My Holiday Best Bits

Here are just a handful of my holiday best bits (featuring food, iced coffee, the sea, a couple of friends to share it with, and my husband and some mythos - not in order of preference)

Where have I been....

So I haven't posted on the blog since the marathon. Lazy me!

I should have come on long ago and posted the grand total from the marathon fundraising event - A Whopping £3962.72! An amount James and I are very proud of thanks to some generous donations from friends, family and other people. That really is an amount that I hope should make it possible for someone else to benefit from the type of support that I got from Breast Cancer Care.

Apart from baking a birthday cake to take to work and share round I haven't stepped foot inside the kitchen to do any baking since then. Cake overload has now worn off and I might start reading the Nigella Domestic Goddess book again as my bedtime reading.

I have also been on a lurvely holiday to Skiathos. Quiet, relaxing, food and mythos filled Greek island holiday.

The Marathon In Pictures.

(click any photo to make bigger)

THE DAY BEFORE
The Wall (not the one they hit at 20 miles... the message wall). We found you Phil/Leigh!



AND THEY ARE OFF!
Waiting expectantly at cheering point 1.....



wait for it.... wait for it.... he's gone.....


(if you are this annoying woman in the way - I am cursing you, I am cursing you!), unless you are also a bcc supporter in which case... GO BREAST CANCER CARE!

and here is the support team in full-on cheering mode for another Breast Cancer Care runner....



CHEERING POINT 2
Hopefully, the BCC team has snatched a photo of James at cheering point 2 - I was too busy stealing that "Keep going kiss" and all I managed on the photo front was this....


A leprechaun and a nun and James's trainers sporting his champion chip!

Never mind, onto point 3.

EMBANKMENT
Breast Cancer Care did a good job of spotting him and taking a great thumbs up photo



again, all I stole was a kiss.... but as I was there as a supporter that was my job.
Then onto the finish line and meeting him at the Post race reception.

IT'S OVER - YOU MADE IT!

Excitement (me) and relief (James)....... and again another kiss... all these public displays of affection, shocking!



Then there are the support teams (I am not sure why I am so proudly holding a bit of cake!!!!!!!)




And finally My Hero!!!!



I was just so proud as punch, and still am buzzing 3 days on.

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To read how the day went for James, go to James's Marathon Blog
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HE DID IT!

My brilliant brilliant husband ran the 2009 london marathon yesterday. SO SO PROUD. will be back to update with all the exciting photos (I managed to just catch the back of James's neck in one photo and you can just about make him out if you really really zoom in!!). I generally failed to get any good "running shots" of him, mainly because once i spotted him it was all to quick and I was all too excited to have seen him and intent on giving him a quick "keep going" kiss. That photo's went right out the window.

He pushed on through hot hot weather to make it in 4hr 24 minutes. Amazing.

As for me I had just the best day cheering him on. I had a packed schedule to get round to 3 different cheering points with my friend Cassie and we had a 100% hit rate with spotting him at each spot, and it's thanks to cassie that I spotted him at all at point 2. Oooh it happens so quickly.

He did so well, I am bursting with pride today.

The time has come!

IT IS THE MARATHON ON SUNDAY!!!!!

woo hoo. I am really excited (I think James is starting to get more nervous than excited now!).

I think I might be quite emotional on the day, I am so proud of him doing this. It meas such a lot. It might also make me quite emotional to think that I had breast cancer and I don't ever want it to come back because then I wouldn't get to see things like James run a marathon (I don't think he should do another one for quite some time though, if ever - it's real hard work!).

Anyway, It's just amazing what we have managed to achieve on the fundraising. By my calculations we have a little money to add into the offline total and I think we may have smashed through the £3000 mark. It means so much to give this back to a charity that will be supporting others going through what I went through those 2 years ago.

Thanks so much to everyone who has so generously sponsored or eaten cake to help us get there, and if you haven't sponsored yet - there is still time. Just £5 goes such a long way to helping put people with breast cancer in touch with others going through the same thing.


Biggest Biggest Thanks You's everybody.

Standing out from the crowd.

Now that James's training runs are getting shorter again, I have been out and about with him taking some action shots. His Breast Cancer Care running vest has arrived, hopefully it will make him easy to spot on the day....



Run James, Run! I love you for it.

What to do on a Sunny Easter Sunday?

Sit inside a village hall all day :-(

That's what I did with my lovely sunny Easter Sunday. But each time those pennies fell with a clank into the collection tin I remembered that it was all worth it. I took a flask of coffee and my little pack lunch and did my best to sell my goodies.

And, I think it was a success. Well over £60 for the charity pot from my stall and I still have stock to sell at the coffee morning this Saturday so hopefully that total will keep going up. It's a big THANKS to Hannah and her Mum because without their hand-made efforts I wouldn't have had much of a stall to talk about.

