Singing Chicken

With apologies for the delay.....

PRIZE QUIZ SOLUTION

Cakes which were not words as such but referred to in the text are marked with an asterisk.

The intentional hidden words were: Eccles, coffee, sultana, Victoria, cup, angel, Devon slice, Welsh, Bara Brith* [ the direct translation of ‘bara brith’ is ‘speckled bread’, see], Yum yum (bars), walnut, Dundee*, chocolate*(labrador), scone, parkin, Pontefract, Madeira*, butterfly, Kendal Mint, cream, ginger, rock, cherry, tea, Brownies, Christmas, fish*(=the round type of fish fingers!), tea loaf, jam dohnuts (the modern way of spelling), Madeleine, fairy, flapjack, Bakewell.

As I said, I haven’t included plum and Easter in the answers as I’m not sure they are really cakes in their own right, although I know you could make a plum cake. It’s a grey area and I didn’t want people coming back saying it is or it isn’t and that it’s all unfair etc etc.

It was January sales time and Mrs.V. Eccles and her friend Doreen McGonigall were out shopping.
“Let’s go for a coffee”, said Doreen. “You look so cold. Your nose is purple as a plum!”
“If I didn’t know you better, I would take that as an insult! An awful insult!” said Mrs. Eccles.
“Och, Victoria. I’m awfy sorry. Let me pay for these to make up for it. So what’ll you have with your cuppa? They’ve got quite a range. Look!”
“You don’t need to be so formal. Call me Vicky…if I may call you Doh?”
“Och, yes”.
“Well, Doh, this display reminds me of all these cafes I like to visit on my holidays in Devon. Slice of that what-d’you-call-it Welsh loaf would be nice. Yum yum!” said Vicky, pointing. “ You know, it translates as “speckled bread”.
“You don’t say”, said Doh. “I know some Welsh too. ‘Car’ is ‘car’, ‘wall’ is and ‘wal’…nuts, now that’s what I fancy. Let’s see…..Yes, I’m going to have a piece of that one there with the nuts on it. Do you know, it’s the very cake which, in the eponymous town, my famous ancestor was munching when he had his Damascus moment which inspired him to write poetry.!”
“If he’d only joked on it we’d have all been spared.…” muttered Vicky.
“Oh, it’s not a joke. It’s true”, said Doh.
There was sound of “woof woof!” from the café doorway.
“They can’t bring that Labrador in here!” said Vicky, pointing to the dog. “ What is it anyway? I’ve heard of golden labradors and black ones, but that colour is more rare. I can’t quite recall the name.”

“Have you booked your holidays yet, Doh?” asked Vicky. “Will you be off to Scone again?”
“No. I’d better not for a while. That’s where that “No Parking” sign got in the way of my car and got all bent. No, we’re going to Pontefract this year”.
“Odd choice,” said Vicky. “We’re jetting off to that what’s-its-name Portuguese island that’s famous for gardens and lace. Oh, will you pass me the butter”.
“Flying’s not environmentally friendly, you know”, scowled Doh. “So you obviously decided against Kendal. Mint, Vicky?” (handing her a packet of Polos.)
“No, not with this, thanks, Doh.” Said Vicky. “ We decided against anywhere in Cumbria. It’s not long since that business with my car and that ice cream kiosk. Unlike you I’d only had the three glasses of gin. Geriatric judge still took away my licence!”

“After we’ve looked at those frocks in M&S I’ll go to the food hall and spend that voucher. Ryvita - 30p off, that’s what it’s for” said Doh. “And I’ll have to get something for tea. The grandchildren are coming. That’s before we all go out to the Brownies’ post-Christmas pantomime. They always want fish fingers but they’re full of junk, even in M&S. The round shaped ones are much better. I’ll make a list now. Let’s see now, I need milk and ….em…what’ll I write?”
“A loaf? And kids like jam, Doh.”
“Nuts about it, they are. Great idea.”
“Are they acting in the panto?”
“Och, yes. The young one, Madeleine, she’s the fairy. Her sister is so jealous, she’s in a right flap. Jackie’s her name. She’s only the back end of the cow!”

