Tea for Three...

'Tea for Three'

I've been doing lots of baking just lately, probably too much if you asked my waistline! Mr D has been in bed poorly for a week, he's not been eating a lot which always worries me, so today when he asked for comfort food I knew exactly what I'd be giving him. I've been meaning to try my Mum's old Cherry Cake recipe out for ages so this seemed like the perfect time!

 It takes a whole tub of glace cherries...you have to wash and dry them first which always seems such a waste of that lovely syrup... but 'hey ho' it stops them from sinking to the bottom of the cake so I do as the recipe tells me! This cake uses the 'rubbing-in' method, then you add your cherries and sugar...

 I just love the rich red of the cherries...when I was a little girl. I used to take a half cherry out of Mum's mixing bowl and set the flat side against my finger and pretend it was a big red ruby lol.

                         When the dry ingrdients are done you add egg, milk and vanilla esssence...

Fresh out of the tin!

                           
                         Look at those lovely cherries, happily they did not all sink to the bottom :)

 The cake is especially nice if you eat it fresh from the oven, when the cake has cooled just a little but the cherries are still hot ( careful they are not so hot you burn your mouth though! ) and you really must have it with a cup of tea for the experience to be just perfect!!!! :)

 It brought back memories eating this today... you know something, I don't think I have tasted this since I've been an adult...there was one slight difference between Mum's and mine...Mum ALWAYS used to burn the outside for some reason. I remember her cutting the sides off...I guess her oven always cooked on the hot side...well Mum, I dedicate this one to you and all the happy childhood memories that came to mind as I smelled it cooking and then sat and ate it afterward.

Happy girl

Well I think I owe this blog a happy post. Reading my post about Sharp End makes me cry but I am not going to remove it just because it is hard to read...he deserves the world to know how much he was loved and is missed. We have collected his ashes so he is back home with us where he would have wished to be.

I have happy news now :)

We now have a beautiful brown dobie in our life...meet Happy Girl !

Happy Girl visiting Granny!

We needed her as much as she needed us. The poor girl had been in rescue kennels nearly a year. Absolute torture for the Dobermann breed who are affectionately known as 'Velcro' dogs because of their need to be by your side every waking minute. She has a medical condition which means she has to be on tablets and have regular blood tests all her life. It seems people just couldn't see past that, but we know a sweet dog when we see one and it was love at first sight...it already feels as if she has been here forever. Her past is sad and I don't think I should discuss it on here, but I will say I am convinced she already knows all she will experience is love and care now she is with us. Don't you think she is an absolute beauty?

We've been to lots of places together already :)

Happy girl and Mr D in the woods

 

The first week or so she was terrified of getting in the car, but now she knows it means going to fun places and whistles with excitement as we are getting her coat on :)

She is my 'Happy Girl' and she has made me a very happy girl too :)

I hope you are all happy wherever you are.

Doxie x

My heart is broken

Sharp End left this world yesterday. I am absolutely heartbroken. He had been my loyal friend and protector for many years and I loved him to bits.He had his family around him when he died and the last words he heard were " I love you!"

I am beside myself with grief and at the moment don't feel I will ever get over it, but my head knows that I will in time. He was a true member of the family and I am finding it especially hard as he was by my side pretty much all day every day. All my daily chores seem so painful as he used to be involved in everything from sorting the laundry to peeling the vegetables.

RIP dear Sharp End, you will remain in my heart forever. xxx

Number 5

The other day we brought another budgie into our home...yes budgie number 5. Her elderly owner had passed away and she was up for rehoming. We have room and lots of love so here she is even though she wasn't planned!

This is Bonny in her old cage

She is called Bonny and a real sweetie. She's 3 years old. At present she is in a separate cage in different room to the others while she has 30 days quarantine just in case there are any health issues that come to light. Birds hide illness very well, but when they are under stress such as moving to a new home for example, that is when any problems will come to light. Hopefully all will be okay but it is not worth taking the chance and risking the health of my existing birds.


Bon has not had much to eat yet, but that is normal with new home jitters. She is quite fat under all her feathers so I am not too worried at this stage. She's very active. I have put her in a large cage and she is having great fun flying about, climbing and exploring.

On the same day we got her, by coincidence a friend phoned us about another budgie that needed a home so we have agreed to have that one as well. I don't know yet whether it is a girl or boy, all I know is that it will be yellow. Hopefully it will be here this week...so by next weekend I could be the owner of 6 budgies!

pizza potatoes

We just got a bigger halogen oven...I've had one for a while but I found it too small for family meals. I'm really enjoying using this new one. The other night I did pizza potatoes...it's a way I try to get DH to eat more cheese lol. I'm try to make him acquire the taste so he will eat more 'basic'food...he has very 'select' taste buds lol.

