La lala!!!! lalalalalalalala lalalalalalala

Youve probably guessed by now, that my taste in music is pure "pop". I think I get this from my mum. I have her collection of 45's, all Beatles and Elvis,Cliff,Cilla, Dusty, Frank Ifield, The Batchelors, Monkees, Dave, Dee Dozy Beaky Mick N Titch, Kenny Lynch(!) etc etc. This is still one of my favourites. Turn it up loud and have a twist!!!

We are coming slightly more up to date tomorrow!

Mandy

I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg under my pillow when I was a teenager. And then one night in 1975, Radio Luxembourgs record of the week (which meant that they played it on the hour, every hour)was Mandy by Barry Manilow. I saw him on American Idol recently, and the advice he gave to the young man singing was " make them fall in love with you - then break their hearts" Mr Manilow how could you!! Through out the late 1970's, he dragged me through every emotion - he may not be a looker, and I know he's not everybodies cup of tea, but his concerts were show stopping.

(Something for the over 60's tomorrow - I promise!!)

Breaking Hearts

Of course, sharing my affections in the early 1970's was Donny Osmond. David and Donny made falling in love look and sound so happy and appealing - one line of the song goes "No broken hearts for us ..." and yet Donny broke my heart every time he sang!!

Ive been to see Donny and the Osmonds a couple of times in recent years, and he is still a beautiful boy! At one concert, he stopped by the end of our row - grabbed my sisters hand hand and sang "If" to her! IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!!! She was a Little Jimmy fan!

Falling in Love

Ive decided to do a few musical posts. The weather is foul, and I currently have no motivation to do anything but vegitate. So come with me this week on a musical tour and listen to the tunes that shaped my life.

One of my first loves was David Cassidy. This track appears to feature Hearsay too, but I don't mind as the photos of David are just how I remember him - 100% dreamboat.

Turn up the volume and sing into your hairbrush!!!!!!!

Cheesecake

One of the dishes we made at the Milestone Cookery school was a very easy cheesecake. In the class, we made it in individual glasses which looked really sweet. At the weekend, in an attempt to get some fruit down the Dancing Queen who was home to do her Saturday and Sunday job, I made this cheesecake.

The basic recipe is :
Crushed Digestive biscuits for the base - no butter to hold it all together - it doesn't really need it and it saves on the calories.
Equal measures of double cream (whipped) and Philadelphia cream cheese (I used extra light) whisked together with a little sugar.

You can flavour the cheesecake if you like - on the course we did this with Spiced Jamaican Rum and lime zest, but I didn't flavour this one.

I then just added as much fruit as I could. It was delicious.

Prayers on Sunday

In 1964 I joined the Methodist Sunday school in our village. I was given this children's prayer book. I loved the pictures in it back then, and still do to this day. The children on the front cover looked like my brother and sister and I.

This was one of my favourites. I think it was because of the falling Autumn leaves. I also loved her plaits!

And I always wanted to find this beach. It reminds me now of many beaches I have visited in Cornwall - especially around the Falmouth area.

The prayer for summer is lovely.

When I was little, I hated going to bed in summer when it was still light - however this made me realise that it wasn't just my mums rule.

And this made me want a patchwork quilt.

But this one used to alarm me. They both have such fear on their faces (in my case, it would have been fear of the wrath of my mother for breaking the pot! ) But what a lovely little prayer.

Sunrise and Sunset

We noted the Sunrise and Sunset times on the local fishing lakes. The 25th September looks like the date when we have equal amounts of light and dark. I think that at this time of year, it is called the 2nd Equinox. Its not something Ive given much thought to in the past, but being as it falls on a Saturday this year I think we may take the time to celebrate the day.

Renault World Series

Every year, we manage to blag free tickets to the Renault World Series racing event - generally held at Silverstone race track. The boys absolutely love it.

I love wandering around the catering vehicles! They are truly amazing. This was my favourite - and next year I am going to be brave and ask if I can have a look around! It belonged to one of the Spanish teams. As you can tell, it is a huge articulated trailer whose roof expands (to make the drivers lounge I was told), and then the sides pull out to make a huge kitchen, dining room and lounge for the rest of the staff and guests. I managed to stick my head into some of the catering "awnings" - one of them were having a hog roast! The logistics of transporting and feeding the cars, drivers, mechanics and rest of the team around the world must be a nightmare!

The boys love the new cars,

whilst I always fall for the vintage models.

And of course the racing was good - except if you were Greg Mansell (son of Nigel) who was the only one to crash in spectacular fashion, and it wasn't even his fault.

The noise of the one F1 car that they demonstrate with is deafening - I can't imagine what 20 of them on the track all at once sounds like.

Ice Cream Castles in the air

Last week, the sky was full of the fluffiest clouds I had ever seen.

It was a great day for spotting shapes - can you see the baby elephant?

I took all of these whilst on the move in the car (I was not driving I hasten to add).

And the best thing about them was they didn't rain on us at all.

Leaving

At times in this house, hormones caused by the menopausal mum/teenage daughter combo erupt in massive door slamming, screaming explosions which neither hubby or the young man can handle. Last week was a nightmare, but I think it was less about the hormones, and more about her leaving to go to university. Whilst she was very excited, she was also a bit scared, and upset as the boyfriend will be in a different city - not too far away, but far enough - whilst I was just getting stressed about her "preparations" (posters, photos of pals and a bottle of Malibu are VITAL, whereas food/bed linen etc not so!)



