1 more day left at work

I can't quite believe it. After tomorrow, the next time I go back to work (I hope!) I will be married.

Gradually getting more organised and slowly ticking things off the list.

Feeling yucky tonight though and in need of some sleep so this is going to become possibly the shortest blog post in history.

Hope to be back with photos tomorrow.

Night night.

In two weeks time...

We will be Mr and Mrs. How awesome is that?!

I really wish I could add more words and photos to these last few blog posts of my 27th year but as you can imagine - there is much to be done.

Tonight we have been making changes to our ceremony and I have been making origami boxes for the wedding favours.

And our first guest arrives on Saturday (Princess Louisa) - I have her airport sign - which she requested months ago all ready for her arrival - complete with glitter glue - it's classy, let me tell you :-)

The picture is of my beloved fairylights in a basket with collected shells and pebbles and the ornament was our wedding present from Graeme's Gran and Grandpa. It seems right to have it out, twinkling next to the lights and ready for our guests to arrive and the big day to take place.

7 more to go after this one

On my list of 27 things to do aged 27 (it's not up to date by the way - I'll do a conclusion post once I'm no longer 27!), number 19 on the list was to Blog 52 times.

I have to blog 7 times after this post to complete that goal. And it's my 28th birthday on Thursday so I have until Thursday to do it.

I also have to walk the dog more times than there are days left and also finish my 28 list so I'm already to start on Friday with that one!

Wish me good luck :-)

He's Home

...and sleeping off the jet lag after being smothered with hugs (of course)!

So good to have all our feet on the same piece of ground (or carpet) and to be operating in the same time zone.

And next on the agenda is a wedding...

Looking Forward

I promise I will consider going back to the Holiday in Review posts at a later date but at the moment I am trying to focus on the future and the things we have to look forward to.

Namely, this time in 3 weeks, fingers crossed, I will be Mrs Graeme ;-) (by the way - that could very well be the most amount of commas I have ever put in one sentence!)

Graeme is on his way back to NZ as I type and I cannot wait to wrap my arms around him and give him the biggest hug ever in the history of the world. I have a fortnights worth of normal hugs to give him let alone all those ones I was desperate to give when things were tough and we both needed it.

It's been so strange in the house without him. Me and Rhett have been wandering around aimlessly quite a lot - both expecting him to be here somewhere and then remembering why he isn't :-( But we have lots of great family and friends sending messages and emails and tweets and all sorts of things that keep us smiling. And we have some great locals nearby as well.

So yesterday (Sunday) we took a walk down the river with our neighbour and his dog Ramses. Rhett was most excited about riding in the back of the ute and had his head stuck off the side the whole way looking at where he was going and breathing in all the fresh air. (Can you believe this is the dog that once used to be sick just looking at the car?!) We walked for over an hour and a half and it was nice to be out in the air and watching the dogs sniff everything in sight and go paddling every now and again.

By the time we got home and washed the stinky water and mud off Rhett I managed to snap a quick photo of us both enjoying the long awaited sunshine while Rhett smelt nice and before we both collapsed to relax after our eventful day :-)

Graeme's Gran

Graeme with his Gran & Grandpa at Loch Lomond, July 2009

I’ve been debating all week whether or not to mention what has been happening these last couple of weeks and have finally decided that it’s the right thing to do.

Graeme’s Gran – Margaret – died on Friday 2nd October.

After the news came that the doctors could do nothing more for her we got Graeme on a plane as soon as we could. He arrived in Glasgow on lunchtime on Thursday 1st October and was able to spend time with his Gran before she died. I am so thankful that he was able to get there in time to see her and so grateful to her for waiting to see him.

There is so much I could say about Graeme’s Gran. She was a strong person with a huge personality. I think the words from her funeral service describe her well so I will let them do it for me:

Margaret was a person of great warmth, faithfulness, encouragement and love. She had a good sense of humour and a quick mind and she enjoyed life. People, especially the family and close friends were very important to her and she went out of her way to support and help them.
She had a great interest in knitting, gardening, cooking and baking - and she had a knack for ‘sorting things’ when people had problems. She loved all sorts of music, she enjoyed travelling and visiting places and finding out about the history of wherever she was.
She had her own ways of doing things and encouraged others to work the same way. She set high standards for herself and others.

One of Margaret’s requests was - that those who are able to - to give blood as she had to have several transfusions during her treatments. So please do so if you can.

She will be greatly missed.

Just Because...

Because there are 70,000 things going round in my head right now and I haven't had a minute to sit and sort through the Ireland photos to do my Dublin post let alone any others.

But I just had to get some photos off the camera to email to a friend and I saw this one and it made me forget the 70,000 other things and smile.

And perhaps you need to forget some stuff and smile too...

Recipe for Malteaser Tiffin (Fridge) Cake

A brief break in Holiday in Review posts. I haven't got my Dublin photos organised yet but wanted to post something :-)


While we were in Scotland I got this recipe from Graeme's Gran. I tried making it recently and it's amazing!


It is very sweet and even I (Queen of Sweet!) can't eat more than one piece at once. I took some to work and they loved it so much they all wanted the recipe.



Here's what it looked like in my baking tin....

And here's the recipe....

Ingredients:

• 100g margarine (I used butter and it worked fine)
• 3 tbsp syrup
• 150g milk cooking chocolate
• 225g digestive biscuits, roughly crushed
• 225g malteasers, halved or crushed
• 400g white or milk cooking chocolate

Instructions:

• Melt the first 3 ingredients, then add the biscuits and malteasers.
• Mix well and spread over a swiss roll tin.
• Cover either with melted white or milk chocolate.
• When chocolate is set cut into squares.

My notes:

• We couldn't find milk cooking chocolate at supermarket so it was standard plain cooking chocolate and it was yummy but the milk might go better with malteasers.
• I put the tin in the fridge to set but kept checking on it and before the chocolate set hard I made cut lines which I think made it easier to cut up. It was a bit tricky getting the first bit out of the pan though!
• 550g chocolate is a huge amount - we only got about 500g or just under and that was still plenty to give it a thick chocolate top.

Enjoy and do let me know what you think if you try it :-)