Busy again!

Another two weeks have passed, my feet don't seem to touch the ground at the moment.

So, last weekend Jude and Craig came to visit.  They arrived on Friday night (Tom was already in bed).  Saturday they stayed all day.  The weather wasn't particularly good in the morning, so we had a quick walk around the village, including a pit stop at Neptis - it has to be done!  Craig, Jude and Matt had coffee and cake, whilst Tom and I made some paper mache Easter Eggs ready for the village Easter Egg hunt.  I wasn't sure how to do paper mache, but Rachael as always had everything ready at Neptis, so we had a quick lesson and got stuck in.  It was quite therapeutic actually, smothering a balloon in wallpaper paste and getting mucky.  To my surprise Tom also got stuck in and mucky which was good and before too long we had two eggs ready for drying.

On our walk

We then continued around the village and then as the weather was looking better we headed out to Ribblehead to the The Station Inn for lunch and then went for a circular walk around the the viaduct.  It was a little miserable with some rain, but Tom with his walking stick and Jude and Craig to entertain did really well, not even a tiny whinge, he happily walked round.

On arrival back, Craig and Tom played trains whilst the rest of us attacked the garage.  We found it!  The garage now has some order to it, which means I can find my cake stuff without much swearing and huffing and puffing, which is fab, as my cake business seems to have had lift off, with 3 cakes booked this month.




Sunday we woke up to snow, so Craig and Jude left early (they were off to Durham to visit Craig's mum).  As the weather wasn't great, we had a useful day, so loaded the car up with all the rubbish we found in the garage and headed to Settle to the dump.  We then popped into Booths to get dinner (ended up spending over £100 mostly on booze!) and then to the Watershed Mill for lunch.  This place is quite useful in that it has a working model railway (keeps Tom happy), a whisky and beer shop (keeps Matt happy) and a cook shop (keeps me happy).  The rest of the day was spent tidying up.

On the boat to London

Outside their little house

On Tuesday we had a treat, Rose and her immediate family were up in the Lake District on holiday and  contacted me to see if we could meet up. We were free Tuesday afternoon after pre-school so we headed over to Brockhole for a meet up.  Luckily the weather was good to us, it wasn't bright blue sky, but it didn't rain, so we were able to go for a walk around the grounds and spend quite some time on the adventure playground.  When the clouds looked threatening we headed inside for tea and a bun and then spent the rest of the day enjoying the soft play area, in fact we were there until closing time.  Abi and Tom were on really good form, playing really nicely with each other.  They gave each other a really nice hug when we said goodbye.

Concentrating on the wobbly bridge

Rose and Martin are getting married in May, unfortunately it is the weekend of my 40th - which we are spending in Edinburgh so we are going to miss it.  They asked me to make the cake and everything.  I was gutted, but that's life, Edinburgh will be fun.

On the way home, I was unfortunate to fall victim to a lad with road rage, he was beeping me and doing hand gestures at me every time I slowed down (I was doing the speed limit and slowed down when the car in front slowed to turn right)  It got so bad that I pulled over at a petrol station to let him pass.  He beeped me again, and in a moment of stupidity I beeped him back (I was stressed).  He then pulled over to the petrol station ahead of me and started to get out of his car, I didn't hang around.  Luckily we have a fast car so I was able to pull off quicker than he could.  He didn't catch up with me, but I was pretty shaken up - Tom was in the car after all, I was looking in my rear view mirror all the way home, working out what to do if he was following me (my plan was to go straight to the police station in Ingleton and hope it was open)  It spoiled a really lovely day.

Rugby Ball Cake

This week I had two cakes on: a rugby ball for a Sedbergh student and an artist's palette for a 60th birthday.  All was going well until Friday came upon us.  It snowed overnight, but worse than that it was very very windy - we didn't sleep very well as we could hear the roof slates moving around all night, Matt even went out to move the car worrying about loose slates hitting it.  The wind also meant we had drifting.  The weather was so bad that we couldn't even tell if it was snowing or not because the wind had picked up all the snow into the air.  Ingleton School closed for the day, I think mainly because it was dangerous for the children to be out trying to get to school rather than being at school itself.

