Mrs Birks Blogs

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich is a fab day out for families and it's free!  With two lovely children's galleries and an interactive map that kids can navigate using an iPad, there's plenty to see and do before heading off to the cafe for tea and cake or better still, down the road for some pie and mash at Goddards. But it's not all about the kids.  This week I enjoyed a photography exhibition called 'The Great British Seaside:  Photography from the 1960s to the Present.  The exhibition featured images from Tony Ray-Jones, David Hurd, Martin Parr and Simon Roberts. I have loved Martin Parr's work since teaching a little bit of A Level Photography a few years ago and there is something about street/beach photography that I find completely engaging.  I didn't know much about the other photographers but I think I was most taken with the work of Tony Ray-Jones.  In his short career, he travelled to beaches around the UK to capture 'the sa

I loved watching Nadiya's British Food Adventure last year and after several weeks thinking 'I don't need another cookbook' I gave in and finally bought it (it was probably the crisp and chocolate peanut tart that persuaded me)  Since then, I've looked at it with a drooling mouth but not actually cooked anything. Until now... I needed a recipe to christen my new Bundt tin and remembered seeing one in the book called 'Caramelized White Chocolate and Hazelnut Bundt Cake'.  Now, for those not in the know, caramelised white chocolate has the brand name Caramac, a super sweet light brown chocolate that you might remember from childhood.  It can be a little difficult to get hold of, you'll find that not all the supermarkets stock it and if they do, it can be a bit pricey because it's not available in a large size.  Anyway, with this in mind, I headed to Tesco to buy the ingredients, not completely convinced I would be able to get everything but ver