cherry and coconut slice

for Anna, recipe from this lovely cafe here



5 oz cooking chocolate
2 oz vegetable margarine
4oz soft brown sugar
4 oz coconut
1 egg
2 oz glace cherries (chopped)

line a Swiss roll tin with non-stick baking parchment or foil.
melt chocolate in double boiler or microwave, and spread over foil/paper and leave to cool.
Cream margarine and sugar. Beat in egg. Mix in cherries and coconut. Spread over the chocolate and cook until golden brown (15 -20 minutes) at Gas 4, 375F, 190C. cut into slices when cold.

I used foil and it stuck a bit, might try parchment next time, or that amazing re-useable non stick sheet stuff you can buy.

the beady eyed amongst you might notice that some of the pieces have raisins not cherries, for Miss K and hubby who are not cherry eaters - these pieces are good, but the raisins burnt a bit..

These might be good for you Kristina, for your allotment picnics.

We also made some great cookies last week, from Mel, recipe here, but they got eaten too quickly to photograph, - Mel has a good photo of hers!

oh that's just stitch and flip mummy!

I'm sure in every parent's life there are lots of times when you find your children are better than you at something. I just didn't expect it to be sewing - well not yet anyway.......



Miss K went on a young quilters workshop on Sunday and made this obscenely wonderful pocket wall hanging, complete with photographs on fabric, and all lined, wadded and quilted...

mummy: so how did you make the bottom of the pockets so neat?
Miss K: oh that's just stitch and flip mummy....



well if she's that cheeky again I shall set this fire breathing embroidered dragon on her!

war of the roses?

living as I do in Yorkshire should I grow only the white rose of the House of York?

what should I do with this pinkish one - dig it up?





although it fades to an almost whiteness .........



and when given red roses for my birthday, as symbols of the House of Lancaster should I turn them away?










what's a girl to do? History has a lot to answer for when gardening..........

happy birthday to me...

this is me at a few weeks old



and here I think I'm about 4 - my parents are not good at writing dates on the back of photos.



and according to my sister who chose this card this is obviously me now! (if only I was so glamourous)



I got some lovely treats including this great book,



pretty jewels



tea and cake related items!



and the cutest new pets from dottycookie - thank you so much!



this one is after my chocolate brownie, which is a temporary stand in for my birthday cake. M&S let me down, and didn't have a gluten free chocolate and cherry cake, which is pretty much the only edible gluten free cake you can buy, so right now there's a lemon drizzle cake in the oven, I'll cut you all a slice when it's cool and you're all invited to my party!

fancy dress optional.

finished!

finally the wall hanging is finished.



I'm not going to admit how long it's taken,



but anyone who has been here for a while will know it's quite some time.



but now it's all ready, complete with a hanging sleeve, and optional little button tabs, ready to be hung up.

I feel like I need to open a bottle of champagne, to launch it like a ship..........

white

clouds of cotton wool



rose petal headiness



a shower of blossom



and little white threads of cotton that are all over the house...........

Miss K has been sewing- with my machine - and she's had so much fun!

what happens?

so what happens when you give two young children a pressure washer?

do they soak each other?



no - they write their names!

blogging

I went out for a meal this week, with 2 school friends, and dinner conversation turned to friend 2's brother who lives in the US and how he has a blog about his MG (car) and how he writes tutorials about how to change the oil, and other car type info. my friend was most disparaging about him, her main excuse for why he shouldn't be doing this blogging thing (evil blogging thing was the tone.......) was that he had kids! like you can't have a life of your own, or interests that don't involve them at all times........... now neither of these friends have children, so it bemuses me how they can be experts on what parents should or shouldn't do! I tried to defend the brothers actions which apparently involve lots of pictures of how to change the oil - and how this might be very useful if you needed to know how (although isn't that what the garage is for?), but in the end I became quiet, and no I didn't say "well I have a blog!" although perhaps I should have... because my blog means a lot to me, and so do all you who read it, so thank you.

and now this post has turned into a post about blogging I recently found these posts about blogging, which are full of great info

how to start a craft blog

how to market your craft blog

how to make your blog look cuter

nice blog manners

and I also read a great post about comments, and I'm useless because I can't find it to link back to, but it basically talked about the dreaded noreply-comment that is the misery of blogger, and which I fell foul of recently by messing with my profile. Basically there's a setting on blogger profile which if you set to "show email" then when you comment one someones blog then they can see your email and reply to your comments which is so lovely, I love to do it, and it means a lot when someone responds to my comments. The post referred to this as "fan mail" and the post writer talked about how she had a seperate "fan mail" account for her blog, to keep it seperate from personal mail, which is a great idea, and such a great name for it!

also in the blog world Rachel Rabbit is organising a cupcake and tea themed sway, stop by, and join in - I have.

and just because there are too many words in this post here's a picture!



less rambling nonsense next time I promise....

