Monthly Archives: July 2009

Freedom

Its all official and legal,my son is finally on the road.
When I bought my new car back in sept 2008, my son was about to take his driving test.

So I decided to keep my old car for him.

Never thinking for one moment that it would be another year before he actually passed.
I did begin to wonder if I had made a mistake by keeping my old car but its worked out really well.
A part from the obvious reasons for wanting to pass his test , work had also offered him a promotion and a full time job if he passed his test.
So its celebrations all round and I get my beloved bike back too , though after a year of commuting its not quite the same 🙁

One out of Three !

The Birds may have eaten all my Gooseberries
My Bottle Brush plant has failed to flower
But at least I have an abundance of beautiful sweet cherry tomatoes.

Birthday celebrations

During July and August every year its the Cambridge Shakespeare festival .
On Geoff’s 60th birthday we went to see the Shakespeare play Taming of the shrew in the gardens of St Johns college.
We all enjoyed it so much that this year I thought we should go and see another play.
I invited some of our friends and Last night to celebrate Geoff’s birthday, 13 of us went along to the Downing college gardens to see Romeo and Juliet.
Once again it was a fantastic evening enjoyed by all and the rain stayed away till after the play had finished.
Emily made the Birthday cake this year and made a great job of it too.

Feeling the burn…

I have not done a long bike ride since I met Geoff, and no biking at all in the last year while Andrew has been using my bike to get to and from work.
Then a few weeks ago Geoff announced that  he was thinking about cycling to his apartment in Les Gets.
The distance is just a mere 600 miles and he’s hoping to do it in around 10 days.
We then discovered that today was the annual London to Cambridge bike ride, a good training ride we thought.
Unfortunately we could not get a place on the bus to the start at Picketts lock.
This did not put us off though, so this morning we were up at 5am and cycling towards London by 6am.
Around the half way mark we started to bump into the fast riders coming from London, so we then turned around and made our way back to Cambridge.Thus getting to experience life in the fast lane 🙂
We cycled well over 50 miles, I did feel the burn up a few of the hills but never once gave in and walked.
The only part of me that aches is my bum 🙁 while Geoff has an aching back.
So now you must excuse me whilst I go and give Geoff a back massage.

Tray Bakes

When the boys were small I used to make a lot of traybakes.
They are ideal for large numbers … for parties, bazaars, coffee mornings and school fetes.
I purchased the perfect traybake tin 12 X 9 in so it can be made quickly, then simply cut it into squares or bars.
My Beloved cake book has a whole chapter dedicated to traybakes.
Yesterday I decided I would make one as a surprise for a friends birthday.
Deciding which one to make was the hardest bit but I decided on a Gingerbread traybake.
It turned out really well and tasted as good as it looked.
My friend must have really liked it as she took it home with her, much to Geoff’s disappointment.
But I have another 12 Traybake recipes so I am sure Geoff wont be disappointed for long 🙂

Another souvenier..

I just fell in love with these silver Inca men necklaces.
Eventually I gave in and bought one but I did a bit of haggling and got a good 20% off the asking price.
I also got some matching stud Earrings

Souvenirs from Peru.

I brought back many souvenirs, this is just one of them.
We loved all the wonderful bright Peruvian wall hangings.
I could of easily, had hundreds of them, all with different patterns and in all shapes and sizes.
But this is the one that now hangs in my Hall, thanks to Geoff.

Moray and Maras.

During our week in Cusco we did a couple of day treks.
Thinking it would be good training for the Inca Trail.
One of these Treks was to Moray and Maras in the Sacred Valley.
The Moray Inca Ruins were perfectly circular terraces so within each terrace, different things could be planted. It’s just a great sight to see, and the engineering behind  it is really interesting. … These ruins also have tons of the Inca “flying stairs” which are fun to look at, but hard to walk down!

The Maras salt mines was definitely one of the more bizarre sights we saw on our trip to the Sacred Valley, a huge salt mine carved out of the hillside, with terrace after terrace of mini salt-lakes spread out in front of us.
As well as being a very interesting day it was a great days walk too.