And we're back!

We had a great time in sub-zero Northern Wales. There were masses of mountains, scattered with sheep. There were rally tracks and 4x4 trails. There were many, many jackets and layers. And scarves. I even took my blanket with. Just in case.

Strangely enough, we spent a lot of our driving time in Wales held up by roadworks. It was all very regulated and controlled, but really slowed things down quite wonderfully. You couldn't just drive to point B, you first had to stop off three or four times along the way to let other cars pass as roadworks narrowed the tiny roads from two lanes into one.

People were polite, and exceptionally relaxed about the unexpected stops. It was a completely new experience.


We went specifically to watch the WRC Rally Wales GB. This is what happens when you're married to a motorsport fanatic. You traipse around mountains and camp out in places called "Sweet Lamb Farm." You have to climb up and down hillsides to get the best track-side photography spots. You can't bring your knitting for fear of mud (there was a lot of mud).

The views were spectacular, even if the terrain was rocky and the roads were narrow. Very narrow. Hold on to the edge of your seat with white knuckles narrow. Are you sure we can drive up here narrow. Is this a road or a cliff-face narrow.

Still, it got dark by 4.30pm, and the little town we were staying in (Aberdyfi) went to sleep shortly afterwards. It was a proper break from ever-open streets of London.


It's a bit surreal to be back. Instead of the ocean, we're listening to the waves of traffic flowing past the windows. It gets dark early here too, but that's just the end of your working day and the start of your evening. I didn't think I'd notice the difference, but I do. The cure, I think, is to invest in a fireplace and switch off the TV. Also, don't get too worked up when things stop unexpectedly. Roadworks may be a pain, but they give you a chance to admire the views. We could all do with a bit of country living in the city.

Hello Blogland! I'm back in the land of high-speed internet and long, grey clouds! I missed you all with your cheery comments and visits very much.

I had a wonderful trip home, aside from 'flu and work (of course), I spent a lot of time with my family, we almost sorted out the wedding dress (!) and I have 1,602 photographs to show for it. Of course I'm not going to bog you down with millions of photographs (tempting though it is) so forgive me just a little as I show you a quick view of Cape Town in photos ~ I'll keep it down to a minimum, promise.


Can you believe that I went home in winter? That's winter up there in that photograph by the way - not so bad, hmm? I miss the beaches and surprisingly of all, I miss the mountains. I think that's a Cape Town thing and not a general South Africa thing, but still. This (above and below) is Hout Bay Harbour and Beach where you can sunbathe on the sands, go for a swim in the icy waters, or turn around and enjoy fresh fish (if you like that kind of thing) from one of the many fish-and-chips shops along the harbour-side. I don't eat fish, for the record, but I do like the harbour and I especially like ice cream.






















This is the beach-side restaurant and take-aways Mariner's Wharf - and that's a boat set into the second level of the building overhanging the parking lot rather precariously.

















On this particular day we sat on the rocks and ate ice-creams as we watched the fishing boats and the seals. There were about seven very large seals romping around the boats just in front of us!

















... Even the rocks are pretty. It might just be my nostalgia and my love of colour continuity, but I like 'em.

Further along the coastline, on Milnerton Beach, we were able to watch the sun go down from my aunt's pretty beach-side apartment.

















Isn't that an amazing view? Imagine waking up to that every morning!

If you zip up the mountain you reach UCT (the University of Cape Town) where the views are panoramic and are particularly beautiful in the hazy mornings:

















I popped in to my old haunts to see my dear friends Isa and Shihaam in the English Department, Tanya in the Rare Books Library, and Jessica, my former supervisor for my Honours and MA dissertations. Much sadness that Jessica was out and about being awesome and touring the wide world as an elite academic, but delighted to see everyone else looking so very happy and healthy.

Even further up from here is Rhodes Memorial, and the Rhodes Memorial Tea Garden.

















