More Baking & Knitting

I've been cracking on with Mary-Jane's cardi and time has run away with me.  I had a minor adjustment to do to my workings out on the cardi.  Unfortunately I didn't notice until I was four rows later.  I was adjustable without having to go and frog the four rows.  I wasn't hard on myself as I wasn't altogether with it yesterday.  I am feeling much better today, just a bit under par.  I did some baking, two lots of cupcakes, which slightly overstretched myself and left me feeling too tired.  I have made another two sucessful batch of cupcakes - Bounty Cupcakes and Chocolate Frosted Toffee Cupcakes.  Bounty is as the chocolate bar, the cupcake is coconutty, and the topping is chocolate.  I used milk chocolate this time.  The other cupcakes are very light, almost melt in your mouth.  As time has run away with me, no recipes tonight, I'm afraid. 

 

I've not taken any pictures, purposefully.  Althought they taste wonderful, they are, well I was going to say nothing to look at, but I must correct myself.  They are something nice to look at.  Chocolate topped cupcakes in pretty papers.  I shouldn't be so easy to put down what I make.

 

Mary-Jane is getting slowly better with her fear of noises and little boys and such things.  The acid tests will be when we go shopping and or out in public where she has contact with other children.   We will prepare for and cross that bridge when we get to it.

Bank Holiday Washout

Well!  What a wash out the Bank Holiday Weekend has been!  Near torrential rain most of the day Monday, interspesed with heavy rain.  On Sunday night I went to the Theatre By The Lake in Keswick to see The Last Night Of The Proms, perfomed by The Blackburn and Darwen Brass Band - very good!  I enjoyed it very much.  I saw them last year, and they were even better this year.  Lots of flag waving and singing.

 

Then Sunday night I brewed an almighty nasty bug, a bottom end bug if you get my drift...... I don't know where I got it from.  HK was bad too.  We took it in turns to either be in bed or look after Mary-Jane, with help from Mum.  I felt wretched.  Today I felt much better than yesterday, not quite out of the woods yet.  Tomorrow, all being well.

 

I have managed to do an hours knitting this evening.  I'm working on a cardi for Mary-Jane.  I might try another hour and watch Criminal Minds, I'm well into that at the moment.  Nothing else much to report for the last few days - I'm sure you don't want to hear any more details of my bug.....

 

AuntieAnnInAmerica is due to visit in November..... hurray!

Cynthia's Last Journey

On Tuesday, Fiona, Xander, Mum, Dad, Frank and I took Cynthia's ashes on their final journey.  Cynthia was my auntie, sister to Dad and Frank, Mother to Fiona.  We did a whistlestop tour of some of her favourite places.  The first place was Ehen Beck at Wath Brow.  There is a photo of her and her then husband stood here, taken many years ago.


This is the view a couple of yards down.  In the background is Xander, Mum & Dad.  Fiona, Frank and I sat on this bench and had a quiet few minutes together.

From there we went into Whitehaven to the harbour, another of Cynthia's favourite spots.  I have not had a walk around the harbour for a long time.  I haven't explored the half of it, or read about or seen the history of the place.  Aparantly there are canons which were fired to stave off the invasion by John Paul Jones.  This is the harbour wall and light house, looking north-ish from our vantage point.

And this is looking south-ish.  The promentary is St Bees Head.  Seeing this view kinda  visually joined the coast up for me

This is Caulderton Beach.  If you turned and looked the other way up the shore line, you would see St Bees Head from the south.  Cynthia had many many fond memories of being on this beach.  It was very moving being there


After this port of call, I went back to the house, as it was going on for Mary-Jane's bedtime.  The others went onto the cemetry and St Bees Head.

Cupcake Preview

I made two batches of cakes yesterday.  Nothing overly fancy, decorative or time consuming, just more or less straight forward cupcakes.  They turned out well.  The butterfly cupcakes had some icing sugar sprinkled on them this morning before they went down to Fobbles.

Almond Butterfly Cupcakes

I used cupcake cases from Asda, in their Little Princess range.  They have pink and purple butterflies on them.

These are Orange Marmalade Cupcakes, very tasty and moist.  Next time I shall put them in foil cases due to their moisture making the cases come away from the cakes.  I use fondant icing instead of normal icing sugar, so it spread completely over the top and make them look less home made.


I have just seen the time, so I can't dally here too long this evening.  I will give you the recipes hopfully tomorrow.

MJ hasn't had a  good evening.  She has been excited this afternoon as she has had another birthday present - a play cooker and sink unit, with pots, pans, knives and forks.  We also gave her a play kettle and toaster.  She played with them all afternoon and loved it to bits - images tomorrow also!

MJ got scared when we were in Tesco as she heard other babies and toddlers crying and playing and screaming.  In the end she was so distresssed and distraught, that HK had to take her out of the store and back to the car, where she calmed quickly.  She said this evening 'Noise gone, noise gone home, no come back'.  As we guessed in the main, she didn't like the noise of her cousin, not her cousin himself, I hasten to add!  Now we need ot get her over the whole experience.

