Cordial,cupcakes and Kathryn Jenkins!

This week promised to be the perfect week for me and luckily I was not disappointed. My sister and I bought tickets to see the open air Kathryn Jenkins concert at Wisley Gardens, as a birthday gift to each other. We packed up our fold up chairs and our picnic and joined the queue!

The weather was amazing, the singing fantastic and we topped it all off with a tasty cupcake in the interval!!

We talked ourselves out of buying a hot chocolate to go with it because the one disappointing part of the evening was the usual enormous queue for the loo!! Which led me to explain to my sister the wonders of the new product we have in the shop called the shewee, a product that once you have one in your handbag you would not want to be with out, it enables us less versatile ladies become much better equipped to pee whilst standing without any of those sprinkling accidents! I will say no more but definitely worth investigating if you have a holiday planned to any country that tends to have unsavoury toilet facilities.

I popped into the shop this week also and the oilcloth holdalls were a hit, I was so inspired by the teams response I promptly came home and made two large rectangular toilet roll holders or bathroom tidies. Oh dear! I do seem to have a problem with trying to lead myself away from lavatory talk.

I had a lovely lunch with Susie and Issy and we had a great session of bouncing ideas around that could be taken forward into new products. Whilst at the shop my sister texted me to order 3 kiss letterpress necklaces and a friend one.

She had given a kiss necklace to her daughter Harriet's nursery school teacher because Harriet is now going to 'big school' and she absolutely loved it, as well as all the other mums who saw it and then asked her to place an order for some more. My sister stated" you must tell everyone what a fantastic idea they are as teacher gifts", and so I am doing exactly that.

Another great gift are the momijji products, these dolls all come with a little note in the base that can be used to send a little personal message, they really are very cute. My sister also became very popular when all her friends saw the yummy cupcakes she made for Harriet's birthday using the momijii cupcake set with the little flags in each one. Consequently she was volunteered in her absence to provide all the cupcakes for the children's end of term leaving party, oops maybe she won't thank treehouseblue for that one!

For my sisters birthday, my girls decided they were going to make some elderflower cordial to give to Auntie Nikki. Since we moved to our house we have wanted to have a go at making elderflower cordial but have missed the ideal time in which to pick the elder flowers. This year we managed to pick armfuls on a walk we did after school and with the help of dad who stopped at the chemist on his way home from work to pick up the citric acid, we proceeded to make elderflower cordial.

It was so easy to make and smelt and tasted absolutely divine, I think we might have to make some more before the flowers start to drop, now is definitely the perfect time to do this. If you would like to give it a go yourselves, this is the recipe we used:

ELDERFLOWER CORDIAL

1 lemon, grate the rind and slice the fruit

25g(10z) citric acid

1kg (2lb) sugar

10 elderflower heads

750ml water

Pour boiling water onto sugar in a bowl.

Stir to dissolve, add the lemon rind,slices citric acid and flowerheads (wash through in a colander first)

Leave for 24 hours, stirring occassionally.

Sieve through a muslin pour into clean bottles and seal with screw top caps.

Keeps for 6 months unless you have kids!!!

Dilute with ice cold water or sparkling water for a beautifully refreshing summer drink.