All change

Project 'Don't bake anything else made with chocolate' is going well - mainly because I haven't really baked anything at all due to The Big House Move and the subsequent quandary of How The Heck Does My Oven Work.

We underestimated how many little things would be wrong with the house when we bought it - I think it would have been easier to buy a 'project' property that needed ripping apart and starting again. Instead, we're just trying to fix a million and one tiny broken things left behind by the previous owners/tenants. One of which is an oven with no discernable markings. I don't know what make it is, it has no temperature numbers on the knob, it has no oven setting figures on the other knob, so if I actually manage to guess when I've turned on the oven rather than the grill, heaven only knows what temperature it's at.

I managed to bodge together a raspberry frangipane tart, after a lot of swearing, but that's the only thing I've baked since we moved in.

This morning, I made pancakes. They made everything OK again. I know they're not baked, but they tasted goooooooood.


I know I normally only share baking things with my bloggy friends, but to deviate, I must mention my uncle Jim. He's suffered with Alzheimer's for several years. On Friday he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He's gone downhill very quickly. He's comfortable in hospital now. But I don't think for long. Here's Uncle Jim and me in 1986.

Little me and Uncle Jim

Moving on up...

My eye is twitching. I'm not sleeping very well. I have a pretty constant headache. I'm not doing much baking, and my sewing machine is going dusty. What's the cause of this malaise? Oh, yes, I'm moving house! When this post goes live (don't you just love the schedule thingy) I will officially be a homeowner. How scary is that.

It's been a long time coming. Our landlord announced in November 2011 that he was selling up and wanted us out. We thought we'd be in a new home by March 2012, but that wasn't to be. Two sales fell through in quick succession and I began to lose hope. Then we found our perfect home, somewhere that would suit us down to the ground. We were meant to have moved in at the start of July, but then the unstable tenant decided she didn't want to move out, and no one was going to make her. She stuck fast and my resolution faltered. The threat of court action meant we didn't think we'd be in before Christmas - then suddenly, the mad woman was out, and all systems were go go go! We get the keys today, Friday September 21.

My first house, bought together with my brilliant boyfriend. Our real home. I can't wait, but at the same time I am petrified. Scared of the future, the past, and the present. I'm not sure I can cope with everything, but I will try. I will try my hardest to make everything in our new home perfect for me and Steve.

Looking foward to baking a cake in our new home. Hoping the oven works...

Raspberry Bakewell tart and a soggy bottom

Project 'Don't bake anything else made with chocolate' is going well. Admittedly, I've only baked once since I made the pledge, but it wasn't with chocolate, so I consider that a success.

In the midst of moving house, surrounded by cardboard boxes, baking was a little piece of heaven in a cake tin this weekend. I intended to bake a cake using apples, but I found I had already packed all of my recipe books that contained such a gem. So the apple cake must wait for another time - although, I won't need a book, as the lovely Camilla at Fab Food 4 All has entrusted me with her favourite apple cake recipe by her mum, which sounds delish.

Instead, inspired by Steve's mum's home-grown raspberries, I went for a sort-of Bakewell tart. I even made the pastry case myself - although I have to admit to the biggest failing seen on the Great British Bake Off #GGBO - a soggy bottom *weep*. However, I blame the recipe. I intended to blind bake the pastry, before adding the jam and frangipane, but the recipe advised to bake it all at once. I should have followed by instincts - rookie mistake.

I would write out the recipe here, but I have packed it already. It included shortcrust pastry, raspberry jam, a simple frangipane mix, topped off with fresh raspberries. I wanted to drizzle icing on top once it was baked, but Steve said no. Boo.

Lamenting the loss...

I am lamenting the loss of Christmas.

Christmas was a time of relaxing, of remembering the people you love and why they're important to you.

It was a time of merry, jolly, fun, frolics, and calm.

Now, it's back to real life, back to the lack of sleep due to the worry of finding somewhere to call home. Of spending all day searching for a house to view, only to find out nothing's right once you get there, knowing that the next day is just to be filled with more worry.

And it's having no time to do any quilting! Not having the patience or mental space to dedicate a moment to the thing that you love. I even went to a new fabric shop yesterday with the hope that I'd be inspired, but nothing. I'm sad.

A bit nutty

Almond and apricot cookies - yummy!!

Quite squidgy on the inside, with a crunch on the outside - delicious. Really good with a hot cup of coffee from the espresso machine - perfect to warm you up on a winter's day.

Ideal for chomping on while panicking about what to get your loved ones for Christmas. I'm amazingly unprepared and lacking any creativity or imagination when it comes to gifts this year - I'm so worried about the house that Christmas has sadly taken a back seat. I will be making some yummy treats for everyone's parcels closer to the big day, but for main presents I normally have some fresh and different ideas. This year, socks all round....

