And Finally Lucia

Well goodbye August I wave you a fond farewell with a posting of the Beautiful Lucia.

She is painted in Acrylics and was a 60th Birthday present for her owner Steve.

She is an Andalusian that Steve brought back from his holiday in Spain!!

Anyone normal brings a Hat, a stuffed Donkey and a Bottle of Sangria but not Steve no he brought back a Blinkin Horse!!

Hooked on painting horses in Acrylic here is the unfinished mare being painted because I liked the photo!

Fruit for Free Scrumbly!

The Glorious Fruit Cake is nearly all eaten it was really scrummy. I am now reaping the benefits of the glorious local freebies. Cooking Apples as often as I can use them, as much free Rhubarb as I can carry.


Most importantly of all its Blackberry time. So September may be pastry month but somewhere in between I have managed to squeeze Crumble time.

We went Blackberrying on Saturday morning and yesterday I made a massive Blackberry and Apple crumble it was scrummy with Ice Cream.

Not only Fruit we keep being given free eggs as well ho hum its a hard life !!

Well that was August then !!

Where on Earth did August go!!

I am just drying off yet another Cat I lose track of how many of the pesky blighters I have abandoned and chucked in the bin this cheeky chappy is looking more hopeful though.
I shall have to stop numbering them though as this would be um er ah Kat9 I think.
As long as no bits drop off I shall be painting him up soon.

A scruffy Stepford Wife

Continuing the cake making saga I have now produced the best fruitcake in the world ever having been through a bit a panic in the making.

Wrong sized tin
Wrong ingredients for the recipe

It is interesting that although I like an ordered life and following fixed instructions when it comes to cakes I become quite Gung Ho.

It a bit of a case of ok thats the rough idea of ingredients and thats roughly how you make it and then having a cake sat in the oven and a kitchen looking as if a tribe of inebriated chimpanzees have had a G and T party!

Now my kitchen comes equipped with my late mums cake tins rolling pin an lots of ingredients snaffled from her kitchen cupboards although I did throw out anything that was more than 5 years past its sell by date.

Having vowed that July was Ginger Cakes and August was fruit cakes I now do solemnly declare that September will be pastry and I feel certain that at this rate it will take a lot of exercise to walk off the sampling regime and a lot more than my lucky apron to make my pastry taste right.

Thats the end of the cooking update back soon with more adventures in Air Dry Clay. I so hope I dont get the two mixed up!!

August is Fruit Cakes

I do a garden for a local lady called Mary once a week.
This week I asked Mary if I could take some of her windfall apples. I asked if they were cookers of eaters and she didn’t know. They looked very like Bramleys to me. I was a bit gobsmacked as it appears as bugs get into the cores so they rot quickly they always get thrown away.


Anyhow today I baked more cup cakes and August being the month for Fruit based cakes instead of Ginger (that is my plan not some perverse EU regulation) I made what my book called Queen cakes. Little fairy cakes with sultanas in. I had been plotting interesting icing ideas and so I cooked up some of Mary’s apples and made a sort of runny Buttercream by adding stewed apple, lemon and cinnamon to the icing sugar and butter. I iced quite thin in case it didn’t work but its lush.  I am going to call them “Apple Queens”.

Rescuing a Bee

Today I had my first adventure in posting on Youtube. Just a 15 second clip of a Bumblebee I rescued from the conservatory. (After rescue as I did the video clip on my camera)