Bake Off 2

Bread week on the bake off is always one that I'm not great at doing but this time round they had a quick bread round, sounds more up my street! So we gave soda bread a go! We had some Mexican style chili and lime cheese left so we jazzed up the basic soda bread recipe (which was designed to make two small loaves or more like rolls) with the cheese and jalapenos. Actually it turned out yummy!

I'll have to wait to do the next couple of weeks of the bake off as we're a little busy, but I will catch up at some point!

The Bake Off is Back!!!

The Bake Off is back - yay! So far I have made a black forest gateau cake (minus the topping in the picture as I made it the day before a BBQ and refrigerated the chocolate top and it hardened so had to wait for it to melt again!). I have also made some biscotti, espresso and chocolate chip flavour!

I doubt I'll be able to keep up with every week but so far cake week - check and biscuit week - check, hmmm not sure about bread, we'll have to see what they do. (Or I could cheat and use the bread maker!!)

The Questeds!!

Final wedding before ours is The Questeds! All our weddings this year have been completely different to each other, which is a good thing, and this one is certainly the most different. It is a camping based humanist ceremony in a meadow! Completely as we expected! We took the van to sleep in. Others had either hired tipi's or bought tents with them. The weather forecast was shocking for the Friday and Sunday and it did batter in down all day on both but Saturday was lovely. Luckily the ground was so dry it didn't turn muddy and we were able to wear our outfits without wellies!!

The giant tipi's looked great for the wedding breakfast and bar, dance floor area. The ceremony itself was outside in the meadow area. There was a bouncy castle and a range of garden games, I think the bouncy castle was a little too much for some if they had too many reception drinks!

The day again was lovely as all weddings are regardless of the type of wedding it is. We learnt today that we have now been to a wedding that had already ended in a separation, so sad. Fingers crossed no more do!

I'm glad we stayed in the van as waking up to the sound of rain on a roof is more comforting when hung over than if we were in a tent! We left the newly weds packing up the site with their families, but a great day was had by all, congrats to The Questeds!

So just over a month til our wedding! Very exciting, we are now on countdown!

The Youngers!!

Today we are off to Marlborough, a place I understand to be very posh! And very posh it was! The venue for Chris and Kate's wedding was stunning, a stately home with stables, lots of ground, a very large pond, a fancy garden I could go on. The outside area was set up for the wedding and the weather was stunning. It was the first wedding we have been to that had a friend officiate the ceremony and he was fab with personal stories and jokes throughout.

The canopes were amazing, I think we ate our weight in canopes to be honest, probably a good thing the meal was lighter with cous cous, chicken and salad. We obviously had drama at our table as one of his uni friends was beyond drunk (on the reception drinks mainly prosecco) and dropped the entire bottle of sparkling water...that smashed all over the table...glass and water everywhere! Luckily we'd all finished our meals!! I was just thankful I wasn't the most drunk person as being a lightweight I normally am!!

The speeches were great, a lot of people on Kate's side saying they were looking forward to them moving to Australia and a lot of people on Chris' side hoping it wasn't going to happen too soon!

This was also our first wedding that had a cheese wedding cake, it looked great and I guess it's definitely a way to use all the cake on the day as it was cut up for the evening buffet. Shame I didn't get a picture really.

There were a lot of firsts at this wedding as it was also the first bouquet we'd seen thrown and the first garter to be removed!! Hmmm.

We had a great time! Dancing, laughing at the drunk guy that got progressively worse after the meal! We headed back to our room at a pub in Marlborough that had all their rooms themed. Ours was the King John room, wooden bed, regal in decor, big fire place. But being an old pub the floors were all wonky! You felt drunk as soon as you walked in before drinking a thing!

Anyway another great occasion celebrated today - congratulations the The Youngers!