for Gran

it would have been my Gran's birthday today



she died when Miss K was only a few weeks old, she was her 7th great grandchild,



and Miss K's middle name is Rose, named after Gran.



when she died my mum asked if there was anything of Gran's I would like. all the mismatched cups and saucers had been thrown away, so I dug up this rosebush from her garden.

and it's flowering beautifully for her.

cake and presents

we had a lovely weekend eating lots of J's birthday cake, this one with jelly tots on didn't last very long at all, so we had to make another one for our picnic tea at Temple Newsam - which is a lovely place, we wandered round the gardens, looked at all the farm animals, and had a cream tea with friends, but I forgot the camera........



cake no. 2 was a marble cake as we couldn't agree on another chocolate or a plain sponge..

and then although it wasn't MY birthday I got the most fantastic parcel from Zia koko, who had a giveaway on her blog, and she sent me this beautiful bag,



and inside was the most lovely fabric,



thankyou so much !

tagged

Dragonfly tagged me.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

10 years ago this June we were living in Rockport Ma. USA, J was working in Boston, I worked in the local preschool, and we rented a one room flat with a sea view. You couldn't have an arguement because the only place to go was the bathroom, or the deck.. We didn't have a tv, and spent hours wandering along the beach, fishing (well reading a book whilst J fished mostly) and watching the waves crashing on the rocks. At the end of June we both left our jobs and had a months vacation, during which time we finally had our honeymoon (having been married 2 and 1/2 years..) to the pacific northwest, flying into Seattle we stayed with friends, and then hired a car and drove through the north cascade mountains, across to Glacier National Park, back to Mount St Helen's, and Mount Ranier, and then north to Olympia National Park and rainforest. I was 5 months pregnant with Miss K and really annoyed when the people at the cattle ranch we visited wouldn't let me go riding, now I'm telling you we were in much more danger driving on some of those mountain roads than you ever would be on a horse. We camped for the whole trip, sometimes in big sites where our little tiny car and teeny weeny tent were dwarfed by huge trailers and motor homes, and sometimes in tiny wilderness campsites, where you wrote your name and car registration on an envelope, enclosed $5 and stuck it on the notice board, presumably at the end of the year a ranger comes along and collects the money, and checks you haven't been eaten by bears, or cougars, or washed away by flash floods - all of which were a risk at one of the best places we went to - for some reason no one else seemed to be impressed as we had the whole forest to ourselves, - well except for the bears and cougars of course, but we didn't see them any more than we saw the rangers.

At the end of July we moved back to the UK, J got a job in Leeds, and so far we're still here.

5 things on my to do list for today

1. frantically tidy the house because we've got another estate agent coming to value the house



2. unpick all the free motion quilting I did on the wall hanging yesterday because it's all lumpy



3. take E to his swimming lesson, I despair that he will ever get any better, when he does backstroke he just sinks.....



4. go and buy some eggs



5. bake J's birthday cake, it's his birthday tomorrow, he's 11 days older than me, so I have exactly that long to tease him about being old before I catch him up. (hence the need for no.4)

snacks I enjoy

chocolate, raisins, strawberries, peanut butter on hot toast with strawberry jam, popcorn.........

things I would do if I were a billionaire

buy a decent computer and get 8mb broadband, instead of being driven mad by this old and SLOW laptop, and then all the serious things, like look after my family and friends, and give lots to charity, and maybe buy a house with a seaview, and (this one makes me feel really shallow) - get a cleaner......

places I have lived

Wegburg - Germany, Liverpool, Cambridge, Grange-over-Sands, and York - UK, and Rockport, MA -USA.

people I want to know more about

Sheila at Tea and Toast
Lisa of Periwinkle
Fioleta
Jacquie
Anna of Garden Girl

- only if you want to though , anyone else want to join in too that would be great

as I don't have any photo to go with the tag (all my trip photos are pre-digital, I'll have to try and scan some sometime) here are some different photo's

my first french seam! very excited about this I was - sad I know, but true.




and some lovely fabric that Sheila of Tea and Toast sent me from a giveaway she did, it's gorgeous and I'm ashamed I've taken so long to write about it - thanks again Sheila - there'll be a proper thankyou in the post soon.



now I need to decide what to make with it - suggestions anyone?

ok so it's not friday but.....

I saw this game on Ali's blog, a friday thing, but I'm a few days late...... I'll blame it on computer problems, and general life chaos.






The concept:


a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.


b. Using only the first page, pick an image.


c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.





The Questions:


1. What is your first name?


2. What is your favorite food?


3. What high school did you go to?


4. What is your favorite color?


5. Who is your celebrity crush?


6. Favorite drink?


7. Dream vacation?


8. Favorite dessert?


9. What you want to be when you grow up?


10. What do you love most in life?


11. One Word to describe you.


12. Your flickr name.

for help with the answers look here


I'll be back soon as I've been tagged by Tracy, and I need to show you some lovely fabric I've been sent, and a photo of a french seam - my achievement of the day!