We had a weekend away

Hi its me again, i don't post for a while and then I seem to have lot to say and share. Last bank holiday was the first weekend without Kaara so as you can imagine it was very quiet in our home. I made an off hand suggestion that maybe we should get away not really expecting Kevin to go along with this, but he said yes what a good idea. As it was lateish on the Friday when I mentioned it we frantically started looking for somewhere to go, as you can imagine most places were booked, but I managed to find a place in Abersoch called the Riverside that had one room let. We booked it not really knowing what it would be like, but the place is really pretty. Kevin thinks it is a mini Newquay, I must say I have to agree. We have never been to that area before but I think we will be going back. The two nights away did us good even though my bed got wet from the room upstairs when they used the shower. It is a hotel that needs a bit of TLC but it is very clean and the owners are very welcoming. I think they tend to look after the younger market as they have a disco in their pub every night and only do bed and breakfast, but I think they could do more as they have a really nice restaurant that is not being fully utilised. The village however has a number of pubs and restaurants and we had an Indian Meal on the Saturday night and a pub meal on the Sunday night. I think we will give the pub a try when we go back next time as they also do bed and breakfast. Abersoch as a lovely harbour and the hotel sits alongside a small river, hence its name. We had wonderful weather and I think the time away helped. We are going to try and do this more often when savings allow. I think this is all my news for now so will leave you with a few photos of our weekend away.

A Birthday Cake for a 2 Year Old

A work colleague asked me would I make a cake for his 2 year old daughters birthday, the brief was she likes Peppa Pig and it had to be girly. I think I achieved that, and after having a quick lesson at my local cake shop on how to produce fancy lettering with the cutters that I was having trouble with I think I managed to make what he wanted. I won't know until tomorrow how the party went, but hopefully all went well, I also included some little pink candles so I hope they found these in the box as I forgot to tell him they were there.

A surprise 50th Birthday Cake

We have a van that comes round every day at work as where we are situated unless you have a car it is difficult to get out to get anything to eat. Although just recently a Spa Shop has opened at the top of the road, the sandwich van still visits however and the driver John recently commented that it was his 50th birthday but did not seem too pleased at the age he was reaching. We decided that we would surprise him and when we found out that he was a fan of Bruce Forsyth then the theme was set. Jenny our resident card maker made a fantastic card for us and I pinched the photo she had chosen and transferred it on to an icing sheet and I made him a small cake as a surprise. Instead of the slogan reading "Good Game, Good Game", we changed the wording to "Good Age, Good Age". I was a little late getting into work that day so the girls presented him with the card and cake and took a couple of photo's for me. John has said since that he has some more photo's and will let me have them, hopefully they show a bit more detail than here.

Goodbye to Kaara

This is probably not the place to pour out our feelings, I may have mentioned in earlier blogs that our lovely dog Kaara was diagnosed last year with TCell Lymphoma, apparently there are two types and unfortunately the type Kaara had was incurable. However, we were referred to the University of Liverpool Vetinary Hospital for Small Animals. It is an absolutely amazing place and your pets large of small are treated like proper patients. Kaara started her chemo treatment last June (2012. She was put on a 25 week course which involved weekly visits to the hospital and medication given at home. She went into remission after the first week and we were absolutely amazed at her response even the vets were to. Kaara finished her course in January 2013 and we were then to go for monthly check ups to monitor her progress. We returned to Liverpool Vetinary on the 14th Feb 2013, really positive as Kaara was in the perfect health despite her illness, in fact they told us she was a model patient and everything they did to her she just accepted. On this day we left her for half an hour while they checked her over and when they called us back in it was to tells that it was back but in another place. The lump they found was very small so they were hopeful to give her another shot at the treatment she had had before. (I must point out that at this point our Pet Plan funds had run out and we were now facing bills for her treatment. We were back to weekly visits which involved mainly me taking her each week, I took a day off from work each week to do this in some cases she had to stay for the day so while hubby worked close by he picked her up at the end of the day and I went in to work. Despite different treatment the lump seemed not to be responding although it wasn't getting any bigger. Then she started to have collapsing episodes, they though it may be her heart but the monitor did not show up anything although they could hear an irregular beat. We started a two week course of treatment but she seemed to really be struggling with this one and the collapsing episodes were getting worse especially when she had the chemo tablets which we were now giving her at home. A week ago this Friday gone, Kaara collapsed and could not get up, we called our local vet as that was the nearest and they told us to bring her in as soon as the opened. Suffice to say she walked in quite happily wagging her tail and greeting everyone. The nurses call her "The Famous Kaara" as her file is so thick and all the reports are copied back to them from Liverpool Uni so they know whats going on. Her file is also like a book there to. The vet we saw was the one that had diagnosed her last year and whilst everyone was amazed at how well she had done, they felt the time had come. Sadly we had to let Kaara go and this was the worst thing we have had to do, we had come a long way but deep down in our hearts we new it could not go on forever. Now Kaara is remembered with love although it is hard at the moment to come home and she is not there to great us, but we are getting there. Apologies for the sad tail, but I felt I needed to talk about it to strangers as it is difficult to talk to each other just now as it is still upsetting. Here are some photo's of Kaara taken at various times in our life with her.

