Meet Frankie... The other love of my life. He is an utterly mad Collie crossed with a Cavalier Spaniel. He was a 6 week old rescue puppy from Ireland and we adopted him nearly 2 years ago. He has come crashing into our lives and become very important to us!

Frankie Likes:

Everything! Cats, Dogs, Babies in prams, tripping joggers, Sweet things, Tennis Balls, Walks, Beaches, Wiggling, Doing doggie stuffs, keeping busy! Pistachios, water, mud, pooh, the rain, baths, His doggy friend Buster.

Frankie Dislikes:

Pigeons, the TV reflection in the window, the Doorbell noise, staying inside, foxes and owl noises.

Although I love to cook, I have long claimed that I cannot bake to save my life. I rarely make successful cakes and had never tried baking bread...until... Last weekend Tim and I decided to have a bit of a baking day and cooked up a storm.

Not as difficult as I had expected, the main problem with me and baking is just a lack of patience. It takes so frigging long; I always want to rush the process and poke at it and look at it while it cooks etc. Not great. I was pretty pleased with the end results though. We used Paul Hollywood's recipes from the BBC website for 'easy white bread' and foccacia. I would definitely recommend both recipes they were clear and easy to follow.

The easy white bread was really easy, and I made it even more so by using my ancient stand mixer and dough hooks. It rose to the challenge gloriously and I'm convinced I wouldn't have been able to stand hand kneading the bread enough I have no upper body strength whatsoever. The bread was very soft and springy and it seemed to stay fresh for about 3 days+ which surprised me.

The focaccia was much trickier because the dough was really wet and difficult to handle. It stuck to everything! It's supposed to be like that though apparently, don't ask me why! and the end result had big air bubbles and was nicely salty and oily. Very nice eaten hot or warm rather than cold.

Observe...!

Happy Monday! We had a good weekend this weekend, just spending some time and catching up just the 2 of us. We had a bakeoff on saturday which got quite fraught actually! (a failed first attempt at foccacia had me quite stroppy) I will bring you the photos from this foray into baking tomorrow. The final foccacia was really delicious and I would definately cook it again!

I also had a go at making some soap which smells amazing and is very moisturizing. I'm going to do a super easy tutorial for this cheats soap making method later in the week! (its such a cheat, I hope I don't get any real soap enthusiasts shaming me!)

I am also embarking on a diet this week... wish me luck :-( It is me realising that I may actually have to curb my festive gorging which has followed me into the new year! I am now roughly the size of a young killer whale and so I plan to follow a dukan/ low carb kinda thing to get back to my wedding day weight. You never know maybe I'll have to come up with some dukan recipes to satisfy my cooking compulsion.

Stay tuned for the diet come down!

XHX

If you are anything like me you will have noticed a creeping takeover by fluffy round eyed birds in design and crafts recently. Owl motifs are frigging everywhere at the moment and have been for a while now. I get it, they're cute and boggle eyed and fluffy and can be customised with colour to match into any scheme. With that in mind I bring you my pick of the best (or nest! geddit?)

1) this cute owl cuddly/ cushion is one of about a gazillion on etsy and other craft sites and blogs at the moment. It seems you aren't worth your salt as a crafter these days if you havent made and posted a patchwork owl. I am not worth my salt... yet but I do want to make one of these beauties soon. I love this one (hes called 'cornelius' by the way) because he uses the coolest check and paisley scraps and has a certain debonair feel, which is what an owl should be I think.

2) These amazing woodland wall decals are from notonthehighstreet.com and are just one variety in a large section of owl and other creature wall stickers for your home. They would be so sweet in a childs room or nursery, or even in your own room if you are young at heart. I love them above a bed as in this picture.

3) If you don't quilt or sew then you might not know Michael Miller fabrics, they are one of the biggest I would say for this kind of craft print cotton. His prints really are always amazing and this pattern 'Forest Life' is one of my faves. It would be great to make the aforementioned patchwork owl project (the idea of owls on an owl is stragely pleasing to me) It also comes in 5 colourways including some more manly versions! although they still have little bambis on them so I'm not sure its quite 'Terminator' manly.

4)This little owl necklace is so cute, enough said really. It makes the grade for the contrast colours, the brass fixings and the antiquey enamel owl.

5)Owl stamp from notonthehighstreet again, I love this website. This cute rubber stamp set would be great to make your own gift tags on manilla luggage labels, It would also be good for Christmas cards or maybe your own wrapping paper (if you can be faffed with that!)

6) finally this little owl hat is the cutest thing ever! I wish I could knit or crochet or whatever the genius who made this did!