Baking bonanza

Tomorrow morning, I am hosting the Macmillan coffee morning at chapel, so today I have been baking, baking, baking.....

Tonight, I have been over the border into Norfolk for a Local preachers' and worship leaders' meeting, which was my first experience of such things, and very eye-opening!

Given that I have to get up again quite early to get the coffee pot on in the morning, I am off to bed now! Apologies for the brevity of the post - love to all who are reading, and just keep your fingers crossed that lots of people come and donate for Macmillan!

Hafdy Birfday!

That is a weird title, but the EFG couldn't say "Happy Birthday" properly when she was little, so along with "epitephs" (elephants) that phrase has become one of our particular family words!

It's my birthday today - 39 at last! Must get that list of things to do before I am 40 sorted out as now I have just a year to do them...

I have had a cup of tea brought to me in bed, along with gifts (new oven glove, new hairbrush, bath items and a fancy telephone number flip up thingamy) and cards. Birthday wishes have also appeared on Facebook this morning from friends who get up earlier than I do!

I don't intend to do an awful lot this morning - I am going to go and let the chooks out, and then I may retire back to bed for an hour or two, read a new book I bought myself (well, you have to make sure you get the right one! The Lady of the Rivers by Phillipa Gregory) and then a bath..... School meetings this afternoon, so I am having the morning "off".

Have a good day, everyone - I intend to!

Do I have rights too?

I have heard about the BBC changing BC and AD in their programmes, and then I was reading in the Mail on Sunday about all the other things happening to Christians and it just gets worse. The UK is becoming so pc that it is unbelievable, and the powers that be are bending over backwards to accommodate all the other faiths and cultures that are making their homes here now that they risk alienating the Christians, but we don't seem to matter.

A Sikh bus driver often comes through the village at the wheel of a Norfolk Green bus - I know he is Sikh as he's wearing his turban. Muslim girls attend the college in a nearby town - I know they are Muslim because of the way they are dressed and their headcoverings....but how would anyone know that I am a Christian? I might choose to wear a cross on a chain at my neck, but hold on, I might get dismissed from my job if my employer decides that it is against the uniform code; I can't show silent DVDs of the Bible on my tv in my cafe in case they incite violence; if I am a Relate counsellor and say that I am unable to counsel gay couples because of my faith, I will be sacked; if I am a Registrar and refuse to officiate at civil partnerships because of my faith, I will lose my job. But if I am a Muslim and want to pray at work, they will provide me with a room to do so, and I am allowed to nip off at the appropriate time.

As Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, has said, "No one wants to deny homosexual people rights, but can a way be found for Christians to have rights as well?" and I would add to that that I am perfectly happy for Muslims, Sikhs, Buddhists, humanists, atheists, etc etc to have their rights, but I don't see that they have to be at the cost of ours as Christians. I have also noted that whilst the Queen is "Defender of the Faith" as Head of the Church of England, I have heard that perhaps Prince Charles will choose to be "Defender of faiths" which is quite different. Things are changing...

Another Mary Berry cake, and busy days

Yesterday was UJ's birthday so when he came over for lunch club today, I made him a fruit cake to take home with him. I looked in Mary Berry's Baking Bible and found her "Quick Boiled Fruit Cake" - there's a link to it here but this person has added bicarbonate of soda and brandy, which aren't in the recipe in the book. It turned out well, and UJ and the FH thought that it would make a good Christmas cake. They had a taste with a cup of tea this afternoon and then I wrapped it up and he took it home to enjoy this week. The FH hopes I will make another one soon!

This week I have been investigating the A level options for the EFG. There are a limited number of places she can go that are accessible from here, and so I have been looking to find out when all the Open Evenings are in order to be able to take her along to get a flavour of each venue and the courses available. We have about 6 to go to already! Most are in November.

Yesterday evening she and I attended an Art GCSE evening at school to find out how she needs to progress her art - she is in line for a good grade, but the teachers invited all of the children along last night to look at work from last year to inspire and encourage them. It was a very useful and informative evening.

Today I have entered some of my chickens in to a sale of chooks at the Autumn Show at the East of England showground. We sold some there last year, and so we are hoping for a good day this time. We enjoy the show, and UJ is interested in coming along with us this time.

