Our Roman Holiday

Ciao chaps and chapesses!

Last week, Graeme and I spent a few days exploring Rome.  And by 'exploring', I mean eating our way around the city.  I pretty much ate my own weight in pasta, pizza, gelato, coffee and wine.  And it was awesome.

Here are some of the highlights:

You have to climb 551 steps to get to the top of St Peter's Basilica, but the view when you get there is so worth it. 

Piazza Navona is a great place to kick back and watch the world go by, especially when chomping on some roast chestnuts.

I have never tasted ice cream quite like the gelato we had at the Trevi Fountain.  It was just delish.

Pasta for lunch while looking over at the Colosseum.  Could it BE any more Italian?

I made a wish at the Trevi Fountain, but I can't tell you what it is or it won't come true.

We had the thickest, sweetest, chocolatiest hot chocolate I have ever tasted at the Spanish Steps.

It's been said a lot, Rome truly is a gorgeous city.  December was a great time to go, as it wasn't too hot, and although there were plenty of people so there was a good buzz, it wasn't packed.  If you're a people-watcher like me, you'll love it.  There's so much going on, we spent quite a bit of time sitting back and watch the world go by.  I mean, where else would you see a nun juggling?

Baking beauties tag

Hello chaps and chapesses!

You may be aware that I love to bake.  To explain to you exactly how and why I love to bake, I decided to take part in the Baking Beauties tag, after I found it on Laura and Michael's blog.

1. What is the first thing you remember baking?

I can remember making a Teisen Lap in a cookery class in my first year of high school.  I think it's a Welsh thing, it's basically a sponge with sultanas in, so you can't really go wrong.  It was my grandad's favourite, so he was Very Pleased Indeed when I brought it home from school.

2. What was the last thing you baked?

Graeme's birthday cake.  It was a chocolate sponge cake with chocolate buttercream in the middle.  I put buttercream all around the outside and on the top, and decorated it with Kit Kats and peanut butter M&Ms.  It went down a storm - whoever said the way to a man's heart is through his stomach was definitely on to something!

3. Something you've always wanted to bake?

I'd love to master the art of baking bread - I've tried it a few times and it's never been quite right.  I'll keep trying though - I refuse to be defeated by a bit of flour, water, salt and yeast!  Back in my cakey comfort zone, I'd like to try my hand at a Battenburg, as it's one of my all time favourites.

4. Tell us about a time you baked something and it went ridiculously wrong.

I've had a few mishaps in my baking life.  Like the time I made fairy cakes in paper cases but without a tin, and they all expanded outwards so they were more like fairy pebbles than fairy cakes.  Then there was the disastrous chocolate cake I made, that was dry and crumbly and tasteless and generally rubbish.  I blame the recipe for that one (I'm looking at you, Hairy Bikers!)

My most recent baking hiccup was when I was making the afore-mentioned birthday cake for Graeme's birthday.  I was a bit enthusiastic when creaming the butter and sugar, and this happened:

Don't beat your butter straight from the fridge, kids - warm it up a little bit first.  Wooden spoons aren't invincible.

5. Be honest.  Do you lick the spoon?

Not really.  I sometimes have a little bit, but I'd rather scrape every last bit of batter from the bowl and the spoon into the tin, so I get as much cake as possible.  I'm so ladylike.....

6. How often do you bake?

Not often enough.  I go through phases - sometimes it's a couple of times a week, sometimes a whole month goes by baking-free.  Those are sad months - I must make an effort to get my bake on more regularly.

7. What baking successes are you most proud of?

Last year I made a giant French fancy for Graeme's birthday.  It took over 5 hours and a kilo of butter - it was a beast.  That was pretty awesome.

8. Do you tidy up as you go along or leave one big mess until the end?

Tidying up distracts me from the task in hand, so I tend to let the mess build up, then have a quick tidy up while the cake's in the oven.  That's mainly to create space for more mess when I'm making the icing or buttercream later on.

9. Do you use recipe books or get them online?

Both.  I've got a few recipe books that are quite good, but if the baking fancy takes me I tend to look online for inspiration.  Once I've tried a recipe and decided I like it, I write it out in my recipe notebook, so I tend to refer back to that quite a lot, too.

10. Do you stick to the recipe or do you experiment a little?

When it comes to baking I don't have the natural flair some people have, so I always need to follow a recipe.  I experiment with meals and soups and things, but baking is an area where I feel like I need to follow instructions, otherwise very scary things happen.

11. Who are your favourite food bloggers?

I don't tend to read 'food blogs' as such, but the Caked Crusader is a firm favourite.  Her cherry bakewell recipe is to die for, and is so easy.

