Holiday Picnic Cake part 1

We are off on our holidays soon. Hopefully we will get some sunshine, but a holiday in this country is always a gamble where the weather is concerned.

Whatever happens we will take a picnic out with us every day.

Having picnics are not only by far the cheaper option than eating out everyday but it also gives you so much more freedom. If you find a pretty spot on your travels you can just stop, eat and explore without worrying where lunch is coming from.

Mum and Dad had four of us and as you can imaging picnics were always the cheapest option on family holidays. We’ve had lunch at some beautiful and some not so beautiful spots. On the side of mountains, next to waterfalls, in wooded glades, in supermarket car parks, taking shelter against the howling wind and rain behind a large rock or sat in the boot of a car in a lay-by.

Before we went on holiday Mum always got bakey in the kitchen. She would  make a large fruit cake that was so moist it would last an entire week or more.  Slices of it would always be put into the cool bag for our lunch on days out.

For the last few years I have done the same thing. I make a couple of cakes to take with us. They are great for days out or if we are staying in lovely with a cup of Early Grey at about 4pm.

The first cake is a tea bread. It is really moist and fruity and doesn’t contain any butter or oil. I usually make it a couple of days before we go away as this cake tastes better after being stored for a bit. This is also a great cake to make because all of the ingredients are always in my store cupboards anyway, and it is suitable for freezing, so you could make it well ahead and defrost it before you leave.

This is what you will need-

10 oz Mixed Fruit. (I just buy the value bag)

6 oz sugar (Soft brown is better but I only had castor sugar)

1/2 Pint  cold black tea

1 egg beaten

8 oz plain flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp mixed spice

Put the fruit and sugar into a bowl and then add the tea and leave to soak overnight.

The next day pre heat the oven to 180 c and grease and line a loaf tin.

add all the other ingredients to the fruit and tea mixture. Beat it well to ensure all the ingredients are combined. Pour into your tin and bake for 1.15 hrs.

Once the cake has cooled wrap in grease proof paper and foil and store it for a couple of days before eating. Try with a scraping of butter. Delicious!

I will be making a beautifully moist lemon cake for my next post.

 

Vintage Map Re-Purposed

Dad’s favourite place to be is Snowdonia. My favourite place to be is Snowdonia.

It is its wild beauty, remoteness and unforgiving landscape that won my heart before I could even talk.

We always went there for our holidays and even as a child, I can remember as we would drive across the border all my anxieties would just melt away.

In the middle of nowhere we could just be ourselves. I never worried about what I was wearing or what other people might be saying or thinking.

We had so much more freedom, running around like feral children across the ancient slag heaps, exploring old ruined farmhouses and factories. Spending hour upon hour in the stream fishing, skimming and building dams.

All actually really dangerous, but we just loved it. It is the only part of the world where I feel completely comfortable in my own skin.

Over years I have gone there when I needed to recuperate and to take stock. I return feeling cleansed and re-invigorated.

I have never asked him but I think those things are why Dad loves it too.

So when I found a 1966 vintage ordnance survey map of Snowdonia on a flee market, I just had to get it.

I’ve had it for a few weeks now but couldn’t quite decide what i was going to do with it. I knew in some way or another it would be Dad’s Christmas present.

In the end I just decided to simply frame the beloved area.

I had plenty of map left over so I decided to pick out a few other favourite places and Mod Podge them to these lovely wooden coasters.

I think I might somehow string these together so that they can be hung one above the other on the wall.

So the map cost me £2.99, the coasters cost £1.99 and the rest of the stuff I already had. I think this makes a pretty thrifty but very personal gift. Hope he likes it.

And The Award Goes To…..

Yesterday evening I was tagged in a Leibster Award Meme by http://craftsonsea.co.uk/ . I was really surprised and chuffed that she thought of nominating me. So thankyou Lady! Do check out her blog, it is really good and has inspired me to knuckle down with mine.

These are the questions that were set down for me to answer. I will do my best.

1. What do you love most about blogging?

Since I started blogging in Feb I have really started to think about everything I do. It motivates me to always be pushing forward, teach myself new things and to stop procrastinating and start writing. It has also given me the confidence that what I have to say is valid, interesting or thought-provoking to at least one person, but it doesn’t matter if no one reads it. To me it is a record of achievements and debacles and like me a work in progress with plenty of room for improvement.

2. What drives you absolutely barmy about it?

I would say the thing that drives me barmy is the pressure I put on myself at times. I have a worry just before I press the publish button that it is not good enough or someone might be offended. Then I have a worry after I have pressed publish for the same reasons. It is getting easier though.

