One of those days!

Today's been one of those days where half way through you look for the hidden camera because you are convinced all the little disasters happening are being filmed for a Game for a Laugh showing my age type programme!

D was up and away early to play golf at Kilspindie.  I was up early as I wanted to make Empire Biscuits and scones for tomorrow's afternoon tea, before lunch then finish my practice sheep painting so I can get started on the real thing on Friday.

Started off well. Got the scones made and into the fridge to rest overnight and be put in the oven tomorrow late morning.   There was a little bit of scone dough left so I made a small scone out of it and stuck it in the Aga oven (since it's on anyway) and thought I would enjoy it with a cuppa after lunch.  Plus it would also reassure me the rest of the batch would turn out well.

Moved on to making the Empire Biscuits.  All going well till I opened the new pack of icing sugar.  Why so they make the bag containing such things so difficult to open.  Of course I should have used scissors but it's much more fun to pull the opening apart and have a massive cloud of icing sugar escape and render the kitchen table a winter wonderland!

Sorted that and carried on.  Decided to use a smaller cookie cutter to make dainty little Empire Biscuits.  Thought that would be better as there are other sweet things to have.  Split the dough into two bundles and got 24 biscuits (will double up to make 12 EBs) so that's more than enough for tomorrow.  I will make biscuits from the rest of the dough on Friday and freeze them to have a little stash ready to make into EBs when needed.

Put the EBs into the fridge to be baked later (refrigeration helps them keep their shape) and made lunch.  French toast.  Put the egg on the work top while I got the bread then turned to get a fork and my elbow caught the egg and next thing it was smashing on the floor!  What a mess!  Thankfully Lola heard the commotion and ran to the rescue, hoovering up the egg and shell till no trace was left - yes I did still wash the floor but at least it wasn't as messy as it might have been :D

Lunch eaten and dishwasher loaded, time for a cuppa and my little scone.  Strange texture I thought as I cut into it, and it hasn't risen as much as it usually does.  Odd.  Spread some butter and took my first bite.  Tasted ok but texture was very dense, then the penny dropped.  I'd used plain flour instead of self-raising!  Damn!  

The EB's are made with plain flour and I'd planned to make them first but made the scones first instead and forgot to look out the SR flour.  Ten perfectly formed scones were removed from the fridge and dumped in the food waste bin.  Sigh.  Need to start again. Got the SR flour from the cupboard to discover it had gone out of date at the end of November.  Double damn!  Text to D to ask him to pick up SR flour on his way home.

Eventually got to the studio to continue working on my practice sheep.  Took my water container to the kitchen to get clean water and as I tipped the old water out, the container slipped and the water landed down my front.  Fortunately I was wearing a painting apron, which caught the worst of it but a puddle did form on the floor so had to mop that up.

Back to my painting and thankfully got it finished without further incident!  I've put my process shots in extras.  Ele's painting will have three sheep and this one is an amalgamation of a couple of them but it's let me experiment with colours and composition so I will approach her painting with a better idea of what works and what doesn't.

D arrived back from golf with my SR flour so made a second batch of scones and got them into the fridge to bake tomorrow.  Again there was a little bit of scone mix left over so stuck it in the Aga to test the batch.  We shared it after dinner and I am relieved to report that it was rather good so I am happy tomorrow's batch will be up to scratch.

Got the Empire Biscuits baked, cooled and into a biscuit tin.  Will get them jammed and iced tomorrow morning.

Episode 4 of The Traitors (brilliant!) then episode one of Jules and Greg's Wild Swim.  Online Tesco order took ages to complete as I was so engrossed in both programmes.

All done now and time for bed.  Hoping all the mishaps are done now and tomorrow goes smoothly!