Halloween

Our spooky pizza

Table decoration

Halloween jackolantern

Charlie done all by himself.

Halloween biscuits

Recipe for the biscuits is here

Cut the biscuits into halloween things like witches hats, bats

and gingerbread men with their arms, legs or heads pulled off.

Decorate with icing sugar mixed with a little water and food

colouring. Piping the designs you require on them. 

Enjoy!

Halloween Cupakes

Ingredients

4oz Butter

4oz Caster sugar

4oz Flour

2 tbsp Milk

2 Eggs

1 tsp Red food colouring paste

Prepare 12 cupcake cases in a cupcake tin.

Whisk your butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

Add 1 egg and 1 tbsp flour mix well repeat with the remaining egg. 

Add the remaining flour and mix well.

Add the milk and Red paste and stir well.

Divide mixture between your 12 prepared cake case.

Bake in the oven on 180c/Gas 4 for 15 mins or until a

skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Cover with buttercream we used green and sprinkle on

some edible glitter.

Enjoy!

Sunday fun

UtterlyPersonal - Personalised Giraffe Pyjama Case

We were very kindly asked by online gift retailer UtterlyPersonal.co.uk
to review just one of hundreds of wonderful personalised gifts that they
have on offer....it was very hard to choose, as they supply personalised
gifts for just about every single occasion..Birthdays,Weddings, Christenings,
even personalised gifts for pets. But with Christmas just around the corner
 we decided on the personalised Giraffe Baby Pyjama Case.

 Our son who loves soft toys, saw it and fell in love with it and
staked his claim on it, before he even saw his name on it, The
Giraffe Baby Pyjama Case is beautifully designed and
constructed, meeting all British Safety Standards.

It is a wonderful toy. Soft to the touch so any young child

will simply love to hug and cuddle it. But it also has a practical

element for Parents as it is doubles up as a pyjama case.

Velcro on the back holds the pyjamas securely inside,which in
turn will add to the softness thus making the toy even more cuddly.

It can even hold a small hot water bottle instead of pyjamas for
those cold winter nights. Parents may even like to cuddle it now
and again too and as this beautiful toy has been personalised
there can be no arguments between family members as to who this
lovely toy belongs too! So adults be warned you can't stake your
claim on it if your name isn't on it!

We found enclosed with the toy a 'Giraffe Baby Birth Certificate',
on it is a little note from the 'Giraffe Baby' telling the 'owner'
what uses the pyjama case has.Also at the bottom of the
certificate, there is provision for the 'Owner's name' plus the name
of the 'Giraffe Baby'....come on now, who doesn't like to give
their cuddly toys a name. Plus room for the 'Giraffe Baby's birthday'.

All in all this is a wonderful toy and every child deserves one
especially one that has been personalised just for them.

So why not take a look at the brilliant range of products on offer
at UtterlyPersonal.co.uk as we feel confident you will find a
fantastic personalised gift for someone in your life, young or old.

Pretty little nails review

I was very lucky to win some hand painted false nails from

Pretty Little Nails

I gave xameliax free rein and let her imagination go with the design
 only telling her I would like powder shades and she could do
anything else. So it was a great surprise when my beautifully
packaged nails arrived.

My nails are absolutely beautiful, they came with easy to read 

instructions on how to apply them even coming with sticky tabs. 

Although I chose to put them on with glue as I wanted them 

to stay on for longer. I could not wait for any occasion so 

that I could show them off.

You can see more of xameliax's work or get some nails of your
own go to her etsy shop or tumblr  and Facebook

Creamy Cheesy Smokey Stuffed Chicken

Here's a very simple idea to brighten up a dish.

Delicious cheesy creamy smokey Chicken breasts.

You will need boneless chicken breasts, chives, garlic and smoked

bacon.

1: Using a very sharp knife... carefully slice through your

chicken breasts and open them up (butterfly) 

2: Now place the cream cheese into a mixing bowl.

3: Finely chop chives and add to the cream cheese.