My cousin turned up quite out of the blue this evening, in quite a distraught state. She had had to call in at a local bridalwear shop to cancel a fitting for a wedding dress as the wedding has been cancelled. It is a long story and not one to share, but needless to say it has come as a shock to her and of course, to us to a lesser degree - still a shock but much less impact on our lives, if you see what I mean.

Quite a few things to reflect upon this evening, and I have to take the service at chapel on Sunday, so I am thinking about that tomorrow too. Blogging has had to come second to real life at the moment, and I am sure that you will all understand!

Weekend plans

The weekends just aren't long enough to get over the weeks in between, it feels! We never get a lie-in as we have gym on Saturday mornings, and an early church service at 9.30am on Sundays, so we don't sleep till noon anytime...so I should really be getting some sleep earlier in the evenings, and not be doing things until 11.30pm - note to self: go to bed earlier!!

The FH has been doing things in the garden - moving chicken fences around, and sorting out the garden shed to rehouse some chooks too. We have also stripped the greenhouse out pretty much, and are getting ready to replace the benches in there for the winter. A friend up the road has a polytunnel just installed, and I am quite envious of that, but I am not so keen on all the work involved in digging trenches around it to get the cover buried! She's welcome to all that!

There's a bit of a party going on at one of the neighbour's tonight - there are hordes of cars in the road, disco lights flashing in a marquee in the back garden, and people mooching about - but all is peaceful and I can't hear any music, so it is not bothering me. Hope they have a good party!

One of the FH's friends has been here for a cuppa this afternoon, chewing the fat - and he and the FH have been talking about a home made dehydrator - sounds good! I have been doing a bit of research on the internet tonight and found a few ideas for them to copy, so we could be looking for odd pieces of this and that to use to put one of these together; I'd love to be able to make some fruit leathers and dried apple or banana chips, for example. I could dry some of those chillies too!

Hope you are all well tonight - I'm off to do some more knitting as I want to get these wristwarmers finished soon....

Faffing around

I've been playing with the stats page again, and a l0t of traffic seems to come to the blog to look at a picture on a gymnastics post from ages ago, so I've deleted the picture, just to be contrary and see what happens!! I think the ratings will fall...I may put it back again later!

Getting things done

Morning all!

Wednesday here already - we are well into the swing of the week now, and more things are happening today. The FH's lunch club meets today, the girls' Guides group resumes tonight (subs due for the term too, so have just been scrabbling around in the egg money box!), and the Governing Body AGM is tonight as well.

Last night gymnastics started up for the term again too - the first week is always stressful what with all the parents trying to pay their subs for the term, thrusting envelopes, cheques and wadges of cash at me to register their payment. Last night was worse because of the renovations which have been done in the sports centre which meant that all our equipment has to be stored in a slightly different way, and it is a challenging jigsaw to get it all back in the cupboards which have been built now - it took us a little longer than usual, but hopefully we will get used to it quite quickly. I did feel quite tired after it all last night, but I always do for the first few weeks!!

Blue skies this morning, so I am planning to get some more washing done. The wind has died down a little, so more gardening work can progress too. The FH went to the wood yard yesterday to buy more gravel boards to raise the sides of my vegetable beds, but somehow didn't buy enough wood, so will have to go back for more at some point! Our list of "outside" jobs grows longer as we think of them, but we are working through them all steadily - getting the chickens into their winter quarters is top of my list at the moment. Those chicks in the photo are partly sold off now, and some of them are in their winter home. Others may yet get sold, but a few are cockerels which may be destined for a casserole.

We are having a little knitting festival here at home at the moment - the EFG has joined me in knitting wristwarmers as she wanted a pink and green stripey pair, and now she is knitting at every opportunity! She is sitting here now in the minutes before she has to go for the bus, knitting away. I'm quite impressed with her stripes, and she is doing quite well. I have finished the initial pair bar the sewing up which is waiting for a needle to use, and have also completed the first of another pair in a plain denim blue wool. I am enjoying knitting them as they are practical items which I know we will use, and they are also relatively quick to complete.