Hoorah, success with the sourdough. We couldn't wait until teatime to try the bread so it made an appearance at lunch. The crumb was perfect; a little chewy, but light and tasty. Phee-ew!

 I'm just making a teatime cakey treat and just to prove that not all my culinary attempts are successful, I had a bit of a disaster.  I opted for 'Coconut, berry and walnut breakfast bars' a recipe found on 'don't feed after midnight' blog. I think the recipe is based on a Nigella recipe. Anyway, it has lots of oats, coconut, nuts, berry's and seeds and sounds so very healthy. It also has a less wholesome inclusion of a tin of condensed milk which has to be warmed gently in a saucepan until it is runny. The recipe says to be careful that the condensed milk doesn't burn. Well, guess what, I burned it. Bah. A multi-tasking failure for womankind. Fortunately, we have a Co-op shop in the parade of shops where we live and they came up trumps with emergency condensed milk. It's a bit like having a giant store cupboard next door. I'll report on the success (or otherwise) of the breakfast bars soon.

Meanwhile, I'll share a few of our holiday photo's. As reported on the  barn conversion blog we had a research holiday in a holiday cottage that was a converted Victorian stable near Beverley in Yorkshire. We had one damp day in Beverley with no photogenic opportunities in the rain and a day with beautiful sunshine which we spent at the seaside. More specifically, we visited Spurn Point, which is an unusually long spit of sand just above the Humber estuary. It is formed naturally by the sea pushing sand and debris down the coast and is a national nature reserve run by the Yorkshire wildlife trust. There are cottages and a lighthouse at the end which are serviced by a road, or at the moment only part of a road as bad storms and a high tidal surge in December 2013 washed part of the road away and is now only accessible by foot or land rover.

Our last morning was spent in Beverley, thankfully in sunshine this time. Unlike our first visit where we couldn't view the minster due to a wedding, this time it was open for business and very interesting too. 

And finally,  the coconut, berry and walnut breakfast bars were a complete success, despite their inauspicious start. Hoorah.