4: Now add to the bowl, 4 crushed cloves of Garlic.

5: Mix the ingredients well and then spoon the mix

into each Chicken breast in turn.

6: Close up the chicken breasts and carefully 

wrap in rashers of delicious smoked bacon. Two rashers

per breast works well.

7: Place them in foil on a baking tray and put into

an oven Gas mark 4 for 30-40 mins,

depending on how crispy you like your 

bacon.

8: Serve with a salad or roast potato's 

and seasonal vegetables of your choice.

9: ENJOY!

JWF eReader-5000 Review

JWF eReader-5000 in natural light.

The JWF eReader-5000 is packed full with lots of exciting features. The most 

impressive is the 7" colour touch screen, where with just a light touch you can

 access a range of novels, thrillers, biographies and more. But that's not all, this 

device has 4GB of internal memory - which is enough for thousands of ebooks, 

and even all of your photos, videos and music. That's right, the JWF eReader-5000

 even plays back multimedia.

JWF eReader-5000 text clarity in low light surroundings.

You can scroll, tap and swipe your way through this device to explore more

and more. Take eReading for example - a simple touch on the left/right hand 

side of the screen turns the page for you. Or, swipe across the page as if you 

are actually reading a physical book. Tap the middle of the screen and you are 

greeted by a easy-to-use menu at the top of the screen, which you can keep 

there whilst reading for easy access. The eReader-5000 supports a wide variety 

of ebook formats including ePub, HTML, txt, fb2, PDF, pdb etc. 

You can also download ebooks from many online stores, or go straight

 to JWF eReaders' partners devinedestinies.com (fantasy, adventure etc) 

or extasybooks.com (adult ebooks).

JWF eReader-5000 4GB £57.49 

(at jwfselling.com or eBay - price includes accessories).

Tech Specs:



• JWF eReader-5000 Black 4gb
• Text to Speech
• 7 inch LCD colour touch screen 800x480 (resistive)
• Brightness control
• Built-in 4GB Flash, supports Micro SD card up to 16GB
• Games
• 2400mAH battery for hours of use (up to 10hrs)
• Read ebooks and listen to music at the same time
• Slim design
• Support languages: English / Russian
• E-book file format support: PDF, FB2, EPUB, PDB, HTML, XML, TXT, LCR etc
• Video format support: 3GP, AVI, DAT, FLV, MP4, MPG, RMVB, WMV
• Audio format support: MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, AAC, APE
• Image format support: BMP, GIF, JPG
• USB port: USB 2.0, compatible with USB 1.1
• Audio-out interface: Features 3.5mm jack
• Size: 187 x 115 x 12mm/ 7.36 x 4.53 x 0.47in (L x W x T)

Sunday Funday

Victoria Sponge Cake

Ingredients

12oz Butter

12oz Caster sugar

12oz Self raising flour

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1 tsp Baking powder

5 Eggs

3 tbsp Milk

Raspberry Jam

1 Pot cream

Icing sugar for dusting 

Prepare two 8 inch cake tins with butter and flour.

Add the butter and sugar to a bowl and whisk until light and creamy.

Add 1 egg and 1 tbsp flour and stir in, repeat with the remaining eggs.

Add the remaining flour, baking powder, milk and vanilla and stir until

well combined.

Divide the mixture between your two prepared cake tins

Bake in the oven on 180c/Gas 4 for 30-35 mins or until a skewer inserted

 into the centre comes out cleanly

Leave the cakes to cool for 5 mins in the tin before turning out on a 

cooling rack to cool completely.

Spread one of the cakes with raspberry jam.

Whisk your cream until its a firm consistency and spread on top of your 

jam. Place the other cake on top of the cream and dust the top with

icing sugar.

Enjoy!

Pizza pasty

If you like Pizza but fancy a change from something circular

try this...

Make a large Pizza dough base approx 24" across

then apply a garlic infused tomato paste to the 

rolled out base but keep away from the edge of

the base by a couple of inches.

