Jubilations...

   

Now the holiday is nearly over Im catching my breath after the nonstop fun I want to ask the big question...

What did you do to celebrate?

We had a bunting festooned dinner..

I made a lot, and I mean a lot of cupcakes for street parties...The red and white ones were already in the car when I took this!

Oh and I got a bit tipsy at our village talent show and sang 'how much is that doggy in the window' backwards - no photos of that one thank goodness...there are some talents that are clearly best kept hidden!

Midnight cupcakes...

What were you doing at midnight? On second thoughts maybe don't answer that! I was icing cupcakes for a school fundraiser - the joys of being a working mother! I'm quite pleased with them though, they started out quite cute but transformed into more gothy blood red vampire butterflies - much cooler! These ones are red velvet with a White chocolate buttercream and finished with a Hershey's cookies and cream sweetie ( now I know I've been watching cupcake wars too much!)

Here's a sample of the others...




Some are vanilla, some are lemon - I've just got to get them to school in one piece... And explain away our blue tongues...

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A period of adjustment...

My blogging days have been severely curtailed of late mostly due to the reorganisation of labour in our household. The upside is BH has a job - Hurrah! downside - all of of our household stuff now needs to be squeezed into the time between children going to bed and the hour at which we collapse into an emotional heap - one often follows the other quite rapidly!

I always knew I was very fortunate to have BH keeping the ship running smoothly whilst I was at work but now thats changed, boy do I know how lucky! For one thing, where did all this laundry come from? I have laundry baskets which reload on emptying - is that normal? and as for cleaning... whoever thought of the phrase 'painting the forth bridge' should have tried dustbusting this homestead first if they really wanted to experience an eternally circular task!

In the midst of this I have taken on another plot of land - what was I thinking! I figure digging is cheaper than stress therapy or a spa break and at least i'll have some sweetcorn and potatoes at the end of it. That's the idea anyway...

But for now any spare time has been used to try and tame the borders in our own garden and get the plot ready for the getgo - and making royal wedding cupcakes of course (well...it had to be done didnt it!)

Its Showtime...

I do love a Country Show, I love everything about them , the live stock, the Fur and Feather, the craft stalls, the things you buy that you never knew you needed and above all the chance to imagine i'm a farmer for the day! After our busy schedule over the past few weeks my Better Half said 'enough was enough' and packed us all off to the Thornton le Dale Show in North Yorkshire. We have a great show just up the road from us, the Driffield show, but its often in term time so I can never go. We also have the Great Yorkshire Show which I hear is fantastic, but again its in term time so I only get to read the reviews. But God Bless the organisers of the Thornton Le Dale spectacular - they know that teachers love a good show too!


My mum - FreeRangeNan! and me spent ages eyeing up these Rams as likely winners in their beauty contest




Who could resist this cheeky fella!



They all had star appeal (I think those sideburns should have got a rosette myself!)


But eventually the winner was one from a completely different pen so we never got to see him!

I think we weren't the only ones disappointed...




We soon found consolation however in the form of the tastiest cupcakes I've ever tried ( and i've tried a few as my losing battle to get into my skinny jeans has shown!) I thought I was totally over cupcakes. You know once there in Greggs then maybe the best has already been and gone and I was fed up by being disappointed by sickly sweet creations that were all style over substance; see I said I'd tried a few in my time. But when I found the mama doreens stand I decided to have one last fling with the buttercream!



This cupcake business ( www.mamadoreenscupcakes.co.uk ) is based in Harrogate in Yorkshire and all their cakes are made using locally sourced ingredients wherever possible. I found from their website that they deliver so guess what my relatives are getting for their birthdays! This is Jessica who selected four gorgeous concoctions for me and was doing a great job dealing with the crowds they were attracting.



We had a 'grand day out', the horses, the sheep, the fancy bantams, the tractors, the cupcakes - whats not to love! Ive only ever helped with oragnising school fetes and knowing what a minefield they can be, I certainly appreciate the work that must go on putting on an event like this - its certainly worth it! I felt proud to be a countrygal, proud of my Yorkshire roots and even at times a little bit like a farmer ( im working on my sideburns as we speak!)

We got home shattered, but not too tired for these...



I think I may have found my perfect cupcake - who needs skinny jeans anyway...