A Mad Hatter Birthday

I feel old - this weekend my niece turned 18! I remember when she was born, I was at an under 18 rave thing in Blackheath Concert Halls! It's difficult to get a present for an 18 year old as its that type of age where anything you get won't be trendy enough so i went for a gift box option and saw this idea on Pinterest. It's mad hatter themed wrapping! Each item has a label like in Alice in Wonderland.

This box had open me on the lid, then inside it had eat me, drink me, drink with me and wear me. It was a collect of things she likes so the eat me was a box of Oreos, the drink me was a big bottle of a cocktail, the drink with me was an 18 glass and the wear me was an engraved gold bar necklace like the Kardashians wear (who she loves). It was engraved with the co-ordinates of where she was born.

I hope she liked it!

The Eclipse!

Today is a very specially day in the world of space! We are due the total solar eclipse of the sun! Depending on where you are depends on how much you see, whether it will be a full or partial eclipse but either way it's very exciting. As it is happen today it was a school day and luckily I had year 12 so we were fully in eclipse mode. We had the live feed playing on the whiteboard, we made pinhole cameras and we were outside ready to watch.

Now I know you are not meant to look directly at it but that is easier said than done. We did use our cameras and they did work but we also took some pictures too. The big black thing in the bottom of each picture is a building, that is the problem with being on a school site with lots of blocks!

    

My Boyfriend Bouquet

It gets more and more difficult to figure out what to get each other for Valentine's Day especially when we set a very tight budget as there is no need to go all out for this day. Every day should be Valentine's Day really just without cards and gifts!

This year I made a boyfriend bouquet! I found this on Pinterest, a bouquet of all their favourite things! This had a t-shirt, socks, nuts, oatie biscuits, beers and a pack of letters to open at different times of the year. I had to tweak it to be a laying down bouquet as the beers were too heavy to hold up! He loved it - but what am I going to do for next year??!!

The Elliott's!!

First wedding of the year, The Elliott's!! Lovely day, especially as the visitors from across the pond were here to share the day too. The weather was good for the time of year but churches are cold! The meal was delicious and the pud was especially yummy!

As with all weddings the day flies by! Before we knew it they were cutting their half traditional, half Arsenal themed cake, the first dance happened and we were boogieing on the dance floor, with a cone of popcorn for the popcorn cart!

This was one of the few weddings we've been to where we were able to get a taxi home which was nice for a change.

Before the Americans left to explore other parts of Europe before flying back we had a last lunch which surprisingly not many people were suffering at, well one person was late and then proceeded to order the biggest thing on the menu! Needless to say it didn't get finished.

So all in all it was a great wedding weekend and The Elliott's I'm sure had a great time!

Christmas crafts

This years Christmas crafts for presents were quite difficult to decide what to do as I was struggling for ideas. There will get to a point where there won't be much left to make! 

I ended up finding a template for a remote control holder shaped like an owl which I thought was cool so attempted to make it. It turned out OK really, the shape of the head part could be a little better but I think it still resembles an owl!

On pinterest I also saw some Christmas decorations made out of scrabble tiles and gave those a go too, not sure how well they turned out or how well they travelled so hopefully they were still in one piece when they were unwrapped!

 The final thing I made this year wasn't a present but for our house. The prevent owners of our house had hooks on the mantle piece, I'm assuming for their stockings at Christmas which look a little untidy if they don't have anything hanging on them so I made a Christmas garland. It was a take on the one Kirsty made in her homemade Christmas programme but instead of hearts I went for bells. I think it turned out OK and looks good hanging from our mantle piece!

Save the date!!

We've booked the wedding!!! After searching many venues and visiting on open days and checking dates that were not too far away we have settled on Park Farmhouse Hotel which has a stunning barn for us to have the ceremony and evening reception in and pig sties for the wedding breakfast. We did see a lovely venue but if the weather is rubbish then there was very little inside space to use so we thought we'd go for the barn option as inside looks great and outside it is surrounded by fields that look great - and the racetrack!

