God bless Crazy Aunt Purl's grandmother

Because the sainted woman has given us all the Oh.My.God chocolate cake recipe of all time! It's dead easy to make and it tastes fantastic. Not one of your fancy, intense, dark chocolate extravaganzas - just a good, old-fashioned, gooey lump of chocolate heaven.



Crazy Aunt Purl's Oma's Chocolate Cake Recipe

Now I'm a real cake pig - I have astonished (and probably horrified) people with the amount of cake I can pack away - but I could only manage a small piece of this cake at a time - v.rich.

Helpful hints: 1) If you can't find buttermilk use runny plain yoghurt (thin it with a bit of milk if it's too thick) and 2) a "box" of powdered sugar = 1lb. Yes, that's a whole pound of powdered sugar for the frosting. You got a problem with that?

Wir lieben Sie, Oma!

Waving a few new flags

I've made a few recent additions to my CyberSoapbox list:
Cats Protection, PDSA, Restorative Justice Consortium and Trade Justice Movement.
Hmm - cats, pets, people, people... seems a reasonable balance.

Then there's Free to Stitch, Free to Bitch - the "cause" that started it all (see my very first post: Let's start here).

Check out the list (or better yet click onto their sites!) for more details.

Quilt Show

DH and I went to a little, local quilt show today, held in the Village Hall in Westleton, Suffolk. Entry £2.00 in aid of the East Anglian Air Ambulance.


Well, I say DH went but really he just drove me there and only came in to get a cup of coffee and a piece of cake (he loved the date & walnut cake by the way, ladies).


He did have a little look around and saw a few quilts he liked. He seems to have a preference for "pictorial" designs using appliqué and decorative stitching.

I quite like this one - I love the bead "water droplets".

But my favourites are always the "block" quilts - and stars are a particular favourite.

Even a simple "Nine Patch" can be very effective. This one was made by an 11-year-old girl (with a little help from Mum) as a cuddle quilt for a friend undergoing treatment for cancer.

All in all, a very nice show.

Cool!

Desktop Flamingo has done it again (thanks, Ashe).












Try it yourself at SnapShirts

I'd love to get a t-shirt of this, but at $33/£20 I'm going to have to pass. :o(

That's a big boat

MV Cosco Ningbo was docked in Felixstowe yesterday - the 6th port of call on her maiden voyage, which began on 22 March. She is the largest container ship in the world and can carry 9447 twenty-foot containers. Length 350.57 meters, width 42.8 meters, carrying capacity 107277 tons, speed 25.4 sea miles per hour.
















Source: Official Web Portal of Ningbo, China

Yep, that's a big boat.

Why do I tell you all this? Because we can see Felixstowe docks from our bedroom window. (Looks great at night, all lit up.)

This is the best picture I could get -



















You can see the stern clearly enough, the bow is just "touching" the trunk of the (thoughtlessly placed) tree.

Should be in Hamburg now, and due to arrive back in Shanghai in May.

Favour-returning time

My goddaughter, Marin, has a new blog. She put a link to me in her very first post (she's a good kid) so I'm adding a link to her! -- Dementedly Sane.

Disclaimer: So Far, So Good and jmk are in no way responsible for the content of the above site. Visit it at your own risk! Have a nice day.

Whatever next?

Spotted this at Tesco in Colchester.
Had to buy one - just so's I could take a picture of it to show y'all.

(It's a Jonagold, by the way.)

My virtual Speakers' Corner*

Greetings, faithful readers (as opposed to newbie viewers - no exclusion intended, see below). You've been here before, you've nosed around, you've seen all there is to see, right? Well, I'd just like to flag up my new link list: "jmk's CyberSoapbox" - where I scramble up on my soapbox and shout a bit to draw your attention to organisations/projects/concepts that are important to me. (If you hadn't already come to the conclusion that I'm odd, you will do when you see that lot.)

Now then, you newbies - Welcome! Make yourself at home, have a look around, come back anytime. Oh, and before you go, please feed the llama. Thank you.

