Helping to rediscover my Mojo

When my PC gave up the ghost the other month, I rather lost my mojo for photography. I think it was the thought of processing and uploading all the photos I'd taken for my 365 project that did it. Also that my session with the twins was a bit of a disaster too, will blog that later

Two things have happened recently to help me recover this lost mojo, one was that the photo I took above won December's competition in my camera club - "Black & White"

And the second was that I won six months membership to Silverlake Photo in a Twitter competition. All in all a successful finish to 2009.

And to help me keep up the momentum, I will be starting another 365 project on 01.01.2010

And there in a wood a Piggy Wig stood... or, quashing the pig myths

Now that Jessica has been living with us for a few days, I feel that I am now qualified to quash (or not) a few of the Pig myths that are flying about.

Smelly Pig Not true, she definitely dosen't smell. Only her bedding has a bit of a whiff, but a quick wash every couple of days soon sorts that out.


Eat Like a Pig Oh my, so very true. She is the champ of lip smacking and guzzling. Not very good table manners at all hahaha!!!


Lazy Pig This is debatable. During the day she is scurrying around quite busily. But once she has had her dinner, then it's sack time, and she's not what you'd call an early riser either. Breakfast and coffee for humans is all sorted whilst she just lazes around in her box!

Dirty Pig Nope, certainly not dirty. She only "goes" in the same place, just like a cat with a litter tray. As she appears to pish like a racehorse though I need to find something a little more absorbent than newspaper. Will try some of those disposable changing mat things I think.

Squeal like a Pig Very true, get her cornered where she is not happy and industrial ear defenders will be required.

Sweats like a Pig Another myth bites the dust, pigs only sweat at the end of their noses!

So, that's all my pig myths busted or confirmed:-) Oh, and by the way, the girlies haven't seen her yet, so if you speak to them before they get back from their skiing trip...Mum's the word please :-D

The Christmas Bird

So, this was this years Christmas lunch, and every bit as tasty as it looks :-) It started off being soaked in a bucket with honey, sugar and spices for two days as shown in the photo below. Then I just drained it off, shoved some sausage meat in its butt, slathered over some butter, covered it in foil and popped it in the oven. It was so easy and so, so worth it, the breast was moist and succulent and just a hint of the flavourings in the meat.

The recipe is an adaptation of this one, as I couldn't track down either Maple syrup or allspice berries, so I just left them out.

Ingredients

For the Turkey

• 4-5kg Turkey
• 6 litres water
• 125g packet of table Salt
• 3 tbsp black peppercorns
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 tbsp caraway seeds
• 4 Cloves
• 2 tbsp allspice berries
• 4 Star anise
• 2 tbsp white Mustard seeds
• 200g caster sugar
• 2 Onions, quartered
• 1 x 6 cm piece of Ginger, cut into 6 slices
• 1 Orange, quartered
• 4 tbsp maple syrup
• 4 tbsp clear Honey

For the basting glaze

• 75g Butter
• 3 tbsp maple syrup

Seeing Stars

So, the other big item of news in November, was the arrival of Estrella (or Star). She is a shetland pony, trained to pull a little cart and may, or may not be in foal. She now has her very own stable
which due to the rain is not quite finished yet and will have to wait for a cart once funds allow!

She is very affeccionate and we take her for little walks, where she is completely unfazed by anything, including dogs that are bigger than her! The girlies love her and are normally more than happy to muck out, groom and walk her. How long will this last I wonder?!

Merry Christmas

Gratuitous Christmas shot of my two house models. Hoping you all had a good one and that 2010 brings all that you wish for.

And after that short interval I'm back :-)

So, way back on 15 November Girlie No1 entered in a duatlon with about eight of her class mates. They had to run, cycle and run again, now please bear in mind that our family have never turned out any sporting champions, her and her friend Melisa finnished joint...


last. They came running up the road together holding hands so that neither of them would actually be the last to cross the finish line. Afterwards she told me that she could see that Melisa was getting very tired so suggested this, a VPMM (very proud mummy moment) if ever there was one.

Unloaded and raring to go


DD2 and some other younger sisters, were also on hand to offer support with the banner that they had made at school


And they're off


They all thoroughly enjoyed their afternoon at the races, although we had no winners involved. It was the taking part and the feeling of accomplishment that counted.

Panning or Brushing as they call it here in Spain - had to google it ;-)

So, our local camera club decided to hold it's monthly competition with the theme of "brushing" My mind truly boggled and so I consulted the ever trusty Señor Google, and from the description found out that they were talking about panning. As I had never tried this before I decided to give it a quick whirl.

Took the girlies on a hike out to the countryside, where we found some huge bales of straw. It took very little coaxing for them to repeatedly climb up and jump off



As you can see, my efforts weren't really that successful LOL

Luckily a few days later Girlie#1 was competing in a Duathlon of running and cycling, so like the good mamarazzi that I am I took my camera along and...By jove I got it




So that's one other new thing that I've learned to do :-D