Easter Egg Brownies

Seeing as it was Easter weekend last weekend we had quite a lot of Easter eggs lying around...including all over the garden!
So naturally we had an Easter egg hunt!

We spent an hour or so hunting for eggs around the garden with the help of Pluto and Boot.

 I won!

So after we had counted the egg hunt we went off on a walk to burn off all that chocolate! We went up Carrock Fell and along to High Pike which took about 2 hours walking in the snow.

After warming ourselves up with a cup of tea back at home Rosie and I decided to make Easter egg brownies using Nigella Lawson's brownie recipe;

Easter Egg Brownies

150g unsalted butter

300g light brown muscovado sugar

75g cocoa powder

150g plain flour

1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

pinch of salt

4 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

150g small easter eggs

a handful of sugar coated easter eggs

• Preheat the oven to 190'C and melt the butter in a saucepan on a low heat
• Add the sugar to the melted butter and stir
  
• Sift the flour, cocoa powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt together and add to the melted butter and sugar mixture. Remove the pan from the heat.
  
• Whisk the eggs in a bowl with the vanilla extract and mix thoroughly with the dry mixture.
• Quickly add the chocolate eggs to the mixture
  
  
  
  
  
  

Pour the mixture into a foil lined and greased tray

• Press the sugar coated eggs into this mixture

• Place in the oven for 20-25 minutes until the top is cracked but you can still feel the gooey mixture underneath.

• Allow to cool and cut into squares to enjoy!
  

North-western Scotland days 4-6

Day 4 was beach day. There is a fantastic beach called Guinard bay, about 1 hours drive from Ullapool. The sun was shining when we got there, so we got the fire going for the BBQ, and walked up the headland to find some cliffs to jump off. This year we discovered some new cliffs which were great, lots of different heights  into clean deep water. The sea was warmer than it had been in previous years which meant that we could stay in the sea for longer which was so much fun. After a BBQ lunch we played rounder and had beach olympics, consisting of 50m sprint, relay, shotput, long jump and wheel barrow race. It was the beast day at that beach we have had, and there have been a lot. The weather definitly helped and the company was fantastic.

The weather on our 5th day promised to be as good as it had been all week so went went for another walk. A small party consisting of myself, my sister and my dad went off to tackle 3 of the Fannichs which are munros and the rest of our party went up Seana Bhraigh, which is another munro that can be walked to from the house. Our walk was great, well the 1st munro was hard work, as we walked stright up the face of it due to the lack of a path, but the 2nd and 3rd munro were on a lovely undulating ridge with great views either sides and a lovely walk down the valley to end it. The scenery, again was amazing, so wild and quiet and everyone we met (bar a wierd party of 3) were lovely.

We got back about half an hour before the others and had a supper of beef stew and sticky toffee pudding, topping off a great day all round.

The last day; We had a lie in, which was very nice and after a lazy breakfast we headed off to Loch Achall and went trout fishing. However the sun was too bright and warm so after catching only 5 trout in a morning, we went to Ullapool for fish and chips and off for a swim by a near-by lighthouse. We then sadly said goodbye to the James' and headed back for a finishing up dinner and last game of pool and table tennis.

then on day 7, we packed up and left the valley for the last time this year :( But we will be back next year for another week of food, walking, beaching, fishing and fun and laughs.

North-western Scotland days 1-3

So, last week we had our family holiday up in Scotland, near Ullapool. To get a scale of how far north it is, it's about 6-7 hours driving north of Carlisle!

So we loaded the landrover up and headed north at about 10 on saturday. We got there at about 5 and met the James family who were staying with us that week who are family friends and Joanna and Freddie Graham-Campbell and Mark Forster. Freddie and Mark are friends of Tobys from school and Joanna is Freddie's mum and a friend of my mum and dads.

The first day was a simple day fishing on Loch Damph and the Clar lochs and teaching the James' how to fish. Everyone caught at least one trout (except me :( ) and we went home to roast chicken.

On the 2nd day we went for a walk up a mountain called Cul Mor, which is about 800m and was a great 4-5 hour walk and fairly easy. We parked opposite Knockan crag (a geological site) and walked up a good path, the path kinda ran out but it was easy to pick a way up to the summit by following the shoulder up, whilst the 'kids' went for the "north face" option and went straight up the steepest face which involved a nice bit of scrambling. Once up on the top we had great views of the surrounding landscape. This area of Scotland is known of Assynt, and the mountains just rise up out of the land like great monsters and it is so impressive. I think a lot of people would be surprised by the landscape up there and how quiet ad beautiful it is. It is awe inspiring. We didn't stay too long at the top as the wind had dropped and the midges had come out! If you have not encountered midges then you are lucky! They are horrible little creatures. Similar to mosquitoes, but much smaller and worse as they swarm around you and bite everything in site. So we made our way onto the next top and down the mountain. On the way down it started raining, but it wasn't long to the car and then it stopped. On the way back down the valley it started raining again, which, surprisingly we were pleased about! It meant that the rivers would rise, stir the fish up and improve our chance of catching them.

Thanks to the rain the previous day, we went fishing up on the Rappach today which is one of the most remote salmon rivers in Scotland. It is either 1.5 hours walk across bogland in wellies to the top of it or and hour in the landrover on a rough track and a 20 minute walk to the bottom of it. We took the walking option. The day started off couldy with little wind (bad for midges) but ended up warm and sunny. It was a lovely days fishing in amazing scenery, we saw fish and had some bites, but non were pulled out of the river unfortunately. We got back to the house at about 7 and so didn't end up eating till about 10 as we were having roast beef, but it was worth it :)