Walking with Pinapple Tartlets

This is what the water board left us with.

I'm happy to say they're flush with the tarmac.

The last of the willow herbs

Overcast sky,
but spectacular.

No Poplar trees, but will a radio mast do?

Wooded walk

Horse Chestnut leaves
against the sky

Look what Nadia brought!
My favourite!
Pineapple flans!

Cake Pudding

Neil's cake-in-a-mug recipe came out reminiscent of a steamed pudding.

* Put 4 tablespoons of plain flour, 4 tablespoons of sugar and 2 tablespoons of cocoa in a mug and mix thoroughly.
* Add 1 egg, and mix well.
* Add 3 tablespoons of milk and 3 tablespoons of oil – mix again until well combined.
* If desired, add chocolate chips and a splash of vanilla.
* Microwave the mug for 3 minutes at 1000 watts or 4 minutes at 700 watts (the cake will rise above the top of the mug but don’t panic!)
* Allow to cool, turn out onto a plate if you like.
* Apparently margarine tastes better than oil – but you have to add this before the egg and milk instead of after.



There are still roses blooming in Chesterfield.

and Seven Trent Water have come to mend the stop tap. To do so, they've dug a 4'deep hole.

Bright and sunny cemetery

I told Kat* I'd use this name in a story - and I did, in tomorrow's Laverstone Tales

Lovely morning.
DON'T click to enlarge.

Happiness is Tumbledried towels

The Poplar trees, as usual.







*Not DK, the other Kat

Autumn Apple Cake

An almost-avenue of trees as Iwalk toward the wetland field. You can just see my shadow there.

Not exactly a lake but any more rain and it'll look like one!
Bear investigates the water.

A beautiful day (for wet feet)

A piece of partially rusted metal - I picked it up and carried it home. It may well become a piece of artwork.

The wood always looks nice in sunshine. Ignore the fly-tipping, please.

Beans
and Temple bells.

Made-of-fail cake.

When I baked this yesterday, both Luisa and K thought it disgusting.
I turned it upside down and baked it again today and it has improved.

Cakes and Windows Fixes

This was the birthday cake that Kirsty (eldest daughter) made for me last Monday. In the shape of a book, with two bookworms and Jasfoup's name on the page. Jasfoup is written correctly, by the way, as in the example at www.jasfoup.com

Best of all, it was a sponge cake covered not with icing but with marzipan

Walking today.
You can tell it's August because of the blackberries!

Delicious!

Ripe and sweet and succulent from the cemetery.

I had to take this shot.

I saw it and thought it looked like a seventies picture postcard.

Wish you were here?

And this is what I've been doing all day. Rebuilding the cake maker's PC.

I was swearing a bit. All the software, including Windows, is genuine but would it update? No, is the short answer. I rebuilt from scratch, found all the drivers online, installed a new graphics card, re-installed all her software and it still wouldn't update windows.

At the end of my tether I googled 'windows could not install updates' and came across this handy little tool which fixed everything. Dial-a-fix.