An awesome baby shower

I have just come home from a fantastic baby shower for my cousin Alison. It was held at The Make Cafe in Riccarton, Christchurch. Wow did they pull out all the stops. Decorated beautifully with so many things I just cannot mention them all. Then as an activity we all made a bib. They supplied bibs and material and a cutter and we cut out various pattern, used vliesofix to iron them on and if you felt like it there was thread etc to stitch something.

Gorgeous china and three pots of different tea, coffee, slices........ What a great way to celebrate.

I scooter-ed 10km!!

We were in Dunedin for the weekend staying with my sister. The Dunedin City Council have slowly been making a bike, walk, run path around the harbour from the city out towards Port Chalmers. This path is at the bottom of the hill where my sister lives.

Eli and I on scooters at St Leonards.

The boys exploring

Aaron was going to run it, the boys had scooters to scoot along and so Warren (my brother in law) found an old scooter in their garage for me to use.

To start with Aaron's first comment was "you are not wearing that scooting are you?" Sorry what is the problem, I had a merino jersey over the top of a cotton shirt and 3/4 length jeans with sneakers. "It's gingham" - what? Then I asked what did he think I should wear, a skirt? "Shorts". What! in public! is he nuts?!

So off we go. Oh my goodness. Each way turned out to be 4km not 5km (whew). I had to keep changing legs as my gluteous maximus were getting very sore!! Aaron then started pushing me up the hills (what a gorgeous macho man). Then the scooter dropped something through its main section and that acted as a very sudden brake! Used some tape from another bit of the scooter to hold that up.

Our lovely 90 year old 

Whew rest time. The boys looked at the water - climbed up banks into hidey holes. It was great. I went to stand and my legs quivered!!!!! They felt like you do when you get off a trampoline that you have been on too long.

It was gorgeous, it was certainly fun, but my scooter slowly started the braking thing again. The boys saw me getting pushes so Eli said he would give me his better MGP to use if Dad would push him on my old crappy thing. They had great fun whizzing past me.

At the end we came across a man and woman who talked about scootering. The man had thought of buying one, so I got him to try mine. It then turned out that they were out for a walk on the same path and she was 90!!! (She was so gorgeous but said "I am not going to try that, I am 90 you know). I had to get a photo of him on the scooter (he was VERY wobbly)

Aaron and I resting while the boys explored

The hero pushing Jakob on the old scooter

In the end I only did 4km as Aaron ran back to get the car because my scooter just was falling apart. Great intentions, great fun.

I link in to these places

Super Easy Rhubarb Dessert

This dessert is sooo simple and easy. Tasty tasty and healthy. Egg, Dairy, Gluten, Fat free (fantastic for you Kerryn).

Take 500g rhubarb stalks and wash and cut them to the length of the container you are going to bake them in.

Lay them in rows (putting the little bits in the bottom so they can't be seen

Grate on the zest of two oranges

Squeeze the juice from the oranges onto the rhubarb

Add 5 teaspoons of honey (I have used the honey from the hives of our friend Dirk)

Put into the oven at 180oC for 20-30 minutes until the stalks seem soft to touch. Turn oven off and allow to cool. Serve as is - Gorgeous

If you want you can make some nut brittle and sprinkle on top. Or this is gorgeous for breakfast with some homemade muesli sprinked on and a bit of Greek Yogurt (so long as you can eat dairy!)

Recreating a Regency Jacket

A wee peek at what we all looked like dressed up at Oamaru

Before - Front

Before Back

After - Front

After - back

On the weekend we had planned to try a second attempt at going to the Victorian Festival in Oamaru.
This time was highly sucessful - but more about that on another post.

The forecast was for 12oC and it was only that!! I was very worried that my dress was made as Regency Ball dress for Aaron's 25th birthday and that I would be cold. Which would definitely have happened.

So talking about this on Saturday Aaron suggested that I go to Save Mart in Dunedin (as we were staying in Dunedin with my sister Ruth) and have a look for something there. I needed to make a Regency style short jacket to go with my dress.

Well right away I spotted a Stax size 12 tweed jacket that I knew I could turn into something for only $6.99.

It is a long time since I used a needle and thread rather than sewing machine but out came thread and a needle. I altered the sleeve bottom to be tighter. I cut the back right up to my dress hem and made the front a bit pointed ( a little bit like Lydia's jacket in Pride and Prejudice when she is going to be "a particular companion" in Brighton). I then stitched up all the button holes and took off all the extra buttons. I folded the lining and the jacket edges in towards each other and slip stitched all around the bottom. Then I resewed on the back tab but in it's new position. A perfect jacket to finish my outfit.

Completed in the Nick of time

Why I only manage to finish things at the last possible moment I do not know. But back here I had the silk all washed, then I cut it out. Last weekend I sewed the vests and prepped the bow ties but somehow it took till today to do the finishing. Putting on the buttons and then finishing the ties.

But the result looks great. They both have fully reverseable waistcoats in Thai silk. One side is plain - Jakob has a gorgeous blue and Eli the deep crimson you see, the other side is patterned. Jakob has the stripe and Eli has a multi check. They both ordered lots of bow ties. So I sewed them three each for a choice.

You will see more photos next week once we have been to our Victorian Weekend.

Posted to some parties here

Spicy Fruit Bagels

The finished bagel

The boys and I watched "Rachel Allen Bake" on the weekend and she did bagels. When the boys were little I used to make spicy fruit bagels quite a lot as they liked them toasted with homemade jam on them for breakfast.

Why is it that we forget some of the great things we used to do? So all inspired today I thought I would do bagels for afternoon tea. I think I over rose them a bit - they really puffed up when boiling. I forgot how easy they are when you have a breadmaker. The boys are scoffing through them as I write this.

The dough

My recipe has no dairy, no saturated fat at all (great for you Kerryn - hot with some homemade jam on them) no egg (I specifically do not egg wash them so that they can be no egg.) Though if you do egg wash them they do go glossy and lovely on top.

Boiling the bagels.

It must be summer

This is the earliest we have had strawberries every. Enough for dessert. We are having these gorgeous red strawberries with homemade Feijoa and Ginger ice-cream ( just added homemade jam to the recipe here).

The strawberries are in the new garden bed that I dug and built this winter and I have gone back to being traditional for planting. I used black weed mat and it certainly not only represses weeds but the soil under is so warm.

Yum Yum in our tum.