Men in Black 3

Last week as the weather has been so bad we decided to do the 'Orange Wednesday' and took ourselves off to Solihull to see Men in Black in 3D.  I don't know what we were expecting but we both thought that the 3D side could have been played up a bit more, although the film itself was very good, well up to its standards and the prosthetics on the two B players were excellent.
We went to Pizza Express on the Orange Wednesday treat and had another great meal, although I think we enjoyed this one a little bit more as we were seated in the window overlooking the road and could watch the rain coming down.  When it rained it was amazing, for a few seconds conversation dried up - excuse the pun - and there was silence except for the sound of the rain hitting banging into the windows.  We watched the clouds run away and when the sun came out we made a dash .......... see walk fast! .............. for the bus home.

The weather has been pretty bad since then, although we have managed to get into the garden a few times but it is now getting very boring, sitting at home and finding jobs to do - those who know me also know that housework does not feature high on my list!
I have taken to cake making.
It's a long time since I baked cakes and I am finding it quite interesting.  For my first attempt I made some fairy cakes, well ............they were supposed to be muffins but I only had a small quantity of mixture!  I shared it out between my six cases and put cherries in two, caraway seed in another two (funny thing is that PJ swears he never had one of those!!!) and sultanas in the last two.  Very successful even if I do say so myself. 
I have been using PJ's cake tins but we looked in the garage and found all my old ones.  I am so pleased as the little cake tins were my Mother's and the trays for the tray bakes were also there.  What memories!
When the children were small we used to spend most of Saturday making cakes, and traybakes.  We also coloured and flavoured them, pink ones tasting of peppermint, green ones tasting of chocolate, blue ones tasting of strawberries .......... what fun! ........ and the fights to lick the bowl!!!  I think that's one of the reasons I resorted to traybakes and fairy cakes so that there were at least three bowls for the children to fight over!   I can remember M being there one day and helping us.  She was amazed at the coloured ones and I gave her one of each to take home for her parents.  Her father just would not take a green one as he did not believe that it was a chocolate one!! 
I can remember all this now as I bake and look on the Internet ......... the fashion seems to be for brightly coloured cakes but so far have not found the flavours to be there as well!

I shall spend tomorrow cleaning all my cake tins, they have rusted over the time they have been in the garage but I am sure that with a 'bit of elbow grease', and Brillo pads, they will be pretty much restored to a usable condition.  I suppose I could get away with just washing them as I shall be using paper cases and linings but  ...... it's just me............

I am washing all and sundry at the moment and have washed some of the woollen jumpers in the machine.  Only I could stand out in the rain washing a clothes horse!!!
But I did and the woollies are draped over it in the front rooom, I have PJ's Aran jumper washing at the moment, this had enlarged over the years (I was always a loose knitter) so we have both agreed that if it shrinks it could be a good thing.  I will let you know how it goes!!