Some baking on a Monday morning

I do like to cook on a Monday morning. My 5 year old and I have a quiet day on Mondays, we recover from the week - end and ease gradually into the coming week.
I vaccuum, I toilet clean and I cook.
 This morning I cooked  a cake from the latest Frankie magazine. I promised myself I wouldn't buy this magazine anymore (in an attempt to cut down on money spent on such things) but when I saw the cover of the latest edition I couldn't resist

Cute embroidery - impossible for me to walk past!

So I made the orange cake. There are a few receipes for nice cakes in this edition, fruit cake and sponge. But I had spare oranges so orange cake is now on the menu for afternoon tea.

It was easy and I think it turned out pretty close to the way it looked in the magazine.
Their  cake,

my cake.

Monday morning baking...completed!

Megan xx

13 years old? Really???

A couple of weeks ago, my youngest son became a teenager!
 Like all mothers everywhere I am astounded that this could have happened. How could this beautiful boy have been in my life for 13 years? Surely it has only been a blink of my eye.
 But no, my "baby boy" is almost as tall as me, has a deep voice and thinks that any sort of toilet or genital based humour is hysterical!
 He is also kind, loving, a little bit innocent and absolutely fearless on a soccer field.
I cannot put into words how much I love him and how much we all love having him in the family. He went away on a band camp for a week and I missed him every day.
 Have a great year ahead, gorgeous young man and please stop growing up quite so quickly!

To be grey...or to be coloured?

It has been a long time since I wrote here.
 No real reason except maybe I got a little caught up reading lots of other beautiful blogs and forgot to give any time and attention to my own.
And today, instead of talking about food, or craft, or family I'm going to focus on myself and more specifically...my hair!
I have coloured my hair for quite a few years, ever since those first grey strands decided to peek through. I was religious about colouring it regularly so that no-one would guess (or so I thought) that slowly but surely I was ageing and my hair was giving the game away.
Then, back in June, I decided to call it quits, no more colour. I came out as a grey haired woman! It's been liberating and it's been a bit scary. People's reactions have been very varied. My husband has embraced it ("very Helen Mirren"), my sons tell me I look "a lot older", some people say "you've gone blonde", some people say "Good on you", some people just look a bit sorry for me!
Me? I don't really notice it. I look at myself in the morning and then don't take much notice until the next morning but it feels different. It feels more natural, more honest, more me.

So this is what it looks like.
A bit wiry and a bit two-tone at the moment as the colour grows out.
But I think I'm going to tough it out. I have seen some beautiful grey haired women just down at my child's preschool. I'm going to join their numbers and...be grey and proud....most of the time :)

Megan