I was supposed to be delivering the artist's palette cake in the morning, but I was too scared to venture out - from a driving point of view and I was also worried that the cake would get destroyed by the snow and wind.  Luckily my customer was very understanding and told me to stay still - it wasn't needed until Saturday so we had a day to play with.  We didn't go out at all on Friday morning, our afternoon out with a friend with Enjoy-a-Ball was cancelled (it took her over an hour to dig out her car).  Matt gave up working in the afternoon - he couldn't even see out of his window as it was completely iced up.   The wind was abating a little so he agreed to drive me to my customer.  She was only 7 miles away, but it might as well have been another country, no snow and no wind.  I delivered it and then we returned to snowy, windy Ingleton.  Matt thought it would be interesting to see Ribblehead so we headed up there.  We managed about 1/2 a mile and realised it was a bad idea, it was a complete whiteout up there and the roads were absolutely clogged up with snow, we quickly turned round and came back.

Saturday was just as windy and snowy again, so we didn't stray far.  We went to Bentham in the morning - Tom had a haircut at the barber's (went very well) whilst I went looking for cake ribbons at the Haberdashers.  We then headed back to Ingleton and tried out another pub for lunch (Craven Heifer).  The afternoon was then spent doing some more unpacking and sorting.  Not very interesting for Tom but a necessary evil.

Our paper mache Easter eggs

Sunday, it was still very windy, but a little warmer and the snow began to melt, but still not a day for being outside - Tom hates the wind.  We looked into going to the cinema but the kiddies film was about Jack Frost - we didn't think it would be to Tom's liking, so instead we went swimming at Hornby pool.  We had a great session there, Tom swam really really well and for the first time was jumping in by himself.  Fantastic.  We rewarded him with lunch at Carnforth Station.  Once home we popped into Neptis with our completed eggs (Tom made a Thomas egg, I made a cupcake egg and Matt made a Japanese egg) before heading home.

Not the most exciting weekend I know, here's hoping the wind dies down soon - were does it all come from?

Next week will be a little manic, I have about 20 creme egg animals to make including 2 orders from Smile, and a repeat order from Kitridding Farm - they have sold much better than they thought.  In fact Prince Charles is visiting them on Thursday so I'm going to do my best to get them finished and round to them on Wednesday afternoon - just in case, especially as they said the press will be there.

Busy days

In thoughtful mode. Maybe

Sorry everyone, don't know what has happened to time recently, but I haven't found time to update this, and now I'm struggling to remember what we have done recently.

First of all Grannie came up for a couple of days two weeks ago.  We showed her around the village then took her on a scenic drive to Settle, lunch at Settle followed by a play and mini walk around Clapham and coffee and cake at the good tea room we found with Bob.

On the Saturday we dropped Grannie off at Lancaster station after a visit to Williamson Park and its very good cafe.

Sunday was yet another nice day, so we decided it would do us all good to head out into the hills for a walk. As we've done before, we parked the car at Blindbeck Bridge in Barbondale and walked the 2+ miles along the footpath through the forest to the excellent Barbon Inn in the nearby village. It's a good length of walk, and it passes the magic tree, where there always seems to be a piece of chocolate nestling in the roots for Tom. There's also a little stony beach on the river where we have to stop for a 10 minute stone throwing break.

The stone throwing beach

As always, lunch was excellent - tasty food and outstanding service. Unlike last time, however, Tom decided he could manage the (uphill) walk back to the car. We were a bit sceptical as to whether he would make it all the way, but we were happy to be proved wrong. He did the whole walk (4.5 miles altogether) in excellent spirits, and even had the energy to hurl another 20 or 30 stones off Blindbeck Bridge before we headed home in the car. I think the walking stick he got for his birthday really helps when we go out walking. It has 2 magnifying glasses built into it, and also has 2 secret compartments for stashing sticks, pine cones etc. It also features a compass, which he's convinced is a clock, but that's a job for another day...