3. What was the last thing that you read that made you think “I wish I had written that”

I read this post last week and without a doubt this is the one where “I thought I wish I had written that”

I have been thinking for sometime about the juxtaposition of having feminist leanings yet being a stay at home mum. I have really been questioning myself and also how someone like me would be viewed in society. Then this popped up and I couldn’t have put it better myself http://www.butwhymummywhy.com/2013/05/05/can-a-stay-at-home-mum-really-be-a-feminist/

4. What have written that you were most proud of?

It is not crafting or thrifting related, and it hasn’t had that many views but I spent a lot of time thinking about this post about best friends. Like most of us I only have a handful of people who I could really call close friends and this was a sort of love letter to them and to best friends everywhere really. http://hannahphilpott.wordpress.com/2013/02/22/an-ode-to-best-friends/

5. What has been the most helpful thing to you in terms of writing?

The answer to this question is being left alone which is a rare thing when you have two small children. So I try to fit in crafting and writing when they are at school and pre-school (as well as food shopping, housework and cooking)

And weirdly by not asking for a second opinion. I would never post anything if I got second opinions. I don’t like being told what it is I am trying to say. I know what I want to say. So I tend to keep my posts close to my chest until they are published.

6. How often do you write?

I know that there is a lot of advice out there to have a blog schedule. Which I have tried but I find it a bit stifling,  and there is a very real danger that I could just fill a page with drivel (I’m pretty sure I have) if I haven’t got anything to say. So I do try to post roughly twice a week. Though in reality they are a bit more like buses. You might not see one for a week, then three come at once. Like the week the children had Chicken Pox.

7. Do you have a blog post in your back pocket?

I did have when I started, but I have used them all now. I do have a list of post ideas knocking around in one of my notebooks, so I should really dig that out.

8. Wine or Gin

I do love wine. A lot. But sometimes there is nothing more refreshing than a glass of ol mothers ruin!

9. Twitter or Facebook.

Facebook for keeping up with old friends and family. Twitter for networking and talking to people with similar interests.

10. What’s for dinner tonight I’m starving

Left over pork in cider with homemade dumplings. Wintery I know, but so is this weather!

 

So that is me. The Blogs I would like to nominate are

1. http://makedomum1.blogspot.co.uk/ I love checking out all of her thrifty finds. She has a really good eye.

2. http://buttonsandpaint.blogspot.co.uk/ Lots of lovely, craft ideas. I am particularly in love with her thread sketched notebook cover

3. http://www.butwhymummywhy.com/?wref=bif I am new to this blog but having read her awesome piece on the feminist stay at home Mum, I am a new convert.

4. http://jennyvintage.wordpress.com/ A local blogger. I recognise a lot of the places she visits and some I have never heard of. Which inspires me to get out there.

5. http://www.samanthaschofield.co.uk/ This lovely lady has invited me to write a guest post for her blog

So if you fancy participating these are my questions for you.

1. Why did you decide to start blogging?

2. What motivates you to blog regularly?

3. How has your blog developed or changed since you first started?

4. Do you think you could improve on anything? If so what?

5. What would your ideal Saturday night consist of?

6. What is your favourite quote?

7. Who inspires you?

8. If you could be any person, dead or alive. Who would you like to be for a day?

9. What song will get you on the dance floor every single time?

10. What book are you reading at the moment?

10 Favourite Quotes

I picked up a little book of quotations in the charity bookshop last week and I have not been able to put it down since. I have found some absolutely priceless quotes and have started highlighting my favourites, avoiding the better known of Shakespeare/Bible/Winston Churchill etc.

I am thinking of embroidering one or two of them.  A bit of kitsch or twee needlework with the words “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be” would be right up my street.

These are some of my other favourites, although I haven’t made it to the end of the book so there may be a part 2 to this post.

1. “Advertising is the rattling stick inside a swill bucket” George Orwell

2. “All charming people have something to conceal, usually their total dependence on the appreciation of others.” Cyril Connolly

3. “Conscience: the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking” H.L Mencken

4. “Courtship to Marriage, as a very witty prologue to a very dull play” William Congreve

5. “It’s a recession when your neighbour loses his job; it’s a depression when you lose yours” Harry S. Truman

6. “You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk-dancing” Anonymous

7. “If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us” Hermann Hesse

8. “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle” Gloria Steinem

9. “The critical period in matrimony is breakfast-time” A.P.Herbert

10. “I never forget a face, but in your case I’ll be glad to make an exception” Groucho Marx

 

What Could Possibly Go Wrong?!!

So I had my first ever shift as a proper waitress yesterday.

I dressed the part. Black shirt, black skirt, ponytail and sunny smile.

There was an event on and I was very nervous. But also relieved to learn that all I had to do was hand out drinks and canape’s.

I had been worrying all week about what could happen. You know the usual sort of thing. Spilling, smashing ,dropping, tripping, slipping. I think they were all natural, rational worries. “It’ll be absolutely fine” everyone told me and underneath it all I knew it would be. I’m 32 years old. I could handle this.

The guests of honour arrived and gradually the room filled up. I handed out drinks and circulated the room with plates of beautifully prepared canapes.