12. What is your favourite thing to bake?

Cake.  Fairy cakes, cupcakes, sandwich cakes, banana bread - anything that's sweet and calorific.  I just love cake.

Happy birthday to Toby

Hello chaps and chapesses!

I can't believe it's been a whole year since we brought Toby home from North Clwyd Animal Rescue to live with us.

On the day we met him, it was love at first sight. We'd met a few other dogs that day, who were all lovely in their own way, but when they brought Toby bounding down the path to meet us, I think Graeme and I both knew he was the pooch for us.   He was so excited and friendly, and so cute! People often ask us how old he is because he looks like a puppy.

Bringing him home was interesting. We let him hop into the boot of Graeme's car, and in the time it took us to shut the boot and walk the three steps to the front of the car, Toby had jumped over and was sitting in pride of place in the drivers seat. That pretty much set the tone for life with Toby - he's cute and cheeky, and will always try to push his luck, but he's ultimately a good egg.

Over the last year he's learned to swim and to chase sticks, but not to bring them back.  He's also grasped that if he's a good boy, he can come to sit on the mat in front of the fire and warm his belly to his heart's content.

Happy birthday Tobes - here's to many more jolly years!

Vintage Sunday

Hello chaps and chapesses!

Last Sunday I spent a jolly afternoon with my pal Alycia, wandering around the Vintage Village in Stockport.  Once a month, the market hall is filled with stalls selling all things vintage, from clothes and jewellery to books and brooches. 

We paid our very reasonable £1 entrance fee and got our hands stamped on the way in, like a twee nightclub.

When we walked in, I was overwhelmed.  There was just. So. Much. Stuff.  It was an Aladdin's cave of quirky vintage bits and bobs.  I felt like I was walking around with great big eyes, trying to take it all in and not miss anything.

 

I loved all the old-school dishes - I lost count of the number of times I found myself saying "Ooh my gran had one of these!"  or "I remember these from when I was a kid!"

The clothes and shoes were amazing, but I was more taken with the cute dishes and kitcheny stuff.   And the tea sets.  Ohhh the tea sets!  They were so twee and dainty and pretty. I'm now left with an overwhelming sense that I need a tea set in my life.  I don't know when I would use it, but that's not the point, is it?

I'll definitely be going back again.  After all, I'll need to start my collection of twee teacups.  Or tweecups, as I will call them.

Friday Feeling #1

Hello chaps and chapesses!

Happy Friday!  I know traditionally Friday is meant to have that woo-hoo-it's-the-weekend-I'm-so-giddy-get-me-a-Crunchie feeling, but it doesn't always happen.  We all have those long and busy weeks where you get to Friday and feel drained.

So, to try and bring a bit of end-of-the-week giddiness back into the world, I'm going to start a series called the Friday Feeling.  Every week, I'll post about some of the things that have made me smile over the past few days, in the hope that they'll spread a little weekend cheer.

Here are a few things that have made me feel good this week:

Katy B - 5am
I've had this song in my head for days and days.  I've had to keep an eye on myself to make sure I don't accidentally end up singing along to myself and serenading everyone around me - nobody needs that.

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Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl

I don't often read crime and thriller books, but I love this one. There are so many twists and turns to the plot - just when you think you know who the bad guy is, Flynn flips it around. I've found myself thinking a lot about the the idea that we present a certain version of ourselves to the world, and how that can be different to who we really are.  I love a book that makes me think!  I'll do a proper review when I've finished reading the book, which won't be long!

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Using my brain

I went down to London on Tuesday for a training day for work.  Although it was a long day (up at 5am, home at 9pm - ouch!) it was well worth it.  I met some interesting people and learned loads. It felt so good to use my brain, and to actually learn stuff!  I've been missing that feeling since I graduated.

What's been making you feel shiny and jolly this week?  

Have a splendid weekend!

Recipe: Simple avocado pasta sauce

Hello chaps and chapesses!

This is a recipe for a really quick and simple pasta sauce.  I originally found this recipe on Pinterest.  There are a few variations out there, but this is my Happy Chapess version.

Here's what you'll need:

an avocado

a dash of olive oil

a good splash of lemon juice

a smattering of salt

as much black pepper as you can shake a stick at

a blender

some pasta

I don't use precise measurements because this is one of those recipes you can tweak to suit your taste.

First of all, cook your pasta.

While your pasta's bubbling away, dice your avocado, and put all the ingredients into a bowl together.  Don't use too much oil, as you don't want your sauce to be greasy. You can always add more later if you think it needs it.

Use a blender to jhujjj (real word there) all the ingredients together.  If, like me, you use a hand blender, you may want to start off by gently pulsing so that you don't get bits of avocado flying around your kitchen.  Believe me, it gets everywhere.

Blend it until it's smooth.  This will take approximately 10 seconds.

