She's really just a Mammy's girl!

Been trying to use up about 4 pounds of butter which I bought before Christmas in an excess of baking enthusiasm and never used before said enthusiasm wore off (or time ran out). The "use by" date is 1st Feb so not much time!

All in all I've made two lots of tiffin, 4 batches of fruit scones, a victoria sponge, 2 batches of petticoat tails, a double batch of crumble mix and a double batch of butter icing. Now the freezer's crammed to the gills, poor Sam at work is working his way through the shortbread (and loving it!) and the Guides tomorrow and Friday are in for a treat! Richard insisted on the sponge being sandwiched with jam and cream and we started on it tonight (not bad, I must say).

Note to self - don't get carried away in the butter aisle for quite some time!

Anyway, I went home for lunch today and made 3 batches of fruit scones (the quickest thing to cook), tidied and cleaned up and shot back to work, all within almost the allotted hour. Buuuut - half way back I suddenly had a thought - I couldn't remember putting the butter back in the fridge! (the fresh scones were balanced on top but did I leave the butter out?!!!)

No way could I take that chance, so I had to head back. Phew - the butter was safe, but Maddie? Well -  she'd caught the baking bug. She had the baking parchment circles off the table and was scrunching her way through them. I'm looking forward to the day she moves on to something a little more sophisticated, and presents us with a freshly-made chocolate sponge!

Maddie's found God!

As anyone on FB or Twitter will know, Maddie had a revelation this weekend. I'm sure it has something to do with the readings at church on Sunday, which (I wasn't listening to the readings per se but I was listening to the sermon) were something to do with Paul's revelation on the road to Damascus.

Now I'm not saying our fearless pup has started preaching or praising God, but give her time - if it was easy it wouldn't be a miracle!

What happened was that I had a quick lookover of the psalm on Saturday night (being the organised person I am, with many calls on my time and much TV to watch, this was last thing before I went to bed) and left the book out in an obvious place where I would remember to take it. So next morning, there I am - I've got the bulletins, I've got my hymn book [and I've just this minute realised I've left my hymn book at church, sigh] and my missal. Where's my psalm book?

Cue a frantic, ten minute search of all the obvious places several times over, with no result.

The mystery was solved that afternoon and guess where I found the psalm book (slightly scruffy and chewed)? You can see where this is going - in Maddie's crate!

Bless her little (scruffy) cotton socks - she's obviously decided to praise the Lord and seek forgiveness for all her past misdeeds!

Gizzy gets her own back!

I took away the duvet from the spare room (Emily's room) last week - after our last visitors left they stripped the bed and folded the duvet down across the end of the bed. Now it's a very soft, comfy duvet so trust a cat to find that that out quickly!

I realised before Christmas she'd taken up residence there so i left it til last week then went and de-haired it (took 20 minutes and a whole roll of that fluff-remover sticky stuff!), then took it into the cleaners. She watched me the whole time, not impressed.

Of course then I made the mistake of trying to anti-flea her as well - an already grumpy cat got really pissed off! The cuts and scratches are healing...

I moved a couple of pillows down to replace the duvet and covered the bed with a throw - you can see my thinking - Gizzy can have her comfy spot but I can wash the throw so it's all good!

Of course not. After a week of her sleeping on the throw on the pillows she decided to get her revenge and I was met yesterday morning (been at a Guide sleepover) with the news that she had spent the night UNDER the throw! Why? How? I have no idea. C'est la vie d'un chat.

A rude awakening

Poor Richard! He was in the spare room last night since he was working til 5.30am (wells care not for day or night) so I was tiptoeing round this morning to let him sleep in. Maddie has no such qualms. She shot upstairs when I was taking the recycling out - luckily she expected Richard to be in the usual place so that flummoxed her and she came away for her walk instead.

But she was luckier after breakfast. This time when she didn't find him, she went looking. I header the paw at the door and by the time I got upstairs there she was - standing on top of Richard (who was hiding under the duvet) with his slipper in her mouth - hitting him on the head with it in her effort to gain his attention!

I'll give her her due that she didn't mean to, she was just trying to say good morning, but it was a very funny sight!

And the Christmas ends...

The dogs say goodbye to the Christmas tree…

I used the last of the mincemeat to make a final batch of mince pies yesterday. Finally I've got it sussed! the right size, a decent pastry etc. I'll probably have forgotten it all by next Christmas but never mind. I rather scunnered myself this Christmas, rushing round making and decorating Christmas cakes, baking for church events and for work colleagues, getting the cards done, presents etc - trying to do too much really, so I said next time I wasn't going to do Christmas at all. Would anybody notice? Doubtful! Well, we'll see.

I do still like Christmas decorations, though. And I've still got the rest of the Christmas cake to eat, yum!

2014!

We were going to go and see the fireworks at Hogmanay but in the end couldn't be bothered. So we dressed up, sat in and played games and watched TV instead.

Happy New Year!

Christmas & New Year

Been meaning to do this for about 2 weeks, so here we are. How was Christmas in Glasgow with the dogs? One easy answer - WET! It rained all day, every day! That's the abiding memory. And we spent a lot of time stopping the dogs from bounding into the apartment and leaving trails of mud all through it. Thank God I took all the dog towels and there was a washer-dryer there!

The trails through the estate were (given the weeks of west coast weather) very muddy and not very long (not a good thing given our propensity for walks and the dogs' propensity for chasing 4 legged things that run away) so luckily we found walkways along the side of the Clyde Estuary and took them there every day for their long walk. I think we did see the beautiful views once, when the clouds lifted one day!

Look how happy we look! The dogs were happy, I have to say - there's no such thing as bad weather. I've only once seen them rush to the door, screech to a halt and back away, deciding to just cross their legs instead. That was when it was pouring down one night in Devon.

We found a lovely place to eat just along the road (The Wheelhouse, Langbank if anyone wants a recommendation) - friendly staff, good service and food, really cosy feel to it, though it's quite big.

The apartment was wee but nice and cosy and once I'd put up some decorations and dug out the wee tree we took, it looked Christmassy too.

Only drawback with the apartment was the height of the bed, which was low enough to allow Maddie not to have to jump up on it to say hello, but instead allowed her to sit at the sides and paw at us to see if we were awake yet. Just a shame she did this every hour from about 6am til we got up!

It was lovely to see everyone though, I don't get down to Glasgow often enough or see my friends and family enough.

I did enjoy it just being us in our cosy wee flat for the (almost) whole week, though. Maybe next year we could do New Year instead?