Back again

As promised but it will be short and sweet....
I got too busy doing other things today but I managed to put together just a few pictures from Christmas. I couldn't find the photo's Craig took though and he has a few others I would like to of used so maybe I will change the picture at a later date!!


The boys were back to school today and it wasn't easy for them to turf themselves out of bed at 6.30am. I can't say that I liked it much either :)

It snowed for the most of Saturday and yesterday and then started again this afternoon so another covering on the driveway!! I really need to go and buy the plough kit for the ATV tomorrow so we don't have to shovel anymore, as that is no fun at all. Tempreture today actually rose to about -10 which was a nice treat and the sun showed up for a while too :)
Anyway I did say short and sweet.... Hope you like the pictures, back with more soon as lots to post.

Happy New Year

As I am late and didn't get a chance to post anything at all before Christmas I will start by wishing all my Friends and anyone else who comes across my blog a very happy new year for 2010.

I had all good intentions of blogging but never seemed to find the time. Just when I thought about it something else cropped up! But I am here now and I will try and fill in the missing gaps of past events!! I know what will happen though, as always start of detailed then trail of with scatty blogging with not much info and as most of you who know me, will know that I am not a person of many words!! (On paper anyway!)

Winter seem to arrive a month late this year, we were told that generally by mid November snow is already well established but this year it didn't happen until the 9th December when we had a snow storm. We had had a few flurries before this but never much. Then this particular morning a storm came and the roads were very tricky, the snow ploughs were out in force trying to clear what they could to make the roads safer.... All school buses were cancelled so the kids enjoyed their first snow day. A good six inches had fallen overnight with already 2 inch on the ground. It took us an hour to get into work when it only usually takes a little over 30 minutes! A drive I didn't enjoy but something I would have to get used too! The temperatures fluctuate between 0 and -22 but sometimes feeling more like -28 with the wind chill. I like the snow though, it makes everywhere look so beautiful. Luckily just before the snow storm Craig and I had got an electronic garage door opener, so we can just hit the remote in the car and in we drive! Perfect.... we don't have to get out the car until in the garage now and then straight inside with having to bear the cold outside!

I didn't feel organized at all this year for Christmas and it seemed to come around so quickly... I was late in sending out cards for those that I did send, I didn't even wrap any gifts until Christmas eve which is not me at all. I would have normally finished a week before this so I could concentrate on baking all the Christmas treats.
I did make a Christmas cake this year which I don't usually as it is only me that really eats it but as we were having Stu and Ruth over for Christmas I thought it would be a nice treat, I found the recipe here..... I didn't bake it until a week before but it turned out well and tasted good too, one that I will definitely make again.... I just did a simple decoration too as not much time to do it!



My other favorite from last year is Nigella's Christmas Rocky Road. Trying to find ingredients here though is not easy.... they either just don't stock the items you need or call them something totally different! I am sure this is something else I will get use to. Recipe below, sorry no photo for this one!

Ingredients
250g/9oz dark chocolate, chopped
150g/5oz milk chocolate, chopped
175g/6oz butter, softened, plus extra for greasing
4 tbsp golden syrup
200g/7oz amaretti biscuits
150g/5oz shelled Brazil nuts
150g/5oz red glacé cherries
125g/4oz mini marshmallows
1 tbsp icing sugar
edible glitter, to decorate (optional)

Method
1. Place the dark and milk chocolate pieces into a heavy-based pan. Add the butter and golden syrup and cook over a low heat to melt and combine.
2. Place the amaretti biscuits into a freezer bag and bash with a rolling pin to make crumbs of various sizes.
3. Place the Brazil nuts into another freezer bag and bash in the same way.
4. Take the pan of melted chocolate mixture off the heat and add the crushed biscuits and nuts.
5. Add the glacé cherries and mini marshmallows. Fold the mixture carefully to coat all of the solid ingredients with the syrupy chocolate mixture.
6. Pour the mixture into a 25cm/10in x 30cm/12in greased and lined baking tray and smooth the surface as much as possible (although it will look bumpy).
7. Refrigerate for two hours, or until firm enough to cut. Dust with icing sugar, then sprinkle with edible glitter if you wish.
8. Remove the block of rocky road from the tray and cut into 24 rectangles.

