BAKE TO BAKING

With a fortnight of unusual events culminating in the fête I decided to try and pull myself together. Resolutions of this sort are all very well made in a warm bed when one is about to drop off to sleep and so it was in this case, by this morning I felt as if I had resolved during the night to climb Everest! Never the less I made the boys cheese omelettes for their breakfast ans then set about the baking, empty cookie jars are not allowed, I have a reputation consider. First in to the oven went two trays of all butter whole meal short bread and while they were baking I made a further tow trays this time of melting vanilla shortbread made of course with butter. Believe it of not I have a recipe for shortbread which advises the use of hard margarine as a cheap alternative to butter and goes on to say that if the baking tray is greased with an old butter paper no one will know, stingy or what? Four trays of shortbread take about and hour and a half of cooking tie so it was mid afternoon by the time I was ready to bake my next choice, ginger crunchies with sugared ginger pieces. These are my favourite ginger cookie, see what you think. 12 oz self raising flour 4 oz butter 4 oz caster sugar 4 oz golden syrup 1 level teaspoon bicarbonate of soda 2 teaspoon ground ginger half a teaspoon of cinnamon 4 oz crystallised ginger chopped finely 1 beaten egg Sift the dry ingredients in to a bowl. Place the sugar, butter and syrup into a saucepan and melt over a low heat, add the ginger pieces when the sugar has dissolved. Pour the heated ingredients in to the flour mixture and blend well. Add the beaten egg and mix again. Take teaspoons full of the mixture and roll in to small balls and place on greased baking sheet allowing room for the cookies to spread. Bake for 18-20 minutes at 3235oC. Remove from the oven and lay the cookies on a wire rack tot cool, they will become crisp and delicious. By this tie the kitchen table was covered in trays of cooling biscuits and I was rapidly running out of steam so I quickly got on with the washing up while Pa sample the cookies with a cup of coffee. With the tins full once more I am ready for anything and I expect there will be a number of callers during the next couple of weeks with the ongoing preparations for the fête,# Liberated fro the necessity to cook dinner this evening by the boys generous offer of a fish and chip supper spent a very happy hour in the garden watching the birds shuttling to and from their nests with beaks full of insects and bugs, worms and grubs of every kind. Wood peckers are frequent visitors just now which means that q shall soon Se that youngsters, likewise the nuthatch, Some young birds have already fledged such as the magpie, crow and jackdaw. Corvids always hatch earlier than the birds so that their young have a plentiful supply of of small nestling and newly fledged birds to eat. This is harsh but it is the way of the world except for the fact that there are far too many Magpies these days as the species which once predated them has died out in our towns and cities Magpies are beautiful birds and of course there is the old story about magpies being thieves which is absolutely true, as children my brother and I would check out all the magpie nests on our land once the birds had finished with them and often we would find Shiny buttons hair slides small pieces of jewellery beads and even coins on occasion. Once I found a tiny wrist watch made of gold, we never discovered who the owner was so my father sold it and gave the money it made to a local good cause Nowadays with my tree climbing daysfirmly behind me I still take and interest in these aquisitive birds and sometimes pput out a few gaudy trinkets for them to find just for the pleasure of watching them choose. Watching a magpie chose a bauble is almost exactly like watching a woman choose a hat and it can take almost as long too! My son still has a dreadful cough and I confess that this worries me as in the past this type of thing has triggered his asthma. He brushes this off but judging by the amount of wheezing coming from his room last night he must have slept very ill indeed. Once again the evening has brought with it a chilly breeze bit at least today there has been no thunder which has been a feature of the last few days. Tonight I feel better for having accomplished some thing positive during the day and although I am still battling extreme tiredness I have hope that I am now on the mend.