Weekend Wanderings

I spent very little of the weekend at home despite not being away in the true sense. On Saturday I was lucky enough to be taken to  Larch Cottage Nurseries at Melkinthorpe. We actually live quite nearby but I had never been before. This fantastic place is a cross between a gallery, a plant lover's dream, a restaurant and a statue emporium. Here are a very few of the highlights......



                                     How would you like this fellow to guard the garden?




                                    The rain failed to dampen the spirits of this poppy.




                                                           A new bird bath perhaps?




                                                                A new perspective....




A welcome stop at the stunning tea room before going on to visit some friends of the equine variety.......






                                          A bit wind blown up on the hill with the boss......




                                                   I'll scream and scream till I'm sick!.....




                        A moment of calm in a busy day.... More about today tomorrow in part two.

There's Always One

There's always one isn't there? The one that goes their own way. The one that does its own thing?
Katy was helping me to paint up these fellows yesterday. Can you spot the tricky one?



Mmm, so did I. It won't do, not at all. Have you ever seen a carousel with one horse going backwards? No! Neither have I. Nothing for it but to make some more tonight...... Now what colour this time?...




Pretty, pretty White with stars. She thinks she's a princess.





How about spots with smart red reins?




Or the posh golden harness?

Watch this space...

Brain Death

 This week I have spent three days at the university in Lancaster. Now, don't tell anyone but, usually the few days at uni are a bit of a doddle compared to work. Ok so you have to go to a few lectures and listen to  people doing their stuff. Some of these people are excellent and some not so good, BUT and this is the thing really, you do other stuff as well. This might include a nice lunch or two at the resturant. (They don't have cateens anymore), or a trip into town to wander around the shops. Us students get discounts too which is a real bonus, all that help with food and stationary as well as a myriad of other things that you may or may not need. However.....
This week it was physics. It was no more Mr. nice guy time it was....

                                            
                                   wave forms.
They look quite pretty but I think we are supposed to know about their frequency and stuff and not just judge on looks alone...


           Reflection and not the kind in the mirror when I was doing my hair.

           Focusing, but not the kind where you have trouble after too much to drink...
  
           Backing layers, but nothing to do with sewing.....

           Matching layers but not the kind where my cakes are a slightly wonky size......

           Beam steering but not when I have to get my butt into gear...

HELP.....


We have to learn all the formula as well and I can't even find the symbols on my keyboard or in extra symbols. It doesn't look good folks....

Stuff

I know, I know it's been ages but I've been doing "stuff".

A bit of this... Actually I'm not very good and Shannon here knows it, but the boss was nearby and just out of the picture.... makes me look better!
Also spent some time pottering about at the stable which is fantastic...fresh air and away from all the other stuff.
Some of the other "stuff" has been good too though. Like this.....

A baby giraffe. I was asked to do a "welcome baby" cake. Not a problem, lemon sponge, some daisies, a few butterflies....sorted. Then came the request for a giraffe. Giraffes are, I have discovered, tricky beasts. All legs and neck and very hard to get to stand on cake. Hence the sitting baby giraffe who looks quite comfotable in his field of daisies.....

Other "stuff" has included doing a bag-pack in Marks and Spencer with girl child and holding the fort whilst Y took boy child to have a look at Warwick University. It's all go here you know....

A Bug's Eye View.

Wedding fever seems to have subsided a bit and things are getting back to normal here in Carlisle. Young people are back to school, I'm back to work and already looking forward to my day off. Also gearing up for my physics module, It is an essential part of my course and it doesn't fill me with great excitement. I thought you might like to have a look at these pictures that were taken during our days out and about last week. They are how I imagine all the bees and bugs might see their world.....

Reed Forrest

Dandelion Tree

Pink Blossom Carpet

Narcissis Sky Scrapers

It's a Jungle out there.

The Real Wedding Cake.

I know, I know, it's supposed to be a secret. BUT I thought that you bloggy people should be the very first to see the real weddiing cake. All those guests at Westminster Abbey will only be allowed to taste the alternative cake...... (and none of them will know what we know).
I have been invited to watch procedings with friends. I am delighted with this arrangement as hubby and children are being very ba-humbug about the whole affair. They are going off to do their own thing and I am taking the real cake to our tea party. Would you like a peek? look away now if you don't want to see...

Whatever you decide to do tomorrow I hope you have a great day. xx

Easter at Acorn Bank.

We decreed a family outing was required after lots of effort in the garden over the past few days. More of which later.
K and I drove down to Acorn Bank whilst the much more athletic / motivated Y cycled and met us there for tea and cake. D was, of course, much too busy doing his own thing and so didn't come along / missed out.
It was a beautiful day and we wandered around the herb garden which, reputedly is the biggest collection in England. There was also an Easter egg hunt which K took part in (her main reason for wanting to go) and of course came away with a chocolate egg.
The tulips and other early flowers were out in abundance and after fiddling with my camera for ages, I eventually found the macro options, hence today's photo offerings.....

Arachnophobes look away now...

A peek inside this tulip...

Fern fronds just begining to uncurl...

Curled bark....

Yellow poppies..

Spot the pollen..

Blowing in the breeze..

Fennel fronds....

Forget-me-not..

