summer holidays Archives - Zeens and Roger

This year our summer holiday was in Cardigan Bay, west Wales. What an awesome place! I’m not sure why you’d want to read about my holiday on a craft blog but I’m sharing it anyway! Ha.Ha. :I

It was over cast at first but not cold. It didn’t stop us from beaching it. The first day we went to Penbryn, a National Trust beach. Three things made this a particulary interesting place to be that day. One: I learned that it was used in a James Bond movie ( a teeny weeny, miniscule moment at the end of Die Another Day). Two: There was a wedding happening right there on the beach (we stood there gawping with our buckets and spades). And three: I thought I found a dead body. I felt a bit stupid when I realised it was a faded buoy and not a pensioners bald head wedged in the rocks, but you know, it was a few seconds of heart pounding interesting.

I love a good cave. There were a lot of caves.

This is a hippo, or possibly a moomin.

This was our coastal walk from Penbryn to Llangrannog. We didn’t actually make it as far as Llangrannog. We had to give up because it was too hard going for the kids. Lots of uppy downy.

On a really hot day we went to New Quay. The tide was out so we had a paddle between the boats.

This was where we waited for a boat to come and take us on a dolphin watching tour. The tour was fifty minutes of wondering where they were and then five minutes of “Oh wow! Look! A dolphin!” Then we had to go back to the quay. To be fair, it was a pretty blimmin good five minutes of dolphin watching. I’d never seen one before and we got to watch a mummy and baby dolphin do some peaceful swimming.

We ditched the kids one day and went to the National Wool Museum. The kids were sent with Grandma and Grandad to the Internal Fire Museum of Power! Sounds like a pretty good place too but I was happy with some wool.

There were working looms, which were very loud and fast. It was mesmerising to watch but I didn’t like the man putting his hands so close to the shuttle thingies. He knew what he was doing.

We did Newcastle Emlynn that day too. It had good shops and some castle leftovers.

We went to Aberystwyth, which we thought was an odd place. I can imagine that it would’ve been a bit of a party town a hundred years ago but now, a lick of paint wouldn’t go amiss on some of those buildings. I did like it though! There’s definitely a sense of nostalgia here.

We went on the cliff terrace railway. We journeyed upon a worrisome train that was working loose at the seams. The hill is so steep that you wonder how this thing can pass health and safety tests. Well, we didn’t crash to our deaths that day so, all was good.

The views were alright.

Lots of cool architecture in Aberystwyth. Having been here, it makes me want to watch Hinterlands, a crime drama filmed in the area. I hear it’s pretty good.

We had a couple of days of barbeque weather too. Yay!

Our holiday was concluded with ice creams at Llangrannog. I loved this beach. The tide was out and I could walk round to the next bay.

Whilst I wondered about taking pictures of rocks and stuff, the boys and Husband dug holes in the sand.

I didn’t want to miss out on playing with sand either. This is my effort. It was initially just a motte and bailey castle (Eldest learned about these at school last year) but a giant octopus came and smothered it.

Llangrannog was possibly my favourite. We did lots of other stuff too but I think I’ve shared quite enough holiday snaps for today! I’m off to get my craft on. I’ve got a massive list of stuff to make now that the boys are at school.

I remember making and eating these when I was little. They’re coconut rock cakes and this is a really easy recipe. The kids and I made these last week. They were made and ready to eat within half an hour! Not too bad. So, if you’re having one of those days, when you can’t be bothered to go out and the kids need something to do, then this is your summer holiday treat!

The bad news for me was that I discovered my scales were broken when I went to make them, so I had to guess the measurements. I then had a think and roughly worked out that things could be rounded to the nearest cup sizes. Surprisingly, they worked well! I’m looking at this as a positive, it means that you don’t have to be exact, which is great when baking with children.

Ingredients:

1 cup/120g self raising flour

Half a cup/100g caster sugar

115g salted butter cut into cubes. (I cut a normal 250g pack at just under the half way point).

1 cup dessicated coconut. If you don’t like coconut you can also use raisins (it’d be the weight equivalent rather the cup equivalent though and that’d be just over 100grams.

1 large egg

100-150ml milk. Take it easy and see how it goes. I just sploshed it in and didn’t measure exactly.

Method:

Using fingers and thumbs, rub the flour and butter together in a good sized bowl. This is easy and doesn’t take as long as you think it will. You can cheat and whazz it in a food processor but that just makes for more washing up.

Stir in the sugar and coconut.

Add the egg and milk and mix into a stiff dough. It’s a bit like making ugly scones, so that’s the sort of consistency you’re after. I might have added too much milk to mine, which is why they’re a bit flat. I don’t think it matters that much as they still taste pretty yum.

Plop some dollops on to two lined baking trays (we used two dessert spoons to help) and bake in the oven for about 15 minutes. I’ve got a gas oven, so it’s Gas Mark 6. Google tells me that that’s 180 degrees C for fan, 200 degrees C for not fan! Or 400 F.

Be warned, maybe you’d like to call them Coconut Rock Buns instead of cakes. I gave these to a friend’s offspring and they looked at them and delcared that they weren’t cakes at all and didn’t want them. As soon as I changed the name, they ate them all…

Tag: summer holidays

Summer Holiday in Cardigan Bay.

Quick Summer Holiday Baking – Coconut Rock Buns.