Sugar overload

Cupcakes for the work bakesale....

Cupcakes for some sporting fixture...

And cupcakes for 4 July.

Each batch is helping me learn how to do them better. The frosting recipe has changed, now I'm using half butter and half cream cheese which makes it less rich and sickly. I've learnt that making cupcakes on hot days leads to floppy swirls and intense colours are hard to achieve. But we're getting there!

Will shortly be taking orders for weddings, birthdays, bah mitzfahs... :)

There is some knitting blocking so will have some yarny stuff for you next time.

How does your garden grow?

You may remember some of the dramaz I've had in the garden. That was only the first implement that succumbed... Anyway, this is what it all looked like at about May time. A flowerbed of reeds and spent primroses. A haymeadow of dandelion clocks underlaid with moss surrounded by various late-middle-age shrubs and seeded saplings.

A riot of ground elder in the corner.

Flowerbeds on a serious slide held back with sandstone rocks.

Ah, the rocks. How many did I dig up?

(bags of small rocks, pebbles, stone, housebricks, guttering, drainage pipe, bolts...)

But The Man, being smashing, decided to get me a landscape gardener for the day for my birthday. In fact it turned out to be two - Italian brothers, who of course were referred to as the Super Mario brothers. ('When are the Super Mario Brothers coming?' 'Have you sorted a day for the Super Mario Brothers to come?' 'Shall I write a list for the Super Mario Brothers?') They weren't quite Italian stallions in the end but they were very nice, and as well as grubbing up loads of dead bushes and seeded trees, took away the lawn.

And then some other nice men came from The Man's work and laid the turf.

Mmm, grass. With an edge.

All these plants from the garden centre were waiting desperately for a flowerbed to become clear for them.

Some nine hours of digging and two wheelybins full of reeds and ivy roots later...

Some were presents from The Man's mum. Aw.

Is this peony (which was supposed to be white according to the label) ever going to open? It's been a bud for 6 weeks, I swear!

Nereide lilies from bulb.

First tomatillo flower! And the tomatoes are getting big too. (I still have no idea what a tomatillo is going to be like.)

Foxgloves. I love the little faces on the buds before they open, all squished up eyes and grumpy looking.

Buds everywhere...

And the best bit, the monster BBQ. Love it! It's already been used a lot, including a lunch for 10 of the family.

Next year hopefully we'll have more plants in the new spaces, and some fruit and veggies. So exciting! Can't wait to have a real harvest. Clare has given me two courgette plants so if I don't kill them, we can have some Real Food from the garden. Perhaps even a ratatouille from courgettes and tomatoes and tomatilloes. Who knows?!

I am perhaps a little overexcited by all this. Sorry. :)

Dear Lady...

Dear Lady on the Train,

It doesn't matter how loudly and frequently you complain about gentlemen commuters not giving you a seat, the very fact that you've mentioned it has immediately glued their buttocks to the upholstery. Please be aware that commuters are creatures of habit. They have their bit of their carriage and their routine with their newspaper / ipod / blackberry / snoring and after a long day of pontificating and many years of practice will stick to this routine through hell or high water. A train has to be stuck stationary for a minimum of two hours before a commuter will speak to a fellow commuter whom he sees every single day. That is how rigorously anything which doesn't comply with the routine is ignored. He can quite easily ignore you for the usual 45 minute journey.

A commuter feels justified in this possessiveness of his seat when he has paid three and a half grand for it and tailored his day to ensure he gets to the station early enough to claim it. You with your lowly off-peak return, scrambling on at London Bridge, are way down in the pecking order.

Also, if the conductor kindly tells you there are seats further forward in the train, take his advice and use them instead of yabbering on when I am trying to work. Unless you would like to take my exam for me next week?

Lastly, complaining that you are 72 and your travelling companion is pregnant is not going to encourage gallantry, especially when you clearly are not 72 and your travelling companion is carrying her belongings in a bag marked 'HM Prison Service'.

Yours,

A Lady Commuter.

Blood, sweat and cupcakes

Sorry for radio silence but things have been happening offline, promise!

Firstly I did the Yorkshire Three Peaks walk with work. 26 miles, 1600m cumulative climbing, supposed to be done in 12 hours. We did it last Friday and it was also 24degrees (at least) so it was hot for Yorkshire, and also hot for walking!! We completed the circuit in 13.5hrs, but actually walking time was about 10.5hrs. What can I say, we needed breaks. Boy, did we...



We started at 7am up Pen-y-ghent, then there was a 9 mile walk to the next peak.




But we all completed it and it was a job well done! Still lots more money to raise for charidee though...



Although at the peaks it was windy and cool (and we also had to put the corporate windbreakers on for photo ops) I have some stunning Tshirt and watch shaped tan lines now, which is just going to be dandy for the wedding in 4 months... Gah!

But onto less tiring things... I went to do a cupcake course at Faircake in Greenwich. I did the Roses and Buttercream one and it was fab. (You can also follow Faircake on facebook.) I learnt so much, I was frantically scribbling loads of notes trying to get it all down before I forgot it! Sugar craft is not something I've done before but it's something I've wanted to try, because I likes me a posh cake. :) And really, it's not that hard after all, as long as you know which widget to wield at the appropriate time. Check out this sugar rose! Excuse the marshmallow pink, apparently cartoon colours can be avoided with a dash of yellow or ivory into the mix, but I discovered that later. So now you know.



And these are the cupcakes. Yummo.

I love the big flowers on green grass icing best I think because they're so cute, but the blush swirls are classic Faircake and the reason I wanted to do the class.

Mmmmm......

Next time we will be investigating how to transform a garden (if it ever stops raining...).

Serious stash enhancement....

...aka hammering the bank balance. Ouch.


We were at Wonderwool at the weekend and unforts while it's good for selling it's also good for buying.


Some Amy Butler fabrics from a shop in the north half of Wales which I can't even pronounce let alone spell, but they were lovely people. I shall make two aprons from this lot (in my spare time). Mum wants to come for a sew-in (like a sit-in but different) - she said she liked team curtain making last time, and seeing as she got some fabric too and owns the pattern, sounds like a good idea to me! Actually I think she's just very covetous of my craft room.

Two lots of Manos Silk, the first a lovely rose sort of jumble...

Mmmm, silky rosey loveliness....

...for the Tea Leaves cardigan. Do you think it will work?

She needs to cheer up I think. Perhaps someone should get her one of those chocolate torte cakes from Love Patisserie. I would put the pic in of mum -erm- eating is not the right word - one of them but I think she might object. You know those 1950s pictures of children with chocolate from ear to ear? It was like that.

And some silvery greeny stuff for...

...brooklyntweed's Wool Leaves baby blanket.

I don't think gauge is too important for blankets. Probably.

Also some Malabrigo sock, maybe for a Damson or a Multnomah.

Some Yarn D'Amour Ariadne (63% silk, 36% cashmere).



And Sparkleduck silk/baby camel...

...and merino sock.

Check out Sparkleduck, she's new and was staying in the same hotel we were. Her yarn colours are yummo.

And some completely pointless yet amusing badges.

Not sure the one on the bottom right was quite true after the weekend, but we shall pretend it is!

Next week I'm back to France but at least we're in the posh chateau again and not in Paris. Hopefully the weather will hold because as a team we're walking the Yorkshire Three Peaks next month, and we're going to do some walking training during the brain training. What can I say, the three peaks seemed a good idea at the time....