Then lay out your favourite Pizza toppings and 

Mozzarella Cheese then carefully fold over to form

a Pasty shape.

If you want stuffed crust then place your filling around the 

edges and carefully fold over.

Place on a baking tray and cook in the oven

for 30-50 mins depending on the size of

your Pizza Pasty.

then Enjoy!

Banoffee pie

Ingredients

4oz Butter

4oz Caster sugar

40oz Flour

2 Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

3 Bananas

Tin of condensed milk

1 Pot cream

Place the tin of condensed milk into a saucepan of water and simmer

 for 3 hours. Keep topping up the water so it does not boil dry.

Whisk the butter and sugar together until light and creamy. Add 1 

egg and 1 tbsp flour and mix then repeat with the other egg. Add

vanilla & remaining flour and mix well.

Prepare a 8 inch cake tin with butter and flour. Add the mixture to

your cake tin.

Bake in the oven on 180c/ gas 4 for 20-25 mins or until a skewer 

inserted into the centre comes out cleanly.

Allow the cake to cool for 5 mins before turning out onto a cooling

rack to cool completely.

When the cake is cooled open your tin of condensed milk which will now 

be toffee and spread onto the top of your cake.

Slice 3 bananas and place on to your cake.

Whisk your cream until its light and fluffy and spread over the banana.

Top with grated or curled chocolate.

Enjoy!

A Kind of Loving

Based on the best selling novel from 1960 by Stan Barstow. 'A Kind of Loving' directed by John Schlesinger, hit British cinema screens in 1962 and just like the 1960 film, 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' brought cinema goers into the gritty realism world of working class Northern England.

Set against the somewhat bleak, Industrial North.The film revolves around such places as the factory, Dance halls and pubs.Something that was all too familiar to Stan Barstow.

Trying to shrug off his 'working class traditions' Vic Brown lands himself a 'white collar' job as a draftsman in a local engineering firm. It is in the factory where he notices Ingrid, one of the typists, who he eventually asks out to the cinema.The awkwardness of their relationship is highlighted by their inability to express their feelings. Ingrid worries that Vic thinks she is just a common girl. Whereas Vic wonders whether Ingrid is as interesting as he first thought.

   Their romance displays an obvious lack of sentiment. Vic thinks he is in love with Ingrid. But then on the other hand he thinks that he can't stand the sight of her.Ingrid wants nothing more than to fall in love. Get married, get a home and have children.Vic would like the stability of a wife, a house and children but the nagging question of 'Is there more in life?' keeps popping into his head confusing him.

It's  not until Ingrid's mother goes away for a few days that the relationship develops into a full blown affair.Then Vic realises that Ingrid is just another girl, a 'conquest', and he stops seeing her.They meet up again at a firm's Dance where Ingrid breaks the news to Vic that she is pregnant.Vic is suddenly sucked into the stark, frightening reality of life and he feels obliged to 'do the right thing' and asks Ingrid to marry him.

Then his troubles really begin... his mother-in-law looks down her nose at him with obvious dislike and is so overbearing and dominates their lives she begins to drive a wedge between them.

Ingrid has a miscarriage and her mother deliberately fails to tell Vic that she is in hospital. This is too much for Vic who now realises that he need not have married Ingrid, but the decency within takes over and he becomes determined to find a small house for him and Ingrid to make a fresh start together with their own 'Kind of Loving'.

One of the all time classic scenes from the film is the one where Vic staggers home drunk and is confronted by his Mother-in-law that leads to the famous quotation from that scene "How dare you! How dare you say such filthy disgusting things!You come into this house drunk, filthy drunk!You're filthy!You talk filth! You ARE filth.You're filth!You filthy pig!You filthy,disgusting pig! Filth.FILTH!" of course you have to watch this classic scene to appreciate the confrontation and when Vic is sick on the floor while his mother-in-law is ranting at him is sheer poetry.