Battenburg Cake.

Today I have spent my time making a Battenburg cake. Just because it's got pink in it! It's such fun (and lots of faff) to make. A valiant first attempt at a not-that-straight-forward cake I thought.

Taking Stock!

Easter Sunday will be my big-stall at the Gargrave Flea Market.

Things for this are progressing really well and I am starting to build up my very exciting stock, thanks to the generosity of some busy little friends.

Hannah has gone all out on knitting and making things to sell... tote bags (which I am secretly hoping the geometric print one doesn't sell so I can have that all for myself - but I doubt it somehow), purses, rabbit teddies, key rings and pins.



Hannah's mum has also got in on the act sending some lovely hand-made bead jewelry.



Then there are the seed cards I have to sell. These cars were donated by a work collegue and they go down a storm (they have little parcels of seeds inside the card and instructions on how to sow etc).



So a pretty full up 6ft table!

Egg-stravaganza!

Someone at work is going off on maternity leave just before Easter. As a leaving treat, she decided to leave some Easter Eggs for our floor. To make it more interesting she is raffling these off, proceeds going to my good cause. How nice is that.

Pound a strip, I've got my ticket.

I will be in charge of pulling the winners out of a hat on Wednesday.

Still baking!

Nigella vs Delia - The scones challenge!
I provided scones with jam and cream at work the other day, but with a twist! I tried out Nigella and delia recipes to see which might be best for the WI cake stall.



Scones A won!
However, as a scientist I am annoyed that I didn't make this a fair test with all the appropriate controls. I now cannot tell whether the Delia (A) won because they were the best recipe - or because they had the addition of dried fruit. I should have made the Nigella with dried fruit for a proper test.

I also made some Burn't buttermilk cupcakes, there were not mistakenly burnt - that was part of the recipe where you heat and "burn" the butter to make it taste all nutty.

ROCK ON!

The Pink (Floyd) Rock Band Party!!
Raising money for Breast Cancer Care


The Wigs make a return (His and Hers).


Top marks for getting the Breast Cancer Care colours in the outfits (Pink Legwarmers and Purple hair streaks).

And we all "Rock On!"

James's Half Marathon.

Last weekend James successfully ran the Silverstone Half Marathon.

I am so proud that his training is going well, but I am really feeling for him as I don't know how he could run the same distance all over again for the big one.

I really enjoyed the spectating though. Sitting in the grandstands, finding strategic places on the course to cheer him on and being the official race photographer. Can't wait till the London Marathon.

Dolly mixtures on parade.

Dolly mixture cupcakes netted a grand £33 for my charity. The cupcakes themselves are the work of moments to knock up, however I can spend hours (very therapeutic hours indeed) icing and decorating each little beauty. ahhhhhhhhhh.

Yikes, this could be a problem.

My scales may not be accurate!!! shock horror, this development could throw the baking into jeopardy. I am not sure if it is just today because the batteries are flashing up as "Lo", but I know they are dodgy as on measuring out 100g of apricots to go into my experimental "Runners Oaty Nut Bars" (rocket fuel for James's running), I managed to add in nearly the entire of a 250g bag of said apricots. Somethings not quite right. In true Dawn style, I decided that this would not adversely affect the process and proceeded full steam ahead. The bars are now out of the oven and cooling and only time will tell later as to whether they have come out unaffected by the inaccuracies in measurements and stay stuck together when you pick them up.



I have also decided as this blog seems to be temporarily turning into a baking blog while things are all quite on the "cancer world" front (backed up my GPs test results that came back today saying that my liver, kidney, bone markers, anemia, blood glucose and thyroid tests are all normal. The upshot of these results being that we can conclude that I am just feeble and lazy and have no underlying reason to be a bit tired!). Anyway this afternoon I am going to do the very exciting task of getting the recipes for the cakes I have done so far up on the blog.

hmmmmm... a long days work

Well, this weekend I managed to sweet talk the local lady who runs the craft stall/flea market to let me have a mini practice stall to see if things would sell. Great, I thought. However, when I turned up they were full up of stalls and managed to find me a small bench in a quite side room/corridor and I even had to go get my own table (went home and got our mini occasional coffee table) - not a great start. It didn't much pick up either. As I had laid out my wears on a bench in a corridor-esque room, I felt like a beggar sitting there asking for money as people went by. 10-3pm I sat there. £26.50 I made.

Great you say, and yes £26.50 is fab-a-roony for my charity. But for all day long, I think i may be tempted to stick the money straight in the pot myself. Especially if I had been paying the £10 fee for this privilege!

