Tuesday, September 11

Hopes

This was the sky on Sunday evening. A hope signal for a fine day, after we had a week of rain.

The promise was made good, with a fine sunny day yesterday, & it looks fine this morning. We had had washing on the line in the rain for the whole weekend, so it was nice to get it all dried yesterday. Mundane & boring stuff!

For some bright Treats of the Quilty kind, go & visit Wanda, at Exuberant Colour! She has the most gloriously colourful quilts you could wish for, & she has just given us a wonderful Tour of the Illinois County Fair. Be sure to visit her lovely quilts in older posts. It will surely brighten your day!

I have been having some computer problems, so wasted spent a great deal of time on here yesterday, fiddling about trying to work out how to save my blog, onto a disc. A very obliging friend came over to help me, & I may have it saved, but along with a lot of other rubbish valuable data. I really should go & have some proper lessons & find out what I am doing. I see Wanda also teaches computer, & she will never know who many times I have wished I lived close to her!

Writing about Mr & Mrs J, in my last 2 posts, reminded me of how much a bunch of our mutual friends used to love my Chocolate Souffle Roll, which I have posted the recipe for last year, & this should be a link to that post.

My Beloved Brother came down to stay with us, in Christchurch, when the Commonwealth Games were on, as we lived within walking distance to the stadium, & BB had bought himself tickets to events that he wanted to see.

He used to set off early & had a great time viewing all the events he was interested in. I didn't bother to go, apart from one afternoon, to watch the runners in some elimination heats. I went with our kids, & a neighbour's younger sister. Even though I am not interested in sport, it was quite a nice day out really, & the atmosphere in the stadium was quite infectious.

As it happened we had a baby staying with us for some of the time, during BB's stay. The 8 month old daughter of a friend, whose mother had died suddenly. My BB loved little Juanita, & she was a gorgeous roly poly little baby, with beautiful brown eyes, & lovely olive skin. BB would amuse her while I prepared tea, in the evenings. We had Juanita for a fortnight all told, as her parents had to wind down the Mother's house, in the North Island, & sort out a future for the orphaned young sisters. (They adopted them, & then their family grew from 4 daughters to 6!) Lovely generous people.

Back to the cake, which I would occasionally make & take round to friends for afternoon tea. I made one for my Brother, who has a sweet tooth. I also used to make a Chocolate Fudge Pudding, which I also made for my brother. He knew that another friend of ours loved this particular pudding, & he rang him up to tell him we were having it for tea! Mike burst out laughing, & called BB some other names.

It was Mike that introduced the cake into our circle of friends. He had taught his new wife Sue, to make it on their honeymoon! He didn't make the Chocolate Fudge Pudding though, & loved to have it at our house.

On our last visit to Christchurch we called in to visit with Mike & Sue, & GOM had parked our rental car in the driveway at their house. It had been over 20 years since we had seen them, & I guess we had changed. Mike was not at home when we arrived, & we were sitting talking to Sue when he arrived home. GOM went out to see Mike, who was gruff & cold, & asked why the car was parked in the driveway. Mike had not recognised GOM. So GOM played along, pretended he was a friend of Sue's, told Mike Sue had told him he could park there. He told Mike his name was Bill, & he, Mike, must have heard of him, as he was a very good friend of Sue's, wink wink. Mike came huffily into the room, then burst out laughing as he recognised me.

On that visit to Christchurch we had another encounter with a man who used to be our Night Manager, & he failed to recongnise either of us! It cut both ways, with GOM failing to recognise Grant. I took one look at the little boy holding his hand & could see Grant's wife. The little boy turned out to be their Grandson!



Travis, Driftwood.

18 comments:

Pauline said...

off to try that chocolate souffle roll - yum!

Isn't it fun to renew old acquaintances?

meggie said...

Hope you enjoy it Pauline. I posted a picture of it in the following post, but could not get it to link. I need some serious tutoring for computer instead of stumbling around in the dark, the way I do!

Joyce said...

I too am a big fan of Wanda's. I seriously envy her stash.
I am so lucky that my sons and grandsons are complete computer techies. I have called on them again and again. And they work for food!
People that we haven't seen for awhile always recognize my husband. Me not so much. He has a very distinctive hairstyle that he hasn't changed over the years, except it's gray now.

~Bren~ said...

oooh I want to try the chocolate souffle too. Anything chocolate!!
That is something that you saw the grandma in the grandson!!

Mary said...

I'm sorry meggie - I did try to absorb the rest of your post but I cannot get the idea of that roll out of my brain - stupid question - are swiss roll tins easy to get hold of?

Mary said...

I'm sorry meggie - I did try to absorb the rest of your post but I cannot get the idea of that roll out of my brain - stupid question - are swiss roll tins easy to get hold of?

ancient one said...

Worse than not recognizing me, is when people show up at my door, and I don't remember them. A young man once appeared on my doorstep, and said you don't know who I am do you? When he said his name I still didn't know. Then he said, remember we onced lived across the road from you and he named the place. Yipes, he was just a little boy when I saw him last. He lived with his grandfather who had died long ago. Even now I can't think of that boy's name, but I was surprised that he remembered us and looked us up.

Jellyhead said...

I guess if your chocolate souffle roll is so well-loved, I better give it a go, too! Will post about it when I do :)

Aunty Evil said...

Oh my god, I want some chocolate cake.

Right now.

Aunty Evil said...

Me again. I just went and had a look at the Souffle Roll recipe. When you say "roll in a tea towel until cool" do you mean that literally?

I have never made a roll cake, so help me out here.

You take the cake out of the tin while still hot? You put it on a tea towel (clean, I presume) and roll it up? What about when its cool? Does it unroll easily? Doesn't the cake break up when you unroll/re-roll it?

Oh, maybe I should just stick to vegemite sandwiches...

meggie said...

Hi All,
I was surprised to find Swiss roll tin a bit of a mystery. It is just a shallow, oblong tin. You can get them at Target Kmart, Coles.
Aunty, yes, take the cake out when it is cooked, let it stand a couple of minutes, then turn onto a clean tea towel dusted with icing sugar, & gently roll it up. I put it on a wire cake rack to cool, & when it is cold it is quite easy to unfold onto a plate, & fill with cream. Sometimes it cracks a little as you re-roll it, but you can cover that with icing.
If you look at the next post after the recipe, I made it, & photographed the end result.
Yes please, if anyone makes it, I would like to see your results!!

Anonymous said...

Your Chocolate Souffle Roll sounds just the thing Meggie. I will print out that recipe and have a go at it next time I need something special and different.
Thanks also for the welcome home.
TTFN
Jenny

caramaena said...

Chocolate fudge pudding sounds delish!

Linda G. said...

That's a laugh out loud story meggie! GOM had such presence of mind to pull that off!
The chocolate roll cake looks just the thing for my daughter's birthday..I'm going to give it a try.

Mrs. Goodneedle said...

I'm so hungry now after reading this, must try the souffle roll... pronto! Great story of your reunion with old friends... very funny! I am always embarrassed when someone I haven't seen for ages comes up to me and says "you don't know who I am, do you"? I'm always left thinking and praying inwardly: "why don't you just tell me?"! arrgghh

Thimbleanna said...

Oooh, that cake roll looks yummy! I may be having a senior moment here, but I don't think I've ever bought corn flour -- or even looked for it. I have lots of cornmeal, but not flour -- I'm assuming they're different. And there's that GOM again, teasing poor unsuspecting Mike! ;-)

Anonymous said...

chocolate cake of any kind makes lots of friends in my house too!

Lee said...

A week of rain!

Oh, for even a day of rain!