Then on to making the stuffing for the turkey..... This is another of my favourites taken from Gary Rhodes 'New British Classics'

Enough for a 10-12lb Turkey
A knob of butter
2 large onions, finely chopped or grated
Grated zest of 2 lemons (juice may be needed)
1 heaped tbsp chopped fresh sage
675g (11/2lbs) good-quality pork sausage meat
100 - 175g (4-6ozs) roasted chestnuts, chopped
2 apples, grated
100g (4ozs) fresh white breadcrumbs
2 eggs
Turkey liver (optional)
Salt,pepper and ground mace
The stuffing is best made 24 hours in advance and chilled, allowing the flavours time to mingle.
Melt the knob of butter and cook the onions for a few minutes until they begin to soften. Add the lemon zest and sage, remove from the heat and allow to cool. Once cooled, add the onion to the sausage meat along with the chestnuts, apples and breadcrumbs. Season with salt, pepper and a good pinch of mace. Stir well and season with salt, pepper and a good pinch of mace. The eggs can m
now be added as the binder, to hold all together. Check for seasoning. Pan fry a small amount of the mixture so that you can taste it safely-you may find you need to add a squeeze of two of lemon juice. The turkey neck can now be filled with the stuffing. I like to leave some out and make into ball and bake on the side for a nice crunchy stuffing!

And that is my few recipes shared.....remember for this years Christmas to give them a try :)

Christmas was a good one this year, not only because it was our first one spent in Canada but we had great company. Stu, Ruth Ad and Ol came to stay..... I don't think we ever got to have a Christmas with them when they were in the UK. It was a really good time to be had by all. The boys all enjoyed playing out on their new toys....



I think Ad and Ol enjoyed them too!! They also spent many hours playing on the Wii and watching DVDS.
We had a few walks out in the wood tracking footprints of deer, coyote, fox etc. in the snow. We haven't seen any on the property yet but there is definite signs of them being around. The one thing that we did find was two porcupines in this tree, I couldn't get them both in on the same photo but here is one of them anyway....



They had torn the bark off the tree and had been there for a good while by the looks of the base of the tree!!

Unfortunately we don't get a great deal of holidays here so it was back to work for most on the Monday..... I had an extra day as being part time and returned back on the Tuesday :)
New years eve was quite with just the four of us, we watched the new movie '9' and played on the Wii fit, ski jumping was the favourite and I believe I am still top of the leader board on this one :)

I am going to call it a day now on this one but I will be back (promise) hopefully later or tomorrow with some snowy scenes and where we went today, and also to fill in any other gaps that my scatty blogging has missed!!

Time to blog.....

Now that all the birthday's are finally over I should really concentrate on Christmas. But as usual I am falling behind with time again! I have to get cards in the post to the U.K. by 1st December (tomorrow) and I have only got half way so far. So it looks like I could be spending most of my evening writing cards.
I have had quite an eventful week which first started with a special assembly for 'Starfish' and 'Terrific Kids' awards. Every month one child from each class and grade is given this special award and they have to meet a certain criteria to be able to achieve this. Well much to my surprise, I received a call from the school inviting me to the assembly last week as Brad was up for an award. He had no idea about it so I secretly went along to see him receive this months 'Terrific Kid' Award - Brad received a certificate and a medal and a bumper sticker for my car - so I can now say 'I am a proud parent of a terrific kid'



As usual the weekend flew by.... Saturday we started to clear some of the fallen trees in the back for a pathway through our forest :) We managed to chainsaw up about 6 good sized trees. This has now been put in the shed to dry ready for next years winter fuel supply! Then later in the evening we drove to the village as it was the annual Santa Parade, and for such a small village the floats were really impressive. Unfortunately as it was dark and as most of you know with digital camera's you can never really get a good nighttime shot unless you use a tripod which I didn't want to take with me so I clicked away and this is just a few of the ones that didn't turn out too bad!



Other than having to try and get motivated and ready for Christmas I don't have much planned for the week ahead and hopefully we will have a quite (ish) weekend too... although that could soon change without much notice :) I am sure we are in for snow too this week, it has been unusually mild (so I have been told) for this time of the year and it has been 70 years since they haven't had snow in Ontario for November. Anyway one final photo to finish of for this week. It isn't very clear as the only shot I could get was through the window as every time I crept out they disappeared.



Don't forget that if you click on each picture they should click bigger :)

Just a quick post.....

It's Brad's birthday and he is having friends over later so I need to make cookies :) That's the best part!! One of his friends has a severe nut allergy and I am really not looking forward to feeding him! I have never had to take care over what is in foods to that extent before so I just hope that the hot dogs and rolls are OK for him to eat! I know the ice cream cake won't be but that is why I thought I would make cookies too.

Anyway the real reason for my 'quick post' is that I have brought myself a new camera and I just had to try it out. I have a lot to learn about taking great photo's but I know I will soon learn. Below is just one of my favourites that I took yesterday out on the deck.....

Our Place.....