Doctor Who - William Hartnell

William Hartnell was born on 8th January 1908 just south of

St. Pancras station, London. He was to be the only child

to unmarried mother Lucy Hartnell.

Although he was also partly raised by his foster mother. Young

William spent many a childhood holiday in Seaton, Devon on his mother's 

family farm.He was ashamed by the fact that he illegitimate.He never

did discover the identity of his father, despite extensive efforts to find him.

William left school at the age of 16, without any future prospects. But luckily

through a boys' boxing club he met Hugh Blaker an art collector, who soon

became William's unofficial guardian, and initially set about to train him as a

jockey.The idea failed but Blaker wouldn't give up.He had a passion for the 

theatre and arranged for William to audition for

Sir Frank Benson's Shakespearean Company. He was taken on as a general 

'dogs' body' carrying out practically every job in the theatre and was even 

allowed small walk-on parts.

After two years, William decided to spread his wings and left the company to

tour the country with other theatrical companies and it was then in 1928 he met actress

Heather McIntyre, who would later become his wife.

In the 1930's William thought he would try his luck in films, and eventually won the lead role

in the low budget film 'I'm an explosive' a comedy made in 1933.World War two came and

William was called up and enlisted into the Royal Artillery Corp. But his military career was

to be short lived, when within the first year of joining up he suffered a nervous breakdown.

After a lengthy spell in an Army hospital,the Colonel said to him 'Better get back to the theatre,

you're no bloody good here.' So he left the Army complete with a stutter- a result of his breakdown.

But with the help of contacts and very good friends in the 'business', William returned to the 

theatre and soon overcame his stutter.His big break in films was to come in 1943, after

director Carol Reed saw William playing the part of 'Dallow', in the stage play 

'Brighton Rock' by Graham Greene. Carol Reed was so impressed by his performance

he asked William to come and screen test for the part of a tough uncompromising

Army Sergeant in the film 'The Way Ahead'.He won critical acclaim for the part and was 

signed up by British National Studios. He received top billing in 3 films for them but

sadly none were box office hits and they did not renew his contract.

But the lack of success was to be short lived, as director Carol Reed approached 

William asking him to reprise his role of 'Dallow', in Reed's film version of 

'Brighton Rock', starring a young Richard Attenborough. He then went on to appear in 

other tough guy roles until the late 1950's when he was offered a part in TV's 'The Army Game 

playing the part of another Sergeant. He then went on to star in the very first 

'Carry On' film 'Carry on Sergeant' where he again played the part of an Army Sergeant, 

with Bill Owen ( Compo from Last of the Summer Wine) playing his Corpoal trying to keep

the likes of Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor and Charles Hawetry in order.

Then in 1962 he was first approached to play the lead role in a brand new science fiction 

series for the BBC called 'Doctor Who'. He eventually agreed to the role as it was

completely different to anything he had ever played before and required some 

thinking about how to play the part of the alien known as 'The Doctor'. It was a role 

that he was to become very fond of. so much so that when the show celebrated it's 10th 

Anniversary, with the story 'The Three Doctors' the BBC phoned William asking him if he 

would like to come back and reprise his role as the 1st Doctor. Without any hesitation he 

agreed. But it was when the script arrived at his home in Mayfield, Sussex that his wife

Heather found out what he was going to do. She instantly telephoned the BBC and explained 

that William was indeed very ill and would never be able to cope with the journey to London.

The BBC were very obliging and his scenes were re-written and filmed at his home.

It was to be his last performance as an actor.

December 1974 saw William admitted into Hospital.Then in 1975 he suffered a series

of strokes brought on by Cerebrovascular Disease and died peacefully in his sleep

on 23rd April 1975 aged 67.

'I think that if I live to be 90, a little magic of Doctor Who will cling to me'. he once said.

But he certainly left his stamp on the series, by setting a high bench mark for the future

actors to measure up to when playing the part of 'The Doctor', in a show that is still

going strong today and celebrates it's 50th Anniversary on 23rd November 2013.

He was 'The Doctor'.