Amarylis Mk II

My amaryllis has delivered the goods, second time round. It's even better than it's first go! Talk about a surprise, it seems to be growing 4 flowers. I love it!

On the flowering bulb theme, I bought 2 pots of lilac hyacinths today (£5 for 6 bulbs). They are sitting on my son's window sill, once the amarylis dies, I'll move them to the dining table. I need some nice pot holders!

Also the tulip bulbs might just appear for me, in the pots I put them in on the balcony. I can spy one tiny bit of green leaf!

Pirate Jumper

Ages ago, I started a jumper. Then I put my knitting down, had Xmas, New Year and suddenly it's the end of February!

So I picked up my needles and got going. I did have a probelem understanding the pattern, in shaping the neckline, but one call to my husband's grandma sorted that out! So here is the back piece of the jumper! The front is where it'll really get interesting!

Bad Luck Comes In 3s

It's all going wrong.

Firstly our flat gets flooded (burst pipe from above) and all our floors with tiles on need to be replaced. As they have all cracked. (luckily we're still covered by the defects period, just)

Secondly, I broke a beautiful, unique Venician glass necklace yesterday, by dropping it the v hard tile floor, in our bathroom.

Thirdly, I dropped my husbands hair serum, glass bottle, from the shelf above our bathroom sink, into the porcelain sink, this morning and cracked that.

Then I banged my head on the wardrobe door. The youngest hurt himself.

It's all going wrong, wrong, wrong. I didn't want to count further than 3, as that makes it all even worse.

The only good thing (after we've forked out £100s) is that I could buy a sink that sits on a cupboard, rather than a useless pedestal, that we have. I'll try to look for the silver lining.

Set Sail, Set Sail

One of the nicest things I can hear right now, is my eldest son, playing really nicely in his bedroom, with his pirate ship. "set sail, set sail", "get your weapons ready". It's 1/2 term here, but we've spent 1/2 of it poorly. We all seem to be on the mend though.

I'm just checking out balcony flower pot holders. The most contempory one I can find, that'll match our galvanised steel balconies are these from Ikea, called Salvia:


They are £4.99 but the matching pot is £7.99. I need 8 or so of them. The husband has promised to make plant pots but they haven't turned up yet (and probably never will) so I think I'm going to have to buy them.

Fabric YoYos

I've seen these yoyos all over, and thought I'd try. I stumbled across this great tutorial from my name is Heather and I was away!

Due to sickness, I still have not found the camera battery recharger, but when I do I'll pop in the piccies.

I'm making a few different sizes, and in different fabrics to potentially decorate some shopper bags, for my Easter Break Make&Do fest!! I might make a list of all the things I want to make and see just how far I get (after cleaning the house, doing the laundry, relaxing, taking in the peace and quiet!!)

Terracotta Army

Today we went to London, met my dad, sister and b-i-l and went to see the Terracotta Army exhibition at the British Museum. I really enjoyed it, I had watched a documentary on it a few months ago, just before it opened, but quite amazng to see the artefacts that were made c2300 years ago. I think my eldest (nearly 5) enjoyed it, the youngest slept through it.

Unfortunately during lunch my eldest complained of stomach ache, and then was sick. So not the best journey home and end to an otherwise great day.

Heart Shaped Valentines Cakes

These are the cakes I made for Valentines day. I made a normal chocolate sponge, cooked it, cut it in 1/2 filled it with raspberry jam, then covered it with a chocolate ganache. Serve with cream. V V indulgent! A once a year treat!

Unfortunately my camera battery died, so I don't have a picture of the finished result.

Couldn't Help It!

Brownies, just needed one! Nigella's recipe (but I omitted the nuts)

One Extra

My amarylis doesn't want to stop, it seems to be growing a new flower. It's nice to get something that I hadn't bargained for.(photo will come later today!- or a lot lot later!!!!!)



