Feeling sheepish...a rather sweet Ta Da!

The challenge - make a sheep inspired cake

The inspiration - the Swaledale

A good firm Madeira cake, laced with lemon zest and juice

carved then frozen overnight. 

Then a piquant lemon butter icing used to hold the pieces of cake in place 

with a layer of royal icing laid down as a starting point

A borrowed potato ricer and strong wrists to make the fleece

Coloured royal icing rolled and twisted to make horns 

and edible coloured sugars to make the shading and details.

Done!

Time for a cup of tea and a sigh of relief.

(With tremendous thanks to Youngest who helped wonderfully - taking pictures, making 'fleece', eating up bits of icing...... giving advice {lots  of advice} and to Himself and Eldest who just kept sneaking into the kitchen and helping themselves to anything they thought edible....

only JUST had enough white royal icing in the end

.....hmmmm)

End of season

I am sweating here.
I am under extreme pressure.
Why?

Coz I have accepted a challenge that I just might not be able to complete.

At work it is the end of lambing season 'cake-off'.....no I'd not heard of this before either.... until a couple of days ago but let me explain.

Three staff members are chosen or 'volunteered' to make a cake each to celebrate the end of the extremely stressful and very busy lambing season. Easy I thought, I'll do that, until it was explained to me that the cake is not just to signalise said end of lambing but the theme IS lambing....and the cake not only symbolise lambing but embraces all things lambing.....I mean - sheep shaped or sheep inspired cakes, Oh.

Any hoo - my fellow challengees are a farm vet and a small animal receptionist and they are taking it seriously......wish me luck!

Photos to follow x

The hills have eyes

A few days ago I mentioned that work had been all jangled with even the hills seeming cantankerous and Jacqueline asked for photos of said hills.

That has had me stumped coz despite me normally having a camera surgically attached to my hand, on that particular day (typical) I had left my camera at home.  Since then the hills have been more springlike and less gruff until this last weekend.

We'd been out walking and had stopped alongside the River Wharfe for a break and a brew when whilst the boys were skimming stones and I was knitting I noticed that a nearby hillside had taken on a definite cantankerous air.....

See?
Rather brooding and menacing or am I bordering on odd?
Huh?
I am sure it is looking quite grumpy.
Have you seen something and imagined it to be something else?

No? Ok - so I am the odd one then - ok, I can live with that :)

My left foot....and my right.

Saturday - With one thing and another - not sure what really happened - but when we arrived for our walk and I reached into the back of the land-rover to put on my.... and, well - just look and tell me what you see.

Notice anything?

Well my feet did.....On my left foot is my own boot - a size 38 and on my right a whole size SMALLER or should I say smaller.... I had, in my haste, grabbed my left boot and Youngest's right one. Not only is one leather and the other suede but one is brown and the other (when clean) is BLUE....

Himself was very helpful and chortled loudly as I cussed and muttered dark things at myself. Hey ho - not to let a slight footwear mishap to hinder our walk, I curled my toes slightly and off we went.

Ouch.

We walked through some beautiful countryside. Following the River Wharfe (which is Celtic for winding or twisting) we followed paths alongside rolling green farmland filled with sheep and lambs.....

...and walked up the steep narrow sided Trollers Gill, dark and pock-marked with signs of mining and tunnelling. The boys dipped in and out of caves and shafts, hopped over streams and fallen trees as we climbed over the centuries old collapsed cave rubble.

Of course, my knitting came too - and when the opportunity arose and the flask was opened, so my knitting was brought out and a row or two was added.

We must have walked .... near on 15 km (9 miles) - no wonder my right foot (and my left knee and my right knee) knew all about it! But it was worth it - it is a beautiful area and as long as you get away from the more public footpaths, there are some gloriously wild and abandoned places. (Yes that is my knitting in my back-pack)


Go on - have you ever picked up something in error?
Have you ever worn odd shoes?
Have you ever taken your knitting for a walk?
How has your weekend been?

Tell me - make me feel a little less odd!

News at Knit-o-clock

Last year as the weather cooled down I decided to knit a 'man' cowl for Youngest. He is hopeless with scarves as they unwrap no matter how they are tied or draped so I thought that a cowl would solve that problem. Also, with chrimbly time looming I decided that knitting this 'man' cowl would not only use us stash but would also serve as a pressie as well as solve the slipping scarf issue - I was on to a win win situation.

I started surreptitiously but Youngest saw it and tried it around his neck and made suitably impressed noises even suggesting additional colours - I was delighted - my chrimbly-stash-busting-stress-sorting knitting was definitely on!

That was, until, it was finished. Talk about being completely unimpressed. Youngest was so not interested that I was quite taken aback. So the finished article sat unloved in the scarf basket (yes we have a basket filled to the brim with scarves, shawls, stoles and cowls near the coat rack) until that is, one day I needed something warmish to wrap around my neck.

I was late for work and I needed a quick fix, something not too warm, not too fussy, not too posh - just a no nonsense warm thing to wrap around my neck and I pulled out the unloved cowl.

Unloved no longer.

Happy?