... and because I can't possibly put a blog post up here on Bakercourt without referring to food, let me show you what we ate at the Rhodes Memorial Tea Garden:






















Food is served on elaborate, elongated platters. This is my Tikka Chicken Sandwich served with chips and salad. Below, my mom's giant scone served with butter, cream and jams.

















I even managed to fit in a visit to the aquarium as part of a baby-sitting excursion.






















Speaking of babysitting and play areas - things are quite different when you're holidaying with two small children. Meal times are different, meal contents are different, and you have to go to places that will entertain the children for long enough so that you can sip your coffee slowly and nibble on a biscuit if you want to. If you don't choose your places properly, you end up chasing the children around and answering a lot of "but what can I doooooooooooo?" questions. So, one of the family's favourite places to have tea (and to play) is the pretty little Millstone Eco Village in Pinelands.






















It's a large area of land made up of a riding school, a play centre, a bakery and coffee shop, a outdoors play area and a school.






















Plus, there are horses.






















Millstone is the coffee shop serving baked goods (like beetroot and chocolate cake) and breakfasts. You sit on old wine crates around wooden tables in a pretty garden while dogs, cats and occasionally miniature pigs come to visit you for snacks. That, in the picture, is a giant treehouse shaped like a ship. That was enormously popular with all the children, and especially Daniel (my half-brother).






















Finally, before you disappear because I'm boring you with photographs of how wonderful my holiday was (*gush*), have a look at the pretty mountains and dam at Worcester Yacht Club:
















Now, this was a cold day. There was snow on the mountains. We wore jumpers and jackets and scarves and boots. The cloud cover was particularly pretty, though, and it seemed to change all the colours of the scenery to make it more brilliant and stand-out-ish. (Yes, 'ishing' is permissible when words fail you.)

















Just look at that sky! Pretty pretty pretty. I could write here!


Further along the dam you come to a pretty open grass area where campers are allowed to set up tents and children run around delightedly. Makes for good photographs, too.






















Here's Emma enjoying the Worcester Yacht Club swings with her polka dot wellies. This picture is pretty much how I feel about my whole trip home - glee! 

I don't think it was technically a Christmas present. More like a happy-new-year-and-by-the-way-I-love-you present. You see, on the way to Cornwall, we went on a roundabout route from London via Bristol. And there, we stopped off at a little shop called The Spinning Weal.

Just, because it was on the way. Mostly.

And The Most Amazing Husband bought me a beautiful new spinning wheel. For real.

It is an Ashford Kiwi 2 wheel, which is a compact, front-facing, double-treadle wheel. We packed it up and drove on to Cornwall. And then, I spent the week spinning in front of a fireplace. Having never used a wheel before, it took some time to get used to. I used up quite a bit of my "mystery fibre" and soon got into the spin of things. I know.

I'm going to call this colourway Ice Cream Sundae. It seems appropriate. It's going to be self-striping yarn with large colour repeats. I'm spinning two ultra-thin singles which I'll then ply together to create a candy-cane effect in the yarn. There'll be some places where the colour blocks will overlap to get solid colours, but the rest will just look like ice cream sprinkles.

Because really, everyone needs sprinkles.

Everyone knows that I love me some giant squid.

Time has sped since we returned from our trip to South Africa. We've had visitors, we've all been sick with some 'flu or virus or another, and the days are rolling by into shorter and shorter burst of sunshine. Lots of scarves, slippers, pots of cosied-tea.

For a time, we were all sick, and spent our nights huddled under a blanket on the sofa. All three of us, sniffling and snuffling with the healing powers of Olbas oil wedged under our noses. Sometimes waking, sometimes taking turns to sleep. That hazy week (two weeks? more?) had no definite beginning nor end, although we seem to have unbundled and made our way out into the world a bit. Isla started nursery, we're back at work.

