The Flame!

Well hello there my loverducks, 

No posts for a few days, life has just run away with itself over the weekend, having people to stay is hard work isn't it? Just getting out of bed is hard enough for me most days!

Anyway I'm back and I have exciting news. Firstly my lovely friend Em is coming for tea, the pizza dough is rising by me in bed, the recipe said a warm place, so we're both tucked up under the duvet! Secondly we saw the olympic flame! 

Photos taken by Mr Lardshow

Now I'm not really one for joining in with the crowd and cheering along madly but there seems to be a wonderful feeling falling over the country at the moment. We all, myself included, are feeling a great sense of pride that the Olympics are taking place here in our beautiful land. There's also the knowledge that this may be the only opportunity we will have in our lifetime to see such events. 

Saturday morning and the alarms went off extremely bright and early, thanks to my Mother's amazing navigational skills we travelled in convoy and avoided all the traffic and closed roads and managed to get a nice little pitch next to a roundabout in Streethay. Mr Lardshow's mum and I rested our weary legs from the short walk on the camping chairs we'd taken, we had some funny looks off the local policemen but I think they were a bit fearful of what would happen if they told us to move. So we were ready and waiting, the buzz from the crowd was amazing, there was an incredible sense of anticipation in the air. 

After a while the convoy started to pass by us and eventually a coach with the torch bearers stopped in front of us. Panic set in, were we going to miss the flame? I say panic set in. Several of the crowd started to move to make sure they wouldn't miss anything. I didn't! I'm a professional when it comes to sitting in a chair, you sit in it and let others panic around you, you don't move, ever! Thankfully there was no need to panic because amazingly we had managed to position ourselves in the perfect spot.

We were sitting directly in front of where the torch was going to be passed on. Our torch bearer was a young lad called Jack. He was brilliant! Full of confidence, posing for photos, letting small children come and have their photo taken with him and the torch. 

The look of pride on Jack's face when his torch was lit was just a joy and a privilege to see. I'm so glad we managed to get out and see it. It was well worth it. Who knows maybe one day I'll be able to tell my granchildren that even though I didn't get to compete in the Olympics I did get to see the Olypic torch. 

The torches

Can I urge anyone reading this, who has the opportunity to still see the torch relay to go. It really is a spectatcular sight! Go, you may never get the chance again...

Jack

A big thank you to Mr Lardshow for letting me use his photos from the day, if you'd like to see some more of his amazing pics, please feel free to have a look. Just click on the link below.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lardshow/

Sun Tea for Miss Adele

I was chatting across the ocean to my lovely Canadian friend Miss Adele and she gave me the inspiration for this post. She said all you needed was a teabag, a jar and some sun. Not a problem you might think but that big, glowing ball in the sky has been rather elsuive of late...

This morning the sun came out! I was out in my garden with my Parentals and I found myself shielding my eyes from the sun, such a surprise and finally a chance to try out Miss Adele's idea.

So the idea is you take any teabag of your choce, the fruitier the better and you pop it in a jar with cold water. You then place the jar outside in the sun. As the sun's beams hit the jar they warm the water and help the tea to stew/brew/mash.

My sun tea is still brewing outside, I'm not sure how warm it's going to be as the sun has gone and all we're left with is a cloudy, muggy day. It was fun taking the photos and watching the water gently change colour. I'm really enjoying developing all my photos.

So what sun tea will you make?

Baby Bantams

We went back to the farm...

And inside the box of chicken delights there were some bantam eggs! Such excitement, much scrabbling to get enough pennies together to be able to buy the bantam and hen's eggs. Yup we now have enough eggs to keep us going until ooh at least next week. 

There's just something so perfect about the shape and colour of an egg that's come from a happy chicken. I just can't understand why any one would buy caged hen's eggs nowadays. 

I've never eaten bantam eggs before and I assumed that they would be just like mini eggs (not the chocolate ones!). When we cracked them open we were greeted with the sight of the brightest yellow-orange yolk I've ever seen  and when we fried it we realised the yolk was pretty much the same size as a normal egg. There was much less egg white, perfect for me!

So as you can probably tell I've been having a go at taking more photos using Mr Lardshow's camera, he says it's now my camera but I fear that if I say it's my camera he'll make me carry it and it weighs a bloomin ton! Much better to say I'm borrowing it... I've never really been that creative or arty (More of a home economics girl, me) but I'm trying to use different colours and textures to make my pictures more interesting. I'm now starting to look at everything with a camera's lense. The good thing is you can add shadow, depth and texture after you've taken a really bad photo!