A wave from The Bay

Shannon Kahn and Berni Freeman wishing all a happy 2013

And a Happy New Year from me too.

This delightful picture by Mike Holmes wishing readers a Happy New Year graces the front page of my daily read today, taken at Hobie Beach right in the heart of the Port Elizabeth promenade.

I thought it too good not to share.

Done Brown

My Redneck Christmas tree, an annual fixture on the Creek for a few years has been challenged by a monstrous interloper.  Under cover of darkness, my neighbor, all six feet two of her, has erected a twelve feet tall ILLUMINATED inflatable Santa on the end of her dock.  Here they are mocking  my delicate and tasteful annual Christmas exhibit.

What is Christmas coming to.

Icing on the cake

Before I marzipanned the first cake I trimmed it as the edges looked a little over done and gave them to Cyclo who pronounced them dry and over cooked. Since then I have been worried that the cake will be awful. Pretty on the outside, in a rough sort of way, but not so good on the inside….

I decided to have a back-up cake. Both Delia Smith and Mary Berry have a cake recipe made using mincemeat – I didn’t find my versions on-line, but in my old recipe books. I decided to go for Mary Berry and added luxury mixed dried fruit instead of the dried fruit she lists. I made it in my newly purchased round tin, on Friday.

The cake was easy and cooked well, and I had been storing it in a tin until yesterday, when I applied the marzipan. Now, you’re supposed to wait a few days for the marzipan to dry out, but when I considered this option I knew this was really my last chance, and less than an hour after adding the marzipan I had applied the icing. The risk of this is the leaching of oil from the marzipan, which may stain the pure white of the icing. I applied my icing thickly, however and that should stop that problem, at least in the time frame that the cake is likely to last! The icing is less crumbly this time, Christina….

Reindeer kiss

(Since I made the new cake, BTW, we have started the other one and it tastes pretty good…. though I say it myself, but is a touch drier than I’d like, in an ideal world, but still better than a bought one. I shall have to wait to see if this one was more successful)

The weather outside is frightful. Lets stay indoors?

Photo. Comp. #35 – The Winner

Eclectic, is that a real word?  Probably the first time I have used it.  That’s what they were, a small selection but the essence of the year was there.  Echos of the Olympics in Ara’s 1948 notice  and JM’s golden pillar,  a fine piece of  building by Pseu. , the artwork, well not my kind of thing, I’m more Gainsborough than van Gogh, but to each her own.  Then  couple of events by OZ, one tragic and one dramatic (see what I mean about eclectic).

Continue reading “Photo. Comp. #35 – The Winner”

Event of the year, for photo competition

My Birthday was marked by a visit to Waddesdon Manor – our astonishing local Renaissance-style château… which is about half an hour from us, just out of Oxfordshire and into Buckinghamshire, UK (not in deepest France as you may guess just looking at it)….

back of Waddesdon, gardens in low winter light

Continue reading “Event of the year, for photo competition”

Supper’s in the freezer, Mrs Spider

I’ve been at work today, between two surgeries and various patient’s homes, and all day I have been in wonder of the winter whiteness of the world. A foggy frosty night had left the trees, hedges, grass – everything covered in crystals of ice. Twice (only twice… so I had to leave a lot of photo opportunities un-snapped. What restraint!) I stopped at a destination and took my camera out.

The first time was because of the hedges, swathed in cob-webs webby hedge2Frosted gossamer
makes webs look like razor wire –
useless to spiders Continue reading “Supper’s in the freezer, Mrs Spider”

Photo Op. Anyone?

A quick gander at my trusty H. Samuel Everight Watch (copyright Radio Luxemburg, 1960) tells me that there are only (6) SIX days left to enter the 35th  Photo Competition, the theme and post to which you should reference your entry is here.

For what I trust will be a limited time only the VERY next entry (and only that one) will also have the added honour of being the FIRST.

Thank you for your attention.

Horace Batchelor. Keynsham, (that’s K- E -Y- N- S- H- A- M), Bristol.