the egg into the mixture until you have a soft dough adding a splash of milk if it seems a bit dry it should be the same consistency as short crust paste i'm so curious about these i know it's always fun to try something new and we had a lot of currents because of christmas oh i can just see the posters drawn up oh yeah we'll be right be right back okay back again and got the post so i think i can add the rest of the egg lovely so it is wet mix between a skull and a pancake almost doesn't it it is it is because you fry it but on the other hand it's very much yeah it is recipe if i need a little bit of milk so you can see when you if it'll come together with your hands because your hands will often bring it together as a ball yes and see if it wants to go it does don't you want it to be able to wipe the bowl i imagine but you usually can yeah you can always pop a little milk in later if we need it yeah you how this comes together what do you think well i think it's actually coming together and it looks well like well yeah i think that should be good yeah i think so i think that is actually okay unless you think it's a little bit how do you feel what do you think no i think this is probably fun i think i just sort of smush it a bit more so the heat of your hand gets it together because like the currents sometimes fall out a bit when you're doing it yes yeah that's a good idea yeah that looks nice okay yeah see it's wiping the bowl now you make it too sticky i imagine it's i don't really want no there we go okay so we didn't need the milk in the end you know i think that was quite a large it says to the width of your little finger however your little fingers so i probably think more like mine is okay all right you can tell me what you think okay so i just roll it yet just roll it out and then you're gonna cut it out with a six centimeter cutter which i'm this is the size i've got i think that's around six centimeters yeah yeah i'll just lay my finger beside it i think a little bit thinner yeah lovely encourage you too yeah it's not pressure to really love currants isn't it they do yes i like them as well actually i suppose and things like that oh yes do you think yeah i think that's probably about right yeah yeah yeah on that side yeah okay all right i don't know how many you're meant to be get out of it let me hold it up actually it doesn't really matter because i know i'm not sure that's six centimeters what would you say i'm not very looks about the right size it does yeah they look a generous size we don't want too cheap yeah it takes too long to cook them as well doesn't it yeah you've got too many hmm they look delicious they do look nice well i feel getting into the spirit of the windham's went to wales did they have welsh cake at all i don't know actually yeah they have lots of delicious sounding food i'm not sure welsh cakes specifically are mentioned but i'm sure that it would be lots of yes exactly types they're always yes picnic lunches packed for well that one was written in the 40s like during the war wasn't it 45 was it a bit late um i don't remember it i think it was 48 48 it was just after the war yeah it's definitely been rationing i have to think there was a lot of this sort of wishful yes i agree um [Music] been to wales i never have which is very exciting you have a lot well you went oh yes i have yeah but too long ago no not that long ago just over the bordering into wells um abba gavini yes that's right that's right i went on a press trip yeah she's stayed the other night didn't you yes i stayed in a hotel and it was um a press thing for the east india team company cheese we had afternoon tea at the ho do you think that's all right again yeah i think so let me just give it a feel with that all i right that's fine yeah um yes and we stayed at the hotel overnight and it was lovely i mean i didn't get to see all that much of what no sadly which was a bit you and i would really enjoy driving and going around yeah to see more yeah that looks lovely and i think you've got one more there you can see okay get them get it all out as you can yes yeah well i think nine would be about right don't you yeah yeah so how many how many do i have that would be not the ninth one well leave it like that that's probably good yeah and then what we can do brilliant is do a tester one that's little with the scraps i'll just okay into a smaller thing well it just gives you an idea of how hot the the pan that needs to be yes i think if we just sort of press it into an approximate round shape for this yeah that's right that's our tester yeah super well get frying yeah lovely okay so i've got four in the pan can they see them just show you got our tester there yes that's the tester lovely so they say to fry them on a medium heat for about three minutes on each side lovely so we'll give these a go and see how it turns out sounds good so i've done frying these smell and look good delicious we had a little nibble of the taster one didn't we did it and it was so good so i can't wait to dive in and eat these okay so here we are ready to try whatever we love sweetie i mean i don't know if you even know me jam and butter with them no i might try them both ways oh yes i mean that's a good idea yeah yeah thank you you're welcome but yes i'm really curious they are a sort of um scottish consistency would you say a mixture between scones and it is it's a real blend between a scone and like an american style pancake yeah yeah which is really curious but very delicious i'll try just with the sugar okay and then i'm going to pop on all right to try it plain too and then we just we sprinkled a bit of sugar on top and you can just eat them that way very good [Music] it's just a simple recipe mm-hmm but um really delicious now we'll see if we're gilding the lily if we pop awesome let's try it but on a cold early sort of spring like yes okay this is really this is really lovely wow nice with jam and butter too very nice why not go the whole hog all out but they're very nice just playing by the way and i think the leftovers keep well in a chin is what the recipe says oh yeah that's good although i think there will be perhaps dropping some to a neighbor i think so very shortly leaving it on their step mm-hmm well and even if we can't visit wells yeah no next best thing definitely thank you for making them i really enjoyed them lovely it was really lovely let us know if you feel inspired to have a go at making welsh cakes yourself not just for saint david's day no i would definitely recommend these any time yeah yeah they're absolutely delicious but thanks so much for watching my vlog today i hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you again on friday bye bye goodbye

Channel: Miranda Mills

Views: 7,683

Rating: 4.973856 out of 5

Keywords: Books, Reading, Chalet School Books, Elinor M Brent-Dyer, Mabel Esther Allan, Girls Gone By Publishers, Bookstagram, Booktube, Welsh Cakes, British Baking, English Country Life, Country Living

Id: Fv0DZZ6aJtI

Length: 40min 43sec (2443 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 03 2021