30th September 2009 - out & about in South Shropshire

Today I have been out enjoying the last of the September sunshine - its been a gorgeous day. I have been out walking & geocaching in the South of the County - a part I don't get to visit often enough.

My first visit was to a stone circle on top of Stapley Hill. It used to be made up of of 30 stones but now there are only 15 left and most of them are small. It is thought to be at least 3,000 years old and is believed to have been made for rituals etc like Stonehenge. The trouble is I look so fat & ghastly in this photo next to the only big stone left that I don't really want to use it - I seem to have put weight on since I started my diet!

So I may use one of these other 2 photos that I took at the stone circle.

Or I do have another choice - this very bizarre sight - a shoe tree!

I was driving along this very remote lane - when it just came into view - so of course I had to stop the car and take a snap of it.

It was a lovely day to be out and the views up on the hills were gorgeous - I really must get a book on landscape photography - mine never ever show how lovely it is.

29th September photo - baking THE cake

I have baked my Christmas cake today.

It is much easier to mix all the dried ingredients by hand - so this photo of me hard at work will be my POTD

Adding the spices to the flour.

Adding the dried fruit to the flour mix.

All the dried ingredients set to one side.

Waiting for the butter to soften.

I love my Mason & Cash egg mixing bowl.

The orange & lemon peel & juice.

At last the butter is soft enough to beat into a soft mixture.

Adding the dried fruit mix to the butter & sugar mix.

Adding the treacle & Brandy at the end.

All ready to go in the oven.

It takes quite a few hours in the oven - so I will post the finished cake tomorrow.

28th September photo - getting ready for THE cake

Today I have getting all the ingredients together for my Christmas cake. I usually make it in October, add the Marzipan in November and ice it in December. I plan to bake in it in the next day or two. Its quite an expensive cake as the bottle of Brandy alone cost me £7.99 as Sainsbury's did not have any smaller ones.

So today's photo is all the ingredients for the cake sitting ready waiting to be mixed together.

27th September photo - delcicous chocolate cake!

More choc cake! A friend gave me this new recipe the other day for chocolate cake - it is made with natural yoghurt, which apparently makes it light & fluffy - so of course I had to try it out.

I had just had the first piece for my elevenses and can confirm that yes the natural yoghurt does wonders. I will definitely make this one again - if I can still buy cocoa powder that is!

Is there a world shortage of cocoa powder that I don't know about? It seems to be a very rare creature at the moment. Yesterday I bought the natural yoghurt at Sainsburys - but they did not have any - so then I called in at Spar, Asda and the Co- op and none of them had any either - which I thought was rather strange. In desperation I went to Tesco's last night after dropping the boys off at the station and they only had 6 tubs of it - so I bought all 6 !!

26th September photo - boys off to Wolverhampton

Sorry for a late posting today, but I had to wait to see the boys off on the train this evening. They have gone to Wolverhampton to see Quadraphenia at the Grand Theatre. Steven's brother went last night and said it was brill so they are really looking forward to it.

Wolverhampton is usually their favourite place to go to for shows & concerts etc - especially at the Civic Hall - but Wolverhampton Uni have now put barriers across their car park - so there is no where accessible to park. It is so frustrating to see this large car park sitting empty at night - when we would be willing to pay for a place there. As the one way system in Wolverhampton is so diabolical - they have decided to go on the train tonight and see if it is any easier - it most probably will be for them - but not for me who will have to go and pick them up from the station at midnight!

My POTD will be off the boys on the train - but if I get fed up with Liam's miserable face - I might use this one of the train instead! Apologies for the poor quality of the photo - but my camera did not have the SD card in when I tried to use it at the station - so mobile phone to the rescue.

25th September photo - Shrewsbury shop watch

3 shops for the price of one today!

Cornucopia (the first red & black building) is a very pretty gift shop which sells gorgeous nick nacks - including Kath Kitson stuff. They have beautiful shop windows. Next door is Bellini - a local coffee shop & home made ice cream parlour - they do delicious paninis here. And the black & white building is another material shop. This is more of an upholstery shop - but it is where I bough the centre peice material for the children's quilts which I am going to start sewing next year.

