Australians away!

Last Tuesday we were lucky enough to be visited by The Gell-Stennards.... E and I were stoked to see Henry and get a cuddle in. He was a pretty quiet little chap. I'm looking forward to getting to know him as he grows up. He loves standing up.... at 5 months I'm wondering if it is a sign.
I think he might take after his active parents. I expect that he will enjoy camping!

Both Dave and Fiona seemed to be happily enjoying parent-hood. For us it was great to see them, have a chat, be very scientific about children and generally have a laugh. It was great.....



This weekend E and I are heading up to the Lake District. The next post will be more photos and stories from there.

Oh, and I promised to put up the recipe for fresh and hot caramel sauce for ice-cream!

Hot Caramel Sauce (this is kind of bucket chemistry... but it works).

You need:
Butter
Brown Sugar
Milk

Put about 1 small tablespoon of butter into a saucepan and melt over a moderate heat.
Stir in about 5 tablespoons of brown sugar. It should look like a thick brown paste, but still be 'liquidy' not dry and powdery.
Heat the paste up with stirring. Ideally you want to get it to start to boil, but NOT burn.
Only when the temperature is high add about 2-3 tablespoons of milk ONE at a time. Stir vigorously between additions. The only thing that can go wrong here is the milk can curdle. This happens if the milk is added in too large a dose, or the temperature is not hot enough. So, high temp and small volumes gets around this. If it curdles... throw it out and start again!
After the milk is added to the desired runny-ness I keep heating and stirring. It should be boiling/bubbling away like mad. This is important to dissolve all the sugar grains and make the sauce smooth.
At this stage, just prior to pouring over the ice-cream you can also add flavours such as whiskey or Cointreau.

The more butter/milk ratio you add the softer the sauce goes, the more milk/butter ratio the more like toffee the sauce goes.

Another good thing to do is stir the sauce into some vanilla ice-cream that is semi-frozen and re-freeze for the worlds best caramel swirl ice-cream!

Enjoy

Google Earth

I just love it... maybe it's about going to the places I always wanted too but can't.

Check out these addresses for some interesting stuff.

Horse

Pyramid of the Sun

Funny Man

and Words in the Sand

I'm sad that Google Earth has not done Easter Island or Machu Picchu yet.... I keep checking. Fingers crossed.

It's a funny thing this Goggle Earth. When I first logged on my home address was much clearer (you could see two people in my back yard), and it was really cool, since I live near a school which is used for parking for the Cambridge Folk Festival. The photo they used for my house originally had cars parked on the school oval which is unusual. I made me realise that the image was taken when the folk festival was on. You could browse through the folk festival and see individual people and their tents. It was so cool, but they have taken it down now.
: (

I came across a new word today. 'snarf'. 

snarf
  v : make off with belongings of others
and

snarf
  v:  To grab, especially to grab a large document or
file for the purpose of using it with or without the author's
permission.

Wiki has a more interesting report:

snarf
  v : To laugh while drinking, causing liquid to come out one's nose.

Where can you fit 'snarf' into your day? I think the drinking term of snarf is great.
It hasn't been listed in the OED yet. It's Monday.


But if you're tired of looking at my face, I guess I already am
But you've never been a waste of my time
It's never been a drag
So take a deep breath and count back from ten
And maybe you'll be alright