“Is the spring coming?" he said. "What is it like?"... "It is the sun shining on the rain and the rain falling on the sunshine...” ― Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

Well haven't I been a slack blogger, my last post was a month ago! No real excuse for it other than a bad case of the can't be botheredness again. Never mind I shall try to bring you up to date, I'll try not to get too carried away.

Spring has sprung.......kind of. Signs of spring are everywhere although someone forget to tell the weather. We've had a few warm spring days but that rain soon starts falling again and it brings it's mate the wind. Give it a few weeks though and I'll be moaning it's too hot and that we need rain. ;-D

The first day of spring and I had to light the fire, someone wasn't complaining.

 The day started like this

But it got better

So there was nothing to do but bake.....

Marmalade Cake

6oz self raising flour .
6oz butter
6oz caster sugar
3 eggs
3 tbs marmalade
Peel from Grated orange
Couple handfuls of sultanas
Cream butter ,sugar then eggs little flour rest of flour add marmalade ,orange sultanas ,
In loaf tin. For 45 mins 180 / 190 degrees 

Boiled Pineapple and fruit cake 

Basically it's the same recipe as the boiled sultana cake

but instead of a cup of water substitute with a can of crushed pineapple 

Dinner that night was a huge bacon and egg pie with heaps of veggies.

Maxy moo xx

Outside there are signs of spring

Plum blossom

All of our three ewes lambed safely and with no intervention from us, which has to be a first.

Three sets of twins and all rams, good job we didn't want replacement ewes

The last ewe to lamb on Sunday 30th August

 The first born lambs are growing well

The second set looking pretty chilled

Joe made the most of some fine weather last weekend. He finally got around to putting in new posts and raising the height of the platform on which our mailbox, and that of Michael & Tash's, rest on.

It had to be at a certain height so that the postie can easily put the mail in the box from the comfort of her car! Being an ex Royal Mail Postie I have to say that NZ posties get it bloody easy, they don't even have to get out of their vehicles or, if in town, off their bikes. The mail boxes are easily accessible, I wish we'd had that option in the UK instead of lugging heavy bags of mail to every letterbox set in the front door, most of which were so ridiculously small or set so low to the ground that it was almost impossible to deliver the mail.

 Joe and his trusty 'ammer

On Thursday I made some marmalade using Seville oranges, grapefruits and lemons all from our own trees, the smell of citrus throughout the house was wonderful.

I made three small jars and took two down to craft and four large jars but this happened to one........

The bottom fell off!! Bugger!

At least I was able to tell if it set or not! 

Right I think that will do for tonight, I've got more to share but will save that for tomorrow. Joe's working away in Auckland so I've brought the laptop into the TV room. I don't like to do that, it's a bit anti social I feel, mind you Joe's generally nodded off by 9pm!!! hahah

As it's Friday it must be time for a funny, shared by Sue on my Facebook page

And on that note I shall wish you all a very pleasant evening or morning, 

depending on where you are.

I'll be back tomorrow

Toddle pip old beans

xx

Hold the front page! My sister baked a cake!

I hope you have all suitably recovered from having read the title, this is such a rare event, Halleys comet comes around more often than Sandra bakes! Here is the alleged cake, Sue and I both felt that more photographic evidence should have been provided. We will accept her word for it and just announce here to the world that we are very proud. Here.....is.....the...cake!! Ta dah moment.

Banana loaf!! Looks good actually eh?

Well done sis!!

In other news, another fairly rare event occurred today, a Suesday.....

 Praying for a good day

I found a few books....

The book Jo's boys had a message inside, it was from a Mother and dad to their daughter at Christmas dated 1956! I love that, a book with a bit of history.

Go take a look at Sue's blog too :-D

We've had a few frosts this week but it's made for some glorious winter days, frost is good it kills the bugs in the ground, bugs which sometimes aren't good for the animals.

I took my camera out for a bit of 'off auto' practice

Here are a few of those photos

 

 

 

And to finish off, a little something for the weekend

COFFEE AND TESTICLES

A guy goes to the Post Office to apply for a job. The interviewer asks him, "Are you allergic to anything?"

He replies, "Yes, caffeine. I can't drink coffee."

"Ok, have you ever been in the military service?"

"Yes," he says, "I was in Iraq for one tour."

The interviewer says, "That will give you 5 extra points toward employment." Then he asks, "Are you disabled in any way?"

The guy says, "Yes. A bomb exploded near me and I lost both my testicles."

The interviewer grimaces and then says, "Okay. You've got enough points for me to hire you right now. Our normal hours are from 8 a.m. To 4:00 p.m. You can start tomorrow at 10 a.m., and plan on starting at 10 a.m. Every day."

The guy is puzzled and asks, "If the work hours are from 8 a.m. To 4 p.m., why don't you want me here until 10 a.m.?"

"This is a government job", the interviewer says. "For the first two hours, we just stand around drinking coffee and scratching our balls.   No point in your coming in for that."

Have a great weekend ya'all xx