Blogging, followers and friends!!

I've been posting blogs since March 2010...I can hardly believe that!

 But in all that time I've not personally met a single blogger friend. Well all that has changed! 

The timing was exact...the place was right ...the conversation started...and lo and behold...someone who actually had read my posts...finding them on the sidebar list of the wonderful Pen Wilcox. Stunned ..we both were.

I was standing by the Pithoi pots at The Beetham Garden Centre near Milnthorpe in Lancashire when as I was ringing the rims to make sure that the pot was whole..as.any little crack or flaw will not give a bell-like sound. (This I know from the potter himself!...he had rung one or two before going off to buy a pot for our Christmas present to one another.)

It's big!...some in the Tuesday evening ceramic group that he teaches wondered why he didn't make it himself...well...it's bigger than the kiln for a start! And pithoi from Crete are famous for their shapes and traditional decoration.

So now I'm a follower on "woolywanderer" on Instagram...I'm G Snape there.."Documenting the Mundane" by the way. And also a follower on multicolouredmadness.blogspot.com .

We hugged with laughter and tears and hugged again...two grown women who had never met but had so much in common! 

Well that's blogging for you. You wait five years and along comes a follower and then a friend. We shall plan to meet up again I'm sure of that as we both have homes around that glorious Bay I talk about so much.

Thankyou Blogspot...thankyou daughter amelieshouse.blogspot.co.uk for getting me started...thankyou senior grandgirl troase.blogspot.co.uk for encouraging and quietly showing me techie things!!

The Gingerbread Hut!

...each year our daughter....neviepiecakes ... makes us a gingerbread house for Christmas...

I can hardly bear to eat them...so much work and thought goes into each one.

This year she has excelled all expectations with...

...a gingerbread fisherman's hut fully equipped with lobster pots, a little fishing boat and a driftwood Christmas tree covered, of course, in snow...

...I love... love it...so what am I to do?

 ...it is truly a piece of edible sculpture...

...but she tells us to eat it and not to be so "precious"....

...look on the door ...a blackboard telling you that fresh fish has been caught and is there for the buying.

...and behind the snow laden driftwood tree ...a pile of lobster pots await the fisherman ...ready for the outing the next day....

...oh now I'm getting carried away!!

I just had to take lots of pics ...because the gingerbread is as good as the design...so there is no way that it is going to last forever...

...as Marie Antionette once didn't say...

"Let them eat cake"

https://www.facebook.com/NeviePie

Yeast!

So....what to do on a dank, drear, Sunday afternoon in late January.....?

(apart from give birth to first child!)

(well... 42 years ago)

...any way...

....well of course...think of sun, warmth and perhaps...

...Italy!

The recipe in the newspaper was for Foccaccia......have I spelled it right? ...hope so.

Anyway, neither of us are feeling grand, a bit creaky and achey

...so how to cheer ourselves up......

....bake a bit of sunshine.

First thing get the yeast out of the store cupboard and mix it with some luke-warm water...

....hmmmm...best to check the BB date...

.oooops

....october 1998!!

  

Maybe start again!

(do you like that bowl?...the potter made it for me... oh...probably more than 30 years ago...he would throw it out,

"that old thing"

but I won't let him. )

righty ho...and we are off and running...or at least off and baking...

...we think...( the unroyal we of the potter and me)...that the gorgeous Paul Hollywood  would be proud of us as we get our hands deep into the bowls and mix....

"Feel the mixture Mary!"

I'd forgotten how long the waiting is in between each of the pummellings and risings.....you need to have something else to be busy with on a bread baking day ...we decided!

but to our surprise ...the dough rose...

 

 

...more kneading needed....see what I did there?!

...into the tins and sprinkle on the rosemary and sea salt...

...I put a few olives on the top as well.

Oh and don't forget the dimples potter!

...the bread baked ...

...and the family ate and pronounced...

..."This is good"!

There you go.

...and did you know that the name rosemary is really ros maris.......dew of the sea...

...there you are lovely sister!

The Gourd Pot.

So... I wrote a few weeks ago about the pumpkins that were not!...they were gourds...and very nice ones too.

...daughter, from down south, took quite a few home...

... and the lovely pottery class people took some more.

But I still have a basketful of them....though what to do  except gaze appreciately at them.....

....I'm sure I don't know!

Anyway, the Potter  always gives me a ceramic christmas goody and ...so this year the theme was not the pumpkin...

  

which it has been in the past...

...no, no, it's the gourd!

 

I'm looking forward to filling it with sunflowers later in the year.

All Hail Blue Peter.

When the two young Snapes were little...

...there were two television programmes that were essential viewing every week.

