'Candy Cupcake' Bracelet Winner

Apologies for my lateness with this.  I went to London to see my little sister yesterday and I got in at about ten o'clock last night, had some dinner and basically forgot to do the draw.

But I'm here now! I've just used Random.org to pick a commenter between 1 and 132 and the winner is .....

..... who, by my reckoning, is Alison AKA theotheralig.  Hurrah for Alison! Please email me your address and I'll get the 'Candy Cupcake' bracelet in the post to you.

Thank you to everybody who entered the draw.  I'll do another one soon so do stay tuned.

Have a great weekend!

Apple & Cinnamon Flapjacks

This week my Graze box contained some gorgeous apple and cinnamon flapjacks.  In fact, they were so gorgeous that I felt compelled to tweet about them :

They really were absolutely lush so I decided that I'd have a go at making my own.  I just adapted a normal flapjack recipe and I thought I'd post it here in case you fancied trying them too.  They're nice and crumbly and not too sweet and in the words of Tesco they're 'Perfect With A Cuppa'.(Have you noticed that they print that on almost every product in their bakery section?)

Apple & Cinnamon Flapjacks (AKA Stablefordjacks)

Ingredients

250g Porridge oats

125g Unsalted butter

75g Demerara sugar

3 Tablespoons golden syrup

1-2 Teaspoons ground cinnamon (I used two because I love cinnamon)

2 Dessert apples

Method

Preheat your oven to 180°C (160°C for fan ovens) and line a shallow tin (about 20cm x 20cm) with baking paper.

Gently heat the butter, sugar and syrup in a saucepan until the butter is melted and all the sugar has dissolved. 

Add the oats and cinnamon and stir in.

Peel and grate the apples and stir them in too.

Put the mixture into the lined tin, spread it out and press flat with the back of a spoon.

Bake in the oven for about 30-40 minutes until they're a light golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave in the tin to cool for about twenty minutes.  Lift out of the tin and cut into bars or squares.

Enjoy!

First Snowdrop

I  must have some of the laziest snowdrops ever but finally this morning my first one appeared.  These are the ones I planted last September.  Just waiting for my crocuses now .....

I don't think I'll eat a Cadbury Mini Egg again!

After work last night I nipped to the local Tesco Express to get some carrots for dinner and also for the guinea pigs.  Incidentally, Tesco only had carrot batons and is it just me or do they taste different from normal whole carrot-shaped carrots?  Anyway, I grabbed a bag of carrot batons and some other bits and pieces and I joined the queue.

The man in front of me had his shopping basket on the floor and he was pushing it along with his foot as the queue moved.  When the shop assistant called, 'Next please!' the man in front of me bent down to pick up his basket and as he did so his trousers fell down.

Now, I know it's de rigueur for many man-youths to walk about the place with their trousers practically around their knees, displaying their undercrackers to all and sundry, but this was different.

This forty-something man's trousers, which were some kind of lightweight tracksuit bottoms, fell down to his ankles ...

... AND HE HAD NO UNDERPANTS ON!

It was like the world slowed down at that point.  The next few seconds seemed like minutes.

One second I was stood there minding my own business with my basket of shopping and the next thing I knew there was a pair of exposed man buttocks - there, right there - in front of my face!

My eyes saw the naked bottom and they kind of went, "Hey?  Oh!  OH NO! What in the name of ... ?!" and then my eyes darted to the Cadbury Mini Egg stand where they intently studied the bags, big bags of small bags and tubes of tiny sugary chocolate eggs.  Down the side of my eye I could see the man, still bent over, desperately pulling his trousers back up.  The female shop assistant was in stitches and it wasn't until later that I realised she was IN FRONT of him so goodness knows what she saw.

The bottom-barer hurried over to the till, paid for his goods and scuttled out of the door, probably very grateful for the hood of his jacket which was hiding his face.  After he left the shop a wave of snorts and giggles erupted from all the onlookers.  When the shop assistant had recovered from her laughter she said to me, "I wonder if he'll ever show his face in here again?" to which I replied, "Or his bum!" and we all laughed again.

Sadly, I think my mind will now forever associate Cadbury Mini Eggs with the image of that man's unclad bottom.

And it wasn't even a nice bottom.

New Guinea Piglets

Meet Lisa and Ruth, my two new guinea piglets.

These little ruby-red-eyed furry squeakers are sisters and they are about ten or eleven weeks old. They're unbelievably cute but very timid at the moment.  It might look like they're on the grass in these photographs that Chris took but they're actually on our living room rug.  Lisa (on the left) is a beautiful mink colour and she has one white back leg and a splodge of ginger on her back.  She is named in honour of the wonderful and inspirational Lisa Lynch. Ruth (on the right) is a mix of brown and ginger, is a little smaller than her sister and is named after Ruth Goodman from Edwardian Farm and Victorian Farm.  (You know how much I admire Ruth Goodman!) 

Lisa and Ruth haven't met Brenda, Edith, Jemima and Martha yet.  The two piglets are currently in the indoor cage and when it's a nice sunny day I shall let them out on the grass for a little while and I'll gradually introduce them to the older guineas.  By the time the warmer weather comes they'll all be out mowing the grass in guinea pig unison.  Utter cuteness!