Mary-Jane's Second Birthday

Mary-Jane's Second Birthday was nothing like how I'd expected it to be.  We have had my uncle staying, Mary-Jane has taken a shine to him.  We have also had my cousin and her little boy, 3 year old Xander, stopping for a couple of days. First impressions between Xander and Mary-Jane were promising.  Then something happened, I'm not sure what, but Mary-Jane's little world was tipped upside down and she became frightened witless of her cousin, even to hearing his name being mentioned bought her to tears.  It was beyond heartbreaking to see her this distraught, I have never felt like this before.  I felt for Xander and Fiona, they had done nothing wrong at all, but to Mary-Jane were he source of her fear.  The two children were kept as seperated as we could in the house.  Even so, when MJ heard Xander, that would be enough to set her off.  However progress was made when we all went for a walk to see the cows.  MJ actually called Xander a 'lovely boy' and made to offer him a flower she had picked, albeit by this point Xander and Fiona were several yards ahead of us and didn't hear.

After Xander and Fiona left, MJ went back to her normal self.  Until she heard a baby crying in a shop today and the same fear was with her.  She was saying that 'the boy was back'.  I never want to see her so frightened ever again, she was shaking at times.  She tried her best to calm herself by repeating 'it's good to see you again Mommy' and to count 1-10, and 'wipe and clean my face'.  Soul destroying.

I couldn't get to make her a cake, as things were rather busy.  I did buy her a caterpillar cake.  I shall make her a belated one.  We didn't sing her Happy Birthday as  I was wary that the noise of everyone singing might set her off again, she doesn't like a lot of noise, especially when feeling fragile.

One of the big good things that happened on her birthday, was the hedge cutter arriving on his new tractor!  As you know Mary-Jane is nuts and crackers about tractors.  The hedge cutter arriving was just one of those fluke things, it could've happened any day.  He was good enough to let Mary-Jane have a look at his tractor.  Mary-Jane was stunned to see a tractor at the end of the drive!  She was thrilled and I was thrilled.

I do rather like this image of her

Tractor wheel nuts need inspection!

When wheels are this big, they need to be sat in and looked at closer



There is a small bit (techincal term!) on the front, that I could just sit Mary-Jane on, I think her face says it all

There is even a photo opportunity for Mr Snuggles.


I was so thankful for these moments, and for it to happen on Mary-Jane's birthday.  I think someone up there must have been watching over her for this to happen.

Time To Catch Up With Myself

The last few days have been very busy and quite fraught, a slow emotional rollercoaster.  I've been frazzled, but a sense of 'business as usual' is starting to permiate. Thank goodness.  Gosforth Show is over, one family visit is over, one is still ongoing, we have said our final farewells to a close family member (not a recent death I hasten to add, don't get too worried, but the spreading of their ashes) and my dear Mary-Jane turned two years old today.  Hopefully now there is time to catch up with myself.

Gosforth Show 2012

It rained heavily all night.  By morning I was wondering whether the show would be cancelled.  It wasn't. The weather improved throughout the day and by mid afternoon there was lots of sunshine to go about.  The field was incredibly muddy.  I think I saw only a handful of people without wellies. Mud, Mud and more Mud.  I had got a parking ticket to park ringside.  I drove onto the field by some 50 yards and in my own words to the gate keeper - 'I ain't driving through that!'  We luckily found somewhere to park on the road.  I just had to hump all my entries a lot further to the Handicraft Tent, better that than have to be towed backwards by a tractor!

I had a degree of success.  Beckermet WI came first with the WI Co-operative Display.  The display was worked between myself and two other ladies.  Another two ladies helped by making the scones and jam.  We got 39 points out of forty.  We lost one mark for the scones being slightly uneven on top!

I only had one other Place Card - A First for this scarf.  I made it and completed it by this time last year.  The yarn was special to me as it was given to me by my dear Knitty Friend in Stafford - Sally.

This is my pre-mature baby outfit.  I got the patterns seperately on Ravelry.  I loved the simplicity.  Moreover I loved the way that if Baby needed to have any monitors etc stuck to it's head, then the button could be unfastened and the hat neet not come off.  With the body warmer, once opened, Baby can be laid on it and the warmer buttoned up around it, so less movement for baby.

My pretty lace doily.  I was feeling confident that I might get a place card with this. That didn't happen

The aran tea cosy.  I was quite hopeful with this as well, again no such luck!


The whole day has worn me out.  I shall be having a hot bath in a bit to take away my aches and pains - mainly in my legs, it's difficult walking in mud all day.

We looked at the cows and sheep and saw some of them being judged.  I also saw part of a display of a dog rounding up ducks, over an obsticale course, quite amusing.  Next year I shall take a closer look at the schedule to see what is on at what time.  Hopefully next year Mary-Jane can enter a few classes, they have them for under fives.

I really enjoyed the day, despite all the mud.  Highly recommended!