I'm back. K and I had a lovely few days "up north". As you may remember from my last post, one of the reasons that I wanted to go up (apart from seeing family) was to take some pictures. The idea was to create some Moo cards for my Brother-in-law. Actually my sister would like some as well but one set at a time please. With a birthday coming up and the spring light at its best I snapped away in the garage and poked around in the shed. Isn't it amazing what you find in sheds....
I wanted the cards to reflect his interests, hopefully he will agree. Here is a selection of what I came up with. I didn't think you would want to see them all as I took full advantage of the different image on each card offer..... They are displayed pretty much as they will be on the cards as I really like the mini cards, very cute and a bit different.

Spring really does get going a bit later on Royal Deeside which is great as we can see it all again. The displays of daffodils in Aberdeen are ledgendary but these were on the road-side just outside the house....

The garden pond has a real spring in its step too. There were literally hundreds of tadpoles, tiny newts, pond skaters and new plant life abound....

K and I came home "over the top".. past Ballater and Braemar. The roads weren't too busy as the tourists are probably waiting until any chance of snow has gone, there are still wee pockets up on the tops. The weather was fabulous and we stopped a couple of times to admire the view (and visit cafes)...

This cottage is in Braemar, just look at the view....

The burns up this far are still quite high with melt water although further down the rivers looked less full as there hasn't been any rain for quite a while (in Scottish terms I mean).
The last stop on this part of the journey was to call into a house that I stayed in when I was very young. The owners were out but as the gardener was there, no pictures.. I thought it might seem a bit odd. There was no gardener when we stayed there and I have to admit it looks a bit sanitised now. The trees have been replaced by lawn and flower beds. The grass has been taken over by a swimming pool. (In a wooden house, probably a bit chilly for an outdoor one). Don't know what was wrong with the woods and burn personally but there you go....

To pack or not to pack.

Tomorrow K and I are heading over the border. It's a bit of a girly adventure, staying with my sister and just doing stuff. As I have to go to work first we won't be able to leave until about 5pm which means stopping to eat along the way. How does Dundee sound? Have you any idea how long it takes to drive to beautiful Royal Deeside from Carlisle? Nearly forever... well at least long enough to ask "Are we there yet?" about a million times..

What to pack? No I'm not organised!  Here I am blogging away when I should be packing. How about some of these?..
.

They may well be needed. But then we might go shopping... And visit my parents, and be nice to this fellow who is really much more friendly than he looks....

Chester


Perhaps I need to be more organised and should have bought some of these to take....

Actually much as I love my sister she wouldn't  have a hope as I took this photo outside Liberty's in London last week and I was too frightened to look at the price although they were THE most beautiful colour. Still it's the thought that counts.
Must go and put the camera in as I've been asked to do some piccies to use for Moo cards. A project... exciting! Have a good weekend Xxx

That'll be an oops then....

First of all thank you to Susan for my very special blog award. It was waiting for me when I got back from my little break in the BIG SMOKE. I will have to cosider who to pass this on to as the award is to be given to blogs that are either new or have less than 100 followers. I will think about this and post later in the week, watch this space...

What else? ... Agnes has been sick... it all started with a cold kitchen one morning and escalated ino having to do a re-light several times over a few days. Not convenient and quite a lengthy process. Yesterday it all came to a head and the doctor was called...

As you can see this doesn't look good..... However she was rebuilt and looks as good as new, especially as she was much easier to clean when a bit on the cool side. She can be a bit hot and fiesty at times...

Now we are all set, except not quite, as her thermostat is gone and a new one needs to be ordered. At the moment we are on manual control, a bit of a dodgy business.
The BIG SMOKE was fabulous.. no children, lots of good food including a visit to Maze. no photos though as  I thought it wasn't quite the done thing. We went for the early evening Wine -Flight menu. A safe option perhaps considering that the most expensive bottle cost a mere £1600. Needless to say we didn't try that one.

Oggled all the mad shoes in Harrods and agreed that even if we had the money we would probably give them a miss....

This pair was mild, honestly....
Hope you are all enjoying the beautiful weather....Speak soon love Helen xx

It's not quite right....

How many times have you read a recipe through, gathered the ingredients, read through again and something doesn't sit quite right?
Yesterday K was very keen to bake. It had to be chocolate cake and it had to be just the right one, the cake of her dreams.
She decided upon this one. Brooklyn Blackout cake from the hummingbird Bakery.
The cake went well, very well and I would certainly make it again. BUT I'm not so sure about the chocolate custard filling. The recipe says to add 200g of cornflour to the cocoa, sugar, syrup and water mix and then to cook until very thick. We got to very, very thick almost immediately and I hadn't added all of the cornflour. It tastes just a little bit bland as if it needs a little something.....

We only used about 1/2 of the custard mix but the cake still went down really well both at home and at work where a lot of my 'testing" takes place. It looks good but, I think needs some more work. Watch this space....

It seems like quite a while since I last posted. Work seems to have got in the way. I still haven't decided about a colour scheme but no doubt it will all come together in the end.
I have been off work today. Well in the sense that I didn't leave the house at 8am. K has to provide cake for a sale at school this evening to help raise money for a connecting schools project. I'm sure most of you will understand that this means I have been baking......
Requests were made, but this is also an opportunity to try out something new......

I've attempted Martha Stewart's Hummingbird cupcakes with pineapple flowers and......

My own version of Nutella cakes with candied hazlenuts.....

Chocolate cake is always popular.....

And a grown up lemon sponge... just hope it all goes well and doesn't come back home!