The recipe for Far Breton

Many of you who attended the brunch last Sunday expressed an interested in my Mum's Far Breton recipe.  Well here it is...other cake recipes to follow...

Far Breton (Prune Flan)

• 1 packet pitted prunes (soaked in tea for about an hour – I just put the prunes in a basin with a tea bag and pour on boiling water, stir and leave)
• 3 ½ ozs/100 gr plain flour
• Large pinch salt
• 3 ozs/90gr castor sugar
• 4 eggs
• ½ litre milk (I use blue)

 After the prunes have soaked, drain them.

 Put oven on to 350◦F/175◦C or Fan 320◦F/160◦C

 Mix flour, salt and sugar in a bowl.   Add eggs 1 at a time and whisk (just keep adding them until you incorporate all the flour).  Add the milk in 3 or 4 slugs.

 Lightly butter a baking dish (I use a metal one) and then lightly oil on top of the butter.

 Pour the batter into the baking tray and drop the prunes into the batter so that they are evenly distributed.

Bake for about an hour, or until you can see that there is no uncooked mixture in the middle.

Leave to cool and then keep in fridge until needed.   Will keep for 3 days.

Enjoy!

 

What an incredible weekend x

What a truly incredible few days.  This weather has just been amazing and helped to make such special memories.

My best friend, Lou, flew down to Guernsey from Edinburgh on Saturday afternoon to finally meet Elijah and to join the yoga "class on the grass", which I was teaching in honour of her son Rudy, who was stillborn at full term 6 years ago now (as well as all the other angel babies especially those of friends known to me).

It is funny because I may not have seen Lou for 18 months now, but it is like I only saw her yesterday.  She gave me this lovely bracelet, which came attached to a fabulous quote, which sums this kind of best friend relationship up perfectly - "good friends are like stars...you don't always see them, but you know they are always there".  So true!

We just had such a wonderful weekend together, it was just so easy going, cups of tea in the garden to enjoy the sunshine on Saturday afternoon before a lovely crab salad for dinner - what a perfect way to spend the Solstice!.  With the class on the grass on Sunday morning we were very aware that Saturday night was not going to be late and we kept to our word and were in bed at a reasonable hour, my gosh wasn't it light!

Sunday dawned as beautiful as Saturday ended, we have been blessed the last few years with fabulous sunny days for the "class on the grass".  This year I was overwhelmed with the support, as an unbelievable 90 people attended of all ages and abilities (for some this was their first yoga class, what a way to start!), wow, how incredible to bring together so many people like this with the intention of raising money through their yoga practice and in the garden too.  You can only imagine the energy - you really  needed to be there to feel it.  I am still buzzing now.

I just love teaching in that natural environment and with so many familiar faces, my friends really, and  I also really love that we have a yoga community here on Guernsey and within Beinspired. Very humbled by the commitment.  Thank you to all you special people who came along and shared your energy for such a good cause.

In the end we raised an incredible £1,010 for SANDS (Stillbirth and Neonatal Death Society) - Guernsey Branch.  I am just delighted, it means so very much to me and to Lou and I am sure to the other lovely ladies who attended in honour of their own angel babies.  There was no doubt that we had many angels fluttering around us as we practiced in the garden.

After class, we enjoyed a marvellous brunch, organised as amazingly as ever by my Mum and Dad.  Mum and I had baked cakes on Saturday morning although her efforts were far greater than my own and she very kindly did all the shopping for me, it is no mean feat catering for this number of people for brunch, but something my Mum, in particular, enjoys doing.  So a huge thank you to Mum and to Dad, and also to Maria for making some delicious cakes (recipes to follow) and to Karo for all her help in the kitchen, very kind, thank you.

Feeling a little warm after the morning's activities Lou, Ewan, Elijah and I enjoyed a swim in the outdoor pool at the Grande Mare, what a lovely place this is, before lunch in the garden with Ewan's mum.  After washing all the yoga mats in the garden and hanging them on the washing line to dry, Lou and I headed down to Moulin Huet and enjoyed a swim in the sea at high tide - what a stunning beach at high tide, I don't know that I have ever in my whole life swam here at high tide, amazing.

It all caught up with me Sunday night so it was another relatively early night - how times change, years ago, pre-babies, Lou and I would have stayed up half the night chatting.  Still we did chat most of the time we were awake and headed off to Herm today.  Just glorious and what a treat to visit when it isn't full of a zillion other people. 

We took Elijah with us and walked around to Shell beach for a cup of tea and another swim in the sea, divine.  Life does change with a baby though, quick swims and constant concern about burning skin!  Herm is lethal but I think we managed to avoid any sunburn.  We had lunch at the Ship Inn sitting in the shade, before an obligatory visit to the shop, a final moment on the beach  and then back home to Guernsey in time to take Lou to the airport and on to teach.

I am just loving this weather and life in Guernsey in the sunshine, if only it would stay like this all summer...well let's just see, fingers crossed and lots of positivity.

Thank you to anyone reading this who attended the yoga "class on the grass", it was a magical morning for me.

Much love and gratitude.

xxx

Ibiza, the spiritual Isle

We have just returned from an amazing trip to Ibiza.  Wow, what an Island.  Funny as I never in a million years thought it was the kind of place that I would enjoy visiting as it has always conjured up images of twenty four seven partying - and that does happen on Ibiza, it is renowned for its clubbing scene after all - but it so much more than that.

