A wedding!!

Oooh we're off to a wedding tomorrow for the day, not just any old wedding this one either, because it's at a zoo!! Chester Zoo to be precise www.chesterzoo.org I have to say our wonderful friends had a cracking idea getting married there, our kids are sooo excited! (as I do believe is theirs too) We apparently get to look around the zoo before the wedding, then afterwards apparently we get to play with the monkeys (more on this later of course!)
In the meantime I'm hoping I fit into one of two dresses that appear to be my options for wearing tomorrow....I've been that busy with work this last week or three that I've had no time to look for anything to wear! yikes......sure it will be ok!
Keep your fingers crossed that the weather clears up ok, we need a lovely day for the bride and her groom :-)

Life and the art of not posting

Far too busy of late, but it's 23:34, tea is cooking in the oven, the girls are on holiday with Gran, stepson is at his mums and husband is still not back from work, so I have a few mins to post! and catch up with the world.

August is a whirl! we've done a week in Wales, at LARP (Live Action Roleplay) for those of you who don't know what the hell I'm on about www.ascendancylrp.co.uk is the system dh and I run with the help of lots of ref's and crew! It rained 5 days out of 7, particularly spectacularly the day MeridianAriel came to see us! thank goodness for the local McArthur Glen at Bridgend, or we'd have been a lot soggier (incorporating Starbucks obviously :-) )

(and now I have a cat trying to share my knee!)

This week, as above, the girls are away with Gran, so that we can both go to work, as we have staff off on holiday! (kids and working evenings do not go!) and we're trying to get the house painted up as we're putting it up for sale in the hope of moving (nearer the bbsitter - Gran!) I've tried to paint our bedroom celing tonight, but failed, as didn't have enough paint left in the tin, so it's half done! 'fail'

Gah gotta dash, husband has arrived and tea needs eating, before it's time to get up again.

Thank you gifts

My lovely friend Meridian Ariel and her husband have helped our family out a heap over the last few weeks leading upto the holidays, as I needed a hand with childcare after school, due to staff holidays at work and then to top it all our car kept breaking down and her lovely husband kept flying to my rescue, from the roadside and then helped us again by ferrying us all around until we got mobile again.

This deserved a BIG THANK YOU, So I decided to make them something, (as handmade is always better than shop brought) but what do you make the queen of crafting and baking that she can't do better herself?

The only thing I could think of was scones, so that's what I did, here's the recipe and the photos for you to enjoy. I took them round with a pot of jam and some clotted cream, as that's what goes best. I also cheated and get her a bunch of flowers from the supermarket, but you can't really make those yourself can you eh?

Fruit Scones

Heat oven to 220
Grease a baking tray with margarine
You need:
8 oz of self raising flour
2 oz margarine or butter (softened if butter)
1 oz sugar
1 egg
Milk to make upto 125 ml or 1/4 pint of liquid
Salt and a Teaspoon
Fruit of your choice (dried is best but you could happily experiment!)
A rolling pin
A cookie cutter or a knife

1. Mix flour and half a tea spoon of salt, rub in the margarine until you get a fine consistancy.
2. Stir in the sugar and fruit
3. Mix the egg and milk together, then add most of it to the mix, (save a bit for the tops if you like) watch the mix doesn't get too wet here, as you need to be able to roll it out, if it does, add a bit more flour.
4. Kneed in the bowl or on a floured work surface, when your happy with it, (should be roll outable, a nice soft and spongy dough, not soggy, add extra flour until you're happy you can roll it out) turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and roll it out into 1cm thickness.
5. Grab your cookie cutter and get making scones! pop them onto your baking tray, if you want shiny scones, brush a bit of the egg and milk mix on the top, if not don't,
6. Bake for 10 minutes.

Chefs note: You don't actually need a cookie cutter, my mum uses a knife and makes triangles or squares.

Happy scone making!

Summer Garden Goodies

This summer we've been busy trying to grow a variety of stuff in the garden with varying success. Peas have been great, the girls have had lots of fun shelling them (and eating them in the process) you can't beat fresh peas, they taste so great and are that easy to grow even I can do it! This year we did ours in a large garden pot, just sewed them in a z shape, as per the packet, and kept on watering them, the result is as below, with the only hardship being the purchase of some pea/bean netting for them to grow up (we scrounged the canes from my mum!)

I attempted a few lettuce too and the result is below, two Lollo Rosso just about ready to eat.

A few years back I purchased five strawberry plants that did nothing...then last year, they kicked into life and sent runners off everywhere and fruited like nobodys business! unfortunately I developed a slight rodent problem too, so we didn't get any fruit for ourselves, but this year, rodent issues sorted, I learn't my lesson and got the netting out, which miffed our local friendly blackbird, but got us a prize haul of strawberries for the last two weeks!

A strawberry ripening, they taste so lovely, freshly picked.

The end result, one days haul, ready for some sugar, cream or ice-cream!

The funniest thing was, after a whole week of eating strawberries, the kids started to beg me not to feed them strawberries the next week! so we made a huge pile of milkshakes and smoothies with them instead! (who ever thought we'd get sick of strawberries eh!)