“Look at the time” said Vicky, standing up.” If we don’t get back to the shops soon it’ll be the Easter stuff we’ll be finding on the shelves!”
“Speaking of which” replied Doh, walking to the door .“I’m going to make one of those cakes this year- you know, a what d’you call it cake. The one with the blobs of thingummy on it”.
“Very good, Doh. You do bake well, I must say.”

Tie breaker 1.
What is the name of the cake which Doh is going to make at Easter? Simnel

What are the blobs made of? Marzipan/almond paste

How many blobs are there? 11 (sometimes 12 if Christ is in the middle)

Why that number? 11 apostles. Judas is omitted because he betrayed Jesus

Tie breaker 2.
If you could think up a new kind of cake, what would it be?

You have seen that pic before but by the weekend there'll be some new ones.

The hills were turning reddish-brown from the top down, grass going yellow and brown, streams drying up, but in the nick of time it has rained. Phew. No carting of water to the ponies necessary then.



I did no blogging at the weekend and then on Monday the internet was "down" at work. Ah well, at least I didn't have Mr. Angry's emails to contend with. I suppose I'd better look today but I'm putting it off. There's a small problem with a house he's buying, which the sellers are rectifying, but he has turned this molehill into a mountain and expects me to somehow make the mountain disappear. I told him I wished I had a magic wand but I don't. I can't tell him what he should do, I can only set out the options: buy and wish you hadn't or don't buy and lose money you've spent. I can't make the "problem" unexist and he's angry with me because I can't.



Had a good day on Saturday at a pony open day and demo about preparing for shows. We do one pony show a year so lots of prep not high on the agenda but it was a good day in pleasant company and surroundings, with picnic lunch, a walk around the ponies, afternoon cakes and new foals to "coo" over. Met the usual acquaintances and friends, including my Quasar's previous owner who is always anxious for news of her.

Queasar and I have been on some good rides in the past few days. That's one of the up-sides of prolonged dry weather. I took her out at about 8 on Thursday evening and about 7 on Saturday. It's a lovely time to go. Not so hot, fewer flies, different light from the afternoons. Took her out at quarter to three on Sunday - a vote with our hoofs.

Sorry. Bit of a non-post but thought I had better show face.

An angry man came to the door last night. It's not the first time he has complained about Ludo beating up his cat. He says Ludo comes into their house via their cat flap and attacks their cat. He also reported similar incidents involving other people's cats.
I said I was very sorry indeed and he had my permission to throw water and things but it has all been done before and Ludo won't stop. Now after about four apologies he was just getting angrier and telling me about vet's bills so during all this I began to think that fights are a hazard of keeping a cat. They can't surely say that every time their cat is hurt, it was Ludo, unless they witness it every time. I fear Ludo has maybe turned into a scapegoat. However, if I was him, I would be very unhappy. He asked me to keep Ludo shut in. Well, you can't suddenly do that to a cat who hasn't ever been kept in. I know Ludo would absolutely hate it. Outdoors is his life.
The man said he can't go away at weekends for fear of their cat getting hurt while they're away,and they've got a baby on the way and don't want this.



I said he is always shut in at night, but it can be very difficult to get a cat to come in when you want it. I do want to co-operate but his anger was upsetting me because I had been so apologetic and was taking him seriously. Can he not shut his own cat flap? It wasn't nice having my Ludo blamed for every cat incident in the neighbourhood. I said Ludo got beaten up too and came home all wounded and bloody. Look at his right ear, for example. We also get other cats coming in Ludo's flap, picking fights and eating his food. It happens with cats. I also told him he was a lovely, affectionate cat with peopple, but that cut no ice. Anyway I said we would do our best to restrict his outdoor time so he'll have to be got in earlier, if that's possible.
I am worried that somebody might do something nasty to him.
I heard they have cat curfews in Australia. Is that right, Helsie? What happens if call and call and call Tiddles but Tiddles just won't come in?

