New year, maybe new posts!

I have been absent for a long time but I have missed blogging and I think the new year is a perfect time to come back! 

I have still been crafting, above is my paper star wreath which I made for Christmas and ended up hanging inside the day, just in case it got ruined!

I have spent a lot of time with mr brother and pine cones. We have collected them, crafted with them and taken many pictures of them!

Paper crafts have been a big theme this christmas with paper chains and below folded reindeer. Manny made me the big one (argyle is his name) for Christmas, isn't he lovely!

We'll hopefully this has worked, I don't have a laptop at the moment so this is all done on hue ipad, if all goes well you will hear from me again soon.

Did you say have a holiday and eat lots of food? OK I will!

We wooshed of to Crete last week for a friends wedding. I have a few pictures from my phone for you (still not uploaded the ones from my camera!)

The beaches were amazing - this was my first sunny, abroad holiday. Now on to the food, the majority of the food we had was delicious! 

Finally here is Manny and me in one of the restaurants - it was amazing there!

A complete jumble of things!

Sooooo I haven't blogged much recently, have I? Wellllllll there is a reason for this. Manny and I took up kick boxing about a month ago and since then we have been going 3/4 times a week, mix that in with the allotment and work and you pretty much want to sit down and do nothing the rest of the time! So I have a few very random photos to show and hopefully will settle into our new routine soon, so I will have good things to blog about!

We are starting off with my car having it's first ever car wash (had it over a year now - don't judge me and my dirty car!!!) All a bit exciting to go through the proper car wash too (is it just me that gets excited about these things?)

Next we have CRUMPET SOLDIERS - possibly the greatest invention Asda has come up with!

Yes that is a modified toilet roll holding my egg, I know I need to buy some egg cups!! I however failed to make my egg dippy so that was a bit sad, and I timed it as well - very disappointing!

A bit more work has been going on at the allotment, carrots, red onions, cucumber and marigolds are now in. Still a lot of work to go but I am really enjoying it!

Lastly are these shoes, I saw them the other week and really liked them. I knew that the likelihood of me ever wearing them was very slim so I left them to be admired by someone else, now I regret that decision as they are no longer in the store!

How have you all been? 

New allotment

This is our new allotment! My mum and dad came and helped us with it last weekend (haven't got a before picture but imagine a lot of weeds!)

We got a whole section dug and managed to save some strawberry plants and an established rhubarb plant (already had a few stems from it!)

Today we went and sorted out a few paths in the front sections and planted up the first raised bed with potatoes! It is so satisfying going there and doing some work and seeing an immediate result from it It is also very relaxing and everyone we meet there are really friendly.

Below is the tiny patch of garden we have at home, I have planted up lots of vegetable seeds that we can keep an eye on until we can plant them out!

Goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes and basil muffins

I think I may have a new baking obsession - savoury muffins! These are the first ones I have made, they were super easy and really tasy. Have you got any savoury flavour suggestions  I want to try the welsh rarebit version next I think!

Cactus party!

 I went over to my friends yesterday and she showed me these cacti and we thought we would try to make our own± Above are my ones, travelling safely back home and below are my friends - I love the little bird!

Prinknash abbey bird park

Today we were very lucky to be giving some tickets to Prinknash abbey bird park with our friends.

Here are a few pictures of the birds I got to meet!

Lots of different types of chickens - all happy to come and meet you.

They also have a few deer, amazing!

These chickens were my favourite - the colours and markings on them were so striking.

All aboard, the annual train cake - choo choo

Every year I ask my brother what cake he would like for his birthday, every year he asks for a train cake. I am not sure when the tradition started (it was when I was still living at home so quite some time ago) and he has just turned 23!!

It is always chocolate, and always made out of swiss rolls, this year is the first time I have done windows. Something changes every year - I will have to try and hunt out all the photos of the past ones.

Here is a mini train cake I made for my nephews last night. I was babysitting them in the evening and after bed time I secretly baked it so it would be a surprise for them in the morning for being so good! 

Birmingham Bullring

I went to Birmingham this weekend to visit my friend, I decided to go on the train - this was my little seat and view from the window. The spots are the reflection of my phone case!! 

An appropriate view of the bull I feel! It was the first time I have properly gone around the bullring (I have been before but just popped in and out)

We went to selfridges and I looked at all the delicious food - so tempting! We went to star city and I had chow mein and some chocolate cake - delicious!

I came home with a few purchases, if I remember I will take a picture of them for you! Hope you had a good weekend.

Movies bake off

We had a movies bake off recently. I was inspired by all the snacks people have and made a triple layer cake. The bottom layer is pick and mix flavoured with a mixture of jelly, foam and chocolate sweets with a cream cheese frosting (with hundreds and thousands in!) the next layer is inspired by popcorn (the stripes are meant to be like the popcorn bags you get) and it is toffee flavoured. The top layer is a coke and chocolate cake! I had great fun making this and it tasted good too! 

I will pop back soon and show you what everyone else made!

Ps a quick thank you to twinkle star and puddleduck for passing on the super sweet blogging award to me - I am very honoured and will do my post on this soon too! 

Have been super busy recently and blogging has taken a backseat (although I have still read all your posts!)

Catching up on christmas

Just a couple of photos from christmas (sorry if I have already shown you) This is the reindeer my dad made to greet everyone on christmas day. Now you may already know reindeer are my favourite animal so this was a fantastic surprise!

Isn't he fantastic!

I found these lovely little playmobil figures in my stocking (they came all the way from Denmark!)

This is the lovely handmade stocking and Manny found this on etsy and it travelled from Canada!

Mini egg cake and pancakes

This is a birthday cake I made for my boss for her birthday. Just a simple chocolate cake, chocolate butter cream and lots of mini-eggs!!

I am a little late with these but I also have a few pancake shots for you. We had our pancakes after a roast, so only wanted them a pudding. I made little scotch pancakes in my new one-egg pan (I love it!)

They turned out really well and puffed up to be light and fluffy. I havent had much luck in the past with pancakes so I was really pleased with them.