We were blessed on this trip though really, with a fabulous apartment in a quiet area of the West coast overlooking the sea on one side and the hills on the other. We just loved it, I couldn't get enough of the views, waking up with the sea glistening at me through the window, just incredible.

The Island has a wonderfully chilled ambiance, with warm hearted locals who just couldn't do enough for us and simply adored Elijah, that little boy was very much fussed over, the ladies just couldn't help squeezing his chubby cheeks and stroking his legs - honestly if the world was full of ladies like this, then the world would be a much happier place!

Each day we ate the tastiest cherries and strawberries and the freshest of salads, enjoying the views from the balcony and introducing Elijah to his much loved sunflower seed Pipas (bread sticks) which he ate all by himself, this baby led weaning malarkey really taking off during the week. 

We relished the pool at the apartments, Ewan has been attending swimming lessons with Elijah so they practiced their kicky-kick-kick, while I made the most of the opportunity to indulge in two of my favoured past times - swimming and lying in the sun reading!  Well there are others of course, swimming in the sea, and we managed that every day too, always on a different beach.  Typically we found the most amazing beach we have come across for some time, a tip off from a local, the day before we were due to leave...always the way!!

I indulged in yoga too, but my gosh what a mission this was.  Still, as is always the case, attending drop-in yoga classes at different places around the world, always takes you off the beaten trail, which is one of the reasons Ewan is always so supportive of me getting to classes when we are away.  This was certainly no different in Ibiza just that we were beaten twice - we just could not find the yoga centres on the first try and I guess there is a reason for that!!

We did find the Pink Elephant - La Galerie Elefant - which was a lovely little studio in a quieter area of the Island and I enjoyed a class with Camille who was on a teacher training course and covering the class for the teacher trainer herself, Jacqueline, who I had hoped to meet as she is Jivamukti trained. Still I do believe we are led where we need to be and Camille is lovely and I enjoyed two classes with her.

On our last day we finally found The Garden of Joy, where Jacqueline is based and this was certainly inspiring, set in a truly beautiful area of the Island, with the beautiful local based beaches nearby and a lovely little town area down the road with a fabulous café where Ewan and Elijah chilled out while waiting for me after their walk up the hill!  How I long to immerse my soul once again in the yoga world like this, at one with nature and that wonderful yoga ambiance as I have done so many times before.  The energy is just so different back at home in Guernsey! 

There is no doubt that Ibiza is healing, regardless of what you are doing there, it just has that energy. It was really hot in the sun, upper twenties, early thirties but this helps to slow things down a little, and then with all that beautiful sunshine and the salty quality of the sea (I mean saltier than I am used to swimming in), let alone the pine trees and the 3rd most powerful magnetic rock in the world (we swam just in front of this), well it all helps to create some magic.  The trip was magic.  Life felt magic.  Faith restored.  Clarity experienced.  My heart felt alive again.  I hadn't realised how much my soul was yearning for this time.

And what a joy, such a joy, to spend time with Ewan and Elijah like this, to do our thing, to laugh, joke, have fun together, to dream, to dance, to watch sunset from Café del Mar, to drink wine and enjoy dinner, to play, to go with the flow and just be...to remind ourselves how life should be...love, love, love.

Thank you to everyone, all those lovely and wonderful Spanish people for sharing the love with us this last week.  And thank you to the angels for making our trip to special and at just the right time x

With love and gratitude.

xx

Thank you x

Phew, there is absolutely no letting up at the moment!  Those solar and lunar eclipses are certainly all playing their role in helping us to wake up and take note, appreciate the inter connected nature of this world and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.

No more sitting back and thinking it is not our problem.  We are all part of the problem. Not that there is a problem necessarily, just that we can all make such a difference, if only we could be aware of it.

We raised £406.05 for the Safe Haven Cambodian charity in honour of that poor little Malaysian baby girl so cruelly abused by her mother and the video posted on facebook.  Why on earth that video is there is quite beyond me as the women has been charged and the baby is now in care, so it circulating the ether is doing no one any favours - although you could argue that if I had not have seen it, I would not have raised some money for the Safe Haven charity.  But still, on the whole I suspect it is simply creating more anger in this world.

I am quite sure people think me quite mad when I harp on about things like that, but honestly, our every action  has an impact, we are all so connected - think of a net connected by beads, well we are those beads and the way we act affects the thread connected to all those other beads, which therefore affects all those other beads.

There is this beautiful poem that I love to share:

Heartprints - author unknown

Whatever our hands touch,
We leave fingerprints,
On walls, on furniture,
On doorknobs, dishes, books.
There's no escape.
As we touch we leave our identity.

Wherever I go today
Help me leave heartprints.
Heartprints of compassion,
Of understanding and love.

Heartprints of kindness
And genuine concern.
May my heart touch a lonely neighbour,
Or a runaway daughter,
Or an anxious mother,
Or perhaps an aged grandfather.

Send me out today
To leave heartprints.
And if someone should say,
"I felt your touch",
May they also sense the love
That is deep within my heart".

We are off on holiday to Ibiza on Saturday, a much needed break to practice some yoga, swim in the sea, enjoy the sunshine, and be together as a family.

Share the love.

With much gratitude

xxxx