Chocolate Wrappers

As some of you may know I tried this out a few years ago. I still do it sometimes for friends or on special occasions. These above are printed chocolate bar wrappers that the children helped to make for their teachers when they broke up for the summer. The programme I have for this is very good and although I'm not really doing this anymore I have kept up my subscription as everyone on the web site is so clever as well as being helpful and kind  .

A nice suprise of nature

Trying to tidy the garden today, (again), I walked behind the sandpit and discovered these. They are wild strawberries, I didn't plant them but they are growing in the dirt and sand that has accumulated underneath the study window. The seeds must have been blown there and have grown undisturbed. They actually look better than my strawberries at the allotment but..... they have no taste whatsoever!

My life

Sometimes I wonder why I am the way I am. I have always been the hands on type, I'll try anything, help anyone and so on and over the years I've learned how to do a lot of things But... today I was standing balanced on top of a wooden gate six foot in the air, leaning over an eighteen inch gap, splotches of tar all over my arms and legs and banging nails into the shed roof. I'm fifty-six years old! I should be sitting in a deckchair, knitting, letting someone else do the work.
 Isn't it funny though, I wouldn't do that, I would want to be involved in whatever is going on. Also I still think I know best. My son was helping and between us we did a pretty good job. I ended up thinking that I am still teaching and guiding

my kids, Will now knows how to re-felt a shed roof.

Raspberry Crumble Cake

I made this for tea today, it is a different version of Raspberry Crumble where you cut into it and eat it like a cake.
Rub 4oz butter into 4oz of self raising flour until it resembles bread crumbs. Stir in 4oz sugar. Put half the mixture into a silicone cake "tin" and press it firmly down with the back of a spoon or your knuckles. Pour a punnet of raspberries over the mixture and press gently down. Add the remaining mixture and press down with the back of a spoon again. Bake for aprox 20 mins gas mark 5. Remove from the oven when cooked and stand a flat plate on top with a couple of tins or a bag of sugar on top of that. Leave to cool. I found that this was best served after being refrigerated and with some thick cream on top.

This is the cake I made for my daughters boyfriend's 21st.

It was a rainbow cake that I had seen on the Internet a few times. The first one I made was for my son's 21st. They were really pleased and surprised with it so I thought I would do another. It is a basic Victoria sponge recipe but with the ingredients trebled.
Cream together 12oz margarine and 12oz sugar until it is white and creamy. Gradually add 12oz self raising flour and 6 eggs alternatively
Divide between six bowls.

.Add gell food colouring Red, yellow, blue, green, purple and orange. Gell colouring is better as ordinary bottled colouring dilutes the mixture too much. Use an ice cream scoop to divide the mixture equally into the sandwich tins. I used two silicone "tins" I bought from the pound shop giving them a quick spray of 1 calorie oil before putting the mixture in.Bake at gas mk 5 for aprox 20 minutes.
When cooked and cooled sandwich together with butter icing (8oz butter mixed with 1lb icing sugar). Just put a thin coat on each layer as there will be five lots of butter icing between the layers as well as all over the cake. Cover the cake with the rest of the butter icing.

To decorate the cake I cut the numbers "21" out using my Cricut but I used the negative placed on top of the cake and, placing a piece of paper diagonally over the stencil, I sprinkled the first colour on. I then moved the paper about a sixth of an inch over and sprinkled over the next colour and so on.
 I then had the choice of either picking off the few sprinkles I had accidentally spilled or adding a few more to the cake. You can see what I decided to do! I put 21 candle holders around the cake and bought some rainbow candles from Asda. They are not on the cake as it had to travel. I haven't seen the inside of one of the cakes yet, although I am told there is a picture somewhere!

I saw a swan in the sea today just to the north of St Mary's Island near Whitley Bay. Apparently it's lucky to see a swan at sea so I will wait and see what happens!

I went for lunch with my daughter to Newcastle. We went to Eldon gardens and this is what we had.

It was a picnic lunch for two and came on it's own little picnic table. A very novel approach and it was all delicious.