… I certainly hope so!

Peanut Butter & Chocolate Cake by Cakes From Kim !

I love the seaside. Fact. Sometimes I forget how much I love it. I grew up by the sea and I do miss it. We took a trip to New Brighton beach on Sunday for my Mother’s Day treat (as you can see by my Silent Sunday post)! It was a beautiful crisp spring day with clear blue skies. I don’t think anything clears your head & cheers you up better than fresh sea air. The pups always love trips to the beach too as they love playing in the sea. It makes me happy to see them enjoying themselves so much!

I love this pic of Holly – jumping up at the wall as if to say “Are we really at the beach?!”

Loads more pics of the pups:

I think the beach at New Brighton is my favourite one we have been to so far. It was lovely & clean and there was a pretty lighthouse & old fort at one end. Apparently you used to be able to hire out the fort for functions – how cool!

Oh, and you could see right over to Liverpool which was lovely!

We had a fabulous 2 hour walk and the pups didn’t seem tired at all, even though we were! Of course we had to have a nice ice cream as well. Yum I nearly fell asleep in the car on the way home – I’m obviously not used to the fresh sea air! A fab day was had by all! x

I joined in with The Weekly Bake-Off for the first time this week and made a Lemon & Yoghurt Cake from Mary Berry’s book 100 Cakes & Bakes. The Weekly Bake Off is a great idea – the aim is to bake all the recipes in Mary’s book – a different one every week. 100 Cakes & Bakes is a great book – there are so many recipes in it I want to try! And it was only £4 from Amazon!

This lemon cake was super easy to make. I didn’t have the correct size cake tin (I have a 7 inch & a 9 inch tin but not an 8 inch one haha!) so I used a 7 inch tin and it turned out fine. I left the cake in the oven for the maximum cooking time (75 mins) and I thought it was still not quite cooked – my knife wasn’t coming out completely clean. But it may have just been the nature of the mixture, as the cake was fine in the middle.

The cake tasted lovely, especially with the zesty lemon icing on top! Maybe the cake itself could have a little more lemon in it though? But then again, I do like full-on lemon flavours!

I will definitely be making this again. And congratulations to Gary who is on a diet and didn’t even have a little slice of this !

Yes, it is Mother’s Day this Sunday – I hope the cats & dogs remember to send me a card…! I usually just send my mum a  big bunch of flowers for Mother’s Day but after being contacted by Find Me A Gift to have a browse through their Mother’s Day Gifts I saw a fab idea as a little extra pressie for her.

It is a Recipe Journal! It is full of spaces for the recipient to write down their favourite recipes to then pass back to you. As I love baking I would love to have a record of my mum’s best loved recipes from her generation and her own mum’s generation.

In the same “From You To Me” range they also do “Life Diaries” for mum’s, dad’s, friends etc. Has anyone else seen these diaries? I think they are a fab idea and a great way to treasure memories.

I don’t get to see my mum much now as I live in England and she is still at home in N.Ireland and I do miss her. However, we had a fab fun-filled trip to Lanzarote in January.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO MY MUM & ALL THE LOVELY MUMS OUT THERE! X

Afterwards by Rosamund Lupton

Source – library. I read Sister by the same author last year and absolutely loved it, so I was excited to finally get hold of this at the library. I immediately didn’t think it was as good as Sister and I didn’t really like the way this book was written, it kept confusing me. However, I did get used to it and the book did get better. It was a predictable ending in one way but there was also a little mystery that had to be solved. The ending, although predictable did make me cry! 3.5/5

The Devil’s Star by Jo Nesbo

Source – Sarah. Another one of Jo Nesbo’s books following on from my discovery of him last month. This is an old-ish  book, one of the first in his series featuring Harry Hole. I found the use of Norwegian names quite confusing as I kept forgetting who was who and the start of the book was a bit hard-going. But once I got into it, and warmed to the characters I really enjoyed it. Can’t wait to read the next in the series! 3.5/5

Warnings Of Gales by Annie Sanders

Source – donated by Bec to put on Read It Swap It. I’m not sure why I wanted to read this. Perhaps after the grittiness of The Devil’s Star I wanted a nice easy read. This was chick-lit extreme. I had the feeling that I was wasting my life reading it haha… Although it did have some interesting observations about women & friendships. I persevered and I did actually enjoy the ending. I may even have shed a tear. 2.5/5

Sin By Josephine Hart

Source – library. This was picked up at random in the “Quick Choice” section of the library just because I fancied something a bit different. Plus it was short so I figured if it was rubbish I could at least finish it quickly. It was a pretty intense and disturbing tale of jealousy between sisters. The story itself was nothing overly special but I loved the style of writing, it drew me in completely. Apparently some of her other books are much better so I will definitely check them out. 3/5

Book of the month = Hmm… didn’t have one that really stood out, but probably Afterwards just cos it was different.

Book of the year so far = The Hare With Amber Eyes.

I was tagged to do this meme by Sarah at Tilly Mint Boutique and by Another Goldfish!

Soo, here are the pile of books by my bedside at the minute:

Top is The Likeness by Tana French – I started reading this last night and although I’m only 50 pages or so in I can tell I’m really going to enjoy it!