24th September photo - Eleanor's new book

This book arrived for Eleanor the other day - it is a collection of photographs by renowned photographer Lauren Greenfield. Eleanor loves her work and is on a mission to collect all her books. This book is all about the youngsters of LA and the bizarre life of the rich kids. There are 6 year old's having manicures etc. There is quite a poignant quote in the book "you grow up really fast when you grow up in LA. It seems like everyone is in a rush to be an adult. Its not cool to be a kid". Thank goodness our children get chance to enjoy their childhoods.

Just a couple of really sad photos from the book - a teenager having had a 'nose job' and 2 children 'celebrities' at a fund raiser!

22nd & 23rd September photos - last Toms & Julia & Julie

I can't post any photos on my blog today - as I have installed the new Picasa 3.5 on my laptop and it is busy doing its new face recognition bit. The trouble is it has been doing it since 05.00hrs AM this morning - so now 15 hours and it is still only on 42%. I think it will be a nice feature to have - but I had no idea it was going to take so long to go through all my hundreds of photos. It is going to have to stay on all night and will hopefully be finished in the morning when I can add my photos!

22nd photo is the last crop of tomatoes from the garden - they have given us a great crop all summer long. It should have been a photo of me & David Cassidy - but that is a long & boring failed story - I will save you all the details - so you just get a different boring photo instead!

23rd photo - Jessica & I have just been to see Julia & Julie at the cinema - a great film about a woman who blogs every day for a year - how apt! Her project is to cook her way though a French Cook book in one year. I was hoping to take a photo of the poster at the cinema - but there was not one so I have had to use the ticket stubs!

21st September photo - Kew Gardens

Today Steven & I visited The Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew - which was really the whole point of our trip to London. Today's photo is this one of this green dragon. I know it should have been a plant or flower, but this one came out so well that I just had to use it.

There are lots of glass houses here at Kew - the famous Palm House.

It was so hot & humid in here that we struggled to climb the spiral staircase to get to the top to get a birds eye view of all the palms.

Next is the Temperate House - another Victorian build, but thankfully not so humid.

The other glasshouse we visited was this modern one - which was opened by Princess Diana in 1987

It was in here that we took the dragon photo and met this little black & Yellow puffer fish!

This year is the 250th anniversary of the Gardens so there were lots of celebrations going on and information showing their future plans - it all seems very exciting.

Just a few shots around the grounds.

The bark on these tress was really pretty.

This Japanese Pagoda used to be open to Visitors but is now closed on health & safety grounds! I was secretly glad as there was no way I could have climbed up that.

There is an 18 metre tall woodland walkway - so visitors can appreciate the tall tree high up - it was good fun - even if the structure did sway a little bit making me feel a little nauseous!

A great day out - but we only saw a little of what was available - so we must really return. To visit in a different season such as Spring is the plan.

20th September photo - Albert's London

Today Steven & I spent the day in London visiting Kensington Gardens. My photo of the day is part of the Prince Albert memorial.

This one of my favourite structures anywhere and I wanted Steven to see it - he liked it as much as me.

Here it is in all of its full glory

Queen Victoria was distraught when she lost her beloved husband at the age of 41 to Typhoid Fever, so she commissioned this memorial to him. It is so ornate and has the most intricate sculpture, mosaics and beading that I have ever seen. At the time of Victoria's reign Britain was the centre of the Empire which covered practically all 4 corners of the globe - so in the 4 corners are symbols of:

Europe

Africa

and Asia. The other corner is America but I did not take a photo of that!

There are jewels galore in this intricate artwork.

All the way around the base of the memorial is this freeze celebrating philosophers, artists, writers & engineers all the way back to Ancient times - this is my favourite part.

The memorial was restored back in the 1990's after years of wear & tear. Albert had been painted black in the First World War so that he did not attract attention from enemy planes - so he has now been re-gilded with tons of Gold leaf so that he really shines now.

We also walked around the Albert Hall - it looks fantastic. I have never been to a concert here but this is next on my list of things to do before I die.

We walked from Kensington Gardens next door to Hyde Park where we met Eleanor who was also in London for a conference.

I had not heard positive things about the water memorial to Princess Diana - but after walking around it and getting splashed by the children playing in it - I actually like it.

After seeing Eleanor off on her train - we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Victoria & Albert museum. I think we could have have spent the whole day in here and still not seen everything.