You just bake the potatoes in their jackets and then scoop the flesh out and mash it with some cheese ( and or onion ) and seasoning. Put the mixture back into the jacket shells, top with the kind of thing you like on pizza, top with more cheese and rebake for a while. It's real comfort food for these dark and dreary Winter days. If you were feeling wildly health conscious you could have a salad on the side I guess...I personally would like baked beans with them but I always forget until halfway through eating them and then it's too late lol.

New friends

...Not only for me but for Elliot too :)

This is Buzz ( yellow face, grey, greywing budgie )

Now he has a blue cere, but this was on the day we got him when he was only about 6 weeks old. He is a lovely gentle character and adores Elliot.

These two beauties are Suki ( albino budgie ) and Timmy  ( sky blue normal budgie ).

For a while it was just Buzz and Elliot, but Mr D fell in love with a couple of birdies when we went to a pet centre...quite a distance from home. I told him we had to walk away but he was so enthralled with them we made the journey again the next day to go and get them, thankfully they were still there! I was planning on getting more but maybe not for a while! I'm very glad we did though as they are lovely birds. Suki is more timid than Timmy but they do both come onto my hand for a feed :)

I gave them a quarantine period just in case! Yesterday however they were all officially out of quarantine and have been having fun together. We have 2 large cages now ( and a small starter cage ). I expect they will all end up in one cage eventually but they have the choice when they are out flying to go back to which one they feel happiest in. The sound of gentle chattering in the background is so soothing and makes the house feel so homely.

I am having to hoover 2ce a day as a lot of seed husks blow around from Elliot and Buzz's cage. Timmy and Suki are in a new design cage called a vision M02, there is practically no mess at all from their cage, I highly recommend it to anyone that was thinking of getting birds. I have the medium size as I only intended it for quarantine but if I got another I would get the L02 which would be larger.

Evolving some more :)

Since taking the plunge and learning to drive I have found that it really IS good to face your fears and push yourself into unfamiliar territory...in fact I am finding familiar territory somewhat boring these days...that is most unlike the old me lol...in my quest to leave my old mouse-like persona behind and be the kind of person I want to be, I have taken up a new challenge...

...A couple of weeks ago I started martial arts training...Shotokan karate to be precise. Yes it's true! I've been nagged by certain family members to give it a go for a long time and lately even the instructor started encouraging me to try...so I thought what do I have to lose? Perhaps my teeth and a straight nose? LOL hopefully that won't happen, but I do have much to gain...the martial artists I know all have a certain confidence about them, not cocky or arrogant, just a self confidence that I wouldn't mind myself. I have to say that even though I have only taken 4 lessons I am enjoying it immensely! I ache like anything after a session but I know that will improve once my muscles have got used to being used in a new way. There is a LOT to take in... new words, a new kind of body co-ordination...I've known my left from my right since I was a teeny child but you'd never know if you watched me just lately...My driving instructor discovered that I am not very good at translating mirror images or detecting small changes in a series of movements and that my auditory memory skills are non-existant, in short, I have the attention span of a Goldfish...by the time Sensei has got the end of the sentence I have forgotten the beginning of it. Something else that became apparant when I was learning to drive was that I am slow at processing things...this has again has come to light in my karate class, but I am a lady of a certain age and not a spritely teenager...one of the black belts said to me  " we have no failures here, only people who give up!"  When you think about it, that is a very good saying which you could apply to many areas of life. I do not plan to give up when it gets hard...well gee, it is hard now lol...but if everything was easy where would the challenges lie?...life could be very dull.

I have to wear a uniform, for those of you who don't know, it's a white canvas suit called a gi.They are a bit of a devil to dry but I guess it just means I will have to be very organised in my laundry rota. I have long hair, down to my waist and I have to tie it back for karate which is a bit like being in school lol...You are also not allowed to wear jewelry, just in case you cause yourself or someone else an injury. It's a whole new world to me and it's making me think. Most exercise I have enjoyed in the past has been the type of thing that I do alone, walking swimming, running etc, so this is another way I am being taken out of my comfort zone...I am not looking forward to doing the exam/gradings as you have to do that in front of a hall full of spectators, but it is part of it, so I will have to accept it just like everyone else does!

So there you go, another step forward :)