Sweetie Day. This was a wonderful treat. (and there were real sweets included.)

Hubby is at the plot, digging and Mandycharlie has been curled around a Golden Retriever suffering from a dreadful headache, all day! Unfortunately I have been remiss in his training as the Golden Retriever has not yet learnt how to use a kettle.

Hubby and I ventured out in the pouring rain to Warwick’s Victorian Evening. Fortunately it stopped raining and the evening dried out. So many of the shop keepers and stall holders really get into the spirit of the occasion and dress up in full Victorian regalia.

We bought cake and books and hot chocolate, what could be more perfect.

Morris Dancers.

A beautiful Carousel.

I just had to take a picture of this particular nag!

you make cake.

‘We’ were meant to be spending some quality time together, the office had other ideas. ‘nough said.

So bitterly disappointed and quite upset really I needed something filled with carbohydrate, sugar, fat and chocolate and I could not be bothered to stomp up to the town.

So I threw (have you noticed the expressive words I am currently using…) butter, sugar, self raising flour (without sifting!) eggs and coco powder into a bowl and mixed. Decided that the globules of butter that hadn’t incorporated wouldn’t be that important. Added 100g of chopped up chocolate, decided that wouldn’t be enough, threw in the rest of the bar. Then added 100 g of glace cherries, decided I might as well finish the tub.

By this time the oven had heated up nicely and I threw them in the oven. Well actually I tried to carefully place them in the oven but I have photographic evidence that even though my mind was saying, ‘carefully does it’, my sub conscious was obviously still in F… it mode.

What amuses me is that it didn’t leak!

Cake before cooking, there was a moments hesitation as to whether I should cook or just eat the mix raw.

The finished product. I’ve eaten three, (well four if you count the two stuck together!)

I feel sick.

This is why I have barely spoken to my family for the last three days.

This is why I am still in my jim jams and dressing gown at 4.30 p.m.

This is why my children are getting oven chips again! (for the 3rd Tuesday running)

and that is why your getting a quick snap and not some glamorous photograph as I put the oven on to warm up and run to the shower..

What was this thing I’m doing called, Oh I remember NaNoBloMo (or something like that).

Please direct me to the person responsible for the original thought. I’d like to thank them personally, no I don’t have any sharp implements about my person, honest gov’ner.

No piccies, not today. I’m in the middle of a cardigan that was put to one side for the Christmas knitting which I have finished. (if I stop at socks, but I’m sure Mum would like a hot water bottle cover) Photo’s will follow.

So I need to concentrate, and…. it takes me about twenty minutes or so to knit one row. Which I suppose is better than when the pattern changes it takes me 30 minutes to understand what the pattern wants me to do!

As the temperature has already dropped to just below zero degrees Celsius this evening. I am very glad I have just finished my snugly hot water bottle.

This is the best photo I can get in the dark, the colour is about right, but as the shutter speed was one second, without getting the tripod out this is the best I can do. This involved perching on the floor and using the arm of the sofa as a solid wall to balance the camera on, except its not really solid is it, its stuffed and just that little bit of movement threw things out a little.

The yarn is Lamb’s Pride worsted by Brown Sheep Company in Mulberry which is 85% wool and 15% mohair and I used 5 mm needles. The pattern is BAWK (Bottleneck Avenger Who’s Knit) which is also known as Rachael’s Hot Water Bottle Cozy which I found on Ravelry.

Oh, and I love it.

I live in a very quiet town in Warwickshire which I love, but there are times in the year that I love to try new things. Sometimes new things come to you in mysterious ways, one of which was reading Knitted Bears blog last year when she told us about the German Market in Birmingham, which from her photo’s looked wonderful and on further investigation I loved. The atmosphere, the lights, the stalls selling pretty things, and the smell of buttercake, lets not forget the mugs of hot cherry brandy. I have been without gluten for a year so at that time could not partake of the butter cake but the memory never left me. (The smell of different foods can instantly transport me to time and place).

Hubby has been a rather busy bee at work, I’ve hardly seen him for months apart from to direct him to where his wrinkled up supper is before he drifts off to bed, (a fifteen minute conversation between the two of us, per day is not unusual) so when he came home early yesterday just to take me out, I was quite surprised.

We parked at the Bullring and walked along New Street until we came to this. We knew we had arrived at the right place.

We quickly found a stall selling buttercake and had a very large slice each… Oh it was devine..

Then I found a stall selling slipppers, hubby carried on walking whilst I gawped at the sheepskin slippers. Anything to do with the comfort of feet grabs my attention, hubby came wandering back and must have been feeling in a rather generous mood, (I put that down to the buttercake!)

and bought me a pair.

I like meat, when I was a vegetarian for three years I really missed beef stews and steak and kidney pies. So, understanding the problems of raising animals (and eggs) intensively I try whenever possible to have gently raised meat on my plate.

These lambs (there are two residing in my freezer this is just one) have been raised as gently as is possible. They are a Southdown, Texel cross, Southdowns have the flavour but are a small sheep, carcass weight 12-18kg where as Texels are much bigger I think their carcass weight can go up to 30 kg, generally I think they are slaughtered at about 23 kg. They also both have wonderful conformation, if you notice there is not much fat on these lambs. Both my lambs came in at 18.5 kg.

They have been born and raised on a small holding in sunny and rather wet Warwickshire, with plenty of space per lamb to eat as much of the lovely lush grass as they want. And they have travelled less than three miles to slaughter. I may have forgotten to mention they taste absolutely wonderful, like lamb used to taste when I was a small child, they are incomparable to what one buys from the local supermarket these days. (however much you pay)

And I was given more apples yesterday.

I’m starting to realise something very important, I think I may have a touch of type A personality. I never thought this possible, I certainly don’t have it with my housekeeping skills, my family can testify to this. My parenting skills are firm but fair, the boys know where the line is, but I also have conversations about ‘anything’ with them and in that regard I have hippy tendencies. Mostly I live and let live and have a “Manyana” attitude to important household tasks such as ironing, window cleaning and other essentials that I simply do not find that important.

So having type A within me has come as a little bit of a shock. (although there was a slight indication of this when as a mature student I was invariably top of the class, but I just put that down to my being a genius, not the hours and hours of study that I was putting into it!)

Note, the nearly finished hot water bottle cover. Another hour and it would be done. All sewn up and ready to cozy up to tonight. Its not ‘right’, it does need to be looser to get that really cuddly factor that I so want.

So, son no.2 ‘was’ right, when he poked fun yesterday. He has the mathematical ability to be a brilliant knitter, he obviously has the eye, he can choose colours that compliment very nicely when choosing clothes, and he ‘always’ (out of the three men in my life, the other two don’t even notice!) tells me that I look nice when dressed up to go out for an evening. Unfortunately he shows no interest in the area of wanting to learn and has hands the size of dustbin lids. Maybe one day, I haven’t lost hope yet.