Everything went really well, people were lovely, friendly and jovial.

I was enjoying it and getting quite confident carrying various types of plates and trays.

Mistake!

Next up was beetroot gazpacho in shot glasses on a plate….on a plate!

I don’t know what happened next, all I remember was looking down and in horrific slow motion the shot glasses started to slide on the plate and there was nothing I could do to stop it. It was like the scene from a horror movie and I was utterly and completely mortified. I apologised profusely to everyone and wished the ground would swallow me up. I stood there rooted to the spot  looking at my hand trying to work out if it was blood or Beetroot

I then tried to clean up the area, but like Bambi on ice I was slip-sliding. How I didn’t end up on my backside covered in red stuff I will never know.

At this point I did feel my lower lip quiver and for a split second I thought I might cry, but I had a word with myself, cleaned myself and the area up and got back out there in true British stiff upper lip style. I smiled, I served, I took away empties and I didn’t go anywhere near any of those shot glasses.

Everyone was so sweet, and a couple of very lovely guests came up to me separately  and told me not to worry, which nearly set me off. But I managed to get through to then end as though the incident had never happened. I think this is an achievement in itself. Isn’t it ?? If I look at it that way it is not quite so crushing.

Please don’t leave me hanging, I cannot be the only person with toe curling experiences. I would love to hear them (mainly to make me feel better).

Something Old to Something New.Upcycled Bedding.

When my son moved into his bed for the first time I needed to get some him proper, grown up bedding. A duvet,  pillow and the covers to go with them.

I saw a couple of sets  in a well-known mother and baby catalogue and just couldn’t resist buying them. I spent a lot of money on that bedding. Way more than I would consider spending now, but as first time Mother’s we have all been there. I remember spending stupid money on a changing bag, yet with Liv I just used a pretty polka dot shopper or a large handbag. Live and learn.

Anyway! It seemed such a shame that after only a couple of years this beautiful bedding was no longer of any use as The Bo was moving into a single bed.

I didn’t want it going into the cupboard to wait for the moths to eat holes into it, so I decided to upcycle it into something that might be useful to someone else.

Old bedding and old curtains are an amazing source of cheap fabric. Whenever I am in a charity shop it is one of the first things I look through. It is even better when the fabric is just sitting at home right under your nose.

I decided to make a little baby boys set which would include bunting, a cushion and a mini quilt.

The only things that I needed to buy were some bias binding in white and navy and some wadding. The cushion pad I already had, but you can get them from ikea for a couple of pounds.

The cushion cover was simply two panels of fabric sewn right sides together, turned right side out and slip stitched once the cushion pad was put in.

The bunting again was very simple, just stitching two triangle pieces of fabric right sides together, trimming and turning through. Then machine stitching all the bunting panels to a strip of bias binding. Done!

It was the first time I have ever tried to make a proper quilt. The first part was very straight forward. I hand stitched the panels just the way mother taught me, using pieces of card. I then machine stitched my quilt sandwich together. It was the binding of the quilt that I was worried about, particularly getting nice, neat corners. I followed this excellent tutorial by Old Red Barn Co http://oldredbarnco.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/quilt-along-week-7.html and got beautiful mitred corners first attempt. No sweating, no swearing, no throwing my toys out of the pram.

I finished by invisible stitching the back of the quilt to the binding and I have to say I am really pleased with my first quilt.

It would make a pretty little set for a new baby’s nursery.

I am going to do the same with his other duvet cover which has a diggers and lorry’s theme, and I am eyeing my Liv’s up for when she moves on to a big bed.

(Guest Post) God Save The Queen v Crazy Frog

 

Today I am handing my blog over for the first time. One of my oldest friends Mrs H is writing my first ever guest post (no pressure then!). I hope you enjoy it.

So without further ado,  over to you Mrs H.

“Everyone, everyone!”… Is the chant of my pre-schooler as he choreographs and organises play amongst his peers one afternoon a week (usually in fancy dress). They take little notice of him and crack on playing how they want to, which is usually different from everyone else and so recently they have been getting quite messy.

We’ve adopted from the preschool that he and his younger sister attend the concept of a tidy up song. The idea is that you have a key song,  and if you play it your little folk know that its time to tidy and that the tidying up needs to be done by the end of the song! It’s a race basically.

Finding your song is trial and error. It needs to be catchy. I’ve found borderline annoying works (because that’s what these little folk love) but most importantly long enough to get the job done.

We’ve tried the Muppets song and a few dodgy 90′s dance hits but finally settled on the Crazy Frog. Well,  all of us have with the exception of our chief play organiser. He’s very much behind The British national anthem which he belts out at the top of his voice with pride and vigour claiming that its long enough to tidy up to. Of course it isn’t nearly long enough for the typical amount of mess but in fairness to him it is long enough for him because his play at the moment is being bossy!

Everyone, everyone! What are your thoughts on a tidy up song? Will you be trying one out?