Tall Ships Regatta 2016 Blyth

That was crazy weekend, crazy and long!

To be honest with ya, we saw first ships on Thursday, late afternoon.

Dar Mlodziezy, Gdynia, Poland

Craziness started next day :) They were coming to Blyth Port one by one and all who were this day here could see them coming and docking in Blyth Quayside :)

Kapitan Borchardt, Gdansk, Poland

Fryderyk Chopin, Szczecin, Poland

Christian Redich, Oslo, Norway

People who came to Blyth this weekend could see and visit over 20 ships ( but they had to wait in long queues), I can say one thing - town was very busy :) 

Kids could enjoy Fun Fair and have made pics with our own Captain Jack Sparrow ;) - he is on his way to Gothenburg, Sweden on a board of Shtandart - beautiful replica of 1703  Russian frigate. Pic below.

The oldest ship in port was Oosterschelde from the Netherlands

Here information board about her:

Kids had a chance to see the biggest ship build from Lego bricks - that was a view! 

Dom enjoyed sitting in cabin of Royal Navy Rescue helicopter :) We had 3 of them in port area :)

Plus we saw very cheeky robot who was chasing nice looking girls :)

Three nights in row we had fireworks display in port - sorry for quality of pic.

View from our garden.

Visitors could enjoy live music on 3 different stages around town, lots of food stalls and other attractions.

North Tyneside Steelband in front of Frameworks Art Cafe in Blyth town centre.

If you want to know more about ships which were here this weekend, check: http://www.tallshipsblyth2016.com/

Overall we wish that Blyth town could host more events similar to this one in future. 

South Shields, korma and potato pancakes

I should write this post yesterday, but my boy had a little accident which left him with a cut near his lower lip.. Hope that stop him from climbing everywhere he think he can or want.. At least no stitches were needed, so no extra stress for him and me.

Back to the post theme...

We were once more in South Shields. Dom likes metro and ferry :) We decided to check properly the town and find park and beach I saw once back in 2005... Not easy task, believe it or not :)

From town centre we directed ourselves to the seafront with short stop in a restaurant called Indian Essence for lunch - best chicken korma ever for me :)

After yummy food we found South Marine Park - beautiful place with miniature steam train, boating lake, crazy monuments, band stand and nice playground area for kids.

This strange looking piece fascinated Dom.

We were lucky that day - live music welcome us in the park :) Boys were playing 60s, 70s hits eg. The Beatles :)

Then we found a beach - huge, 'American style' as my partner described it :)

No comment for this :)

Near beach - holiday park, restaurant in train coach and amusement park. Plus from the beach we could saw Tynemouth Priory and Castle remains on our left side and beautiful cliffs on right. I was looking for one more thing there which I was remember from my first visit in South Shields years ago - funny looking stone monuments and...

we found them on Littlehaven Beach and Promanade :)

I couldn't forget that chicken korma we ate so my man said: 'find recipe and try to cook it from scratches, sauce from the jar never give you this taste', he was right... So... I searched net and found recipe which looks nice - great pics and writing - result of my cooking... Yummy!!! If you want to try this recipe, here link to Anetta's 'The Wanderlust Kitchen' blog post: http://thewanderlustkitchen.com/indian-chicken-korma/

Sorry I'm not putting pics of 'my korma' here, but we were more eager to eat than taking photos :)

We like potato pancakes ( some call them latkes), usually I was making them the same way my Mum is doing them, but... then I saw little different version, and now I'm making my own version :)

Ingredients: 

few potatoes (about 3 nice sized is enough for us), grated; 

finally chopped small onion or 2-3 spring onions;

2-3 slices of ham, diced (can be any other piece of deli meat you like eg. salami);

few spoons of sweetcorn (from can :);

1 egg;

about 1/3 cup of milk;

flour - enough to make pancake batter

pinch of salt

about 1/8 of teaspoon of black pepper

plus optional:

1/8 or more of teaspoon of powdered garlic

nice pinch of powdered allspice

First mix egg, milk and flour and don't worry about amount of batter, then add rest of ingredients and mix until all will be coated nicely by batter and then fry your mixture on good amount of oil until golden and crispy, drain from excess of oil and serve the way you prefer.

Bit of frying :)

Draining :)

On the plate with garlic sauce ( natural yogurt with crashed garlic) and little tomato salad :)

Just experiment with recipe, add more spices or less, resign or add more ingredients - who knows - maybe you'll find your own version of them :) Enjoy!

Dom's masterpieces

Wow, this is my 100th post... Still couldn't believe I'm writing so long :)

I decided to show you my son's paintings today, cause I think this is good theme for 'jubilee' post ;)

Dominik is 4 and obsessed with painting lately. One of my friends said that is good for him, cause thanks to painting he practicing grabbing objects like brush, pencil or pen in correct way to be ready for school ( he's starting reception in September).

Dom created over 40 pieces in about 2 weeks time - quite a lot, don't you think? Dom calls lots of them 'Rokokos'.

'Rokoko'

Looks like a bison for me...

Racing car?

Flying duck?

Flower?

Hmmm, bug or maybe dinosaur...

No idea... but I love it :)

Vase with flowers?

Rocket?

