izzy's new puppy

izzy is our bright 14 year old. she has been desperate for her own puppy for quite some time now, so last year pete offered her a puppy in exchange for outstanding grades at school. she didn't deliver so was given another shot at it for the first half of this year. well, with a firmer commitment and a slightly more disciplined homework routine she did really well.

so we spent days searching for a puppy that was suitable. izzy of course wanted a huge dog, but as jessie is a huge dog we had to set a size and energy restriction. in the end, failing to find a rescue puppy (because of the adored rabbit it had to be a puppy rather than a mature dog), and 47 puppies later, we found a gorgeous cavachon (which is a cross between a king charles spaniel and a bichon frise). a little girl 10 weeks old. she is pretty and sweet with a curious disposition and we all love her.

she slept with izzy the first night and then with olympia last night - i went in this morning to find them cuddled up together fast asleep...

of course, jessie loves her too.

but the best thing is that izzy now knows that she can achieve anything, and that hard work is not all that hard...

chocolate caramel slice

everyone's favourite slice, and pretty easy.

you'll need for the base
250g butter
1 cup sugar
1 cup coconut
2 cups plain flour

in a medium sized saucepan, melt butter and add other ingredients and stir to combine. press into the base of a rectangular tray (about 30x20cm). bake in a moderate oven for 12 minutes.

meanwhile
175g butter
4 tablespoons golden syrup
2 tins condensed milk

using the same saucepan (to save on washing up) melt butter, add syrup and then condensed milk. stir well over a low heat until the mixture bubbles. remove from heat.

when the base is cooked, take it from the oven, then pour the caramel mixture over. return to the oven for 10 minutes.

melt about 300g chocolate and pour over the warm caramel. all it to cool and set before cutting it up.

knitting season

winter always gets me knitting and crocheting. the danger is that by the time i finish things it's too warm to wear them. scarily, we have increasingly short and mild winters...
but i managed to get a few beanies and berets finished recently including this one that i sent off for my youngest niece araluen, back in england after her adventures around (well, half-way around) australia. it will be too warm in the uk for her to wear it, but luckily they still have brief summers...

another birthday

jessie's birthday was on the second last day of may. may is a good birthday month.
izzy made her a birthday treat complete with a stick of cabanossi as a candle. we made her "sit!" while we sang happy birthday to her.
jessie really is the most gorgeous dog. so gentle and attentive, she licks the rabbit, licks the bird and licks the snake whenever she gets the chance. she enjoys a good "wrassle" with olympia and gets special cuddles from izzy.