I know I said I would be back later with some pictures, well quite a little later than I was anticipating but I haven't had time to sit and create anything till now :)

Last weekend Ruth and Stu came over with their two boys and we had a great time. Ruth and I had to go into town which ended up taking most of the day and by the end we had both had quite enough, so we had to stop (and deserved to stop!) at Tim Horton's for coffee and donuts for the ride home!! At least with us out of the way the 'men' were able to get on with doing what they do best..... cutting down tree's and building a snow shelter for the kid's to wait for the school bus in! Sunday we took a walk out into the wood (back garden!) just because it was a beautiful morning and a good way to burn off breakfast.

I don't have much planned this weekend, just a few odd jobs that need doing and shopping.. again! Xmas shopping needs to be done :) A job I would like to get out the way early this year.

It's Brad's 10th birthday on Monday and they have a PA day, so that is great for Brad! He gets to have a fun day at home..... I need to go and get an Oreo ice cream cake this weekend as that is his request this year instead of me having to make a cake.

Well, I need to go and get the washing in and start the usual Friday chore of cleaning.... I will leave you with my latest collage of photo's all taken from our property. I will be back again soon

The move and more.....

We are only on dial-up at the moment which is painfully slow! and the reason why I haven't been on till now. I decided that I was going to have a lazy morning and spend some time blogging and catching up on emails etc. I do have lots of other things to do but they can wait until later. The last time I had a lazy morning was the last time I blogged, so I have the laptop on my knee, with trashy morning T.V. on in the background, drinking coffee!

A lot has happened since my last post and we have been very busy..... We finally moved into our new home on the 1st October, which ended up actually being the 2nd as we didn't get the keys until 4.30pm due to someone at the municipality office sitting on paperwork for over a year and couldn't put a simple stamp mark on the severance papers, but that's another story! Luckily mum and Paul were still here to help us move, we couldn't have done it without them.

It certainly feels good to have a home once more. We have gone from not having much to do living in rented accommodation for 3 months to working non stop! With 30 acres of land there is not a lot of time for rest, especially in the fall :) Craig made the leaf clearing a little easier this week though as he brought a leaf blower which definitely takes away a lot of hard work. The kids love it, especially the fact that they get to ride to school on the bus everyday. It picks them up at the end of the driveway and drops them back at the same place. I also started work, 3 days a week, it is great so far and fits in perfectly with family life. Very relaxed and slow paced compared to the UK, and I have my own office :)
Within a few days of Mum and Paul going home Shanara was here for a week, which wasn't long enough, I started work the week she was here and wasn't able to do as much as I would have liked and also we hadn't even been in the house a week at this point!! The weekend that Shanara went home we had more visitors - Stu, Ruth and the boys, we had a great weekend, and the kids were only seen and heard at feeding times :) they found their own pleasures out in the wood. I wasn't organised enough to enjoy myself fully and was still feeling a little stressed out, but next time I promise I will be more with it, which I think could be next weekend!

This Saturday is Halloween as you know, but it is our 1st in Canada. I can't believe the difference here, everyone really goes to town in decorating their houses up weeks before the event and not only with pumpkins! We will be taking the boys into the village for 'Trick or treat' with a friend and her son. Hopefully it won't be too cold out :)

Now I must really get off my backside and get some things done. I wish I could sit around all day but I need to clean the wood stove for tonight's fire amongst the other cleaning!!
I will be back later though with some new pictures when I have created a layout, it just might take about and hour to load on dial-up :) So watch this space for more....

Not much too say.....

Except we had a great weekend away at Craig's brothers and the 'Corn Roast' on Saturday. We took the parents along too as they are still with us for another 3 weeks and they really enjoyed it, Ruth you did a fantastic job in getting all the jobs on your list done before we arrived, I think I would have given up halfway!!
On the way back yesterday we went to the Nature museum in Ottawa, which we went to 2 years ago, the boys liked it.... although it is still under going renovations and hadn't changed much, next time we will go to one of the others there.
We were going to go into town after but the parking was a bit of a nightmare so we just drove past the Parliament buildings to show Mum and Paul then made our way back home as it is back to school & work for Craig on Monday and the kids need sleep!! They are settling in better now at school and starting to make some friends, so that is a big worry off my mind.

I am having a lazy morning today.... and I am trying to think of a name and tag line for my home cake bakery that I would like to set up. I have thought of a few but could do with your help.... I have come up with 'Yummy Tummy Bakery' & 'Lets Eat Cake' then a tag line 'Home Baked cakes for any occasion' & 'Home Baked goodness in every bite'. I want something catchy, and easy to remember, I am not the best at thinking up names so if anyone has any good ideas let me know!!

Not much else, not really got my blogging head on today but I will leave you with this picture from the weekend at the corn roast.....