Thieves!

Right! You must be warned: there are thieves operating everywhere, and these days they seem to really be picking up the pace at which they steal.

Incident numero uno:

On Monday 15th of February, I was in Waterstone's in Cardiff looking at the books. A guy came into the store and started speaking quite loudly in a foreign language. He was pointing at books, and picking books up and asking me about them in his gibberish language. I felt something brush very lightly against my leg and then he continued with his gibberish and then left the store. Little did I know that he was a pickpocket and was just that moment making off with my phone.

You think it's not going to happen to you, or you think you'd be able to spot it when it does happen, but then it does happen, and you're left without a phone. How very miffed I was. The first thing I did was toddle off to the Orange shop and buy the cheapest phone they had so that I could tell people not to reply to any messages from my old number. I also cancelled my old sim card, just for good measure.

The art of the pickpocket is a tricky one, but should you encounter someone who has mastered it, you won't even notice that your stuff is gone until they are gone. Be careful.

Incident numero dos:

On Friday 19th February (i.e., the day just gone), my mother was shopping in Caerphilly. She had parked her car at the top of town near the train station as she had intended to go to Cardiff. She was walking to her car, when a man ran past my mother and grabbed hold of her bag as he did so. Unfortunately for him, my mother grips the strap of her bag when she wears it on her shoulder, so she had him looped. She yanked him back, and knocked him to the ground. My mother stood on the man, holding him to the ground.

At this point, I am told, a man came running out of his house shouting, "I've called the police, I've called the police!" He thought that my mother was hitting the man for no reason. She replied, "He just tried to rob me! I'm not going anywhere until the police arrive, and you'd better keep your nose out or you'll be on the floor with him!"

Luckily for my mother, there were three witnesses (two people from the dentist nearby and a bus driver), and the entire incident was recorded on CCTV. The police arrested the man, and I am told that he wouldn't tell the police who he was, where he lived, etc. and that he was known to the police. My mother and the witnesses gave statements and she was allowed to leave.

Of all places for thieves to operate, I wouldn't think of Caerphilly town. Robbery like this is the sort of thing you would hear about on the news or see in TV shows, but lately it all seems to be getting a little closer to home. Be careful.

So there you have it; two robberies on members of my family (me being one of them) in the space of five days. I cannot stress this enough: BE CAREFUL.

I'm sorry if I sound a bit preachy, but I don't want anyone else to be robbed. That is all.

Until next time,

Good day.

OMG

By golly! Having given up on the traditional British pancake yesterday, I decided to go scouring the web for a new recipe - and discovered this, the recipe for the most delicious pancakes I have ever tried. And the best thing? You can store all the dry ingredients in a jar, already mixed up, so that you have your own pancake mix! I thought it was genius. I had some for breakfast this morning and they were YOM.

For the dry mix:

600g of plain flour

3 x 15ml tablespoons of baking powder

2 teaspoons of bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon of salt

40g of caster sugar

Just mix it all up and put it in a jar or whatever. It's well good! I had trouble getting it into the jar, so I made a cone out of some greaseproof paper I found and put it in that way. If the jar's big enough, you can just mix it when it's in the jar, so you don't even have to get a mixing bowl dirty. The mix will make 4 loads of pancake batter.

For the batter:

150g of the above pancake mix (it works out roughly to about 4 and a half heaped tablespoonfuls)

250ml of semi-skimmed or full-fat milk (I use a little less because the batter goes too runny otherwise - I think it depends on the quality of your flour)

1 egg

1 x 15ml tablespoon of melted butter (I put more in than it says.. just get a blob, stick it in a dish and shove it in the microwave for 20-30 seconds to melt it — much easier than using a pan)

Just mix the egg and milk in with the dry ingredients, and add the butter just before you cook the pancakes. Make sure you whisk it, and whisk it good!

For the cookin's:

Heat a pan. You don't really need oil per se because there's butter in the mix, but I do add a teensy bit of oil just in case. Our frying pan's a dick though, so I don't really have a choice.

The recipe says to spoon drops of 1.5 - 2 tablespoons of batter into the pan, but it works just as well if you use about half a ladleful. When bubbles start appearing on the surface of the pancake, flip it over to cook the other side. It should take about 30seconds to a minute, depending on how hot your pan is.

And repeat! They're lush with golden syrup, but you could have them with whatever you want to put with them - I think they'd be lovely with a dollop of ice-cream and some strawberries!

The batter mix makes about 8-10 pancakes depending on the size of them.

Right-ho, I think I should apologise for this random blog post. I don't usually post recipes, but these pancakes were so good I just couldn't resist sharing the recipe with you. Normal blogging to be resumed immediately.

Sadness and Pancakes

My dear readers, I have somewhat of a confession to make. I give off the impression that I am always happy, be it at school or otherwise, but lately things have gone rather rapidly downhill, plunging me into a heavy sadness that lingers above me like the rainclouds above my home.

So what, you may ask, has caused such a sudden sadness? I must be honest with you: it is pancakes. A craving for them had come over me, and I simply couldn't resist. I mixed the batter as per instructions, but no matter how hard I tried or how well I oiled the pan, they always either a) got stuck or b) ended up as a wad of undercooked sludge. I have a sneaking suspicion that it was too much milk that caused the problem with my pancakes; either that, or the pan was too hot.

I thought I could cook pancakes. I made some yesterday and they were rather lovely, if I may say so. They didn't last long with Mother around, anyway. But alas, tonight my pancake skills failed me, and as I write this I am devouring a small bag of Cadbury's chocolate buttons, trying desperately to fill the hole left by the sad excuse of a pancake that was the fruit of my effort.

I thank you all for your support during this difficult time.

Good day.

Spring my form, biotch!

Err... excuse the rather ghetto-sounding title, I don't know what came over me (that's what she said! (sorry)).

Anyway, I've been flying around some people's Formsprings lately and it's really quite fun asking anonymous questions. I've been springin' forms since the early version of Formspring, where you had to set up the form yourself and it wasn't formspring.me.

As a result, I decided that I'd finally jump on the proverbial bandwagon and open the floodgates to Formspring. As the website's slogan says, ask me anything. :-)

Click here to do so.

I haven't got much to blog about lately because I lead a boring life, so this is about as exciting as it's going to get for a while.

Cheerio!