Went out last night to check a route for the walk and tea which is coming up soon. It was no good. Barbed wire fences, no stiles, tied up gates and little sign of where the route was meant to be. I've written to the Council who will probably say they would like to replace signs and stiles but have no money. We'll see. Maybe they will sort it and it could be used next year.



So off I went. Saw a clump of these orchids which need to be checked in the book along with those from early May Bank hol which we haven't looked up yet.



Then a long way further, right up on the breezy tops, I met this fellow. Mr. Toad. I thought he was dead. He was so still and when I touched him he felt solid and cold. But then he winked his eye so I took his photo.

It was dull so I didn't take any scenes. The sunny top photo is stile I photographed earlier, at lambing time.

I wish I had done it the oher way round but I dug in the brilliant blue sunshine of Monday night and walked under the white veil of Tuesday night.
Monday was so clear right up until the sun went down, but bent over with one's face towards the soil I didn't see much of it. Last night there was a fine white gauze over the sky so there were no shadows which would have brought photogenic scenes to life. Never mind, there will be more.

I got the bed planted with my instant garden. It feels like not real gardening, just buying at the garden centre and putting them in. As I have worked this bed over the years and turned it into manageable crumbly soil, at least it was easy, just like on the telly. Dig a hole, shove it in, move on. None of the usual breaking and heaving up big lumps of stone and cutting your fingers scrabbling out sharp shale. There they are: delphinium, phlox, anchusa, anemone, veronica, sedalcea, big thistle and geum. If the usual suspects are not there it's probably because I have the elsewhere in the garden. I left in the annual delphinium, suspect Californian poppies and anything else that might be a flower seedling.

Uncle, the weed thing did smell a bit like tomato!

I am not interested in football and I begrudge it taking up time on the telly, especially when programmes I want to see are put on late or not at all. It's most annoying when you have set things to record because you might get part of your prog or you might get none of it. Apart from the game itself, all the hype is very tiresome too. You go to the shops and there are cardboard footballs dangling and rolls shaped like cross sections of footballs. Grrrr. They seem to think we all care. I put up with all this because I have no choice. Anyway ......what I'm building up to is that it's bad enough if the fans like it, but when the fans



complain about the booboozalers, well that's it; the end of it. If the fans don't like the booboozalers, get the blinkin' tournament off the telly. I will put up with it being on if people like it, but if they don't, what's the point in having it on telly at all?
Anyway, why don't they just turn their telly sound down? Or if they need commentary and crowds, why don't they find some simultaneous match - it needn't even be football - from somewhere else on some radio station and play one match to the sound of the other?

Didn't they know about booboozalers before they decided to have the tournament out in S. Africa? Ha ha ha!

Photos not mine.I couldn't even get google images to find me a booboozaler. Tried football hooters. Yes, well. So I tried football noise. Do the booboos look anything like these?
Boris was quite funny when asked about booboozalers recently on the pm programme.

But more importantly, the house martins have returned to the village and are building a nest. I had given up on them.

I said I would report back on the progress of the flower bed which I sowed in early May. Well here it is. Not good, is it? I think I blame the home made compost. It's not as if it's choked with weeds though. There's very little of anything on it. The seeds should have been up by now.



See this. Now that could be one of the Californian poppies, which are easy-peasy to grow, but I suspect it's a carrot. I think carrot tops have sprouted from the compost so it mustn't have been rotted enough. I will give the plant the benefit of the doubt and wait and see.



These look a bit veggie too. I know they're close together. I'll thin them out and see what I get.



And this. There are a few of these. They look a bit turnipy to me. Again we'll wait and see.



The one redeeming feature .... some annual delphiniums. Hooray.

However, this decides it. I'm not going to do all that preparation work any more and tend little seedlings until August, when they usually start to look like mature flowers. I'm giving up the annuals lark and am going to go and get some hardy perennials from the garden centre. I take on board Uncle B's suggestions of lavender and geranium. I have some of these already in drier spots. This bed isn't well enough drained for lavender. I will mulch them well over winter so I don't lose them. I learned that lesson over the last few months. Please remind me that I said I would look after them.