And, I've knitted. Just a bit. You know, to remind my fingers how they work when not emailing / designing / other work-y action. I have tiny moments of reflection late at night after baby has had a bath and gone to bed, after supper has been prepared, eaten, plates packed away. Sometimes these tiny moments are filled with tea, or with plans. And sometimes, they're filled with yarn.

Socks, not for me. He chose the yarn for himself, and is a happy recipient of warm woolly toes at winter time. This is a self-striping hand-painted yarn which is quite cheerful, and lovely to knit with. I did one at a time, on two circular needles.

When I first moved to the UK, on my second day here, I discovered British book stores. They're beautiful and big, and filled from top to bottom with glossy covers. There are hundreds of different book stores - from the amazing £2 store (The Last Bookshop) in Oxford to the big brands of the market like Foyles, Waterstone's and W.H.Smith. And lo - it was good. Moving here wasn't so bad, after all.

And I bought my first cook book, too. I began baking.

It was an Australian's Women's Weekly book. The recipes, at the time, were beyond my ability and packed from cover to cover with beautiful pictures that looked like they belong on the the shelves of a la-di-dah cake store. That was two years ago. Arriving home with a baking book was like uncovering the holy grail of kitchenry, and I started a blog (which has since migrated here after my original hosting closed down) to document my progress.

So, when I decided to find a good cake recipe for the wedding, I turned to the Women's Weekly again.






















Ooh, pretty. Now, for some reason, the recipes mentioned on that image aren't the same as the ones in my book. Think: scones, cakes, tarts and sandwiches. Proper British Afternoon Tea. I also couldn't resist adding Cakes, Biscuits and Slices and The Cake Stall to my shopping basket - more on that later.

I've never particularly like scones, and I've only very recently starting sampling whipped cream - occasionally - with strawberry jam on scones/crumpets/buns. But, when I saw the recipe for Pumpkin Parmesan Scones, I knew it was time to expand my baking repertoire.






















They're not exactly wedding cake, but they were oh-so easy to make, so it was a pleasant (and rather tasty) aside whilst I mixed up Marbled Chocolate Mud Cake (which I'll show you very soon, once I've managed to take a picture of a slice without gobbling it up first!).

















The dough is crumbly, but I remember from my mom's scones that this is normal. You knead together to make a flat disc which you then cut into rounds for baking. It is a little bit squishy in places - especially if you're a little lazy with your pumpkin-mashing.
















... and a little sprinkling of parmesan and pepper goes a long way! The scones bake into a golden yellow colour (thanks to the pumpkin) and the crumbling cheese on top is deliciously baked in. Served with butter and cheese for lunch - yum!

I've typed up the recipe for you from the book, and I'd definitely recommend buying your own copy too. I got mine from Amazon for £4.33. It has a lot of good recipes in it (and also in the two other books that got packed up with it!), and I foresee many baking weekends in the Bakercourt household.

Pumpkin Parmesan Scones

30g butter, softened
1/4 cup icing sugar
1 egg
3/4 cup cold cooked mashed pumpkin
2 1/2 cups of self-raising flour
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/3 cup of milk
2 tablespoons finely grated parmesan cheese
pinch of cracked black pepper
pinch sea salt flakes

1. Preheat oven to 220'C and grease a cake pan/tray.
2. Beat butter, sugar and egg in a small bowl with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Transfer mixture to a large bowl and stir in the pumpkin. Add the sifted dry ingredients and milk. Use a knife to cut the milk through the flour mixture to a soft, sticky dough. Turn dough onto floured surface, knead gently until smooth.
3. Press dough out to 2cm thickness and cut out 5cm rounds. Place rounds just touching on the cake pan/tray.
4. Brush scones with milk and sprinkle with the combined cheese, pepper and salt.
5. Bake scones for about 20 minutes and server with warm butter.
6. Scones can be frozen for up to 3 months, if you have any left. They should be thawed in the oven, wrapped in foil.

Phew, I've just returned from a work trip to Istanbul.