Mountain & the Sea

I have just returned from my trip home. I'm now back in the big smoke - Wellington, capital of New Zealand! The first two are two favourite things from my trip home in Spring - cherry blossom and making daisy chains. Oh how I will miss it. I won't be back in my home town until next year (depending on when my exams are).

Luckily my parents wanted to stop into a mall on the way to the airport, so I stepped into a clothing store, and found this cute blouse! With $20 off! It has been at the back of my mind to buy a sheer blouse like this, and it was meant to be. From Jeanswest.

Back into the swing of things tomorrow, having to look after myself again. I have to do some washing and drying, and visit my friend Jaime as it was her birthday on Friday. I've missed her! She's my rock up here.

ps. has anyone else got that I'm obsessing over Ingrid Michaelson's new album, Everybody?

Are we there yet

I just bought this jumpsuit from Sella for $40. Isn't it cute?

I bought some new earbuds for my ipod as the ipod ones seem to like to break and become uncomfortable. It's great having dad around, he'll go on about spending money, but when I'm all fine about buying something, he'll go all soft and say he'll pay for half. This also happened with the teeshirt from Just Jeans (previous post, I got it in white). He's really just a big softy.

I did bake him the lemon curd cake however. So I guess he likes being baked for, and I've been cooking them dinner.

There is a film on at the local cinema (it's very old, and rustic - couches down the front and uncomfortable chairs in the back) that is made by people in my town, with whom I've acted with. I want to go.

Lemony Twist

So, confession. This isn't actually taken on a polaroid camera. it's taken on my DSLR but converted polaroid style by a program called Poladroid. It's such a wonderful little program. It even spits out the pics like an actual polaroid and plasters them on your desktop.

So I'm home, in the town I grew up in, for a couple of weeks. It's the spring uni holidays, and it really is feeling like spring. It's sunny and warm, and the cats are rolling around in the sun. Ah, home.

My father has requested that I bake him a cake - my world famous in my flat lemon curd cake, to be precise. The recipe I found on this wonderful website, but have modified it slightly... ie, I add the juice of the lemon that has been de-zested, and only put in 100g of lemon curd (from New Zealand's trusted Barkers brand, which is made in my home town, where I am now). This lemon curd is stirred into the mixture, as I found that when it was spooned over top, it just sunk to the bottom of the cake leaving a gooey mess. I don't like mess.

170g butter (grated into the sugar makes it easier to cream)
1½ cups sugar
4 large eggs
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
1½ cups flour
1½ tsp baking powder
¾ tsp salt
100g lemon curd

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy, then add each egg one at a time, beating between additions. Add the zest and juice of the lemon. Sift the flour, baking powder and salt into the mixture and fold the mixture together. Add the lemon curd and mix.

Pop into a cake tin (I use those floppy silicone ones, they're just so easy to wash, and you only need to spray with cooking spray and they pop out so easily!), and into the oven at 180ºC for about 1 hour or until a knife comes away clean.

Voila!