I've been baa - king cakes

My grandma has always made and decorated cakes for as long as I can remember, I used to look forward to getting a birthday cake off her, over the years she's made hundreds - all different. I've had doll cakes, Magic Roundabout with Zebedee and Dougal, Tetley Tea Folk, handbags and glad rags  she's done countless football shirts and cars, horses, trains, retirement, anniversary and even wedding cakes, the list is endless. But now she's retired, so no more cakes off her. However she still likes to go to the cake shows and keeps her tools for flower making. So I treated her to a day out last month at the Cake International Show at Event City in Manchester. Unbeknown to me that it would ignite a new passion in me for decorating cakes. I did dabble a bit when I was about 17/18 years old but haven't done any cake decorating since. So last weekend when it was son's 3 rd birthday I decided to bake some cakes and use my new found inspiration to make some sheep cakes.

Excuse the psychotic looking sheep in the first picture, I got tired of making eyes, 

so opted for a food colouring pen instead!

I was quite impressed with them, and they are quite easy to do, all you really need is a bag of marshmallows and some premade ready to roll black & white icing. I used Renwicks which I bought from Tesco.

1. Make a batch of buns/cupcakes/muffins

2. Using the black icing roll out head shapes and ears

3. Using the white icing roll out tiny eyes and press onto heads.

4. Using the black icing again roll out tiny eyeballs and press onto white balls

5. Mix up some butter-cream

6. Spread butter-cream onto buns and cover with marshmallows

7. Attach sheep heads

If you're not a fan of marshmallows than simply pipe a fluffy design onto your cakes before attaching a head.

How rude!

I decided to go and treat myself to a new coat, so headed to Winfields at Haslingden. Haven't been there in years, used go regularly to buy shoes and things as a kid with my parents, but after this experience I will be thinking again.

The trouble is I am a stickler for customer service. I did it as part of my college course when I was 17 and was taught at college by a fantastic woman called Sheila H, she had pretty much the same opinions about customer service as Mary Portas does now. Sheila obviously left an impression on me because I love to observe people and see how they react with customers, so much so, that I dabble in mystery shopping now and then, ( but I must admit I do find it hard to switch off, so I have always got my "mystery shopper head on"), if only I was on a mission today.

I found what I wanted and joined the queue to pay. There was one member of staff serving and a woman in front of me also waiting to pay. She moved to the till and this is when the problems started, she appeared to be buying a gift voucher but the staff member didn't know how to process it, so he called his manager for help. The two of them then proceeded for 10 minutes to faff about doing whatever. A small queue was forming behind me. A further 10 minutes passed and the manager finally looked up to see the queue so instructed the male staff member to open a new till and serve us waiting customers.

Finally I thought I can pay and get out of here, oh no, no sooner had I got to the till and put my basket on the counter, along came another staff member, called him over with another customer's order and he proceeded to ignore me and go and serve her! - Well my mother wasn't happy and voiced her opinion, but the staff member didn't flinch, in fact he did nothing, no apology, no excuse me nothing, quite simply he ignored us!

He finally returned to serve me and still no apology for keeping me waiting or anything, he proceeded to scan my jacket and asked for payment - I asked if he was going to sell me the boots that were in my basket - "oh yeah" he said, "size 7 boots is that right?", "erm no!" I said, "they should be 6.5", oh right was his reply as he put them in a bag.

If I wasn't so desperate to get my boots and coat I would have just left them by the till and walked off! 

My write up may come across as tame and my readers may wonder why I've got worked up about it, but people should expect a minimal level of customer service, and keeping customers waiting 20 minutes to pay without an acknowledgement or apology doesn't meet that minimal level!

Park Life

Four generations of the family spent an enjoyable afternoon in the park today, our ages range from 2 years old to 83 years young! What a laugh we had, because it was still quite cold nobody else had decided to venture out except for us - well the sun was shining so we were going to make the most of it.

First mission was to fathom out how to get onto the slide - not an easy feat, the choice was meant to be either a climbing wall or a cargo net, of course Squiggle is too small to use either, so it was up to me and my mum to lift him up onto the apparatus and then for great granny to catch him at the bottom as he came pelting down the slide. We didn't know how fast he would come down the first time and so he flew off the bottom of the slide, luckily the ground was covered in sand so he had a soft landing.