*Wikipedia: Speakers' Corner

And they say Americans don't get irony

http://warprofessor.blogspot.com/2006/03/white-house-has-accused-iran-of.html

Heads up

Whilst floating through the blogosphere the other day, I came across Desktop Flamingo and this nifty little item -


Spell with flickr

Have fun!

Thank *you*, PB

I was re-visiting Preacher-Boy's blog the other day. He's done it again - another powerful post. I've been remiss in not adding him to my Favourite Blogspots list before now.

This is fun

A friend of mine, with a quirky sense of humour similar to my own, sent me a "talking" e-card courtesy of Bud Light*. Oh, it did make I larf. And naturally, I had to start sending my own creations to all and sundry.

Then I thought, hey, I could link to one from here. So, for all my adoring fans out there (and you know who you are), here's a special message from me to you. Luv ya!

(*not affiliated, just appreciative)

A film for our time

We were back at the Electric Palace last night - this time to see the immensely inspiring and visually hypnotic movie Good Night, and Good Luck. People don't really clap at movies here in the UK but DH and I were discreetly clapping at the end of this one.

In view of the state of affairs both in the US and here, where fear of "the enemy" is being exploited by those in power to erode our civil liberties, this film is eerily relevant and should be compulsary viewing (which, of course, would be an infringment of our civil liberties - *sigh* - but you know what I mean).

As is my wont, when anything or anyone captures my interest I promptly Google it. Did you know that Edward R Murrows' parents were Quaker abolitionists? Just thought I'd mention it *grin*.

So what is it about having my own blog...

...that has suddenly made me so reticent? Not like me, I assure you. But I find myself struggling to find anything to write about.

Is my life so uneventful? Not overly so. F'rinstance, I've just started a new job (which I love) but I haven't really got anything to say about it at the moment (just wait until the first time I need to vent!). DH and I have recently joined a Tai Chi class. We did it before, about 5 years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it, so we were very pleased to find a local class again.

Home improvements are progressing. Now there's something I could do - post a picture of the new bathroom. Wait 'til you see the colour!

Well, I'm sure that's about all the exciting information you can handle in one go so I'll sign off now. Watch this space! (just not too closely)

Enough already

They were cute on the day but the hearts are off now (see previous post) - they were getting on my nerves, too.

Ouch, let go of my arm!! Ok, I've just been "asked" to direct your attention to my niece's - ouch! - my loving niece's site: ZoeMarin. {Are you happy now?! OUCH!}

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

I know I'm a little early but I'm going to be a bit busy tomorrow (starting a new job, dontchaknow?!) so I thought I'd do it now. Hope you can all see the hearts! xx

Oo, oo - over here! Pick me!

Figured I'd better post something - anything - or I'd fall below the "Next Blog" radar and no one would see my little bloggy world. Attention seeking or what? Yeah, I know, I have seen the number at the bottom of the page. I've not exactly been reeling them in up until now I admit but the occasional passerby would be welcome.

It's Church Jim, but not as we know it

Whilst "Next Blog"-ging this evening I came across Preacher-Boy's Hideout and this blog. Sounds good to me.

Busy, busy, busy

I've been having such a good time learning basic HTML and tweaking my new blogsite - adding buttons to my links and little twinkling gifs... (Hmm, 'bought time I started actually writing something.)

Been "Next Blog"-ging for hours, checking out other peoples' sites to see what neat stuff they had that I could, umm, assimilate. That's how I found And The Fat Lady Sings.. and her little dog "freckles". "I want one! I want one!"

So - meet montgomery the llama (check the sidebar just below the links list).
Update 3 Feb 06 - monty's got food! Click the "more" tag...

I have to say an extra special Thank You to his designer (at bunnyhero labs - NAYY*) who answered my email of distress in record time and came up with a way for me to make monty a little smaller so he'd fit in the sidebar (makes your columns go wonky if an image is too wide). He's a star and I'm a happy bunny!

*Not affiliated, yadda, yadda

Nice Outing

DH and I have just been to see "Mrs Henderson Presents" at the Electric Palace in Harwich. Lovely film! And Judi Dench was magnificent, as usual.