Taste your sauce and add more lemon juice / salt / pepper.  Keep playing with it until you get the right balance to suit your own taste.

When you're happy with it, stir it through your cooked pasta.  I tend to add mushrooms, ham and sun dried tomatoes to mine.  Tomatoes work really well with avocado, and I will take every opportunity to add in a mushroom where I can.  The ham is kind of an afterthought, but it works.

The creamy texture of this makes it feel like proper comfort food, even though it only uses a few ingredients and only takes a couple of minutes to create.  Bon appetit!

The beach is for life, not just for summer

Hello chaps and chapesses!

With some parts of the country still recovering from the Biggest Storm Since The Eighties, I think we can safely say that summer is over.  But that doesn't mean that you can't still enjoy a good old day out at the seaside.

Not to be deterred by the gale force winds, we spent last Saturday exploring what is apparently the best beach in the UK, and the third best in Europe: Rhossili Bay.  With three miles of clean, unspoiled sandy beach, a shipwreck, and a rugged peninsula shaped like a worm, it's not hard to see why it's received such high accolades.

We spent the afternoon exploring the beach (trying not to get blown away), throwing stones and watching Toby playing in the waves.  He had a great time, splashing about in the sea, and running after the seagulls.  We had one sleepy pup that evening!

I can imagine that Rhossili Bay is jam-packed full of people in the summer when the sun is shining - and rightly so, it's a gorgeous place to spend the day.  When we were there, we almost had the beach to ourselves, which was great as it meant Toby could run and run and terrorise the seagulls to his heart's content.  

Best beach in the UK?  It's certainly up there for me, although Newborough Beach on Anglesey is equally gorgeous.

Tempting as it may be to hide from the grim weather at home, getting out there amongst it is well worth it.  Just wrap up warm and get out in the fresh air to blow away the cobwebs. When you do finally hunker down in front of the fire in the evening, it'll feel all the more cosy.

Fooooood, glorious fooooood.....festival

Hello chaps and chapesses! 

 It's that time of year when the mornings are getting crisp and cool, the central heating is getting switched on, and nothing quite matches the satisfaction you get from a comforting, hearty meal. Quite possibly the best time of year to go to a food festival. 

 I went to my very first food festival on Saturday, in Llangollen. It was a heady mix of cheese, chutney, specialty meats, pate, liqueurs, chocolates, cakes for humans, cakes for dogs (yes, really!), pots, pans and cider, and it was great. 

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Graeme and I were like children in a sweet shop, going from stall to stall tasting samples of pretty much everything. We ended up buying no less than five different kinds of cheese (because you can never have too much cheese), three jars of chutney (to have with our specialty cheese and biscuits), three enormous pork pies, two bottles of perry, some fancy pork and black pepper sausages, and a top secret gift for Graeme's birthday. Not bad for two hours. 

 After all that, we needed a Sit Down And A Cup Of Tea, so we headed outside to the fresh air, picking up a cupcake each on the way out (because what is a cuppa without a cake?). On our way in to the festival, we'd been given vouchers for a free doughnut with every hot drink, which I'd forgotten about until we actually got to the tea stand. This meant that we ended up with a cup of tea, a scrummy cupcake, and a warm, sugary doughnut. Each. Sugar rush? What sugar rush? 

I love those little cupcake pods, by the way.  Glad someone is taking the safe transit of cupcakes seriously.

 There was a male voice choir performing outside too, so we had some music while we sat with our cups of tea and more sugar than you can shake a stick at. It was a lovely moment, actually, enjoying the sunshine and the singing, particularly when they sang Calon Lan, which always gives me goosebumps. All in all, I think my first ever food festival experience was a success. 

 I used the fancy sausages to make this scrumptious casserole for dinner that night. Yum! 

Have you been to any food festivals lately?

Life is short

Hello chaps and chapesses!

It's been a topsy turvy couple of weeks here at Happy Chapess HQ.  I won't go into detail, but suffice to say that lately it's become more and more clear to me that life is short, much too short to waste on things that make you feel miserable and sad.  

I think Mr Bean sums it up perfectly (excuse his language):

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I've realised that life is too short to waste time on negativity, and I'm going to make a conscious effort to look for the good in everything.  It's so easy to focus on the negative, and to lose sight of all the shiny, happy things in life.  Here are some things I'm grateful for: 

My health.  My body is still in one piece, and it still works.  If I ask it very nicely, it'll even run a few miles at a time. 

My chap.  I'm endlessly lucky to have Graeme in my life, and even if we do wind each other up from time to time, I'd be miserable without him. 

My home.  Our house is rented, and there are a few things we'd like to change about it, but it's our home, and it keeps us safe and cosy. 