I think that's the name I'll give this path. This conifer is miles from any others so how did it come to grow here? I think one very windy day a stray cone got carried over the hilltops and it came to rest between the stones on the slope and took root.

See how the bilberries and heather are gradually colonising the slope? You get the feeling of the transience of things. They don't ever stay the same.

This is one of my rides. It goes along a little sheep track at the bottom of the scree slope, alongside the bog. The air there was full of skylarks last night. I went along the little ridge above the bog on the other side and was looking down on the skylarks. The air was full of them, as well as meadow pipits and wheatears. There's a great view of the little bog pools and cotton grass but the sun was shining right into the camera so I didn't take it. Would probably have to come back in the morning. Hmmm. Don't do mornings.



Return by the little lake. Here it is in June.



Here it is on that freezing late afternoon on Feb or March. It's not as dry now, but I still had to move the ponies out of their big field three weeks ago because hteir spring had dried up. Streams got dangerously low. Last weekend's rain has helped but all water courses are far lower than usual.

I was just clearing weeds from the front of this jhouse on Saturday, and thinking to myself "Heck, if I had left this any longer it would have looked derelict!"

People say of their houses that a bit of mess inside only makes them feel more homely and look lived-in. Mess on the outside makes them look uninviting and NOT lived in.

This is a little poem that amuses me. My last minister used it in his sermons more than once. I may not have got it exactly right, so apologies to whoever wrote it.

I had a little tea party this afternoon at three;
There were just three people there: I, myself and me.
I ate up the sandwiches, myself drank all the tea,
'Twas also I who ate the pie and passed the cakes to me.

Foody's voice: Actually, that sounds quite appealing!

Who heard that thing on the Today Programme this morning? Men are now living a little longer and their average age at death is catching up with that of women. Along comes this woman - don't know who she was - some journalist I think - and she says "Typical of men to die younger, leaving the women to clear everything up. Now they're living longer, but do we women want them to, with their snoring, boring, selfish ways?" or words to that effect. So she's suggesting we would prefer our men to drop off the mortal coil than to trouble us any more?!



I think more men do snore than women and it IIIS a bloomin' nuisance. Are they more boring? I think she said that they just wanted to sit and watch telly while women made food etc. Stupid woman. What a blinkin' cheek!



Selfish? Now then, I can't say I've noticed but she said that as women lost their oestrogen and produced more testosterone as they got older, they became more selfish. Now then. I think I have complained about selfishness in more men that of women myself but I'm NOT saying all men are selfish, OK? I just wonder if she has a point there, statistically. I definitely think that as women get older they start to look more like men. That'll be the testosterone. Cos we each have some of our opposite's hormones anyway.



None of us are getting younger so I ask myself am I becoming more selfish? I have always been brought up to put others before myself and always end up feeling guilty when I haven't managed it - again. However, increasingly I feel walked over, when I try to do it right. People tell me to "look after number 1" more. I was always told that number 1 was not me, it was somebody else. More and more though, I find I want to stop being at the bottom of the heap when it comes to who gets considered first. I like to think I'm just becoming a bit more circumspect, but maybe that woman is right. It's probably just selfishness in a less ugly guise. It shouldn't be a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em". It should be the other way round: selfish people should be trying to become less selfish, but of course they won't. So I'm back where I started, resisting being walked over.

Eat your greens first you two, then you can have cake!

No office in the garden today. It's much too grey and cold. Today, between jobs, I am making fresh minted pea soup in readiness for that auntie visit. It's very tasty. Just the right amount of sweetness and the right amount of mint. Slightly thin. Sometimes if you leave soup it thickens on its own. If it doesn't, then next time I may add a little flour or a small potato.

I love making dried pea soup in the winter, especially pea and ham, and especially with smoked ham (well, bacon), but this a refreshing summer equivalent.