Yup.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

I have re-opened my original blog. I think it is time to do so, I often want to refer back to something that I had already spoken of but am unable to link to 11am as I had closed it.  So, seeing it is the first day of the new month, I thought 'why not??'  

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

6 months

On Friday we walked.  She had been given the news she had been dreading. Her temporary contract was not to be renewed and in five weeks time she would be leaving. The best medicine for anger, for disappointment, for sorrow and for about anything -  is walking. So we walked.

As we walked - a quick cathartic stride - she alternated between outrage and resentment. Speaking quickly and repeating past conversations in which she had mistaken hints as promises and praise as confirmation of full time employment. She felt bitter and let down.

I gently reminded her that she had only been on an interim contract and her employers were fulfilling their side of the bargain but all she had heard was the heated argument going on in her head.

Gently steering her towards a steep slope I managed to force my knee to walk quickly which had the desired effect....to make her have to breathe rather than rant as we marched up the pathway. It worked. We stopped almost at the top and sat on the stone wall. Silence. Apart from our ragged breath and sky larks. 

We sat quietly until she said......We better set back - we've got to get back to work.... 

The conversation down the slope was on horses and dogs, on camping and holidays, on new starts and new jobs.

Lunch with a view

The sun was shining, we had an hour, a puppy, our lunches and a hill - Castleberg  Crag calling to us. A dramatic crag faced backdrop to the market town where we work. A mecca for the local climbing fraternity, criss-crossed with steep woodland paths for those less daring (us!) and benches tucked into small plateaus with views over the rooftops. Gorgeous on a warm and sunny day.

We puffed up the hill in our fleeces (we had been cold earlier on) as the pup ran around, wide smiled and tongue out. At the top we shed our excess gear, sank back onto a favourite bench and just drank in the horizon. The labrador pup collected sticks and brought them to us to throw as we munched our sandwiches and talked about horses and jobs, false nails and dogs, camping and potatoes - yes, it was a very random conversation.

Our hour had almost evaporated leaving us just enough time to skidadle down the crag, hot-foot through the busy market and get back to work with just moments to spare. Excellent!

Trundling tractors

On Sunday (what a wet and dismal day) we were in the lounge when Himself noticed a vintage tractor trundle by. Then another and another and several more. We stood watching and grinning affectionately at the absurdity of ancient workhorses out for a damp Sunday run.

Suddenly Youngest asked for my camera and stood at the window and snapped as many as he could - I could have kicked myself as the first few tractors were positively archaic and would have been wonderful to photograph.

Never mind.

Here is a selection of the ones that Youngest managed to capture.

A few of the drivers were grinning but most were wrapped up and hunched over their vehicles, not surprising really seeing the weather was being up to its usual standard.

The weekend before we had a vintage car rally through the village however, we were out on the hills having a wonderful walk so missed it!

Let there be light

Our loft conversion for Youngest kinda slowed down - circumstance, work, enthusiasm, the weather, life, whatever all got in the way and the progress shuddered to a halt.

But now with the first tentative hints of spring we have both felt a little more enthused to start again and what better way than to have a window put in!

We have been bowled over by the wonderful effect it has had on the house.

And on us!

Look at all that sky out there!!

Finally the 'building' is nearing an end and the 'decorating' can begin - that can't be bad :)

Prickly as a Pan-cat

Our dear little Pan is somewhat of a prickly character and we affectionately call her our 'catcus'.

Recently something has set off an allergic reaction and she has scratched and scratched and shredded her face with her back claws.

Much to her horror she was carted off to the vets and was prodded and poked and pronounced to have sensitive skin, given an anti-itch injection and a cone of shame.......

Not surprisingly she ABsoLUTEly  hates wearing it and turned her back on us. However, after the first 24 hours she realised that we have hands that can scratch and tickle and brush all the bits she can't reach. She has for the first in her short little life has allowed us to brush her and stroke her with out  the usual grumble and quick get-away.

After a few days, her sore head was looking a lot better so we thought that we'd tentatively remove the cone of shame and see how she would cope. She frantically washed and washed herself and then ran around and skipped about like a spring lamb......then.....started to scratch again.

Back went on the cone of shame...............she was mortified and sat in the corner.

We tried not to laugh (too much or too loudly)

It wasn't easy - don't think she noticed (much)

*Sigh*

Wild life and witch craft

We don't live that far from Pendle Hill - famous for all sorts of witchy happenings and spooky things.

A couple of weekends ago we walked up a sister hill to Pendle which has been peppered with sculptures. Aitkin Wood clings to the side of the hill with a winding pathway meandering through the trees, here huge spiders and flying bats lurk above head height.

A witch hunter, carved from a single piece of wood, stares solemnly out from the undergrowth. In his wooden grasp he holds the deeds to hunt down Alice Nutter. Down the valley a chained sculpture of an incarcerated Alice walks to her doom.

Further down the hill swarms of bats and a huge spider web catches the sunlight.

 

I loved this gateway -  the roots  jammed in the circular frame seemed tortured as they tried to stretch free.

 A tall totem of pot 'stones' with it's spirals and glazed circles stood quietly in a glade -

 inviting touch and investigation 

 Trees - already felled had taken on a new life - with sinuous snake like forms.  

Magic still lingers in this area.....................