Fun with a camera

All right, that sounds wrong...but, it should maybe read: fun with incense:

And the journals on the table were made for us by my friend Jo Waters - they will be accompanying us to Greece as travel journals. This is her website: www.harefishbookbindng.co.uk.

How mama almost brought home the bacon!

Handful of girls outside the owners enclosure

Board showing ratings

Boys at Abba Tribute Concert

A whole group of us lovely young ladies went to Lingfield Park yesterday to a) celebrate Tracey's birthday and b) it was her hen-do. Yep, she's the one getting married in Greece in a few weeks time.

Well, having not looked at horses since the age of eight when my dad insisted I had tremendous talent for spotting a winner, we got to the Racecourse, rearing to go. Bought my own little racecard for the day and immediately set about choosing a handful of horses for the Placepot.

Off I went to the Tote window to place my bet, thinking it will come to around ten quid, but because the woman didn't correct me/help me, like an elderly gentleman did with my friends Dianne and Eileen, my total bet came to £24 and theirs came to £6. (place incremental bets of 25p and not 50p when you do placepots!).

Anyway. I stood a good chance to win...and by the gods, I almost did. All the horses I choose came in place, up to the first three places, that is, except for my horse in the fifth race, who came fourth...so bitterly close. I very nearly took home around £500 quid or so. But it was not to be. Tsk.

But, it was still a fantastic day out and the Abba tribute the concert was good fun. I would like to add here that most of the people who were at the Abba concert were men. Like the pictures testify. Also, I apologise for inflicting a random stag-do on you - apparently the boy Steve had no choice when made to don the Borat outfit.

"Groom" Steve in Borat Costume

"Groom" Steve dancing with "The Bride to Be" (any my friend) Tracey

New York Style baked vanilla cheesecake

Unbaked!

I am at home today, waiting for some handymen (snarf) to fix various things around the house. So, to keep myself from going stir-crazy, I'm baking. Admittedly, it's not for us, but for our friends who are getting married in Greece in a few weeks' time. We're visiting them tomorrow and all us girls are going off to the races for a hen-do...the boys will no doubt drink some beer, be macho, go "arrrrggh" a lot, sniff each other to determine the most alpha male, and then sit down to have some cheesecake.

And this is the most foolproof and gorgeous recipe. And it can be made - if you are watching the waistline - with lowfat cheese. But hey, where's the fun in that?

175g plain digestive biscuits, finely crushed (i.e. break it up into a glass bowl and use the back of a rolling pin or a CLEAN bottom of a screwdriver / coke / beer bottle to finely crush them, not a lot of power is required, to save the glass bowl).

50g unsalted butter, melted (microwave is best - anywhere from 20 - 35 seconds)

225g golden caster sugar

3 tablespoons corn flour

seeds of 1 vanilla pod

few drops of vanilla essence

740 full fat Philadelphia cream cheese (this is where you can opt to be good - half full fat, half low fat, mebbe?)

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 x 284ml carton double cream

about 2 tablespoons of poppy seeds

You will also require a springform cake tin, or a deep pie dish of approximately 23cm in diameter and at least 6cm deep. Lightly oil it and line with parchment paper.

Preheat your oven to 200 degree celsius, 180 degree celsius for fan or 6 for gas. Combine the crushed biscuits and melted butter in a bowl and mix till it forms a sticky mass. Press evenly over the base of the lined cake tin and put it to one side whilst you mix the scrummy insides.

Dump the sugar, sifted cornflour, vanilla seeds and essence into a bowl (if you have an electric mixer, even better because you can turn it on slow/lowest setting) then gradually add the cream cheese and meld it in, be careful not to add air here, as you don't want the cake to rise - honestly! - then add the cream and the egg and beat till smooth and smelling divine.

Put your caketin on a heavy baking tray (for support and to catch any spillages over the side) and pour the mixture in, making sure it sits evenly in the tin. Pop that into the oven for around 45 mins (don't peak until you must) then crank it up for 5 minutes to brown the top of the cheesecake (or not, if it is already browned). Remove from the oven and leave it to cool in the tin before regrigerating it.