I've even boiled the pods, saved the liquid and have started pressing the boiled pods hard through a sieve to get stock for my next soup. How's that for thrift and for flavour? I put asparagus stock in this one today.
I did almost press the trigger to take a photo of the broccoli and leek soup I was about to serve for my lunch, but stopped myself. Thought there was enouh green gloop on here for one day. Actually, I've just seen that it is in the picture.

And now here is the recipe, Helsie and Kath.

4 oz butter, 6oz golden caster sugar, 2 eggs, 7oz plain flour, 1 and a half teaspoons baking powder, half teaspoon cinnamon, pinch of grated nutmeg, 3 large bananas.

Cream the butter and sugar. Sift the dry ingredients. Add eggs one at a time with a little of the flour and beat. Fold in the rest of the dry ingredients. Crush the bananas and fold in. Pour into prepared loaf tin and bake at 350F/180C for 50 to 60 mins.

Last night's result: a banana cake. It doesn't look that great but at least it's obviously home made! It's what it tastes like that really matters. I will post the recipe tomorrow, Helsie.



Before doing that I went out to check a route which I suspected might be too much downhill and too steep, and it was. Didn't take the camera because it was very grey but there are good views so maybe another time. (This isn't my piccie and it isn't the exact spot either).
It was grade 3 and a half on my scale which I made up yesterday: 1. slightly steep, 2:steep, 3: very steep, 4: positively precipitous. Even trying to stand still I could hardly stop sliding down. Not the walk for people significantly older, with dodgy knees and hips. And above the woods in the open there were the dreaded advancing frisky cows, a bull and big off-putting notices about staying on the path in the cows' field, please. Well, hmph, no thanks. I got over that fence PDQ.
Better look for another route another day.

The yearly round. Last year I did a massive (for me) bake for a small event I was organising. I have volunteered to do the same event again this year. Alright, it is just a group of us from church who like to do walks in the summer months. You plan a walk that lasts about 2 hours and afterwards you put on a tea. I have gained a bit of a reputation for my teas, which I have to keep up.

It isn't that easy to make everything fresh for the day, which is 3rd July, so I always get lots ready in advance and freeze it. Thought I had better start this week. I have 4 weeks so that's about 2 things a week, since I usually make about 8 different things. I've also got to make and freeze a few foody things for impending visit from auntie-in-law in July, as well as check out a walk route, ride ponies, do the garden, practise violin, keep the house and clothes clean etc and rehearse for this extra show I wish I had never agreed to. Oh, and go to work in the day.



Last night's efforts were some cheese shortbread and a load of sweet shortbread cases for my legendary strawberry tarts. Tonight I'll do banana cake and I'll look at a walk route tonight as well if it isn't too wet. This'll be my fourth such walk and as I have to tailor it to avoid steep ups and downs it's hard to keep it different every time. (The above pic is a path near Pinkworthy Pond, on Exmoor.)

Went out for the day on Saturday. Hub had said, "I've told M and R that we'll give them lift". Fine, because we we going near where they live. Got to where they were waiting and R had the baby with her in the pushchair. I hardly know R and had forgotten she even had a baby.
Hub got out to help collapse the pushchair. R opened the back door. "Right then, .... oh! Where's the middle seat?! Haven't you got a middle seat?!" I said "Oh, er... no. I'm sorry." R: " Well don't you know that to travel with a baby you have by law to have a baby seat strapped with a seat belt?" Me: "Yes, I do know that. Oh dear. I'm sorry but I didn't realise there was going to be a baby." R:"Well I'll have to strap the baby seat in and squeeze in the middle myself, so it's lucky I'm skinny". Me:" Well, er...." R: "This is illegal you know". Me "I know. I know all travellers should be wearing seatbelts. This car is only meant to be a 4 seater. It says in the insurance."(She was by now sitting in between seat belts.) Me: "We'll I suppose we'll just have to hope nothing happens so we don't get stopped". I was silently worrying about the invalidation of insurance, prosecution etc.

