Mrs Birks Blogs

Our camp earlier this year So, on Friday evening last week I was trying hard to fall asleep at a Brownie and Guide sleepover at our local school.  We had films and popcorn and hot chocolate and then not a very peaceful nights sleep but then I'm not sure anyone was really expecting to! Those of you that have read my blog before will know that last year I started volunteering with a local Guide unit that was desperately needed in the area because of the amount of Brownies wanting to move up.  We have now been going for over a year, the unit has grown and we have already enjoyed our first camp - another exhausting but really fun experience.  I am really lucky that in my district Guiding is very popular and the volunteers running the various units are really committed to providing great opportunities for young women - as the sleepover proved.  They are also really good fun and in addition to enjoying working with the girls, I have made some great friends in the area. When I wa

So readers of this blog will know that for my 40th birthday I went for afternoon tea with Mr Birks at Selfridges.  Well, last week I had an afternoon tea experience with my best friend Paula, which made the Selfridges one look highly boring in comparison even though it was served on a picnic bench!  On a Friday afternoon, we experienced the Science themed afternoon tea at The Ampersand Hotel in South Kensington.  The hotel's proximity to both the Science Museum and The Natural History Museum explains the science theme and it featured dinosaurs, fossils, planets and spacemen. When the afternoon tea arrived, I didn't think I could be any more excited, it had little jellies served in a petri dish, a chocolate spaceman and rocket ship, a planet balanced on chocolate cake and a series of test tubes with different toppings inside.  However, I was wrong.  When the waiter magically made the dry ice appear, I was like an uncontrollable child with excitement. The food was deliciou

Last year I bought 4 new (old) chairs so that I would have enough to host my daughter's birthday party.  Our old chairs were looking a bit shabby and two of them had developed a wobble so after the party, the plan was to get rid of the old chairs and upcycle the new (old) ones.  Skip to one year later and we have finally upcycled our chairs and they look pretty special (although don't look too closely) Before the upcycle they looked like this: These are the chairs after some sanding down, shortly after we collected them.  We bought them through eBay for £20 - a bargain at £5 per chair and collected from about 10 minutes away from our house.  They then sat in our shed for a number of months... Here they are after the upcycle: We used some chalk paints from B&Q - some little tester pots to get different colours and a top coat by Frenchic (which looked suspiciously like watered down PVA).  The top coat gave the finished chairs a nice 'feel' and promises t

So, it's Summer again. Readers of this blog will know that the summer fills me with joy! It doesn't matter about the weather or what we get up to, just the feeling of having free time and being able to cuddle the children when I like is enough...although the odd bonus nap is always appreciated too! We have been lucky this year in that family members have treated us to several weekends away - Centre Parcs (my goodness, I was excited!) and a lovely stable conversion in Ross-on-Wye - so I don't really feel like we're missing out by not going away for weeks on end, despite all the hotdog leg pictures on Facebook! (Ok, maybe I am a bit jealous).  What we are doing is spending a very exciting week in London being total tourists.   We are staying in Greenwich, house sitting for my Sister-in-Law whilst she is away (not that she really needs us to!).  From such a fantastic location we should be able to get out and about without having to make sure we get back in time to

Afternoon tea is now a thing.  In fact, I think it has been a thing for a long time but, as usual, I've been late to the party.  But what a wonderful thing it is!  At the risk of becoming a 40th birthday bore, I wanted to tell you about my visit in March to Selfridges for a afternoon picnic tea. Afternoon tea is such a perfect thing.  Not lunch or dinner but an extra meal in between and it has a little bit of everything - cakes, savouries and of course tea.  With ours we also opted for a couple of glasses of champagne (did I mention it was a special occasion?) which made it extra decadent for a Tuesday afternoon.   We 'took' our tea at The Balcony, a restaurant at the top of Selfridges in the Bullring but we had done a significant amount of research beforehand and I also liked the look of the Gentleman's Afternoon Tea at Hotel La Tour which also threw a scotch egg and pork pie with mustard into the mix.  We found that prices for afternoon tea started from around £20

It took me a long time to warm to Game of Thrones. And I mean a long time...like the first 3 seasons.  I just couldn't see what the fuss was about - too much sex and nudity, naive women with their futures decided by men and an incestuous relationship between brother and sister - I really thought it wasn't for me, in fact I only persevered because my mum had leant me the box set and I knew she'd ask what I thought.  So I sceptically persevered and eventually I was hooked - I can't tell you specifically which moment changed my thinking about the show - there are so many glorious moments in GOT, mostly involving gruesome deaths - but along the way I got caught up in the storylines and now I am completely obsessed. What I like about GOT is that it is like watching lots of little episodes of a great fantasy/action film. I'm thinking Lord of the Rings without the Hobbits.   I know this comparison will make LOTR fans and GOT fans sigh in equal measure but just think of a

What's so bad about being forty? Aside from a huge increase in grey hair and the need to apply neck firming cream, it doesn't seem so awful to me.  But then I am only a week or so into my fortieth year. One of the best things about turning 40 is that people shower you with gifts.  40 being a significant number means that the pressies are fantastic!  One beautiful gift that I will treasure always was a plum coloured Ted Baker bag with copper coloured accents.  I don't really have the lifestyle to go with such a beautiful bag but there's still time!  They say life begins and all that. To prove I'm still youngish I also got a Brits CD full of young people music.  I have already irritated the family by over-playing Justin Bieber.  I also got a beautiful silver honey pot, an equally beautiful 3 tier cake plate, some books and a Happy Valley DVD (we missed it first time around and everyone has been raving about it).  All in all, a very good haul! Believe me

On a trip to our local library recently, I got a copy of the Making Cupcakes with Lola cookbook.  Before I talk about the many joys of the book, I just want to mention our local library.  We love it! The staff are so helpful, even when my 7 year old asks slightly obscure questions about Pokémon.  They run loads of special events - we've been to an indoor picnic, junk modelling and a record breaking attempt and there is a genuinely welcoming atmosphere.  When we first moved here, joining the library was one of the first things we did and the following weekend for an added bonus, they had a DVD and CD sale where we managed to pick up lots of bargains,  With cuts to all libraries over the last few years, I am so grateful for the service provided by ours - well done Downham Market library, we salute you! Anyway, back to Cupcakes with Lola.  I hadn't really thought of myself as a cupcake baker before or a cupcake buyer for that matter - I don't know what it is about them,

So, I  missed blogging in the last four months of 2015 and now we're already two months into a brand new year.  Like many, I have found the start of 2016 pretty tough not just because of the lovely people we have lost in the celebrity world but also the lovely people we have lost closer to home.  Before half term we said goodbye to my father in law, one of the kindest and wisest men I have ever met and we are all much sadder without him.  So with 2016 being pretty grim so far, I thought this post would be about some highlights from the end of 2015 Cake and Bake Show Ok, so not completely 'the end' of 2015 but at some point before Christmas (I can't remember exactly when), my Mum and I went to the Cake and Bake show at ExCel in London.  Knowing that we wouldn't be the earliest of risers, I bought the afternoon only tickets and used the money I saved on tickets for a class - in our case with Rosie Drummer aka Rosie Cake Diva.  Rosie has produced amazing fondant mo