Chocolate Sunday...

I made a cake today, it was my niece's birthday which gave me a good excuse to make a very indulgent chocolate cake and not be tempted to overindulge as there were lots of mouths to share with. This cake is so light and moist and easy to make. I hate cakes that require loads of preparation as I'm a one bowl kinda gal, I love to just dump everything in there and work away.

This cake is not too bad, just melt butter (so no having to wait for the butter to soften to room temperature) and chocolate in a pan over a very low heat, sift flour and cocoa powder into my trusty bowl. Add eggs, water and the chocolate mixture to the flour and cocoa powder and I always like to spice things up a bit with a generous sprinkling of freshly grated nutmeg and this time I added some vanilla extract. Whip it all up and into the oven it goes for about an hour and a half and then out it pops all brown and risen, let it cool and top with chocolate mixture. Delicious! Hubby and I saved our pieces until we were alone and had it with a scoop of Carte D'or Crema di Marscapone Ice Cream. Heaven!

I have done very little knitting this weekend as I decided to take the plunge and do something I have been threatening to do for a while and taught myself to crochet. It was infuriating at first and I kept ending up with a tiny ball of tightly knotted yarn that I had no chance of picking up loops from. So many times I threw the offending result of my efforts across the room in one direction and my book and hook in the other wondering why on earth I was wasting my time but after five minutes I would pick up the book and hook again, start with a fresh piece of yarn and perserve and this is how I spent most of Saturday evening at the end of which I managed to produce a small green square of something that somewhat resembled the image in the book.

I am determined to learn how to crochet, though I must admit I do prefer knitting. Speaking of which, this is my latest knitting project, it's the blue wrap top from Vogue Spring 06 issue. I have been working on it for ages and did put it aside for a while as I was getting bored of it especially as I virtually have to do the front twice as its a wrap over, never thought of that when I choose this pattern. Looking pretty good so far I think. I love making different colours and textures so I made up this stripey pattern from 2 different textures of yarn together.

Rib tickling, not to be missed...

You've got to see this, my hubby emailed it to me and I have watched it 20 times and its still cracking me up.

Read this first to get the gist of what's going on: the blurb

Then watch this: the clip

Its classic, just watch the guy's face at the beginning of the interview, man I almost wet myself laughing :D Finally something from the BBC that's worth the Licence Tax sorry I mean fee.

Thinking of Summer...

I've just about finished my latest bag but got some lining to finish off. I alternated the colours on the back and front as the purple was getting a bit boring as the piece got longer I am pretty pleased with the way it turned out. I am hoping to sell a selection of my bags at a summer festival in July. I have made an application to have a stall but stallholders are selected by the organisers and I won't know if I have been chosen until the end of the month but I've got my fingers crossed and knitting like a maniac anyway to build up stock.



I've also joined a Summer Reading Challenge 2006 which runs from June to August. I challenge myself to read a book a week so that's 9 weeks. So far I have the following books on my list -

1. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
2. Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston
3. The Concise 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene
4. Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen
5. Morality of Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
6. Out of the Night That Covers Me by Pat Cunningham Devoto
7. ?
8. ?
9. ?

If anyone has any recommendations for the last 3 books, feel free to to drop me a line. I am looking for something funny but with some meaning, nothing too chick litty. I've had loads of books in mind to read and now it comes to making a list I can't remember a single one.

I'm off to make some mango pudding now which I've never made before so I hope it turns out well.

Project Spectrum Entry May 06...

Finally finished my Project Spectrum bag...

Green bags and chicken...

This is my entry to Project Spectrum for May. I missed the last one so I really wanted to do something for this month.



I am making a bag, working on a new design of mine which I am very pleased with so far. The loop stitch I am using is creating a nice firmly textured piece. The greens I am using are not as dark as they appear here but I'm too lazy to take my pictures outside right now but I will do when the bag is complete. The best thing about this bag is that the yarn was a bargain. I found them in the odd ball bin when I was shopping last week only 99p per ball as the colours have been discontinued or something. I had to check the price just to make sure they hadn't been put in the wrong place by mistake.


My buttermilk chicken tasted just like regular chicken. I only marinaded it for about 6 hours while the recipe said overnight so I will give it another try and and see if it makes a difference. Dinner was still yummy though!

Spare me the crack on my salad days...

Yesterday was so glorious you could close your eyes and pretend it was summer and today is not too bad either. Alas the goodness had to be shattered somehow, a bright sunny day in May? Something must be in the air and it was in the shape of a tiny pebble invisible to the naked eye but potent enough to crack my windscreen.

When I was driving back from my shopping on Wednesday I could have sworn I heard something hit my windscreen but I inspected the area of the sound but saw nothing then yesterday when I went to get Little Man from school the first thing I saw as I prepared to pose in my sunnies was the wickedly evil glint of a huge 10 inch crack snaking its way up and across my windscreen just below the wiper on the driver side. I was so peeved as I sat staring at it, pound signs flashing through my mind as tried to estimate how much this would set me back. I've only just serviced the thing which cost me £600, taxed it in March, MOT due on the 20th, the ever increasing cost of petrol and now this, it's like this car is trying to take me for everything I'm worth.