We had a good laugh until he decided to venture a bit further over the equipment and got stuck, in came mummy to rescue the day, unfortunately, although I can now walk and climb stairs, it soon became apparent I still don't have the strength to climb a cargo net, and with no way up or down without making a complete arse of myself, I got myself stuck! Fortunately Squiggle managed to sort himself out and so with him above me and my mum below pushing and pulling between them, I soon got myself up onto the equipment, thank goodness there's no CCTV watching the park because it was a sight.
The bonus of going up instead of down meant that I too could go down the slide, wheeeeeeee !!!!

Snorasaurus - Noun: "(informal, humorous, mildly pejorative) a loud or persistent snorer"

What I wouldn't give for a lazy day, I'm feeling very sorry myself & think I'm sickening for something, got the usual pre cold feelings - sore throat, fuzzy head, feeling cold in myself and generally feeling knackered. It doesn't help that I don't get much sleep at night due to the 2 Snorasauruses in the house. My husband is the first one and my two year old son has now joined him. It should be made an arrestable offence if when you snore your poor wifey can't hear the TV downstairs! It's like listening to a pneumatic drill coming through the ceiling some nights and then when I'm ready to fall asleep I've to climb in bed next to him and listen to it even louder! - My son is just as bad, at two years old I can hear him, his in bedroom, with the door shut!. They seem to take it in turns to snore so all I actually hear is one long loud noise with no let up!

I've just managed to get Squiggle Diddle (son) off for an afternoon nap and thought I might join him, but no, he was snoring before he had even shut his eyes - takes after my dad there then - he can snore whilst he's awake!

I have to slightly disagree with the dictionaries meaning of a Snorasaurus, In the case of my son, I can whole heartily agree that it is humourous & very cute, but not the husband, oh no he's just annoying!

Well I suppose I'd better make the most of this and attempt to do a spot of cleaning, I'm supposed to be having a birthday tea party for Squiggle at the weekend but as yet I can't find my dining table, its buried underneath a mound of ironing, best crack on and do something productive with my "peace and quiet" time.

#BirthdayMission

So here we are a brand new blog, first post, let's start as I mean to go on ......by moaning!

It's my birthday today, and I got what every girl wants to wake up to - 12 inches!! I mean snow of course, it wasn't a suprise to me - I've been expecting it, as I have often said snow season runs from my a friend of my mums' birthday to mine, ie Oct - Mar, albeit there have been a few sunny birthdays most of them have been snowy and today is no exception. There are some big snowdrifts outside my house which is weird  because there is barely anything at the front yet I have a 3 foot high one blocking my back door!

So I woke up in anticipation of my birthday presents, couldn't wait to see what my beloved husband had bought me from himself and our 2 year old son, bearing in mind he had cake & balloons for his birthday last month, ........ I got a card!, granted he had excelled himself this year because he had actually written the card the night before and not the morning of my birthday, I shouldn't be upset because it's been like this every year for the last 10 years, but I am today, especially when I see other friends boyfriends and husbands make so much of an effort with lovely gifts and flowers, I'm not asking for much - just a balloon and present off my son would have been nice, so I'm sat here at the moment sulking at him - oh yes I will make him pay!!

Also a bit upset because although I love the snow, it has messed my plans up for a birthday night out, can't remember the last time I actually enjoyed a night out for my birthday and I was so looking forward to this one, I had even bought a dress for the occasion, but alas due to road closures and cancelled babysitters friends have had to pull out and I'm not looking forward to doing anything tonight, so it might have to be a night in on the Xbox with my family if they can get up the hill to me!

Thank goodness for my mother, she knows how to make me smile - I've got some personalised birthday cakes off her - with my edible face on them! I wondered what she was up to last week when she asked for a photo of me and now I know, edible fairy cake toppers, so at least I got birthday cake off somebody!

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Meanwhile my snowed in friends are redeeming themselves by organising a Twitter #birthdaymission and asking as many celebrities as possible to wish me a Happy Birthday!