Today is Angus' birthday.
Kirby made this Donna Hay Chocolate Layered Cake for Angus. I love the fact that my girls can knock up a ripper cake like this.
I will just tell you that the coffee frosting between the layers has 750gms of Marscapone cheese and 3/4 cup icing sugar plus 1/3 cup Kahlua.... then the Chocolate Truffle Icing has ... 400 gms of dark chocolate and 1/2 cup of cream. Oh, my!
Brianna, oh Brianna!
Make a wish, Happy Birthday my dear.
I love this picture - the last 2 leaves on this tree on a cold, foggy morning.
Agapanthus flower heads gone to seed, against the early morning sky.
I just chucked it in Big Blue and let the flavours take over.
Served over linguine, it was delicious! (I think mine is a bit healthier than Ree's!)
(photo from Buttonberry)
The first thing you should know - I am not a sewer - I am in fact quite dislexic when it comes to all things patterny and turn inside outy with right sides togethery. But I took a deep breath, got out the necessary materials and started.
So far, so good! As I went along, following each page of the tute I started to be amazed at how easy it was and each step just fell into place.
I didn't even have to unpick anything, not once!
It's starting to take shape now - look at those perfectly square corners!
It was quite tricky, turning things inside out and right sides together - this is what usually befuddles my brain (did I tell you that before??).
Wow, I turned in rightside out from inside out and it looked exactly like Buttonberry's picture!
Sew up the small gap where I turned it through then stitch around the top - hey, even that went according to plan! Sew on the buttons (Brianna reckons they are crooked), ribbon and bead
Ta da!!! Can you believe, I even fluked getting the pattern centred (not at all by intention)!
Tuesday 15th June - a white frost in our part of the world. This is the closest we get to knowing what snow would be like (I do know frost really isn't anything like falling snow) but you get my drift (no pun intended!). This is sunrise looking out my front door.
It was bloody cold!
Our cars had thick ice on them...
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The lawns were completely white. I think it got to 12C for the day.
Last Monday we had a public holiday for the Queen's Birthday so we decided to 'hit the beach' even though it is winter here and we had had some shocking cold weather of late. This was our first glimpse of the Southern Ocean as we came over the hill. We are very lucky that this coastline is only a 2o minute drive through some sand dunes from where we live.
This spot is called McIntyre's Beach - a sheltered little spot where we have had some lovely barbecues.
First Gus got the fire pit ready...
...bear in mind that it looks warm but the temperature was actually about 13C (55F) but with the sun out and not much wind, it was just perfect for a campfire and barbecue.
Ahem ... er, the Pioneer Woman regularly had gratuitous shots of her Marlborough Man's... um, Wranglers (here)... these are my man' Levi's!
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Entree - sausage with sauce in bread.
It's lovely just to sit and watch the sea, waves crashing, barbecue sizzling...
This is Ruby...
Main course - steaks and shasliks...(normally I would do some salads but we kept it simple)
Uggies kept our feet warm around the fire...
I went for a walk along the beach. There was so much stuff washed up which must come off boats out at sea. Quite disgusting really - I found a large light globe, a paint roller covered in barnacles, plastic detergent bottles, rope, lots of bits of plastic which I suppose came from plastic containers...
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... a Coke bottle covered in shells...
... cuttle fish...
Now onto dessert - S'mores (because when you have one, you want s'more!)
Sandwich marshmallows between two biscuits, wrap in foil and place near the fire where it's hot enough to melt them a little...
... waiting, waiting, waiting...
Voila! Yummy hot, melted marshmallow, choc and crunchy biscuit!
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With the sun starting to set, we packed up and ...
...left only footprints.
The track home. A lovely way to spend a holiday Monday.
Wednesday, 9th June - wet, wet, wet weather...
We haven't had good heavy showers like this since April so it was lovely to hear it bucket down.
Granny's Garden featured some Freckle biscuits here (Granny has a lovely blog). I had a recipe for them so I whipped up a batch. Seriously, these are so goooood! Buttery, crunchy and chocolatey all at once!