To cheer us up for Christmas, the estate agents want an exorbitant amount of money just for doing a credit check. They want to charge the two of us about 150 times the cost of doing the check - even the bad men at the bank do it for free, but no, we have to wipe out our Christmas budget just for a bit of paper. Merry Bloomin' Christmas, Mr Estate Agent!

Oh, and because they don't know that Christmas is going on in the background, they didn't mind asking us yesterday if we could move into our potetial new home before the 25th December. Let me think.... That would be a no.

All I want for Christmas... is a KitchenAid mixer!

...and somewhere to live please!

Sorry I've been quiet for a while. Our landlord is having a baby, and subsequently he wants to sell our house - so we have to find somewhere new to live. We've got until March 1, 2012 - which was generous of him, as he could have just given us a month's notice. But with Christmas and all, timing isn't great.... To say I'm panicked is somewhat of an understatement.

We were getting really settled here so it's such a shame - we only just put some shelves and photos up, and it was really feeling like home. We knew it wasn't forever but it suited us for now.

Now I feel rushed and scared. I'm checking for new properties every day, but there's never much property movement during December - obviously, no one wants to be moving house at Christmas (ditto!). We viewed a lovely barn conversion last week, but it wasn't practical - the landlord wanted to keep all her furniture and belongings in there, so basically it would suit someone who's just left home, without any personal stuff to clutter up the space. We couldn't be further from that! Especially with all my quilting garb!

On top of asking Father Christmas for a new home, I'd also like a wooden chopping board, some socks, and a food mixer.

It's available here, Father Christmas, in case your elves can't quite manage it!!

Up and running

I've been MIA for ages as we moved house last weekend - I now officially live with my boyfriend! In a house about 5 times the size of my old flat - it's going to take some getting used to. I keep wandering around, looking for Steve because there's too many rooms to find him in (then I remember he's not here, he's got his head in a car engine elsewhere...).

So, there was the hustle and bustle of moving, and then useless BT couldn't figure out how to press the one button that connects your broadband. Numerous arguments with them later and I'm finally online again, hurrah!

The house is lovely. And, it includes a spare room that will be my sewing room! No more crouching over the coffee table on my sewing machine - I now have a whole room with a desk to spread my patches out on. I can't wait to get re-started on my projects.

I've now been issued another challenge for my godson - to make the bunting for his birthday party in May. Slightly less stressful than the Christening cake. His mum wants a Thomas the Tank Engine birthday cake, but has decided as mother she ought to do it herself - I'm pleased, as although I'm a baker, I'm not a cake decorator!

To celebrate our excellent new house, we have instigated 'Champagne Mondays'. A brilliant idea, you'll agree?

Cake with arms

Can't hang around to say much, as I've got ten thousand boxes to pack. But, saw this and thought it was brilliant:

It's from NotCot Tasteologie who is brilliant.

Twit twooo teddy

My brilliant boyfriend has just bought me this:

It's a pre-moving-stressed-out present and I can't wait for it to arrive. It's from I Love Cutie Pie and I do indeed love that website. Excited!

This weekend has mostly been about having a terrible cold, complete with whole-body aches, and doing lots of packing. Interspersed with Thorntons' white chocolate teddy bears, who say "Ouch!" every time you take a bite (well, that might have been me saying that, but it wasn't half funny...).

In need of tea

Feeling somewhat stressed out again - I'm desperately in need of tea and crumpets. Or cake. I don't mind which.

The house is all sorted and we move in next weekend - I'll be doing some packing tonight, when all I really want to do is some quilting and sewing. That's my refuge but I just don't have time at the moment. Cannot wait to move into the new house - I'll have a sewing room!!

I made some banana loaf at the weekend, but despite the recipe being from 'Mary Berry's Baking Bible' I was uninpressed with the outcome - much too heavy and greasy than my normal recipe. Black mark against that one in the book I'm afraid, Mary.

Frazzled

Not much quilting doing at the moment, although I have three projects in progress. Boyf and I have just signed for a house to rent together - scream! So excited, but also feeling somewhat overwhelmed. Have spent the day nervous and on the verge of tears, which is so unlike me that everyone at work has been quite shocked. I bought chocachino cakes from M&S to cheer me up, which helped a tad.

The personal trainer at the gym admitting he'd told me the wrong day, and that our session was actually tomorrow, didn't help matters. I tried to stay and do a workout, but all my motivation disappeared and I slunk off home (slunk, that's a good underused word).

So, three baby quilts, a tonne of packing, and a moving date are all looming over my shoulders. EEK.

One of the quilts has a white/red/orange/mint green theme - check out the Next stuff the mother-to-be has decked the nursery out in, and wants the quilt to match: http://www.next.co.uk/shopping/baby-boutique/nursery/9/

In the meantime, Nestle After Eight mints count as a viable food source, right?