Serve it with quite a tangy and sharp fruit compote, as it will enhance the flavour of the cheese.

As my boss from work says: Hmmm! Delish!

A day in pictures

Whitstable Oyster Festival - 2007

Saturday was the Oyster Festival in Whitstable and here are some pics - hopefully in order.

Moonlight Prayers

Click on the title to visit the page where this is from. An incredibly talented man.

Moonlight Prayers

A boat in dock
collects more spider webs
than leaves do sunlight
on a hot July day.

Maybe, they’re attracted
to water as we are:
leaning into mother’s breast
when no other comfort will suffice.

They weave their moonlight prayers,
fragile tethers to nature’s pangs.
But, for the sweep of a black bristle broom
their fate would be a midnight feast.

There is something to be said for misty mornings

What things looked like this morning. Fantastically atmospheric. And I saw one of the sparrowhawks - needless to say he eyeballed me right back as I walked underneath the tree he was perching in. Wish I had taken the zoom camera. Tsk.

Pleased to say: can now access blogger from work again! Yay!

Does a little dance.

Sacred

The British Library is hosting this new exhibition called Sacred: discover what we share. Which comprises of the world's greatest Christian, Jewish and Muslim holy books.

The above picture is from one of the Dead Sea Scrolls from the site.

I can feel my insides quivering in anticipation to go and see this - I might even take a day off work to go visit the Library as I have never been.

Eyes glaze over happily. Hmmmm.

To old/new friends and new experiences

We met up with an old friend which we managed to lose contact with about three years ago for various reasons. She is in a new relationship and is absolutely sparkling and the new boyfriend is a sweetie. Well done Kaz - we are proud of you!



We decided to meet up an hour before a talk we were all going to attend at the Spread Eagle pub in Croydon (a redeeming feature, I may add for this town). The talk was held by the SPI and this is the link to what the talk was all about - http://www.croydononline.org/whats_happening/tmshow.asp?wtid=63200763111 - initially I thought it was going to be pants, but looking at the varied selection of people who attended the talk, I stuffed my prejudice in my pocket and sat down to listen. And it was really quite interesting and very good. The chap who presented the talk, Malcolm Robinson did a good job in introducing what they did - i.e. investigate ghost sightings and paranormal investigations, alongside UFO sightings. I wasn't particularly interested in the UFO stuff, but listening to the first half of his chat about the paranormal and ghosts, naturally worked up my imagination and so out came the notebook and several ideas were jotted down surrounding a young paranormal investigator who gets into a world of trouble.



I shared my obsessive note=making with Kaz and new bf, Nick (whilst the Gecko nodded sagely, knowing that he would be able to crip ideas off me for writing and gaming sessions too) and we were all saying how the muse seems to strike at the strangest times. I was gratified to learn that Nick did the same thing with movies and books that he read - as does Mark. It's sort of: money begets money...only in this instance: imagination begets muse fodder which begets snippets of interesting writing and ideas.

Hmmmm. And knowing my mind, I HAVE TO write these down because they will flit away to someone else if I don't scribble it down. I've decided to make a notebook full of ideas = paste scraps of paper in there with my thoughts and ideas - the heavens know I've got enough random journals lying about with storylines half-worked on in them, rearing to be told at some stage.



So, the next talk being held at the Spread Eagle in Croydon is the 4th of August but I don't think we'll be there - think its the chili festival then? But yes, interesting stuff, glad I went, even if you take it all with a pinch of salt, especially the UFO stuff. Ghosts and poltergeists I am happy to give you the benefit of the doubt, having seen and experienced some pretty weird stuff myself, but UFO's and abductions....not quite sure.

Potter Mania

These guys deserve a medal.

Voldemort rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tx1XIm6q4r4&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Epotterpuppetpals%2Ecom%2F

Goes off singing: Snape, Snape,Severus Snape, Ron, Ron, Ron Weasley, Dumbledore! Dumbledore!