Cake and a card

This is a Hummingbird Cake. My version isn't very pretty, but I prefer to just have the cream cheese frosting in the middle and not all over it. I got the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery Cook book (brought by Santa), but there is a very similar version here. If you like banana cake and carrot cake you will love it. It is very moist and has bananas and pineapple in it. I made it yesterday, but by teatime there was only half left!
The card is another using the Funky flowers rubber stamp plate from The Stamp Man. It's my MIL's birthday next week, so this one is for her. The rose is covering a blob of glue that was in the wrong place! The leaf punch was another pressie. The flowers are coloured with sakura stardust pens and a water brush... oh yes and a touch of pastel blue promarker.

One of those days

What happened to the extra hour? Well I know exactly what happened to ours. It was spent mopping up the freezer after it defrosted itself all over the kitchen floor! I got something out to defrost last night, but can't have closed the door properly, although I could swear that I did. A bag of blackcurrants and two ice lollies made it look like a murder scene! I have made a very large rhubarb crumble, a large lamb hotpot and there is a chicken to roast in the fridge along with some pork chops that will probably get stewed for another day. Fortunately it wasn't as well stocked as it sometimes is, although the sorbet, fish fingers and several other bits and bobs got thrown away.

In between cooking and mopping I managed to make this card for one of the girls next door. She will be nine next weekend. The stamp is 'Willow with Cookies' by Whiff of Joy. I coloured it with promarkers. The ribbon is 'borrowed' from Megan's stash and the card is punched with my Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch. The Papers are from Dovecraft and I've had them ages. The sentiment is from Craftwork cards.

There's an Angel by the name of Julie that lives up my road

There I was on Christmas Day cooking a fairly simple dinner ( just the 3 of us to cater for ) when a fuse blew and the cooker and Microwave went off. We went to the fuse box and switched everything back on one at a time and all seemed well... until I realised the oven was no longer steaming up my glasses and I couldn't hear the Duck portions sizzling any more. I have a cooker with a small top oven as well as a main oven, so I quickly got that going and transferred the duck. The problem that was causing me to panic was the fact that I was cooking Christmas dinner for seven on Boxing Day, and was staring at a huge Turkey that would fit into my top oven about as easily as Dawn French would fit into a size 8. I could cook everything else - roast potatoes, roast parsnips, carrots, brussels, broccoli, gravy, bread sauce, and stuffing, but not that one vital ingredient. I even looked at saws in the garage, wondering whether to chop it up and just roast a bit of it, or stew it in a big pan!

Anyway, after lunch I got a text from my friend Julie thanking me for their presents. I rang her back to see if she would be around on Boxing Day, and she immediately said she would cook my Turkey for me! I took it up there at 9am and Steve fetched it, swathed in towels to keep it warm at one o'clock. I think that must be the sign of a true friend - someone who would cook your turkey for you, and to perfection too! So, on Boxing Day our whole house toasted Julie, for saving our Turkey (or should that be Bacon)!
Thanks is such a small word, but means such a lot!