Engineering in sugar and chocolate

How do you eat your chocolate tea cake?

First comes the delicate removal of the red and silver foil from your Tunnock delicacy. Don't press too hard in the wrong place or it's all lost in a squashed crumple.


Do you eat it up in one or three big bites, savouring the biscuit crunch, cloud-like marshmellow and sumptuous milk chocolate almost in one glorious instance? Then having eaten it so quickly you have the chance to grab the remaining tea cake before anyone realises. My husband (who usually eats so slowly)

Do you, feeling very naughty, deliberately cover your lips and environs in the white sticky weightless sugar, creating a white moustache and goatee beard and await a reaction from those around you? My eight year old son.

Do you make a little doorway through the fragile chocolate into the white cloud and then twist your tongue around the marshmellow and empty the dome, leaving the chocolate roof balancing, hanging there with no support. Then destroy it while attacking the biscuit floor?  All a good exercise in teeth and tongue control. My seven year old daughter and sometimes me.

Do you deconstruct the delight. Carefully and skilfully chip away the delicate layer of milk chocolate over the white fluffy dome and then lick away the marsh mellow before chomping into the biscuit base? It takes time to do it right. Me (who usually eats so quickly).

God I love 'em.

Sock it to you

We have a windsock in the garden. A multi-coloured one. It's great because not only is it pleasant to see it fluttering in the breeze but I can tell how windy it is and from which direction it blows. I then know how many layers or hats to put on when I venture out.

Today: breezy, bit dull, wind from south-east: jacket needed and umbrella.

Shop small and local

We inherited a rather wonderful looking bow saw from my dad and the farm. We tried to use it at the weekend to saw a huge log - me on one side and David on the other. Alas we could never be professional lumberjacks as we got nowhere. Actually the blade was blunt. That is our excuse and have stuck with it.

Funny thing but none of the rather splendid
illustrations actually depict women working away!

After having no luck finding a replacement blade in the bigger famous DIY stores, David remembered a thrifty hardware store in a local town. No problem - he came away with the appropriate blade. The fascinating thing about it is that we estimate from the packaging that it must have been in the store, tucked away, waiting for our visit for 30 plus years. The graphics on the packaging must date from the 1970s and are quite splendid.

Shop local, shop small, shop interesting.

Introducing........

I used to do it with my hairbrush when I was a wee lass. I did it last week with the shower head.........I talk of course of pretend microphones. My little girl got a guitar and microphone with amplifier from her grandparents for her birthday and we have all had to have a go.

I can't help talking in an Elvis Presley voice as I introduce my daughter in front of an audience of 10,000, all chanting her name and wanting more. My husband is lead guitarist and my son is chief mad fan, jumping about to the song which my star daughter has made up...well...made up but sounds very much like the Scooby Do theme tune.

We may be appearing at a stadium near you soon.x

Wood 3

We all went to The Wood again this hols. The sun shone brilliantly. It's lovely and a little alarming too to see how much new growth has appeared since last we visited. There are lots of wild primroses and there appeared to be a lot of activity around the badger setts.

 

Rainbow Friday

My daughter and one of my very best friends share a birthday. My daughter was 7 yesterday and my friend was blah blah blah years old. So big party yesterday for them both on what turned out to be a Very Good and Sunny Friday.

I asked everyone to bring a salad, I cooked a turkey and did the desserts. It all worked a treat. Easter egg hunts and egg and spoon race ensued and lots of chocolate consumed. Apologies to Mums and Dads who may well have been still trying to bring their children down from a chocolate high well into the evening.

I don't usually go in for fancy cakes but felt the need to make this one for my friend who was '21' of course:

Up a plane tree

There is a tree in the Midlands: a huge, old London Plane that is quite magnificent. We climbed it yesterday. My son, my daughter and my friend, we all climbed it and zip wired, zip-a-dee-doo-dah down.

It all started when my friend, D, decided that his partner should reclaim her childhood and climb a tree so he found a band of professional tree climbers who organise supervised climbing and booked for us all to have a go.

Off we went yesterday to Compton Verney, a beautiful old home which has been turned into an art gallery both inside and outside. It has grounds laid down by Capability Brown with lots of wonderful trees.

I am particularly proud of my soon-to-be 7 year old and my soon-to-be 9 year old for just getting on with it and climbing up there. My daughter had the most arduous route and had to negotiate a big big branch but she did it and has a tale to tell now. I did it too. It wasn't as scary as I thought it would be. I was concentrating too much!

Many thanks to Adam and Oliver of The Great Big Tree Climbing Company who made the whole experience possible. And thanks to David who when we decided to book it said "I've climbed enough trees in my time" and declined to book his place. He took all the photos but I think he did have a bit of a yen to do it himself. And thanks to D who gave us the idea and treated us to a lovely day out.

Have a go yourselves. Reclaim your childhood. You'll like it.