R didn't speak a word to me all day. There were other little snubs from her all day which gave me the distinct feeling I was being blamed for not having a middle car seat in the car. Should R not have thought to remind hub that the baby would need to take up a seatbelt?

I spoke to hub and he said he knew the baby would be coming but he hadn't realised people just couldn't sit in cars holding babies in their laps any more. We'll, we've never had a baby. Why should he have known? It was all a big misunderstanding and mis- communication but I was left thinking "Ought I to have got out of the car and gone on the bus?" Somebody should have. There is a perfectly good bus service to that place, which R could have gone on herself! But people with babies always say that they can't do that.



M was an innocent third party. Should she have offered to get the bus? I think really hub should have, because he offered the lifts and gave no thought to the baby and ignorance of the law is no defence, but it wouldn't have been right if the very person who made the kind gesture of offering the lift was the one who ended up on the bus!
When we dropped them off at the end of the day - not at the convenient meeting point but at their front doors - and got no word of thanks.

This post won't be here long. Don't want hub seeing it and me "running down" his friends!

This is my office on Thursdays in summer. It takes me about 8 trips to bring - up the steep steps - the red crates (of which I have two) filled with files, the laptop, the phone, the chairs (I need two - one to put my feet up on), the table, the cables for the electric things, the compost to empty, sometimes the washing to hang.....
But for a day in the sun, it's worth it.

The clematis is magnificent right now. In the same view in a few weeks there should be honeysuckle round the same arch, kiftsgate rose climbing along the shed and the things in the background should have flowers too. Should. Sometimes it doesn't happen.

So when the boss phones he hears the birds, notably the cuckoo, and the sheep in the background and I go "Ah..... em.... I'm working in the garden today" and he says "Oh yes...." and he thinks "Oh, yes....". I think I'll show him the photo. Looks business-like enough to me.

Thanks, pals! It worked!

It was some months ago that I promised I would post this quiz. Have a go!
I will give you two for nothing, because I don't think they are actually cakes, and they are Easter Cake and Plum cake.
See how many others you can spot. The answers will follow in a week or two.
Non UK people should have handicaps really, as they may not be familiar with some of them, but it's all only a bit of fun.

Throughout the story below are references to all kinds of cakes. Sometimes the actual names of cakes are in the words. (eg The butter is melting. Moments ago it was solid” Hidden words: melting moments.
Sometimes they are hidden within more than one word. Eg “Please pop in, Jay. It’s nice to see you”. Hidden word: Popinjay.

Sometimes the name of the cake does not actually appear because the two characters can’t remember its name, but it is alluded to in the conversation. The task is to underline all types of cake you can find in the story. There may be some unintentional cakes so please just underline all you find. You will not have points deducted for spotting unintentional clues but you will be marked only on the intentional clues which have been planted by the quizmaster. Answers which cannot be underlined may be written in the margin.

The quiz starts below and finishes after tie breaker 2. The photos are not part of it.

It was January sales time and Mrs.V. Eccles and her friend Doreen McGonigall were out shopping.
“Let’s go for a coffee”, said Doreen. “You look so cold. Your nose is purple as a plum!”
“If I didn’t know you better, I would take that as an insult! An awful insult!” said Mrs. Eccles.
“Och, Victoria. I’m awfy sorry. Let me pay for these to make up for it. So what’ll you have with your cuppa? They’ve got quite a range. Look!”
“You don’t need to be so formal. Call me Vicky…if I may call you Doh?”
“Och, yes”.
“Well, Doh, this display reminds me of all these cafes I like to visit on my holidays in Devon. Slice of that what-d’you-call-it Welsh loaf would be nice. Yum yum!” said Vicky, pointing. “ You know it translates as “speckled bread”.
“You don’t say”, said Doh. “I know some Welsh too. “Car is car, wall is and ‘wal…nuts, now that’s what I fancy. Let’s see…..Yes, I’m going to have a piece of that one there with the nuts on it. Do you know, it’s the cake which, in the eponymous town, my famous ancestor was munching when he had his Damascus moment which inspired him to write poetry.!”
“If only he’d choked on it we’d have all been spared…” muttered Vicky.
“Oh, it’s not a joke. It’s true”, said Doh.
There was sound of “woof woof!” from the café doorway.
“They can’t bring that Labrador in here!” said Vicky, pointing to the dog. “ What is it anyway? I’ve heard of golden Labradors and black ones, but that colour is more rare. I can’t quite recall the name.”
....................................

