Hobbits and more

Dwarf from Lord of the Rings

I am travelling with a hobbit obsessed travel partner so we are going from one hobbity thing to another.

The WETA workshop has tours every half hour and they are very well attended. The level of interest in the art of film making seems to be high for every generation. The tour we joined was mainly over-60 year olds from Australia.

Retro comfort

The Cambridge Hotel is an upmarket backpackers/hotel in Wellington with a nice vibe, lots of wood and a lift like those you see in 1930s films, with an manually closing cage and outer door.

There are delicious aromas wafting out of the one man kitchen. Might eat in tomorrow.

Sign: enter at your own risk ...just possibly.

My little garden friend

It is autumn and the spiders are building huge webs to try to catch their local human. They are succeeding.

Plum cake

It is the time of plums, those little freestone sugar-plums, with their purple, white sheened skin and yellow flesh. They are perfect for plum cake (the German Pflaumenkuchen) and this year I made the recipe with cake mixture base instead of the yeast base. It rose and rose ... next time I try it I will half the recipe for the same amount of fruit.

The secret is to put as many plums on as you can.

Plfaumenkuchen (cooked).

A couple of years ago I painted the plums, but this year I couldn't wait to eat the cake.

Sugar plums and flowers