So now it's time for people to save the date and us to get into gear and start looking for everything we need so signing off for now (mainly as we won't be doing much due to the lack of funds to now pay for said wedding) but be assured post wedding ala Arnie - I'll be back!

Holiday Baking

There is only a couple of days left of the summer break and time to think about everything we have done over the past 6 weeks. Obviously you want to do cool things all year and not just cram it into the 6 weeks but I think we have achieved a lot.

Over the summer we have stayed in 6 hotels and travelled to/through 4 countries - here in the UK then France, Belgium and Thailand.

We have finally taken the shed down!

We have been to only the one wedding this year - unlike the other year where we had 7!

Lots of Belgian beer has been drunk along with many a cocktail and an enormous amount of food has been eaten!

I have also made many baked goodies as the Bake Off is back in full swing. This includes cheddar and cheese scones, treacle and ginger tray bake, goats cheese and red pepper muffins, ciabatta rolls, pizza, Mediterranean tarts, double chocolate cheesecake and macaroons!!

Spa F1 - Race Report

Race day!! Wonder what will happen today - and what the weather will be like! We were all kitted up and ready. It was difficult to get a spot as it was busier as predicted but we headed back to our corner and settled there. It was great. Actually people think it's boring to watch cars just going round but because you can't fully hear the commentary or see the screen the whole time you actually lose track of who is where in the race. All we knew was that Lewis and Rosberg was battling it out and we could tell the different by spotting their gloves as they went round the corner! We were watching them go round and round then all of a sudden Lewis comes limping past with a flat tyre - what was going on!!!??? We went and had a quick look at the screen and from what we figured out there was some kind of beef between the Mercedes team mates - not so friendly team mates! Turns out Rosberg had hit Lewis!! The weather held out for a dry race but because of all the drama Ricciardo ended up winning! We'll watch the race back when we get home to see all the ins and outs of what happened and the possible backlash to Rosberg!

Last night in Nemur we headed into the square to get some food - this time we had some Italian Tex Mex - a fusion of some kind! It was good, interesting but lovely and another delicious cappuccino! We wandered a little more round Nemur city then headed to the shop to stock up on beer - as were weren't having to carry our cases, once they were on the coach we didn't have to drag them anywhere so we loaded them up with as much beer as we could!!

Going to our first F1 was great, we had so much fun and as we aren't adverse to camping anyway the weather doesn't really matter or spoil the mood so we loved it!!

Spa F1 - Qualifying Report

So going for the coach option meant our journey from home took forever!! But on the plus side we get on the coach, they drive us straight to the track, at the end of the day you get back on and don't need to think about getting home, it's all sorted.

Upon reflection my qualifying report is split into three sections - they day, the night and top tips.

The day

So our day was great, the journey to the track was good and entry was really easy. We wondered what the deal was once we were in but as soon as we were through the gate the track was right there! Having done some research before hand we decided to go to the Kimmel straight and settled ourselves on the hill for practice 3. It was good there but it was so busy and unless you are there at the crack of dawn it is difficult to get a good spot so we thought before qualifying we'd go investigating and see if there was anywhere else to sit. We ended up at corner 8/9 again on a steep slope but with a great view, not too far from a TV screen and also on the corner they had to slow down quite a bit so you actually see them approaching, round the corner then off again. We were all settled when the heavens opened - luckily we were equipped in full waterproofs! But then the rain turned to hail after qualifying had finished! We tried hiding in the woods with everyone else but this is when the coach comes in handy as you could strip off the waterproofs and just sit there! We had a great day, as did Rosberg on pole, experienced all weathers and saw the cars in their full glory. On our way wandering around the track during GP2 we were near another corner when a full on crashed happened - polystyrene everywhere and car in the tyre wall - luckily everyone was OK but it was a dramatic end to our Saturday at the track!

