Walk from Groomsport to Orlock

I love where I live. Its not until you are forced to make decisions which are life changing that you really appreciate what you have. My husband has been offered a job in England and it is, in theory, a step up for him. Originally we were to be off by the 1st of march but that didn't transpire. At the end of this month there will will be a further job offer, a different package and hopefully a better one at that. Then we have to go through the whole agonising decision making process again. It really is a toss up between the 'lifestyle' we have versus some extra money and the lifestyle that we don't know about yet. So the jury is still out, we are still living in limbo but it is no longer a closely guarded secret. Its days like this, meaning the other day when I took these photos, that you really realise what you have on your own doorstep.

~~ The children call this the giant chess piece, and it does look like a rook.

None of these are ours, our boat is teeny in comparison.

This one was after we had trekked along many little sandy coves - 'enough is enough mom'.

Shells - my five year old is fascinated by them. I guess last year she didn't really appreciate them the same as she does now.

We found this old boat on the sand at Orlock, the children had a lot of fun playing in it.

I love this shot these two are just like man and wife.

Sad News

R.I.P. DILLAN

Well, I hate to report this sad news but the children have been so upset I felt I have to share. Our neighbours two dogs broke into one of our rabbit hutches and killed one of our pet rabbits. Now you have to understand that these are no ordinary rabbits, they are real pets. The rabbits come in the house and are just spoiled rotten. Since this happened the children have been very tearful, its traumatic for them to have their pet destroyed like this.

I was surprised at the depth of the children's feelings as we have experience natural causes deaths before and the children had always been accepting. I am only glad I was home and caught the dogs when I did. the dogs were starting on another hutch, it doesn't bear thinking about what would have happened if I was away from the house. The second hutch had our pregnant lion head bunny in, a Dutch rabbit and two young girls, the devastation would have been awful.

On a lighter note the lion head bunny is due her litter on the 14th April so we are looking forward to that. We have decided, (if its okay with the person who is taking the babies) we are going to keep one of the new rabbits if there is a male.

Did I tell you?

One of my rabbits are pregnant again. This time it wasn't accidental, we bred her deliberately. The rabbit is a lion head and I had a special request for some lion head baby bunnies.

Where have I been?

Where have I been? I know, I know, it has been forever since I last updated the blog. I have ran out of excuses, there are none! I was just dead lazy and I got even lazier when I thought of all the other times I apologised at being lazy and reading other blogs where people do the same thing.

I wont apologise, I am here ... I am posting again, for now. Just accept that if I refrain from posting I am either being lazy or I am super busy, or having a crisis in my life, or out socialising far too many hours, or having a baby (probably not but maybe the rabbits are having babies again), or feeding the dog ..wait I don't have a dog. Oh, I don't know, maybe it is raining!

These are lovely moist cupcakes. Best eaten when they are a few hours old or even the next day (if they last that long). This recipe only took minutes to prepare so perfect for some who is too busy to hang around the kitchen for long.

Ingredients

1/2 apple peeled and cored. Chop it up into small pieces.
some lemon juice (though I didn't have any this time and it didn't change the recipe)
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
3 eggs
1 cup of butter or margarine (nice and soft)
1 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups of self raising flour (sifted)

Frosting

1 1/2 cup icing sugar
1 cup butter (room temp)
1 tablespoon of cinnamon sugar (I made this with granulated sugar & cinnamon)

Method

Preheat the oven at 160C / 320F, I think today my oven was a bit too hot so you may need to turn it down if it is fan assisted.

Lay 12 cupcake cases into a cupcake baking tray.

In a small bowl mix the chopped up apple with the lemon juice and the cinnamon.

In a mixing bowl beat the eggs, butter and sugar until light. Then add the milk and flour, beat for another two minutes or so until the mix looks creamy. Add the apple and stir it in.

Divide the mix between 12 cupcakes, this makes a generous amount so you get full cup cakes.

Bake for approx 18 minutes.

For the topping ...

I prepare my topping while the cupcakes are in the oven. Mix half of the icing sugar and the butter, then add remaining icing sugar. This half and half way makes it easier to get out any little lumps. Beat until light and fluffy.

Spoon the topping on the cooled cupcakes and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar.

My Baby's Birthday

Did I say my baby? Well she is my baby, Sol now age five and a few days. I cannot believe she is five, its almost as if I went to sleep one night while she was still a new born and I woke up and shes all grown. It is scary how time flies by before you get to catch your breath. Anyway, enough of that mushy stuff just enjoy the photos pf the day. I took loads but I just randomly chose a couple, actually they were the first ones in the folder!

Sol is mad about Hello Kitty, so we just had to get her this delicious cake. By the way its from Marks & Spencer if anyone wants to get one.

Yes, you will have read the trampoline story ... we got a new one. Its smaller and its now round the front of the house so its less likely to get flipped by the wind.

Babies ....

Well you will never guess what happened in our house. We had two rabbits, and we were told they were boy rabbits. I guess that's where this whole thing was flawed, anyhow ....

We got another rabbit and he too was a male! Or so we thought, in our defence rabbits are difficult to sex. So we put the three rabbits in together and they lived happily ever after, at least they did for a few weeks.

On the 19th of July we discovered 5 baby rabbits in the top level of the hutch! We were shocked to say the least, it seemed that Zebedee had given birth. We very quickly researched how to sex the rabbits and split off the offending male. The next day the other female Dougal (gotta love the name) gave birth to three more rabbits so we ended up with eight babies in total.

This is one of the babies at one day old.

Here are the babies at three weeks old, it is amazing how quickly those little things have grown.

Fun and games!