☘️ Chocolate Guinness Cupcakes☘️

☘️Happy Saint Patrick's Day!☘️

Back in God's Own Country they watch out to see whether the good Saint has turned the sunny side of the stone up. If he has, and the sun shines on our National Day, it means that spring has arrived. If he hasn't, then we'll sadly have to wait. I've got everything crossed for a sunny side up day.

Now on to our own little celebration here at Talk-a-Lot Towers. As is apparent from the recipes that I share I'm a big fan of the black stuff. I love Guinness for cooking. I'm also rather partial to the odd glass of it to wet my whistle with as well, but, then again, I'm not Irish for nothing ... 😜

To celebrate St. Patrick's Day this year I've made some Chocolate Guinness cupcakes, which are devilishly tasty, even if I say so myself!

Just read on for my recipe:

Beaumaris Castle ... 8 centuries and still not finished ...

Work on Beaumaris Castle, the castle on the fair marsh, started on 18^th April 1295 … and they still haven’t got the place finished.

It was to be the last of Edward I’s mighty castles guarding the north Wales seaboard. As I've mentioned before, I'm very grateful to dear old Ted the First for building all these wonderful castles within easy striking distance of the Dublin ferry. They make perfect places to stop-off and kick back for a few hours when you show up too early for your crossing.  See for example my thank you note for the wonder that is Conway Castle.

Beaumaris Castle, Anglesey, Wales

Knitting jewellery ...

I'm just messing around, enjoying the early spring sunshine (NOT - more like waiting for Noah and his ark to sail into sight 🤣), and cutting the points off my favourite pins - as one does ...

No, I haven't entirely lost the plot.

I've been making stitch markers. My Aran pattern of the moment is a bit involved, and I like to mark the beginning and end of each panel that corresponds to a specific chart to help me recognise where I am. It's less of an issue as I learn to recognise how the pattern hangs together, but at the beginning those stitch markers are a life-saver.

Ode to February ... how was it for you?

I grew up in Northern Ireland, where we have proper winters with frosts and sometimes snow and cold, cold nights. And I like it that way. I like having seasons. Life would be boring without them ...

And this February we've had a flavour of full-on, proper, old-style winter weather. In London we've had some wintery cold courtesy of weather systems blown in from continental Europe, and then we upped the chill quotient with some skiing in Andorra. The ski season in Europe this year has been really good. They told me in Andorra that it arrived a bit late, but, when it came, it really delivered.

It's been fun muffling up for lots of outdoors activity. I skied with Emi, up and down, those lovely mountains every day. In the late afternoons on the way back to our hotel we'd stop off by some snow-logged fields and play. We built snowmen, we made snow angels and we waged snowball wars. None of it was wildly new or out-of-the-mould, but it was totally brilliant. And it carried a sense of doing exactly what we were supposed to be doing in this season of the year.

Indoors I've been curling up with my needles, enjoying some really good drama on television.  Did you watch Taboo? Whaow! We've enjoyed comfort food, and celebrated the simple pleasures of the everyday with bowls of steaming soup, spicy chai tea (Twinnings - delicious) and cupcakes aplenty.

So here's to March, and the simple pleasures of the everyday!

All the best,

Bonny x

The quiet after Storm Doris ...

Yesterday we really had to batten down the hatches and lie low while Storm Doris passed through town. She was a bit of a hell-raiser, old Doris. Normally I find windy days rather exhilarating, but Doris was on another level.

After the school run I normally take the WonderDog for a run in the park. Yesterday the sky was that steel grey colour that always comes before rain, and I decided to give it a miss. The WonderDog came into the kitchen with a hurt expression on his little doggy face, but within 2 minutes the heavens opened. I offered him an open door to the back garden, which he shrugged his shoulders at and immediately thought the better of his sulk.

Then this morning, in a moment of perfect blue-sky calm, we went for our usual jaunt around Walpole Park, and this is what we saw :

I'm so glad that I wasn't under that tree when Doris split it in half.