My job.  Sometimes my job drives me potty, but I work with a decent little bunch of people, there's always something to learn, and at the end of the day, it keeps a roof over my head. 

My people.  I've been lucky enough to have some great people in my life over the years - parents, grandparents, and friends that have become more like family.  I wouldn't be the person I am without them. 

What I'm trying to say is, don't waste your life focussing on all the things that make you miserable.  Spend as much time as you can doing what makes you happy, and make time every day to count your blessings.

There endeth today's lesson.

Belated Blogtember: Nike running app

Hello chaps and chapesses!

So Blogtember is running on a little past the end of September but that’s no bad thing – I’m enjoying it so much I thought I’d keep it going a bit longer.

I’m a bit of an on-off runner.  I used to run quite regularly, and I liked it, but over the last year or so I’ve fallen out of the habit, and tried to make an effort to get back into a routine, and fallen out of the habit again so many times I’ve lost count.

Enter the Nike+ running app.  This is a free app that tracks your time and distance as you run.  It uses GPS to plot your route, and it times you.  It also lets you choose a playlist from your music collection to listen to while you run.  Pretty standard, you may think, what’s so special about that?

What I love is that at the end of each mile you run, a little voice tells you how far you’ve run, your total running time, and your average pace.  This is great because it really motivates you to keep going.  I’ve heard an update and thought ‘ooh, that’s a good time, I need to keep this up!’  Other times, I’ve heard an update and thought ‘bloody hell Rach, put your back into it!’ and it’s spurred me on to ramp it up a gear.

The other good thing is that you can share your stats on Facebook and Twitter after you’ve finished.  For people who like to show off, like me, this is a winner.

For me, the only downside is that as I tend to strap my phone to my upper arm, I can’t see my progress.  I've used running watches before, and it's good to be able to glance down at my wrist and see how far I've got to go before completing another mile.  You could get around this by holding your phone in your hand, but as I frequently trip over my own feet, this would be a recipe for disaster.  The more graceful and co-ordinated amongst you may be ok with this, though.

As a general all-round running app though, this is great, and I recommend it.

Blogtember: Life lately

Hello chaps and chapesses!

I can't believe September is nearly over - this month has flown by!  Actually, this whole year is passing way too quickly.  Does that make me sound like an old lady?

Here are a few things I've been getting up to this month:

 

Retail therapy:  I went shopping on Saturday, and treated myself to a few little treats, including these cute ankle boots from H&M.  I'm going to do a proper haul post soon, my first one ever, to show off what I got.  I bet you're on the edge of your seat!

Rush:  Graeme and I went to see Rush last week.  It's a film about the famous rivalry between two Formula 1 drivers in the 1970s, and it's awesome.  The cinematography, the chemistry between the two drivers, the tension.  If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it.

Running:  After reading this running advice for beginners, I was inspired to get back into running properly.  So I went out and bought a few bits of new running gear (including this very attractive hat) and off I went.  I've been enjoying running again recently, for the first time in ages, and I really think it's down to the advice about regulating your breathing - it's been a revelation!

The Silver Linings Playbook:  This is what I'm currently reading on my Kindle.  I don't know what I was expecting, but this is not it - the way it's written is really sweet and different to anything I've read in a while.  I'm only about a third of the way through, but I'm really enjoying watching the story unfold.  Maybe I'll watch the film when I'm done - any excuse to drool over Bradley Cooper....

Spa day:  A couple of weekends ago, Graeme surprised me with a spa day, because he is an Awesome Boyfriend.  It was lovely, just relaxing, getting massaged, and doing a whole lot of nothing for a whole day.  Pure bliss, and major boyfriend points.

Bimbling with Toby:  We've recently discovered a couple of new routes around our village to take Toby for walks.  It's been great to explore, and get to know our local area a bit better.  

Blogtember: Comfort

Hello chaps and chapesses!

I've banged on about this before, but I do really love autumn.  There are lots of reasons (brisk walks, chunky knitwear, scarves, hot chocolate....) but I'd have to say that the main one is because autumn is the most comfortable time of year for me.

The temperature is just right for  me - not uncomfortably warm, like the summer we've just had, and it's not freezing cold and wet the whole time.  It's that just right in-betweeny-ness.

Also, I get to spend cosy evenings watching Downton Abbey with the fire on.  Toby is a big fan of autumn for the same reason....

Blogtember: Photos only

Hello chaps and chapesses!

Waaaaayyyyy back at the beginning of August, when the weather was sunny and warm (remember that?) Graeme and I went to Anglesey for the day.

It was gorgeous.  Anglesey is beautiful, and we had a lovely time exploring Beaumaris, Newborough and Ynys Llanddwyn (the lovers' island - witty woo!).  Here's a glimpse of what we got up to: