Monday Review - Edinburgh Part 2

We have had another busy week in Edinburgh which included a street magician and a secret shoe shop!

On Tuesday we had lunch at Peter's Yard.  We all had soup, I had the lentil, Sister and Minibakebakegirl had the tomato and wensleydale.  We all got two slices of different bread - I don't know what mine were but they were delicious and so was the soup.  We liked the shape of the soup spoon - is this a swedish soup spoon? 

On Wednesday Sister and I went to see Bob Downe - this was his 16th Fringe - we have seen him a few times and I still find him hilarious!  His facial expressions and dancing are brilliant - plus he has an excellent voice.  After his show he said he would be in the bar so we went to meet him.  Mark Trevorrow seems a lovely guy and was happy to chat to everyone who came up to speak to him.  (I would have liked my picture with Bob Downe too!)

On Thursday I met FriendK for a very late lunch.  As it was such a nice afternoon we went to Cafe Centro in George Street as you can sit outside at the back of the restaurant.  It was lovely to catch up over a few glasses of wine and then she took me to Shhh a new shoe shopping experience. The shoes range from £70 to over a £1000 and they are all by different designers.  We just had a look round but the idea is that you make an appointment to go with a group of friends, drink champagne and try on shoes!

I went out with Best Friend and FriendV on Friday for dinner to Cafe Andaluz.  I probably go to this restaurant at least once a year when I am in Edinburgh and the food is always fantastic.  Afterwards we went to the Spiegel Terrace for a drink and while we were chatting a street magician came and did several different card tricks for us.  He was amazing - making my card disappear from the pack and reappear inside his wallet. His shuffling skills were fascinating and we were all very impressed.   

Once it was dark on Saturday evening we all got in the car to drive to Arthurs Seat to see if we could see Speed of Light.  Sisters friend is taking part in this next week.  We could see it quite well from ground level - the various patterns they were making and the different colours.  I imagine it would be quite chilly up the top if you were taking part and absolutely miserable if it rains! 

See you next week,
Bakebakegirl

Todays top three Songpop songs:

1. Common People - Pulp
2. Smells Like Teen Spirit - Nirvana
3.Call Me Maybe - Carly Rae Jepsen




  

Monday Review - Edinburgh Part 1

Minibakebakegirl and I are currently in Edinburgh staying with Sister and Family so no baking (by me) this week.  Sister made some lovely banana traybake - another great recipe to use up brown bananas and I plan on pinching the recipe.  

At the weekend we stayed with BestFriend. Minibakebakegirl gets on really well with BFDaughter so it means we can have a proper catch up.   BFHubby cooked us a lovely chicken curry on Friday night, then we watched Ghost Ship with a very young looking Quinn from Dexter.  We also watched the original Fright Night.  We watched this several times when we were teenagers and I was a bit worried it wouldn't be like we remembered, however, we both enjoyed it!  I think I will watch the remake (purely because David Tennant is in it!) 

On Saturday afternoon the girlies headed into town for a bit of shopping and a mooch around the Mound were there are street entertainers.  We watched Mr Spin, who is a unicyling juggler - he was excellent - the last picture shows show him juggling, balancing a glass of water on his head while unicycling.  Quite a few street entertainers seem to waffle and take soooo long to get to the main part of their act, however Mr Spin did several amazing juggling bits and pieces before the main unicyle part.

Best Friend made us pancakes for breakfast on Sunday (yum) and I was honoured to get to use one of her Twilight mugs, she is a huge Edward fan.  I'm more on the Team Jacob side - I seek the heat.  The weekend with BestFriend went very quickly as always and both days BFSon (who is 7) and I had great fun on the trampoline!



Today Sister, BrotherInLaw, Minibakebakegirl and I went for coffee at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art (Nieces went back to school last week).  We went to Cafe Modern One and sat outside in the garden terrace as it was such a lovely day.  I had a cappuccino and an oat and ginger slice.  It was a flapjack with a very sweet icing (almost like a soft scottish tablet).  It was very good.  Minibakebakegirl had a huge slice of brownie.

Thanks for stopping by, see you next week.

Bakebakegirl

Todays top three SongPop songs:

1. Only Happy When It Rains - Garbage

2. It's Raining Men - The Weather Girls

3. Video Killed The Radio Star - The Buggles



Monday Bake - Lavender Shortbread

What a great couple of weeks - I have loved the Olympics  - watching sports I have never watched before and shedding more than a few tears at the medal ceremonys - I can't quite believe it is all over - could it not have been on for a month?   We have had the BBC coverage on all the time we have been indoors - this morning I didn't even switch on our television - it needs a rest!  There is the paralympics to look forward to - we are going to see the swimming and we also have tickets to the Olympic Park, which we are really excited about.  

Last week we went Lavender picking at Hitchin Lavender.  We could smell the lavender as soon as we got out of the car.   It costs £4.00 per adult (children are free) and for your £4.00 this you get a pair of scissors to borrow and a plastic bag to fill with lavender. 

When we rounded the corner to the field we could just see rows and rows of beautiful lavender.  The colour is amazing, we walked to the top and the view of the surrounding countryside was lovely.

We picked our row to walk down to collect our lavender.  We saw several butterflies and the buzzing of the bees was incredibly loud, they were very busy working away.   

They advise to cut from the sides of the bushes, not the tops and we quickly filled our two bags.  

Once we had finished we headed to the cafe in the barn.  Minibakebakegirl had millionnaire shortbread and a cup of tea, hubby had coffee with a piece of toffee crisp. I had coffee with some lavender shortbread, which was lovely, the lavender flavour was very subtle.  We didn't realise until we left that you could have free refills of filter coffee - we will remember next time!

I have filled 3 vases with my lavender to dry out and bag for future crafty projects, such as my knitted lavender heart or my lavender hanging bag.  While we were having tea a huge bee came in the living room - we heard him before we saw him.  Hubby said it was obviously attracted by the lavender!

I had never made lavender shortbread before so I googled some recipes.  I chose this one from the Good Food website.  I made the lavender sugar a few days before, I used 250g of caster sugar and 1 tsp of lavender flowers and stored it in a jar.  I found this a good recipe as it makes one baking sheet of biscuits - not too many at once.  It can also just be made with plain or vanilla sugar. 

Thanks for visiting, next week my blog post will be from Edinburgh :o)

Bakebakegirl

Todays top three Spotify songs.

1. Freedom - George Michael 

2. West End Girls - Pet Shop Boys

3. Rule The World - Take That

Monday Bake - Carrot Cake

I love carrot cake, love loaf tin recipes and Rachel Allen is one of my favourite cooks so the carrot cake recipe in her Bake book is perfect to me!

You can find the recipe here from the Good Food website. 

When I make the icing I find I need to add more icing sugar to thicken it slightly so it just sits on top of the cake and doesn't run down the sides. 

Do you like my new plate the whole cake is sitting on - I think the colours go perfectly with the carrot cake.  My Sister found it for me - she is keeping a look out for sale plates for my blog too.  I found another two in John Lewis yesterday to vary my pictures - the man serving me kept banging them together while wrapping them up - even Minibakebakgirl whispered to me that he wasn't being very gentle!  Luckily they made it home in one piece.

Hope you are still enjoying the Olympics, Team GB have been amazing - so many medals.  I will need to buy more tissues for this week, the interviews and medal ceremonies get me everytime.

See you next week.

Bakebakegirl

Todays Top Three Spotify Songs

1. Train - Drive By

2. A-ha - The Living Daylights

3. Sparks - Number One Song in Heaven