Well, it's been an incomplete couple of weeks school-wise, hasn't it? We had the Easter Holidays, then three days of school, then there was four more days off! (Including the weekend) I'm not complaining, obviously...
The holidays were, of course, an excuse to be out of the house and cycling to, in and around various forests not unimaginably far from where we live. My favourite was a forest we don't often cycle to, but it has lovely views of trees, flowers etc--there isn't much actual forest, but the ride there and back is lovely, and it's an opportunity to chat and take photos. Jokes that would be utterly nonsensical to any innocent passer-by ensue as a result of our chatting, and that's good fun too: our newest one is all of the places around us beginning in Acaster:
Acaster Malbis
Acaster Selby
"I cast a stone in t'lake and it 'it a duck" (This only works in a broad Yorkshire accent)
...told you, they make no sense whatsoever if we don't tell you the background story, which we normally forget. Another thing we did due to the holiday was the High flying: we did one of those go-ape things, which is an absolutely excellent thing to do on a Saturday...or Sunday...or...well, anytime, really. It was knee-knockingly terrifying at first, but here's a tip: When you're going on the zipwires, go into a sitting position in the harness; it means that you can just lift your legs up and let gravity work. How 'bout that, eh?
I also use holidays as an excuse to make a cake: Christmas cake, Easter cake, etc. This one was new: we adapted my favourite recipe, given at the end. I put in coca powder and replaced the apples with pears, then decorated the top with Easter eggs and butter icing, and it turned out pretty good--and as an added bonus, no-one got food poisoning! (Oh, by the way, keep an eye out: I'm trying to include at least one spherical object in each post...I'm sure apples count as spherical, and Easter eggs can be honoury spheres for now, can't they? Well...)
The reason for this rather fluctuating amount of school is, partly, the Historical Happening of the post: The Royal Wedding (Not Historical at the moment, but just you wait!), where they gave us a day off on the Friday. My family, admittedly, did watch a decisively minimal amount of the actual wedding on the actual day, but we did watch a bit, if only just for form's sake. (The day off on the Monday was Mayday bank holiday.) I tell you what though, I am liking Princess Catherine: She wanted living trees at Westminster, and the had the obey bit cut out of her vows...well, she seems cool to me, anyway...
Now, here is the aforementioned recipe, it's an Apple Charlotte:
You'll need:
1 beaker of self raising flour (sorry, it's beakers for this one)
1 beaker of caster sugar
4 eggs, beaten
Cinnamon to taste
Two medium cooking apples
making the cake: Preheat the oven to 200 degrees c
mix everything except the apples together (The order doesn't matter at all, but I normally do sugar and eggs, then add flour and cinnamon, if that helps...) until it's smooth
pour it into a greased cake tin, then put in the apples
put it in the oven and leave it for half an hour, or until it's done (go figure...)
A handy test if you're a novice like me: Stick a fork in the middle and pull it out again; if there's mixture on it, it isn't done. If you're not a novice, I apologise for wasting your time.