Next is Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson (kindly lent by Sarah) – this is the 1st book for our WI St Helens book club. I can’t wait to read it as I have heard lots of good reports about it!

Then we have 2, em… personal development type books (self-help is such an awful phrase haha!). I got these via Read It Swap It which is a great book swapping site. I am very interested in these type of books as many of you know I do struggle with my mood and just getting through life generally. Maybe these will give me some inspiration…?

At the bottom is Sin by Josephine Hart. I have just finished reading it and don’t want to say too much as I will  be reviewing it in my February books post – but it was a good, intense read.

OK, so to continue this meme I am tagging:

Kate from Mere Frivolity

Charis from Charismagic

Kim from Cakes From Kim

and…

The Sparrow from The Pampered Sparrow

I hope you will all join in and share what books are on your bedside table at the minute x

Yes, who doesn’t like a piece of cake? Well after the Chester Clandestine Cake Club a couple of weeks ago I couldn’t face cake for at least a couple of days. I stupidly hadn’t eaten anything on the day of the event, apart from bits of buttercream etc while I was making my cake. Then I had several slices of different cakes, copious amounts of tea and the inevitable happened. Yes, massive sugar rush & headache. Oh, and I keeled over… I was standing talking to a friend, the next min I went all dizzy and toppled over. Oooops. Cue massive sugar hangover the next day. I must learn to eat more sensibly. Ah well.

I made a Crunchie Cake for the meeting. It was basically 3 layers of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache & crumbled crunchie bar between 1 layer, buttercream with a crumbled crunchie bar on the next layer and more chocolate ganache, crunchie rocks and sparkly gold stars and glitter on the top. It was a monstrosity of a cake, and wasn’t really a good choice to bring to a cake club as people had a hard time trying to cut themselves a slice.

Kim, by contrast, had a lovely neat looking Oreo cake (which was very yummy!):

Sorry for the blurry photos, I think I need my eyes tested, or a new camera, or a new brain…

Here is Kim enjoying her plate full of different cakes!

My next Clandestine Club outing is to the St.Helens event on 30th March. I plan to make a salted caramel chocolate cake.

Oh, and here are some farmyard cupcakes that I decorated on my course. I really wanted to learn how to make a dog, but as you can see I think I need a bit more practice! x

Let’s just pretend that it is the start of Feb and not the 21st… OK?! Good. So here are my January reads:

Keeper of The Bride by Tess Gerritsen

Source – library. This is one of Tess’ stand alone books, more of a romantic thriller. It certainly wasn’t as deep and gritty as her usual books but I did enjoy it and it had a good few twists.  3/5

Whistleblower  by Tess Gerritsen

Source – left in hotel on holiday by someone. Again, more of the same as above. Not her most recent work, but an OK read. 3/5

(Forgot to take my own pic – oops)

Headhunters by Jo Nesbo

Source – lent by Sarah. This was the first book I had read of Jo Nesbo’s. I had never heard of him to be honest until Sarah started talking about him. So, always keen to try new authors I borrowed this – and LOVED it. It is a stand-alone book, not part of his series of books. It was engaging right from the start, graphic, and very very clever! 4.5/5

(Forgot my own pic again, double oops!)

In The Woods by Tana French

Source – lent by Sarah. Again, I had never heard of this author. The story is set in Ireland and it is always nice to read some Irish dialect. It was a good read although the ending didn’t tie up some loose ends that I had been expecting. Can’t wait to read more of her books! 3.5/5

You’re The One That I Don’t Want by Alexandra Potter

Source – library. I went to the library wanting a Marian Keyes book to take on holiday. I don’t really like “chick-lit” type books but I make an exception for Marian Keyes. She is like my guilty pleasure. However, the library didn’t have any of her books in stock so I randomly looked for another “easy read” book. I had never heard of this author before but decided to risk it. I started the book on holiday then stopped after a couple of chapters as it was way too sugary and I wasn’t in the mood to read it at all. I wanted something deeper & darker! However, I started reading it again on the plane home & got rather engrossed in it. It is an easy read, with some of the usual chick-lit cliches but I also found it to be quite refreshing in that I didn’t guess the ending, and these books are usually quite predictable. Oh, and it made me want to live in New York (just for a while!). I don’t think I’ll be in a hurry to read any more of her books though… 3/5

The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal

Source – library. Again, I took this on holiday but it sounded pretty boring and I couldn’t face reading it. I ended up reading it when I got home and boy I LOVED it! The story takes place in Paris, Vienna and Japan during the 1st and 2nd world wars (periods of history that I am interested in anyway), and it was great to learn more about the different countries. There is a lot of art references in this book and although I’ve never really been interested in art I found myself “Googling” all the paintings etc. that it mentioned and wanting to learn more about the artists! 4.5/5

 Book of the month and therefore book of 2012 so far: The Hare With Amber Eyes

As always, I want your suggestions of what to read next!! x

PS – HAPPY PANCAKE DAY – WHOOP

PPS – SORRY FOR BEING AWAY FOR SO LONG…