10 Seconds to myself

So what do you think of the new blog layout then? I've had 10 seconds to myself today! or at least that's how it feels, despite the kids being away at the grandparents for the weekend, husband and I have had so much to catch up on and do! (like spend an evening together, that's not at work or talking about work!) At last I've found the time to tinker and post though, hopefully will be doing a bit more of that, now that we're getting straighter :-) with life, work etc. I've even had time to read a few of my friends blogs too :-)

Little and Large Craft Swapping

Dd1 and I decided to partake in a craft swap to help pass the Easter holidays, as she loves creating and crafting things, I thought this would be an ideal thing for us to do during the hols, which are usually wet and horrible, particularly as I was mainly off work! Typcially it decided to be lovely and sunny and thus the whole close came out to play for the two weeks, so dd1 didn't make quite as much stuff as she usually would have done for the swap, but as it was billed as adults too, I got cracking and I hope our recipients liked what we did for them. The picture above contains dd1's peg doll and bracelet, all made by her, then the Tooth Fairy pillow and the Head Band were crafted by myself. I added goodies from Lush, as noted on the swap info, along with some chocolate, Oreos and two packets of Tinker Bell sweets recently arrived from USA from dd1's friend H. (dd1 wanted to share, as you can't get them here!)

In return we got the goodies in the picture above, plus some yummy Green n Blacks Butterscotch Chocolate for me! As you can see we have a great Lion, Horse (who glows in the dark) and bracelet made by our small swapee for dd1. The fantastic knitted Pokemon, were knitted by our large swappee, who is a genius! if I'm right we have a Piccachu and a Jumpluff, plus a great Mario Mushroom :-) apparenlty they're amigurumi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amigurumi
I think you have to be more talented than I am to knit them, but I must say I am quite tempted to give it a go when I get time! dd1 is very impressed and will be taking them to Pokemon Hobby League with her this week, I bet all the kids will want them :-)

Gah I'm out of time, I have to dash to school, more from me soon! (ish) in my terms of blogging at the moment, that will be about another three weeks.....bye!

I want to blog

I want to blog about some crafting stuff I've been doing, but sorry I can't yet folkes, as the recipient hasn't confirmed it's been recieved and just in case she's aware of this blog!! so coming soon....

Happy Eastes Sunday /Gardening against the odds

Happy Easter Sunday! Whaddya think of my biscuit then? masterpiece eh! well the girls, their friend and I had fun doing those yesterday afternoon, kept us entertained. This morning however I have been doing other things.

The morning started with my lovley REM sleep being disturbed by a very excited daughter wielding an Easter Egg, all good, the Easter bunny has done his job well. REM 0, Kids 1. So dh distracted the kids by letting them eat an egg each and I got half way through my friends 'Kick Ass' Graphic, before an almighty crash signaled the end of 'A's plantpot and stand (very sad as inherited from his deceased mother) and one very upset dd1, as she realised the significance of what her dancing had done........

Fastforward a few hours, graphic finished (yay) and breakfast out of the way, I decide to pot on a few of our attempts at the growing of veg and flowers for the year.

Above are our lettuce seedlings, nestling in garden fleece, in a hope they may survive.

This is when I discover that a) its blooming freezing outside, despite a mixture of sunshine and showers and b) that dd2 has been attempting to kill several of the plants all by herself....it's enough to drive you to chocolate (and more coffee) I tell you!

Below is a picture of a surviving sunflower, dd2 has discovered that you can happily kill them by slotting your finger nails through the stems.......she's also re-discovered the naughty step and an unhappy mummy, I'm hoping she's learned her lesson?

So in the end I managed to pot on the remaining few Sunflowers, (shame dd2 killed the best 3, sob, sob) 6 Tomatoes and 6 Sweetcorn as well. The results are displayed on our dining room table below, with a variety of other flower seedlings still waiting to grow. I've dragged the table in front of the window in the hope that this will assist the growth, should the sun every escape the cloud for 5 mins?

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to whom ever is out there reading this blog!
Today has been a busy one so far, but as Meri is away I thought I'd pick up the batton and post for the 2nd time this year about our baking adventures!

A, the girls and I whizzed to Beeston briefly this morning, and whilst dh did things at the Bank, we legged it around Wilkos to get big pots for our seedlings to transfer into (more on that in another post), I then snuck into Cafe Nero for a quick frappe latte, so dh had no choice but to join me :-) mwah haha...then grabbed some cupcake cases from Sainsb's and dropped A back at work in Ripley.

Got home, grew another child from down the road immediately, so I thought right, I know what will keep the kids entertained, a spot of baking! told them, they all ran a mile, seems playing mums with babies is what they'd rather be doing today. So I baked in peace instead!

I've created some lovely chocolate biscuits for them all to decorate later this afternoon, when their friend gets back from swimming, we have lots of sprinkles, eggs, and a variety of coloured icing to knock up, which they can spoon over to their hearts content.

I also knocked up the lovely vanilla cupcakes that you can see in the picture, what do you think of my piping, not bad for my 1st ever attempt eh? dd1 did the box at school, it says to mum on the other side, alas the chocolate goodies that were in it seem to have disappeared before I got a look in?! and the smaller daffodils, now in the cup, were on dd2's easter bonnet (which was minimalist, as I only realised about it all the day before, ahem) I'm sure the friends we have popping by tonight will help us shift this abundance of cakes, failing that I doubt very much that we'll struggle, in fact I may just try one now, with some lovely Mocha coffee that my mum brought me back from the Caribbean, mmmmmm.

Photo meme thing

Well, I thought as I've not blogged for aeons (or so it seems) I'd slowly get back into things by doing the meme, which I apparently got tagged with, just by reading Meridianariels blog! so if you're reading this may I suggest you do the same too :-)
Open the first folder and pick the 10th picture. It's that simple! in my case it turns out to be a lovely Sunflower in the garden about 3 years ago. Lovely summery picture, seeing the sunshine in it is making me hope for warmer days soon, even if the forecasters do say we have a further bout of snow to hit us before Easter is out. So until the next time dear blog readers.