Colds and Coal Fires

Well, I finally succumbed to the nasty cold doing the rounds. I spent most of the past fortnight amazed at how resiliant I was, and of course I must now be bed ridden for my sins. Yesterday was a write-off, today I snuffled around and scanned in 2 of the little paintings I made for the shop - Progress! They are both silhouettes, inspired by the christmas cards. Silhouettes are such a simple concept but you can convey a ton of character in them.





I have also just bought a lovely silhouette from penandpaper - Her work is so incredibly lovely.

Also, this week my beautiful printer broke down, I spent a fruitless evening trying to revive it but it refused. This is why there aren't many prints in the shop - i'm only offering things I already have or dolls/theatres which I can do on my old (but still good) printer. Fortunately I am within the warranty period so an engineer is coming around to fix it this week - hopefully it should be up and running in no time!

So, with my cold I sat infront of our coal fire and stoked it and read about BlueBeard and now i'm watching Return of the Jedi and having a Hot Toddy - it's a traditional scots cure for the cold. I for one would vouch for it over a Lemsip Max. Here's a nice recipe for it:

Ingredients

A wee dram of whisky (Ahem, this is discretional)
1 teaspoon honey
Boiled water
1 slice fresh lemon/lemon squash
1 pinch ground nutmeg (optional)
1 cinnamon stick (optional)
1 clove (optional and needs to be removed along with the cinnamon stick before drinking the hot toddy)

Cooking Directions

1. Put the honey into a mug and disolve in a wee bit of boiled water.
2. Add the whisky depending on your taste. 1 -2 tablespoons is recommended.
3. Top up with more boiled water. Add the cinnamon stick and cloves if used. Leave to stand for about 5 minutes. Remove the cinnamon stick and any cloves used.
4. Add the fresh lemon/lemon squash, stir well, then sprinkle with a pinch of ground nutmeg if used then serve.