The night

Our hotel was in Namur so we thought we'd go exploring, grab some muscles and frittes and obviously some Belgium beer! Wandering around we totally felt like we were on Somewhere Street - a Japanese programme that Sarah introduced me too where you don't see the host, they walk round with a hand held camera exploring and meeting people. It's all translated, it's a great show! Namur is totally a place that would be on that show, quiet Belgium back streets with bars full of people drinking the beer. You turn down a quiet street and end up in a square with a grand church and interesting sculptures. We got our muscles and frittes and ended the meal with a delicious cappuccino - different from ours and no milk but instead lots of whipped cream! We then found a pub and had some of our fave Belgium beers - Orval, Rochefort 8 and a kriek. There was a very interesting games machine in the pub, not like an arcade machine where you hit a button and hope, this you needed to think about!! We had a little corner shop nearby our hotel so we stocked up on snacks to take to the race and noticed they had a fridge full of cheap (well compared to the UK) Belgium beer so before we come home we're going to stock up!

Top Tips

•  Take chairs - you never know what the weather will be like and they provide a welcome relief from the floor - camping ones are also easy to carry
• Cover all weathers - we were thankful for those waterproofs
• Suss out where to sit for the race on qualifying day - it will only be busier on race day so best to figure it out the day before
• We didn't do this but we did see people with shovels to flatten out the hill - not sure about that one!
• An over sized poncho to cover you, your chair and your bag for really heavy down pours isn't a bad idea to have in case the weather doesn't let up as I ended up sitting in a puddle
• Get there early for a good seat or go for a very steep hill where people don't get in the way
• Walk past long queues for toilets, food and drink as there will be a shorter one not too far away

Tomorrow is race day!!!

Shopping Spree

Our last day in Bangkok and we are hitting the malls. We have allocated all day as there are an insane amount of malls here, each are several floors and I'm talking 6, 7, 8 floors each! We didn't visit them all (as we only allocated 1 day!) but we did go to Terminal 21, Siam Paragon/Discovery and MBK. Each was completely different to the other - even Daniel liked the shopping and that speaks volumes!

Lets start with MBK - 8 floors of fake goods! No joke. Each floor had different items on it so there was the souvenir floor, clothes, phones and other tech, bags, I could go on. We walked around pretty much every floor and got some bargain souvenirs. The phone/tech floor was a little concerning when you see several booths selling phone numbers - what if you saw your own phone number there! Luckily we didn't but I wouldn't be surprised if some of those numbers were already in use! We were here so long we had to stop for a coffee to refuel before moving on!

Next stop was Siam Paragon, one of the largest malls in Asia apparently. We didn't buy so much here but we did have the most awesome lunch at a Korean Fired Chicken restaurant - BonChon Chicken. Apparently it is coming over to London, I hope it does it was delicious.

Terminal 21 was different again, this was set out like an airport terminal when you walked in and then each floor took you to a different destination. From Rome to Paris, London to Tokyo, Istanbul to the USA with San Francisco and Hollywood. Each floor had over sized iconic landmarks of each location and quirky shops that kind of fit with the destination. It's a great idea, I love it!

Our shopping spree day was tiring but awesome!! 

For our final meal in Thailand we went to Cabbages and Condoms, a restaurant that I have been teaching about for years. The idea behind the restaurant is to promote safe sex to prevent the spread of disease and also try to control the population as it was growing at a fast rate. Each meal they hand out free condoms and the money raised goes into helping different causes. The restaurant is also decorated with condoms in very creative ways. I wanted to go and take photos to show the kids and see if I could pick up some information. It turned out to be great, the food was fab - as it has been everywhere we have eaten whilst being here - I collected lots of information leaflets and photos and they also had a shop and stall with items made from a village initiative so we did our bit and I bought a scarf!

 

On our way home we found an English pub! Since its our last night we stopped in to get back into the British way! The football was on, beers on tap, full of English people and a Sheffield beer trail poster on the wall! Just like home, lol. We've had a great time here, yet there were so many things we didn't have time to do. The people have been great, the food amazing and the sites unbelievable.

