Dogs and Blogs

I thought you might like to meet Holly, I know its a bit late for Christmas, but Holly is pleased to meet you all. She was supposed to accompany a posting on issues to do with the festive season but somehow I did not have the time as I was out for quite a few days taking people up mountains.




Most of the time they were not very hospitable places, I kid you not.. I did take my dog Bella and I can confirm that she did not like the summit of Pike O Blisco very much. This is what it was like, so can you blame her?




It was all the poor doggy could do to stand up without sliding all over the place because the ice was so slippery and she also was shivering, so I grabbed her and put her coat on. Well that is something Bella hates, she hates being turned into a coat wearing dog; Border Terrier pride takes a lot of beating...I would call it the sulks, infact the big sulks. This was a 'sulky' moment when she was a pup.










But to return to Holly for a moment, she is owned by Marilyn who is doing the feltmaking workshop at Threlkeld in February and the good news is that so many of you want to make felt that the workshop is positively bulging. No more room for any more feltmakers at all, so please if you have not booked, don't expect to find a place. I am going to be working on the Banner with Sally and we have been placed behind the dustbins or somewhere...

More good news is that another 2 ladies have joined our Branch so we are expanding, infact so many people were in the Quaker Meeting House room we hire on Thursday that I began to wonder if we needed to move out into the corridor. Our little competition (DMC thread donation) that we ran at our Christmas lunch had 11 entrants too and our guest tutor Janice Nott was asked to judge the entrants. Well we were hard put to find a place to show them off so in the end they were placed on the table which some of us were working on. So thanks to those ladies who had restricted space for a while. Meanwhile, I expect you want to know the results, so here they are in reverse order.

Third Place - Gloria Walker

















Second Place - Sally Evans (Sorry the photo is a bit washed out but I had to obliterate a flash spot)


















Winner - Lesley Rutherford




And now the moment you have all been waiting for.... yes its recipe time!






CAKE WITH TOMATO SOUP

7oz Caster Sugar
1oz Margarine
1 tspn Mixed spice
1 tspn Cinnamon
8oz Plain flour
1 tspn Bi Carbonate of Soda
4oz Walnuts
6oz Sultanas
1 295g Tin of Tomato Soup (Heinz has been tried and tested)

METHOD
Heat oven Gas 4, 350F or 180C
Grease 7-8" Cake Tin
Cream sugar and margarine, sift in spices and fold in flour with soup,
then add Bi carb and beat well. Mix in fruit and nuts.
Place in tin and bake for 1 hour 15 minutes.

Now I have not tried this one but I may give it a go this weekend if I have time and that might be difficult as my friends at the B & B are in Mexico having another holiday whilst Mum in law and me hold the fort. Which means catering for about 12 on Sunday morning. Then again I am needed on Friday and Saturday next week when a hoard of men are coming to take over the place.... Probably Wainwright baggers. So when oh when will I have time to make the cake and the 2nd batch of marmalade. Well I should not grumble because our treasurer blithly let pass a comment about her 8th batch of marmalade on Thursday, apparently hubby eats at least a jar a week.

So its back to the kitchen for me.. but I am planning some sewing too and if it works out I will show it to you.