Last weekend we went to Manchester for the weekend.  It was Cake International in Manchester, we thought we would combine it with a visit to the Komorowskis - especially as Leia and Tom get on so well.  So, we did what has become our 'usual' thing - drove down, looked round the Go Outdoors Store (huge place with lots of pitched tents - Tom goes nuts and runs his heart out in and out of them whilst we look on in amusement), then to Wing Yip to do an Asian shop and then to Glamorous Restaurant for proper Chinese.  We met up with some of Matt's friends at the restaurant, including a car sick teenage girl and two young boys - don't think they were impressed with our choice of food which included ducks feet (I went a bit wrong here - its the sort of place where you aren't sure what you are going to get when you order it because the translation of the menu into English is really bad - this is a place where the main customers are Chinese - very few white people there)

Cheeky face

We then arrived at the Komorowskis - Tom and Leia immediately got reacquainted with each other, we didn't really see them for the rest of the day.  We admired the house (very very nearly finished - looks really good). Spent the evening drinking G&T and chatting about nothing much.

Sunday was Mother's Day, I got a lovely card and a Herdy garlic pot so was pleased.  I then got treated to Eggs Benedict by Adam (very nice) before heading off to the cake show.  As is usual I got horrifically lost.  The show was at Event City - next door to The Trafford Centre.  You would think it would be an easy place to find.  Not so, the main problem is that Adam and Karen live right in the centre of Salford meaning that to get anywhere from their place you have to negotiate lots and lots of busy junctions, it is very easy to choose a wrong road, and once you have gone down one wrong road, you've had it.  I was quite stressed by the time I got there.  Problem is that I go wrong at the same place every time, you would think I'd have learnt by now, but no, not so!

Anyway I had a lovely time at the Cake Show, it wasn't too full, meaning I could see all the stalls.  It was quite a bit smaller than the Birmingham one, but certainly lots to see.  I ended up spending more than I thought I would, but hopefully it was all good useful stuff which I will use again and again.

Leia, Tom and Dora

I finished up at the show at 2.30, and after only going wrong once on the way home (much happier) I arrived to find Matt waiting for me.  Karen had taken the children to Waterstones for story time, so we walked briskly up to catch up with them.  Tom wasn't the best behaved, mainly through tiredness than anything else, a babyccino and marshmallow kebab at Starbucks perked him up, so we headed for the Football Museum where we had a great time - playing football and Tom and Leia just running round.  We then walked back to the house where Adam had made a roast chicken dinner - very good it was too.

We then drove home, Tom slept most of the way, we just had to deposit him into his bed when we got home.  We went to bed quite early, however, Matt wasn't feeling very well.  He had been complaining of pain in his hand joints during the day, by the time he went to bed his shoulders, neck, arms, legs and hands were hurting.  He was cold and shaking and getting quite scared as to what was going on.  I called NHS direct but they were only taking life threatening calls.  After a lot of googling I found the out of hours service linked to the surgery here (which is in Cumbria and not North Yorks - of course!) They were very efficient, Matt had a long chat with the Dr who came to the conclusion that a night in an unfamiliar bed coupled with plenty of G&T meant that he most likely slept in a weird position causing joint pain.  He was told to have a hot bath and then bed.  That's what he did, he felt much better, even more so the following morning.

That's about it.  I've started to get some cake orders - through advertising in the Kirkby Lonsdale Newsletter which is good.  I did one last week and have two next week.  My Easter Egg animals are now also on sale at Kitridding Farm on sale or return, so we will see how that goes.  I'm also involved in the organisation of the village Easter Egg Hunt and am getting to know people through that.