Gingerbread pudsey bears

As you can see me and my 5 year old have been practising our Pudsey Bear (Children in Need 14th November 2008 )gingerbread recipe. I haven't made gingerbread for years but they turned out quite well. The cutter was bought from Lakeland Plastics last week for £2.99 with 75p going towards appeal.

We were slightly disappointed when we woke up this morning and they was no snow but we did find some that hadn't melted and it is now languishing in my freezer (we are waiting for hubby to come home to prove it did snow!). I wonder what happened to global warming, obviously nobody told the weather.

Canterbury

Popped to Canterbury yesterday as I wanted to buy a decent set of saucepans and some baking bits. Had a lovely time browsing all the gadgets that you couldn't possibly do without - chicken shaped ice cubes, leopard print cocktail glasses and rabbit shaped salt and pepper mills! Managed to find a really good set of saucepans which I can actually lift, they have a lifetime guarentee (the manufacturers obviously haven't met me) and after trying them out last night I am quite impressed.

Half term next week, hopefully the weather will be dry so we can get outside at least part of the day. If not lots of cake and cookie making. Yum!

Keeping Warm

A couple of years ago we decided to put a wood burning stove in our house. What a good decision that was. During the winter we have it going just enough to keep the house comfortably warm.

As you can see from the picture we have a large wood store outside, which we have delivered in the spring (back breaking work but quite satisfying) They are properly seasoned logs (they have been dried for about two years)so they burn very cleanly and we get a small amount of ash which is put on the compost heap.

One of my girls

This is one of the three chickens that I keep in the garden. They have a large run which is full of bark for them to scratch around in, but if we aren't using the garden (they are a bit messy) I let them out to have a scratch around and get rid of all the bugs.

During the summer I get three eggs a day, but in the winter due to the reduced light levels we only get maybe one or two. Everybody who has tasted the eggs says you can really tell the difference and the yolks are bright yellow without the introduction of colouring which you would sometimes find in some shop bought eggs.

They are really easy to keep, fascinating to watch and I would recommend them to anyone.

Autumn glow

Even though the weather is a bit gloomy today, I spotted my neighbour's beautiful tree. Wow! I am not happy that the summer (such as it was) has gone but seeing sights like this does lift the soul just slightly.

Foggy autumn days

It was such a lovely day yesterday, I had forgotten what the consequences would be. Looked out of the window this morning and got quite a shock - lots of fog. I went to let the cats out and saw the garden was bedecked with jewels. I know when we were clearing the garden up yesterday that they were hundreds of spiders of all shapes and sizes!! but their webs are amazing especially when damp. So there I am in my pj's snapping away for your delectation, its better then watching Star Wars for the hundredth time ( I have a 5 year old who is obsessed and is allowed to watch it every Sunday morning).

P.S Didn't include a photo of a spider as it is a bit early in the morning for that!

P.P.S Well done to ECR for donating money to the RNLI. My dad was on the lifeboats for about 25years and it is a very worthy cause.

A sign of the times!

We had this through the door yesterday - an estate agent having to tell us how quickly they have sold a property and how many viewings and offers were made! Wow, just shows you how bad the housing market actually is!

Summers over

I took these pictures last week at Stone Bay of the removal of the Council Beach Huts by forklift. As you can see it was quite impressive seeing a complete beach hut being hauled up the very steep slope.

They were being stored at Joss Bay car park at the weekend, I would hope this isn't a permanent arrangement, the local fire starters will have a field day!

Photography

My son is taking a photography evening course at the College. This is one of his. I like this, very Ikea - put it on a canvas charge £9.99 we'll be rich! As long as we don't put the money in the bank.