16th Birthday

Good morning all, well noise of the birds this morning I lay in bed until 5.00 am and thought, I am wide awake now so why not get up and have a cuppa and post my latest news. I was asked by a colleague at work could I make a cake for his daughters birthday on asking for a few details I found out that she would be sixteen and had just got a placement as an apprentice hairdresser, so there in lies the idea. I searched for a few ideas and came up with one I thought would work, he had also gone away and came back with some of his own. Well I like a challenge and and I am self taught somethings can seem a bit daunting. However, I rose to his challenge am made this cake, it had a pair of straighteners and a hair dryer. Whilst not perfect n my eyes and I think I had used too much icing powder hen working the fondant I don't think I did too bad. I will say though that I do NOT like working with black fondant. He collected the cake on Tuesday and says his daughter was more than happy with my effort an had posted pictures on her Facebook page. Another happy customer I hope !!!. Now on to my next one which is a surprise for someone who is 50 on Friday and he is so not expecting what us girlies at work have planned for him. Here area couple of picture of my hairdresser cake. By for now and see you all soon. x

Last few

Some more photo's from the Cake Show

Just a few more, I would just like to say again we had a wonderful day out, even hubby enjoyed himself, I thinks he understands a little more about my love of cooking and baking, he was impressed with the time and work that had gone into some of these creations.

Cake and Bake Show, Manchester

Hi everyone, I hope you are all well, and making the most of the sunshine if you are lucky to have some in your are. I am just waiting for the washing machine to finish so I can get some washing pegged out. It is so much nicer being able to dry things outside now instead of indoors it smells so much fresher. I was luck enough to have been given tickets to the Cake and Bake Show that was held at the Gmex Center last weekend. One of my Site Managers knows I am mad on cooking and baking and as a surprise organised for me to have tickets. I encouraged hubby to go with me mainly because, I didn't want to drive to Manchester but we decided to go on the train. I don't do trains so wasn't looking forward to this but as there is a train station very close to where I live and the stop we need to get off at was Deansgate, it made sense and saved a lot of money and stress of battling the city traffic. We strolled down to the train station and boarded the train, considering I haven't been on a train since I was little it was quite enjoyable. We chatted and watched the scenery as we passed through each station. We arrived at Deensgate and walked through the station over the tram lines and we were there, it was so easy. We waited in line for a few minuted then we went in and I collected our tickets from the booking office. We had a stroll round looking at the various stalls, there was quite a bit to see, but I wanted t catch some of the demonstrations. Lost hubby along the way but didn't worry too much as i knew I would find him later. I took in a demo by Mitch Turner, they handed out a recipe card of one of her cakes, she showed us how to do the frosting on it. It was a raspberry frosting but she had colored four portions of it with raspberry coolie and it gradually got lighter and lighter as the piping got to the top of the cake. I thinks it is one I will have a try at, the effect was really good. Eric Lanlard was also there giving demos, I couldn't get close enough to see his but enjoyed listening to him he has such a lovely french accent and I have enjoyed his series which has bee on television "Baking Mad". Paul Hollywood had also been there but as I went on the Saturday I missed him as he had done his demonstrations on the Friday, never mind I will just have to watch him on the telly. It was good to see families with young children arriving as well, and they children looked really interested in what what going on. I took some photos of some of the exhibits they were fab especially the one designed as a dress it was so intricate, unfortunately I didn't get a photo of the back as there were too many people around, but it certainly gives you the encouragement to have a go.

Lost my way a little!

Hello all in blog land, I seem to have lost my way a little and have not kept my blog up to date very well nor ave I visited many of you. I think I just needed a little time away and not do anything in particular. Things with family and pets have not been brilliant, certainly not in 2012 and we thought 2013 would be better but it has not improved so far, but, you just have to pick yourself up and get back on track and keep smiling. I have lots planned craft wise, perhaps that's the problem, I am planning too much, although the main thing I am still going to concentrate on is my cake decorating. I had a blast at Christmas and had 22 orders which I completed and delivered and I have repeat orders for Christmas 2013, I am going to start preparing for these in August. At lease I can get the fruit cakes done and stored away and I am going to sort out my pricing (honest!). My range oven is now completely fixed thanks to a very good engineer that came recently. It would appear there was a design fault with the timer which meant contacts were not being made with the controls and this sent one of my ovens into continual auto which meant you could not use it no matter what you did. It took 4 timer's to be replaced before this was sorted. Then the grill stopped working and the second oven also stopped working, right in the middle of Sunday dinner I might add, thankfully I still have my combination microwave oven and a Tefal dry fryer which meant I could still do roasties and roast the joint. I have a steamer so the veggies were sorted to. I didn't do so well with Valentines Cake orders this time, but then I did not really make it know I was doing them, I really need to get some sort of poster together and get that put up on then notice boards at work, this is where the majority of my orders come from and I have even received orders from friends and relatives of my work colleagues so that is good. I also did a birthday cake for a five year old with a request for a picture of one of his favorite characters,i used my printer which has been set up for transferring pictures on to edible icing sheets and then place on top of the dampened surface of the decorated cake. I managed to get this on this time without any rinkles or bubbles, there is certainly a knack to this. No I am off to put some washing out it is a wonderfully sunny morning even though a little cold but there is still a chance to get the washing out, I am so pleased I am getting fed up with washing drying in the house and having piles of it to wash because you can't do it all at once as there isn't the room. Here are some pictures of the cakes I mentioned earlier.