Ho Hum. On the real thing I will have a stall with pride of place in the busy main room so it should be a lot better. But I will then have to be paying for the table.... £10! I am going to have to weigh this up I think - I have the WI coffee morning the week after this stall and that might be a better place to concentrate my wears. What did go down well was the Seed Cards my friend from work has donated for me. They are great. They have little packets of seeds as part of the card and the picture on the front is what they grow into ... "cards to grow". The little old dears loved them!

Oh well, for the time being I will carry on.

On a Happier note - we have made it past the 50% mark in our fundraising total. You don't know how much I appreciate all the donations that are coming in and the sponsorship for James. Even more so as I don't think I could bake my way to the total all by myself. Thanks. (and don't worry, I won't stop making cakes just cos you sponsored... that will continue till the WI day.)

Cappuccino cupcakes

These are supposed to look like little chocolate dusted cappuccinos. Tasted quite nice, but probably not my favorite of the recent cakes though (the carrot cakes.. or maybe the chocolate espressos are... but then again I can eat my way through a lot of the gingerbread - I may need to make them all over again to make that final decision).

Another year, another MOT passed.

Yesterday was my annual check-up appointment at the Breast clinic. This went smoothly enough. James and I went in together and after the usual hours wait for these things, we were in to see a very nice lady doc.

She first told me that my mammogram showed no obvious changes from last year, which is good. She told me my kidney and liver function tests were normal, which is good.

She gave me a jolly good examination... prod, prod, prod, no slippery little lump was going to evade her probing, which was good.

She asked how I was feeling........ now I did try and avoid giving a list as long as my arm of my woes, but then the point of these check-up is just that, to check whether anything's up. So after telling her about a few of my continued tiredness issues (which could just be my natural feebleness now!) and some achy-ness I had been getting in the bottom of my back, and the little lump in my neck that was still there.... I stopped. Neither of us was particularly worried by any of these symptoms (not even symptoms really) but she did put me on a 3 month check-up, just to see how I am feeling again then.

But generally, I think I have passed the MOT with flying colours. What's more it is now my day off and I am going to do some more baking. I think I am doing well on the whole baking challenge. I have to confess to not taking out my "expenses" from this total that I keep totting up. Not that I am planning to either.... but I suppose I should work out what I am making for the charity over and above what I could have just thrown into the collection tin myself. But, I don't think that is the point and I can't bring myself to work it out either! I enjoy the baking and I have wanted to try out all these recipes but couldn't face eating all the cakes myself, so what better opportunity. So today I am going to have a go at the cappuccino cupcakes. This weekend we have friends to visit and so Baileys muffins are on the cards for a bit of baking "just for ourselves".

Please don't snow!

I have a baking craving hitting me, and not wanting this crave to also hit my waistline, I really would like to be able to get into work tomorrow so I can experiment with the Cappuccino cupcakes and Espresso cupcakes this afternoon and have people around to eat them for me.

I will report on how they go later on!

And here they are... well the Espresso cupcakes at least. As the snow started to fall Sunday evening I wimped out on making a second batch of cappuccino ones to go with them (I can make those later in the week now).



I think they went down well again and had all gone by mid morning.

phew, luckily I didn't bake!

Well, it's a good job I decided to have a week off my baking challenge. Otherwise I would have been chomping my way through 20-40 (depending on how carried away I got) cupcakes because I haven't been able to get into work today due to snow.

So, I have been working from home and I have enjoyed having some time to really get stuck into some thinking for work. Although, I have found half an hour to bake myself a small helping of some chocolate based cake refreshment. I had to - otherwise I might have gone and punched the boy next door. Teenage boy, loud thumping music and trying to concentrate do not go together well. I am much calmer again now and settling down with tea and cake to work some more.

It is also lucky that this cake was "just for me" as being an eager beaver and not being able to wait to get into that chocolate cakey goodness I tried to turn it out of the cake tin too early and left half of it behind. It's not even fit for a picture.

Gingerbread with Lemon Icing

Thursday saw me taking Gingerbread with Lemon Icing in along with my collection tin. I split these between both Level 8 (where I am now) and Level 6 (where I used to be). They went down well and got me another £25 in donations! Hoorah. I put some little pink ribbons on them again (the featured cake in the picture is one of the last ones I had left to grab a quick snap of, the pink ribbon ones all got snapped up).

I think opinion is split over the favorite between Carrot Cake and Gingerbread.

I might have a quiet week on the baking front this week. And return with a vengence the following one. It's really hard not to get over excited and try out every recipe on my work collegues - perhaps the scientist in me should plot out the average weight of participants in the cake challenge before and after I have exhausted cake possibilities.

One thing is certain "Nigella: How to be a domestic goddess" is getting it's fair share of use. I love that book!