Doctor Who....often watched from behind the sofa...

...and Blue Peter.....both of these on BBC.

So how good was that moment yesterday evening, when the lovely daughter

 and author of the blog...Amelie's House...

demonstrated for the nation's children, how to make googly bloodshot edible eyes for the halloween party!!

But did I mention the toes as well?

You have to see the toes!

Well let's put it like this ...actually if you do see real toes like this...then you are in big trouble!

They are for a show in London to do with "Autopsies"

Say no more...they are edible cake and icing..

....no really!

But wait ...there's better even than that ...as far as the nation's children are concerned...

she received a Blue Peter badge....

!!OH!!

     

...joy of joys ..

.and already her older kidlet and one of my grand girls...wants it left to her in the will!!

Well it is that desirable.

I'm sorry if you have no idea what this is all about...but believe me these badges are like gold dust...well even up to the standard of a medal...

...oh ...maybe I exaggerate a bit ...carried away you might say...out of my comfort zone!

Seriously though I had a tear in my eye seeing her so confidently passing on the banner of

 "Doing Something for Fun"...that she had received from Blue Peter all those years ago.

The potter and I were out for a spot of lunch today in town...and being in a thoughtful state of mind...

...wondered how we two ever managed to produce two such great kids?

Cakes at The Potters House.

This is just a taster of the workshop that was held here on Saturday by our daughter.
No doubt Neviepiecakes will have a super post on all of this soon.
But in the mean time I just want to show some of the things that happened...and admit that I felt quite emotional as she taught these thirteen women to paint on cakes.

Natasha on the left discussing painting technique.

We used to say to our two children as they were growing up..."don't go into teaching!"
It was a reaction to the tiredness that we felt and the sense of suffocation in the teaching world in the 80s...at least that's how we felt and why we got out, to set up The Potters House here in Penketh.
But both have in their own way gone into ..if not teaching...then passing on information of their skills, to others.

 As usual all three of the studios were used.

Your's truly provided food and sustenance. Lots of drinks to keep the inspiration flowing...

and a spot of lunch to rest the weary brains!

And the potter didn't waste any opportunities to talk clay......

Happy days!!

The Tennis Cake

How exciting was that match yesterday!

 Now I'm not in any way sporty.

I deeply disappointed my dad who assumed that as I had long legs I was sure to win the annual school races...sorry ...no.

And when it came to hockey...I was always on the wing...shivering.

No it was never because of any deep sporty longings that I started this annual bake up, rather  the purchase of a cook book from M and S and a way of making some thing from not much!

It was the year of the Queen's first big jubilee and Virginia Wade was in the final and lo and behold she won!!

So the tradition was started.

The next year, the names of the two finalists went on to the cake at either end and the loser was eaten first!

As simple as that.

Well the two junior Snapes have left and now have their own homes, families and traditions

But I decided to bake  a tennis cake this year .

We took it up to the northern family yesterday to eat it in front of their bigger t.v.!

Hmmm! ...we ate Murray first!...but boy did he put up a good fight!

Then on my posts...up came a wonderful pic from the southern daughter...the painter of cakes... and a grand tennis cake!

have a little look at http://amelieshouseblogspot.co.ukhttp://amelieshouseblogspot.co.uk

Of such things memories are made.

Love it!!

A bit of my history.

I was reading through the post of a fellow blogger giving 11 points of interest about himself and then I saw in the list below it, was my daughter's blog with a "you might also like" bit.
My daughter is the amazing cake designer from Amelie's House and her reputation is growing steadily in the north London area.
I had been her guest blogger in 2010, and had written about my family and our history of cake! So I thought I would post this on my own site to give a bit more of an insight into who I am and where I have come from.

(Have a quick look at her blog if you like, to read the article.)

I'm exceedingly proud of both my children, but I know that my mother and aunt would be thrilled to see the wonderful designs that this granddaughter/niece is creating.

"Early Design!"

(I still love these types of cakes!)

I've just had a look through the family photos to find a pic for the post and I'm amazed at how many are of us all gathered around either a table or a picnic rug.

None of us is particularly overweight and certainly we are not big eaters, but the table is such a comforting place to gather and then stay at to chat and sort out the "world" in our fashion.

Of course that's not to say that when the potter and myself are eating alone...we don't sit in front of the fire with a tray on our lap! I'm all for what the german family call.."gemutlichkeit"..there is no proper translation of this ...the nearest being the jewish..."shalom"... in my opinion!

I often think back to the days in Belfast with the two sisters...my mother Mary and Aunt Helen... in the kitchen together creating  yummy goodies and giggling about their own childhood memories.

Coffee table by Mary.......the goddess of plenty!