So hubby, her and I trundled off with a very loaded car yesterday morning to deposit her at her halls of residence/prison cell/skunk pit and proceeded to make her room look as homely as possible. We made sure that she had a good meal, and then left her to mix with the others. She will be coming home on weekends as she is keeping her job until she finds another - so I get eased in gently - but although I won't miss stuff disappearing from my room into hers, arguing about the state of her room(which now looks immaculate)and her "Don't talk to me, I don't do conversations at XXXXX time of day" (substitute XXXXX for whatever time of day it is!!), I will miss her laptop, hair straighteners, and her laughter.

Whilst I still have the young man at home to "smother", he needs me less and less (just at feeding times actually!), I realise that I am moving into another "phase " of my life. It feels very strange. And yes, hubby and I did blub in the car on the way home - right after I said that I thought we had held it together very well!!

The Milestone Cookery Class

So on Saturday, I attended a "Fabulous Fast Food" cookery class at a local gastro pub,

The Milestone. The Milestone chefs incidentally are featured on the new series of Gordon Ramsey's Best British Restaurant. The restaurant is situated in the old industrial area of Sheffield, near Kelham Island and is an old "works" pub.

This is what the area used to look like - these days its trendy apartments and bars.

I love places like this that use local butchers, and local produce. Apparently they get a lot of their vegetables from 5 retired blokes that still work allotments in the city, but cannot possibly use everything they produce.

The style of the place is very pared back and simple. Its always very busy (this was taken very early as I was the first one there).

The classes are limited to 8 participants. They don't have brilliant facilities for the cookery school at the moment, but they are in the process of kitting out a new place out that will be open in the new year. Throughout the day, we made:

Lamb Koftas with Fruity couscous

Homemade Zingy Burgers

Chickpea and Spinach Curry with Sea Bass (which we ate for lunch)

Moules Mariniere

Salmon with Bean Ragu

Chicken, Goats cheese and Courgette Tagliatelle

Mohita Cheesecake

All of which we prepared on a 1 ring cooker, and took between 10-15 minutes to prepare and cook (ideal for camping!!!!) and all utterly delicious! We got to bring everything home much to hubby's delight.

It was great for inspiration - and a fun day out too. I'm going to take a look at what else they do when they open up the new place.

The Ladies Privy

The Loo's in the car park at The Forbidden Corner are hilarious. They are situated in what appears to be a wooden hut.




I could have watched the reaction of the visitors all day! 2 Lovely ladies stood for a good 5 minutes discussing earnestly whether they should use them separately or together!

And then you realise that they are a joke and you've been had! (the seats are nailed shut so that no one can be in doubt!!!).

A side door leads you into some of the most fabulous loo's in all of the land!

And like the rest of Forbidden Corner, the detail is fabulous.

I also forgot to show you this magnificent beast. He was sat with his harem in the deer park at Forbidden Corner.

They had gorgeous grounds to wander in. North Yorkshire has some of the most beautiful and stunning scenery in the whole world.

Stained Glass

This post is especially for Deb in the old US of A.

Whilst I love stained glass windows that can be found in every church and cathedral here in the UK, when someone like Deb makes a simple comment on a previous post, I realise that I don't appreciate it as much as I should.

Its only when someone like Deb reminds me that such treasures are not easy to find in America, that I realise how lucky we are to be able to wander and find magnificent specimens like this in even the smallest villages here in the UK

These were a few of the windows from the pretty church in Middleham last week.

Especially for you Deb.

And for my other readers, pop over and say hello to Deb. See how long you can watch her beautiful video about Jakes Adoption without requiring a full box of tissues.

PS The motto at Blogger this morning, it seems that "if at first you don't succeed, try again". On other blogs, it shows me an error when I try and leave a comment, but if I have another go - it works!!

Wentworth Old Church

We were lucky last weekend when we decided to walk around Wentworth on Sunday to find that the old church was open (for the Heritage Weekend I think). It is not used as a church anymore and is run by the redundant church commissions. You can arrange to look around it, and it is really worth a good look around.

The graveyard is well worth a look if the church is shut. I have a booklet with some interesting stories about the occupants. They include some of the staff from the big house including butlers and housekeepers, and a young Chinese boy that some sea captain brought back from the far east!

There are also some sad indications of how life was hard before moderm medicines. Its amazing to think how many people, especially children died of simple infections and plain old high temperatures.

The musicians were playing what looked and sounded like latter day vuvuzelas!

Inside the church is as well kept as the outside.

There is the Fitzwilliam family crypt under the church and on open days, they take you down there - its very eerie and has a resident toad living there!!

I love the different displays that they put out for you to look at. My grandad worked for the Fitwilliam family for a while (as a woodman) but he would have been there later than this.

They also had on display the Fitzwilliam family tree.

Very intriguing and controversial. The family line seems to be dying out, but there are lots of claims of illegitimate children.

My favourite items in the church are the stained glass windows that are the most delicate shades of grey and yellow.

Ive got a very busy weekend planned with diverse activities!! I shall reveal all later of course.