I also thought I'd show you my duck, that I bought in Scotland, a few years ago, in a lovely gift/ housewares shop in I think Falkland (we'd just been to the Palace). We don't have anywhere suitable to put it in our apartment, but we do our best from letting it get broken. I usually don't like "tat" and "shmaydrays" and ornamounts but I seem to have a weak spot for birds and ducks! Although this is the only duck I own. Although many years ago in York, in a lovely gallery shop, my now husband and I used to covet these ceramic dogs, which were so artistic and gorgeous and handmade. But they were hundreds of pounds so we never got one of those. Luckily the duck was something like £12. (photo later today! - sorry v v late with this)

Valentine's Day Roses

I've had to miss a few of my evening classes, which has been all about making roses. So I'm trying to do it myself, with what I was shown in class, and my book by Peggy Porschen, which shows the same method.

I do prefer the guidance of the teacher. These roses are all work in progress.They are made using flowerpaste. They're different colours due to the assistant telling me the wrong thing (yet again). I wanted the dark pink ones. That's more my taste.

Somehow I've managed to post every day this month so far, don't think I'll be able to keep it up, as I'm trying to post interesting things, even if no one reads them (or purhaps leaves a comment!!!)

How About Orange?

Have you ever noticed how a certain colour can creep into your life? Even a colour that you detested as a child? I even like my children wearing this colour!

I've always avoided orange, but over the last few years I've started to build a fondness for it. It started with a plastic cup from Habitat for my son. (Orange was his favourite colour at the time, wih green).

Then I recently decided to get colourful kitchen accessories, when I had to replace anything.

And low and behold it was orange that caught my eye, not pink, too girly and obvious, not blue, just not right, but orange nice and cheerful.

Then, my faithful pink purse has had enough of being crammed full of change, receipts, advantage cards and so on and started to fall apart on me. Time for a new purse, I could have had black, purple, brown but once again orange seemed just right! (Purse from Oasis)

We need a rug and some cushions in our living room, it's all dark brown (sofa, bookcase) and I keep thinking a citrusey colour would work well. We'll have to see if I have the courage of my convictions!

PS I just wanted to credit Jess from the How About Orange blog for my cheeky title! If you like orange, she's the person to read!

Marmalade Cake

Couldn't resist, made the cake last night. It's a Marmalade Cake from Jane Asher's Beautiful Baking book.

Will give opinion when it's eaten for elevenses.

Smells nice though.

UPDATE

The cake was put through rigorous testing. First we cut a slice.

Then we put it on plates and ate away!!!

We thought it was a bit dry, the recipe said 30-35mins, so I looked at it at 30mins, and it was done, so next time, I'll check at 25mins, and I think that'd be perfect. Other than that a nice homely cake!

Soup!

Today I made one of my favourite soups, it's easy peasy from Ken Hom's Hot Wok book, just chinese leaves, mushrooms, stock, spring onions, chilli, s+p and coriander leaves. V V nice, plus you can add rice, noodles to give it more oomph!

I'm thinking about baking a Marmalade cake from Jane Asher's book, that I got at Xmas. I keep reading it, and getting a very hungry tummy!! Time to test it out I think! I'm also planning, in my head, a cake for Valentine's Day (the decorative bit) I want to do a stacked cake, but there's only 2 of us (plus 2 children) so it seems a bit excessive!!! I just want the practice!!! I have to get round to drawing it out on paper.

I've been Memed!!!!

I never even knew about this, but Mrs B tagged me. So here are the rules of the game:


1. Link to your tagger and post these rules. 2. Share 5 facts about yourself 3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post and list their names (linking to them). 4. Let them know they've been tagged by leaving a comment at their Blogs.

Here are five facts about me:
1. Can't speak a foreign language very well, but would love to live in Europe (France/ Italy/ Spain)
2. Lifelong ambition to run the London Marathon
3. Would secretly (or not so) like to bake, sew, knit all day long, all by myself, yet still be the best mum in the world.
4. I've lived in both the North and the South of the UK but I love living by the sea most of all.
5. Get v paranoid and guilt ridden re global warming etc. I've changed all my lightbulbs, take reusable bags for shopping, switch everything off. Still feel v guilty though.

So the people I'm going to link to are:
http://ravenhill.typepad.com/weblog
http://houseonhillroad.typepad.com/my_weblog/
http://brambleramble.blogspot.com/
http://alittlehut.blogspot.com/
http://www.cakejournal.com/

They all have very unique and fantastic blogs, making v inspiring things. (to the people I've linked to, I hope you don't mind, as we're not necessarily well acquainted)