If you're squeamish, don't look!!

Sis, just don't show Jason the next couple of pictures, I still remember his first encounter with 'willicks' (winkles) and well yep, he just doesn't like seafood of any description does he and I guess these little uns are enough to put most folk off.

Our Michael and Eddie (George may have gone too but not sure) went to the beach and picked a few bags and brought some round after he'd cooked them. I sent a couple of the photos to Marc and Sam saying 'yum, yum' and Sam's reply was 'seriously No, you can't eat them, you wouldn't boil garden snails and eat them would you'. Be thankful I haven't posted the one of me eating them, which is what I sent to Sam, Marc said the poor girl was nearly sick, but yes to be honest I will eat these but a snail of any other type 'nope I think not - they seem a lot bigger'.

Cooking instructions - first go to the beach and look under the rocks for willicks (winkles). Collect as many as you can before the tide comes in (only joking) - try to collect the bigger ones though as some of them are not worth having. Do leave the ones alone that have crabs in them (although you can't always see them), otherwise poor things will be boiled to death (now I know that sounds gruesome but OK don't put me on a guilt trip, I only eat them)

Rinse with cold water and salt to remove any sand or gunky stuff, put in a pan of salted water and boil for 20 minutes or so. Let them cool and eat using a pin to remove them from the shell, although they are tasty warm-ish.

A long post ....

Well another wet day today but the sun did get out for a time. It's not been a brilliant summer weather wise but we have had some really hot days. It looks as if it's going to start getting a lot colder now as the last couple of mornings have been rather chilly. Still, as promised, I've managed to get pics of some of the things I've done over the holidays so this could end up being a very long post.

At the start of the school holidays I went up to visit mam and the family and as Marc and Sam had come up for a couple of days with the children we spent the Saturday at the Air Show, which was a lovely warm day. Here's a few pics of Ben and Tom enjoying trying their hand at putting on some military headwear.

Ben has a little help adjusting the strap.

Tom decided he could go it alone -

See, I did it but ooh it's a bit heavy for my head now ... Don't worry I'm OK, I've got it balanced - look 2 hands ...Marc showed Ben and Tom how to put a line (or something like that) into the dummy to get it breathing. We had a bit of fun with the 2 paramedics on duty and didn't let on at first that Marc was a paramedic, they were quite impressed when he did it first time, but we had to come clean and tell them that he did know what he was doing.
Being at an airshow would not be complete without at least one picture of an aeroplane - well not quite - but if you look very closely at the top part of the next picture, you will see the red arrows parachuting from their aeroplane ..... yes that's right I missed the aeroplane altogether and I was so far away at the time this was all I saw - I think there were 7 of them and they did land on their mark - I heard the crowd clapping - OK you can stop laughing now Niecy!!!
Olivia was about to fall asleep and even though the noise from the jets was thunderous she did go to sleep and slept through most of it.
Marc and Sam enjoying the day.

Sorry butI had too much fun with the grandchildren for photographs of areroplanes and after a long but enjoyable day we headed back to mams. As I said in my earlier post my 84 year old mam is a keen cook and still bakes pies, especially apple. We got back only to find her in the kitchen - baking applie pies ....

Is that sheep tea cosy cute or what ...

Mam put me to shame so by the end of the 2 weeks I had made some biscuits (cookies) for my grandchildren and with mam's help, mince (meat) pies for my son.

Here's mam giving me instructions on how to roll out the pastry while I was taking her picture - I wasn't rolling it correctly she told me - roll away from you then turn, don't roll backwards and forwards - but she's the expert pastry maker so I followed her instructions.

It worked, just take a look at the next photos - the kids loved the cookies and Marc enjoyed eating the pies - 3 mince (meat) and 2 apple (but not all at once though) ...

My but those cats had scary eyes!!!!

Well I said it was going to be a long post so I hope I haven't bored you - there'll be more to come. Have a good day.

Very wet day

Very cold and very very rainy - what a change in the weather today. It has become really cold and I'm praying it will brighten up as Marc, Sam and the children are off to Cornwall camping for the week. They left this morning, arrived safely praise God and unfortunately Marc didn't say anything about the weather when he text me. I remember camping a long time ago when I was a young school girl. It's lovely when the weather is fine and sunny but everything feels so damp when it's wet and I can still remember clothes not drying out and just that soggy feeling.
It was very quiet at my little studio today too and I think most people that came in only wanted to get out of the rain. Still I demonstrated my enamelling to them and who knows some of them may come back.
I only came on my pc to check my emails but now it's getting late as I did a bit of surfing, and then did a bit of blogging so it's goodnight and I pray you have a blessed Sunday and a sunny day too.

Relaxed and stress free

I have just returned from a 2 week visit to the North East to see my mam and family. It was a very relaxing time and once I get the very few pics I took processed I'll upload them. Unfortunately I am not one of those that know how to download straight from my phone (I must get Marc to show me). Marc, Sam and the children came up the first weekend and it was lovely everyone being there. The airshow was on so we got to go the beach on the Saturday. We could hardly move there were so many people but the kids enjoyed it all and then Marc and Sam took them back on the Sunday as the Red Arrows and Harrier Jet were there. It's quite an impressive sight.
Mam is doing great and at 84 spends a lot of her time baking pies - mince, apple - Marc loves them and put in a request for me to take some back for him. Mam and I ended up baking pies just before I was due to come home and she even gave me a rolling out pastry lesson as apparently I wasn't doing it right. I was being a bit rough with the pastry and mam said 'roll away from you, then turn, roll away from you then turn'. I don't do much baking these days but she made it look so easy and her pastry was so smooth, you're never too old to learn I say and I will now have to start baking. Oh I did make some biscuits for my grandchildren. One was a packet mix but the others I did from scratch - and I have pics too so hopefull I will get to load them up by next week as I can't get into town until then.