get together

we took advantage of two of the many St albans Festival events, Larks in the Parks and St Albans Alive! Sue and I had a lovely day on our craft stall at Larks in the Parks, it was like a village fete, and because it was local we knew lots of people to say hello and chat to. I just wonder if they will put it on next year, with all the expected local government cut backs, shame if they don't.Yesterday we went to St albans Alive!

On Tuesday I had a nice 'crafty' morning with my friend Sue. I was showing Sue how to crochet roses and spirals, we both agreed the spirals would make interesting necklaces. Sue showed me some of the things she is working on at the moment, I like a show and tell, it's good to share ideas.

We had a lovely family Easter, both the children were home plus Bobbin (dog). Alice and I baked, knitted, crocheted, made organza flowers and shopped, a bit of mum and daughter bonding. This is the recipe for the Banana Cake we made for Easter, this recipe is great if you want to use up very ripe bananas. For the topping we melted chocolate then decorated it with chocolate animals and Maltesers.

BANANA CAKE

All in all we did have an enjoyable family Christmas. Alice, my daughter, played nurse when I wasn't feeling well and she came good helping with the Christmas dinner. As you can see from the photo, Alice is proud to show the roast vegetables she cooked, a la 'Jamie's Family Christmas'.

Today Ashley and I had lunch at Pizza Express thanks to the efforts of Claire at Being a Mummy  who organised a free meal for local bloggers. It was really nice to meet Kirsty ,   Hannah , Lisa  and especially Claire and her lovely children.

My sister and her family came to visit us, for the day, on Friday. We only manage see each other about twice a year. We had a lovely day and exchanged birthday gifts. There are 364 days between our birthday so for one day we are the same age! During the day I had time to teach my sister and niece how to crochet a necklace. They were fast learners and within a couple of hours they had created really pretty necklaces, the photo is of the one my sister made.

I can't let this momentous event go by, HAPPY 50th BIRTHDAY KIM. The wheel chair was just for the day to help the old timer get around!

I went to the Aboyne Lodge School Summer Fair yesterday looking to buy raffle tickets for their quilt. It's 10 years since Alice left the school but there are still tracers of her on the wall mural that she helped to paint (don't you just love children's drawings?). Ashley came with me, he left 13 years ago, and said memories came flooding back. It all still looked familiar the little house in the nursery playground was still there. Even Leanne was still on the food stall, I calculate she must have been helping out for over 16 years, give that women a long service medal!

Yesterday I had a very pleasant morning with Susie and Jacky, we decorated cupcakes. Jackie is going to make her daughter's cupcake 'wedding cake' and wanted some ideas for the individual cakes. We had a play with all the decorations Jacky had bought, some worked and some didn't in the end we settled on a few designs. Jacky photographed the cakes and will recreate them just before the wedding, making about 25 in each design. And our reward for this hard work was a lovely lunch cooked by Jacky.