Leaf or flower?

One of  ladies who lives few streets from us says I should start selling his paintings, but to be honest I want to keep them for him, to show him later how much he loved to paint :)

Am I wrong???

By the way... Thank you all for reading my posts!

Cardmaking crazy :)

Long time I didn't write or show you my cards... Possibly cause I wasn't making much of them.

Last month with my subscribed crafty magazine I received beautiful papers and decided to use them, specially that Dom was invited for Birthday Party for his school girl friend. I wasn't sure what kind of card I should make, cause all kids are different, so I made 3 for Dom to choose from :)

Dom choose this one for Libby :)

This one I added to set of 3 with cute animals which I have for sale: https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/260481415/cards-set-greeting-cards-birthday-cards?ref=shop_home_active_21

This one I gave to our neighbour for her birthday.

These 3 pic above I sent to crafty magazine to show them how I used my free gift - paper pack.

Then was time to make a Namesday card for my Mum :)

She likes to received handmade cards :)

Meantime I bought new Christmassy stamp and decided to check how it will look if I use spotlight technique I was writing about few posts ago. Result:

I was also asked to make a Birthday card for 17 years old girl who is a dancer. That wasn't easy task, cause I don't have stamps showing proper dancers in my stash, so I used kind of dancing fairy :) Mum and stepdad of birthday girl liked card I made - hope Holly liked it too :)

Lately I was dealing with cards for competition - National Cardmaker of the Year 2016. I was sending my cards last year, but won nothing, I hope my this year entries will do better :)

Scrapberry's fairy stamp

Pirate girl from Debbi Moore Designs

Little couple from Lili of the Valley.

Being in papercrafting mojo totally I made also this Birthday card with another stamp from Debbi Moore Designs

Plus another Christmas card for this year :) cute bears from Lili of the Valley :

Plus I received my crafty mag yesterday and find out that card Dom choose for Libby was printed in it in 'First past the Post' section :)

So... how to not be happy with hobby like this?

Believe me or not - I am happy!

Choco advocaat cupcakes :)

We are fans of little cakes :) All these muffins and cupcakes are very tempting :)

In opinion of my guys - small one and big one - I'm not baking often enough :) The easiest for me is just use recipe for one of the cakes, divide batter between paper cases and bake as muffins :) Bad me :)

Few days ago I decided to make proper cupcakes - so I opened book with cupcakes recipes and with 4yo exploring kitchen I baked chocolate advocaat cupcakes.

Dom couldn't wait and eat one of them without icing when was slightly cooled :)

Cooling :)

Advocaat cream on :)

Chocolate icing :)

Trifle made with leftover advocaat cream and chocolate icing with crashed bourbon biscuits :)

For these yummy cupcakes you need:

25g of cocoa powder

100ml boiling water

50g of butter

100g of light brown sugar

1 egg

75g of plain flour

1/2 tsp of bicarbonate of soda

pinch of baking powder

For advocaat cream:

220ml cream

45g icing sugar

120ml of advocaat

For chocolate topping:

140ml cream

200g of dark chocolate

Mix cocoa powder with water and set aside, mix together rest of cupcake ingredients and add cocoa water, divide butter between 12 paper cases and bake about 20 minutes in 190 C. Then place on wire rack to cool.

Mix together inggredients for advocaat cream until smooth and thick, put in pipping bag and pipe on top  of the cakes, chill until you make chocolate topping.

For chocolate topping heat cream gently in the pan until boiling point, remove from heat, add chocolate and stir until melts, then allow to cool down and spread carefully over advocaat cream and leave to set.

For sure next time I need to bake more cupcakes, cause have lots of both creams left plus Dom is to small for deserts with alcohol :) so his cupcakes are only with choco cream on top :) But like you could saw I used leftovers, so no waste here :)

Enjoy your cupcakes!!!

South Shields and Arbeia :)

We had beautiful Saturday, so we decided to go for little trip. We bought Explorer tickets and off we went :)

We caught bus to Newcastle, deal with some stuff, then go for Chinatown to eat nice buns and drink some jasmine tea in BreadPoint - http://heysushi.co.uk/0510851/Breadpoint_Ltd. This little place is our fave stop when we're going to the town :)

After nice snack we caught metro to South Shields. First proper stop there we made in South Shields Museum and Art Gallery, where we had a chance to see 'St Tropez' by Pierre Auguste Renoir and few other interesting paintings and I met nice lady crafter which creations you can find here: https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/AngelanneGems.
This museum maybe is not huge, but I love stained glass window there:

Amazing colours.

Our next stop was Arbeia Roman Fort and Museum. Dom was very excited and had a chance to see lots of models, check roman soldiers barracks and run wild between remains of fort.

Pieces from Roman Temple

Fort's West Gate - reconstruction

Roman soldiers quarters

Image of fort - remains in background 

Model of Arbeia fort.

Later on our way to Ferry stand we found little place run by volunteers and we had opportunity to find out a bit more about lifeguard boats and life on sea - we'll be back there soon to see almost 100 years old lifeguard boat back on water after restoration :) If you want to know bit more about place we found -check: http://nemaritimetrust.co.uk/.

We back home tired, but happy cause we had lovely day.