Have you booked your holidays yet, Doh?” asked Vicky. “Will you be off to Scone again?”
“No. I’d better not for a while. That’s where that “No Parking” sign got in the way of my car. No, we’re going to Pontefract this year”.
“Odd choice,”said Vicky. “We’re going to that what’s-its-name Portuguese island that’s famous for gardens and lace. Oh, will you pass me the butter”.
“Flying’s not environmentally friendly, you know”.scowled Doh. “So you obviously decided against Kendal. Mint, Vicky?” (handing her a packet of polos.)
“No, not with this, thanks, Doh.” said Vicky. “ We decided against anywhere in Cumbria. It’s not long since that business with my car and that ice cream kiosk. Unlike you I’d only had the three glasses of gin. Geriatric judge still took away my licence!”

After we’ve looked at those frocks in M&S I’ll go to the food hall and spend that voucher. Ryvita - 30p off, that’s what it’s for. I’ll have to get something for tea. The grandchildren are coming. That’s before we all go out to the Brownies’ post-Christmas pantomime. They always want fish fingers but they’re full of junk, even in M&S. The round shaped ones are much better. I’ll make a list now. Let’s see now, I need milk and ….em…what’ll I write?”
“A loaf? Kids like jam, Doh.”
“Nuts about it, they are. Great idea, Vicky.”
“Are they acting in the panto, Doh?”
“Och, yes. The young one, Madeleine, she’s the fairy. Her sister is so jealous, she’s in a right flap. Jackie’s her name. She’s only the back end of the cow!”

“Look at the time” said Vicky, standing up.” If we don’t get back to the shops soon it’ll be the Easter stuff we’ll be finding on the shelves!”
“Speaking of which” replied Doh, walking to the door .“I’m going to make one of those cakes this year- you know, a what d’you call it cake. The one with the blobs of thingummy on it”.
“Very good, Doh. You do bake well, I must say.”

Tie breaker 1.
What is the name of the cake which Doh is going to make at Easter?

What are the blobs made of?

How many blobs are there?

Why that number?

Tie breaker 2.
If you could think up a new kind of cake, what would it be?

Hello, pals. I would like to upload not an image but a word document. This is so I can post my cakes quiz for all pals to try. How do you do this? When I have tried just doing "add image" then clicking on the document, computer says "No". GRRR!!! Do I have to scan it and save it then upload, as I did with the pony gaits thing?

Heard a nightjar for the first time at the weekend! Actually saw it as well, for a very fleeting glimpse. No, the above photo isn't mine. It was in the dark, and vaguely near home. Must listen out in case we do get them at home.



Had one outing to a quiet place - this place - so as to escape the crowds. Came here earlier this spring and it was freezing with bare trees. A different story now. You can do a nice, non-taxing circular walk all the way round. Saw a dipper on the river, but it was too far away to photograph...



...so I got this pied wagtail instead. I'm sorry. I should have enlarged and cropped bfore I posted it. Oh well, I'm sure you can make it out.

I have a backlog of birdie photos to post, actually.

This is why I don't do photographic posts of rides: I went to the top of the hill yesterday on Quasar and I stopped at what we call the wheatear wall to watch for the wheatears going in and out of the nest. Could I get her to stand still for two seconds? I don't take the camera on rides for that reason, as well as my fear of dropping it. I once took binoculars on a ride but it is too difficult to operate them with one hand and if I let the reins go completely she just starts to go. If I get off she just starts to go, or stamps her feet, snorts, huffs and puffs, shoves at me, rubs on me, "accidentally" stands on my feet etc. Photographic forays will definitely continue to be of the pedestrian type.