Weekend joys

This weekend I tucked into a blue frog chocolate all the way from New Orleans, tasty, though I did look like I had become a Chelsea supported by the end with my blue teeth!

I also whipped up a little apricot, fig and ginger cake from the Sainsbury's magazine - no butter but lots of nuts so not sure it will actually do anything for the waistline! Tasty though!

Blue tits in the garden

I have to admit straight up that the photo was taken by Nick, he's had much better luck at seeing our little residents in the garden house! This morning I popped out to get some rain water for the pitcher plants and I could hear plenty of cheeping going on, meant a swift return back inside so as not to disturb them.

Piccolinos

Last night Iain took out the team to celebrate the start of our latest clinical trial - its going to be a tricky one, so we went before rather than after when we'll all be pretty tired and in need of a summer holiday. We went to Piccolinos for a very tasty meal and we also celebrated Mike's new Consultancy position! Though it did involve the smashing (accidentally) of 10 champagne flutes at my feet - all well though and no damage done. Above are swordfish and scallop skewers and rhubarb compote with panna cotta - mmmmm!

Relish

On Saturday night M&D took Nand I down to Relish in the new complex in Guildford for a very yummy tea! Wobbly stilton cream, crab salad, roasted cod and desserts galore - excellent stuff!

Quilt update

I found a fabulous little shop in Dorking to finish off my quilt using a long arm sewing machine! We popped in on Saturday and choose this lovely Kaffe Fassett material for the backing and the pattern below for the stitching. It'll be back in 5 weeks or so - can't wait!

While we were wandering around Dorking enjoying browsing in the antique shops we found the Fluff-a-torium - a shop dedicated to all things felty! It was fab andrun by Gillian Harris with whom Mum & I went on a course yonks ago.

Diamond

On Bank Holiday Monday I went down to the Diamond Light Source on the Harwell campus near Oxford to run (or at least help run) some experiments to look for metal ions in tissue taken from around a failing hip implant. It was really very exciting to see the workings of the synchrotron, and though it rained almost the entire time we were there, it didn't matter as we were deep inside. This picture was from a brief trip to the canteen for a spot of dinner.

Paul's Bottesford

We popped up to LB at the weekend for Jean's birthday and went to Paul's for a very tasty lunch - this was roasted cod on smoked salmon risotto!

onion cane toppers

I used the chocolate clay to make some onion shaped cane toppers - the glaze is an 'ox blood' glaze, which unfortunately doesn't show up very well on the dark clay, but nevertheless I think they're pretty good.

Birdhouse cane toppers

Some little cane toppers I have been making over the last few days - with the chocolate clay I picked up in February. It has meant I have had to invest in some earthenware glazes, which should arrive today I hope!

Quilting!

Last year at the quilt show I bought lots of fat quarters to make a quilt and at long last today we cut all the squares and then laid them out. I just had enough cotton to sew the rows but will have to wait til next weekend to finish putting it all together!

Over Easter we went to visit Wampe in her new place in Baarn, we squeezed in trips to Utrecht (where we had a fabulous dinner at Straks), Den Haag (popping into the centre to see many of the old spots and helping Saskia to celebrate her birthday, with spekkoek) and Amsterdam (for a spot of cuture in the Rijksmuseum)!! N even managed to win an easter egg for saying paashaas (Easter rabbit/hare), which was the Dutch I taught him for the season!

Gingersnaps

After a super weekend in Holland with Wampe I have another couple of days off, so I have started by making some yummy gingersnaps - lots of treacle and spices!

110g unsalted butter
60g caster sugar
60g dark brown sugar
1 egg
75g treacle (about 1 1/2 tablespoons)
160g plain flour
1/2 tsp bicarb of soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp mixed spice
1/2 tsp cinnamon

cream together the butter and sugars, add the egg and then the treacle. To this soft mixture add the remaining dry ingredients. Pop the dough into some cling film and firm up in the freezer for 20min. Then spoon out walnut sized balls onto lined baking sheets and bake for approximately 15min at 180C, cool on a rack and then enjoy with a cup of tea!

Happy Easter!

Pitcher plant pot

A little tealight holder inspired by my favourtie plants (like the Celphalotus behind) - flameburst nanoglaze plus 4% copper carbonate glazes on flaxclay.

Periodic table installation

Our task today was to pop into the lab to make an installation on the whiteboard with the atomic pebbles. Little did I know that not all whiteboards are magnetic! So our mission was not successful but thinking on our feet we decided to potter off to Ikea to see if they might have a magnetic board ( and a bread board as ours has warped), however they had neither and we further poottled down to Office World where we got an enormous magnetic white board in the sale! So hot footing it back to the garden we started out with Mendeleev's periodic table - N even got out the spirit level! Then I had a go at the Periodic Arch of the Elements just managing to get some photos before the sun left the garden. Then of course we barbecued!

Dr Hitchman & the saracenias

Tonight we had a delightful dinner at Zizzi's in Leamington SPa where we had gone a-hunting trousers (which were eventually successfully purchased!) - we had pollo prosciutto and pork belly - delicious. But what was exciting was that on the walls was a frieze depicting the great and the good of yesteryear, who had been involved in the Spa centres of Leamington. The saracenias caught my eye, though the slightly ghoulish paintings were also interesting. Dr Hitchman, along with Dr Jephson who has a park named after him just down the road from the restaurant, was a philanthropist helping the poor of the town. The park now houses a rather nice subtropical greenhouse, so perhaps that is the link to the beautiful plants depicted. Have a look at The Bench Project for a brilliant bench just outside the greenhouse!

Dachshund UN

We had a super half an hour this morning visiting the Dachshund UN which was set up outside the IKON gallery in Birmingham. The dachshunds had come from all over the country and we chatted with some very proud owners - there were even parties interested in buying dachshunds getting email addresses off owners! But the stars were definitely the charismatic dogs - Jordon was having a jolly good discussion, while Pakistan looked like he could nod off at any moment! We got a sneaky peak behind the scenes too!

They're all truffles Snowy....

A couple of weekends ago Mum took me down to Stratford to make truffles, as her second in command for a very lovely b'day pressie from D. We had a brilliant time shaping truffles, learning about chocolate, rolling the truffles in all kinds of good stuff and eating far too much delicious chocolate! It was a great outing - these little guys, a pressie for my b'day from N, came too and soon were lost in a truffle forest!

Afterwards we drove over to Hay on Wye where we found our husbands ensconced in a bar watching a thrilling rugby match, Wales won, which made the bar a very happy place! We had a super dinner at the Swan Bistro at the Hay Hotel and the following day a thorough browsing through the many book shops - I managed to restrict myself to just one on algae this time round! Lunch at the cafe in Richard Booth's bookshop rounded off a superb weekend.

Hazelnut meringue cake

For today I have made a firm favourite - a hazelnut meringue cake! Exceedingly yummy and I think most of it has been scoffed by my co-workers whilst I have been setting up for the Big Bang at the NEC tomorrow! (We'll be at stand 91 if you happen to be popping by!)

A quiet weekend in Bath

Six months ago we got married - the time has flown by! We decided to make a little celebration and went to Bath for the weekend - lots of lovely food (perhaps a little too much) and plenty of meanderings around the town. The sun shone, which was an added bonus! On Saturday we did all the tourist hot spots - the Pulteney Bridge, the Circus and the Royal Crescent, while on Sunday, with the Bath half marathon in full swing (meaning we couldn't escape even if we wanted to), we went to the new Thermae baths which was magnificent and then had to call in on the original ones later on.