I would say Thailand definitely lives up to its name as the Land of Smiles!

Touring the Temples

Early start today - pick up is at 7.30! Definitely no time for breakfast today! Dressed appropriately we headed off for our city and temple tour taking in 3 out of the cities 400 temples. We are barely scratching the surface of the temples in the city but the 3 we are seeing are good ones! Each has a different draw for visitors.

Our first stop is the temple that has a 5.5 ton solid gold Buddha - yes that is right - solid gold - worth £28mil ish! Even though it was quite early the temple itself was reasonably busy. It wasn't very big and on the way up the stairs to see the gold Buddha a guy came out of nowhere and started taking our pictures - like cameras right in our faces, it was totally like we were being papped! Yet another celeb experience of our holiday! I'm walking past with my sunnies on and hand over my face! Turns out he was using the pictures to make badges to sell - if he'd said this he might have found people would pose instead of looking away! We climbed the rest of the way and there it was - the most shiny Buddha you have ever seen. Apparently it was discovered under layers of plaster - what a great find. Apparently it is one of Thailand's most important Buddhas but having said that there are a number of these.

From here we headed to another important site - that of the reclining Buddha. Now we have seen one already in the Monkey Temple cave and we thought that was large but wow this was humongous! Trying to take a photo you can't get it easily in one shot. Its feet were made of mother of pearl - this was definitely a highlight. Around the temple that housed this giant Buddha were statues showing how to massage as apparently there are important links between this site and the traditional Thai massage. There were a number of elaborately decorated pagodas. In the base is where you place the ashes of loved ones and the pagoda forms a kind of memorial, but they have run out of room for pagodas so now the ashes go in boxes in the walls behind the many many statues of Buddha.

 

The final temple on our tour was the marble temple. Not so much a complex of buildings like at the last place but one elaborate and sparkly white temple, made from Italian marble. It was very quiet when we arrived mid morning and when we approached the temple we found a ceremony going on inside. Young apprentice monks were being ordained to be a full on monk. They were all dressed in white, bowed, with their heads shaved. One at a time they would approach an older monk where he would give them their orange robes. They then exited the temple to an area outside where the elders helped them get dressed in their new orange attire. They then had to go and speak individually to an elder monk before collecting their pot to collect offerings from the locals for the monastery. It was fascinating to watch and see them dedicate their life to the religion. You can do this for just a period of time and not your whole life and then return to your regular life after. That was interesting to find out - this is only for boys/men though, not women.

 

 It was definitely interesting visiting these 3 temples - each completely different to the one before. We did drive past the Grand Palace and down what was essentially like our Mall to Buckingham Palace. A fancy street, well decorated mostly for the Queen's birthday on the 12th. They had was looks like St Paul's Cathedral at the end -well a mini version. We then headed back to the hotel for a rest before our river night cruise tonight.

 5.15pm was our pick up - this leaves 2 hours to the ferry - we nearly missed it! I kid you not, the traffic was ridiculous. Now I know it's Friday but we sat at the end of our street for about an hour - no exaggeration! The pick up guy was panicking as we were late for our next pick up and we started discussing what to do instead! Slowly we crept along and eventually the pick up guy jumped out, ran along the road to collect the other person and ran back along the street, whilst we sat in the traffic! We made it by the skin of our teeth. No time to look in the mall attached to the dock, it was straight through - flower pinned on, photo took and to our seat! At least then we could relax. Table 1 didn't make it and we left without them - we hovered around the river then went back and picked them up. At least our food came in courses, theirs came all at once! The food was amazing but there was a lot of it. Spring rolls and crispy baskets filled with chicken and sweetcorn to start, then Tom Yum soup, then a main of rice, fish, green curry and prawn and broccoli - each! Then fruit, mango and sticky rice for pud! The views were good with the Grand Palace, Temple of Dawn and others all lit up and there was also some traditional dancing on our boat too. I'm glad we made it!!