Strawberry Jam......................

This week Kelly has had the lovely Michela staying with her and today we had a trip to the Jam Factory at Tiptree.

Obviously where shopping is concerned you need to make sure that you have enough energy for the actual shopping so our first stop was the tea room, a lovely cup of tea and slice of cake...............which was absolutely delicious.

We purchased quite a bit of Jam and some chutney to give to friends for Christmas.  After arriving home it was time for Sophie to get ready for her friends fancy dress birthday party, in keeping with the Jam theme, Sophie went as a Strawberry.......................how cute does she look ?

Good enough for Nanny and Auntie to eat, that's for sure.

Until next time ......................

Important Day for Sophie...............

Sunday saw a very important day for my Great Niece Sophie, her baptism.  What a wonderful day we had,  we are extremely lucky to have a good friend Trevor who is also a Reverend, yes we do call him Trev the Rev,  he performed the ceremony which made it very personal,  Trevor addressed Sophie quite a lot, who I have to say seemed very much to be paying attention, not bad for a nine month old.
Trevor is a great person and makes any service he does enjoyable.

The ceremony was held at The Abbey, Waltham Abbey a very special place. Sophie behaved impeccably, she didn't make a sound. Below is a picture of Sohpie being welcomed into the church.

I love the following picture as Sophie looks like a little Armish girl, needless to say the bonnet didn't stay on for long.

Marcus was very proud to be Sophie's Godfather, looks very smart in his suit, doesn't he ?

Kelly and James had a bit of a do after at a local Golf Club, very enjoyable.

Until next time............

A Day of Baking......................

Having watched Jo Wheatley win the Great British Bake Off I decided that I needed to start baking again, something I really enjoy but don't do nearly enough of, so after a trip to the supermarket to buy some supplies I set out to make some Cupcakes and a Bakewell Tart.

One of my favourite flavours along with Rose is Violet.............I know not to everyones taste but a flavour I adore, so I made vanilla cupcakes with a Violet buttercream, topped off with some edible glitter, I would have liked to put a little flower on the top but couldn't get any but as they were only for a bit of fun I wasn't too worried, also I need to practice using a piping bag.

Once these came out of the oven and were cooling I made a Bakewell Tart,  I did cheat a bit as I used a
prepared pie crust but I did make the Frangipane,  much easier than I expected so next time I have friends round for dinner I will be making this again from scratch, it tasted so much better than a bought tart.

 

 Next week I think I'll do a Lemon Drizzle Cake as this is one of Marcus's favourites along with some Coconut Macaroons.

Until then.................