I phoned autoglass for a quote and they came back with a quote of £204, I had been expecting it to be expensive but I still had a sharp intake of breath when the woman on the line told me how much it would cost me but if I took my car to the branch I would get a 20% discount which still didn't make me feel any better. I told her I would phone her back to make the booking and she was all 'why do you need to call me back?' Like I was doing something irregular, I had only asked her for a quote and I wasn't happy with what she was telling me and decided to get a few more for comparision which she didn't seem too happy about. I tried RAC but their computers were down (of course) and they couldn't give me a quote and then Hubby sent me an email with some local screen fitters details and I phoned two of them this morning and got a quotes of £95 & VAT and £89 & VAT, work guaranteed again another sharp intake of breath but this time out of joyful disbelief. I asked the guy to repeat it like 3 times as I was sure he was saying 189 not 89 but he was saying 89 and then I got so mad at autoglass for their outrageous quote which was double and the £89 quote included them coming out to me, so all I had to do was to wait for a very nice man to come to me, no having to wait around a garage for 2 hours like autoglass would have had me do as they ripped me off. I get so mad at greed like this, shame on you Autoglass, shame shame shame. It just goes to show it pays to shop around, a few phonecalls saved me £100. I now have a nice new shiny tinted windscreen.

My knitting is making slow progress, see progress so far is hardly any progress at all. I just can't seem to find time this week to get down to it. Every time I picked up my needles yesterday someone or something would interupt me, either the phone, the door or Little Man and then Hubby came home, there was no respite for me. Today I haven't had a chance to sit down let alone knit so this evening is dedicated to my vest. I had hoped to have almost finished it by now and I'm not even halfway through the back, I think I need to breath deeply.

I have been marinading some chicken in buttermilk with onion, peppers, bbq spices and garlic all day today. I got some buttermilk when I was baking a cake for easter and on the carton it said 'for cakes, pancakes and marinades.' Now I have never thought of using buttermilk with meat but I did some research on the Internet and found it is commonly used for succulent fried chicken. I don't eat fried chicken so I will be doing the oven 'fried' chicken version instead served with salad, a proper spanish omlettee and a lovely French stick from M&S. Yummy! I will let you know how the chicken turns out.

Spring Magnolia...

Today has been a mad dash of a day. Got up early to take Little Man to school then I posted some books I've managed to sell via Amazon marketplace, to date I have sold 91 books and made £295 minus postage from books that have been lying around my house gathering dust for over 2 years. I also got him some new trousers and school shoes as he manages to wreck all his school stuff playing football at breaktime. Last term was a record he wrecked his shoes in two days and they were expensive too, £25 for plain black shoes that lasted only 2 days by the end of term they were so bad I was embarrassed to be seen walking with him to his classroom, the black polish just wasn't cutting it anymore. Then two pairs of his trousers got holes in them at left knee from when he falls down diving for the ball when he's in goal. The child is just football mad what can I do? Saturday morning I was lying in bed and I could hear him discussing the premiership of all things. Him and his just turned 7 self. I finished off my errands with supermarket shopping and brought remembered to get a postcard for the child I started sponsoring 2 months ago. I got one of the London Eye all lit up at the night as the others were of the royal family and Big Ben, so boring and unsuitable. If anyone knows where I can get nice bright artistic postcards that depict the real London please let me know.

These are pictures of my magnolia tree that I planted last year in a rather neglected spot at the bottom of my garden. In the autumn it looked like it was dying so I put loads of compost and manure down around it, cut off the dead yellowy leaves and prayed it would make it through winter though I didn't think it would. So imagine my surprise this weekend when I noticed a ton of healthy looking purple blooms and today the first one opened and makes its debut on my blog here today. Our garden is undergoing something of a makeover at the moment. We are putting up a new fence, correction, my husband is going to be putting up a new fence over the next 2 weeks or so with the help of his brother and I will be supervising and providing refreshments, I can't wait, finally I will be able to work on my borders without having to bear in mind that anything I plant will be trampled on when the fence goes up. The fence we have been talking about since 2003 is finally going up and I will be able to relax in the garden without being overlooked by the neighbours, not that my neighbours aren't nice, it will just be nice not to see or hear them every time I go out into the garden.

I am working on a new top, it is the blue wrap over one in Vogue that I posted about previously. I have changed the yarn and using a combination of 3 different skeins to create a unique colour - 2 shades of purple and some blue thrown in for good measure. I never would have thought of this combination if I had not noticed the skeins snuggling next to each other in my stash chest.

More flowers, these are from my mother-in-law's front garden. She is in Jamaica at the moment so I came home with a huge bunch and they are so beautiful, I just love tulips and tomorrow is set to be the hottest day of the year so far and I am so looking forward to it. Today in the car it was so good to feel the heat of the sun on my bare arms, it was like embarrassing a much missed friend that's been gone for far too long. The only downer today is that I haven't had time for any knitting, not a single stitch.

I can't believe I forgot about my bag. It is finally complete, ta da!




The jury's still out as to whether or not I like or love this bag. It took ages for me to sew the lining as I was too lazy to get my machine out and I am not the best sewer. I am very pleased with the finish but boy was it hard work.