Anipal Photo Hunt #12: All Souls' Day

This week's theme is All Souls' Day which also makes us think of the Mexican day of the dead that we have heard about and saw an exhibition about once in Dallas, Texas. I love the idea of celebrating our dead loved ones anipal or human so this is great.

If you want to join in the anipal photo hunt please click on the button, its fun and you know you want to.

My problem this week is that I do not have a picture of the loved one I am thinking of. She died in the mid 1990's when we did not have any digital pictures and we cannot find any of our photos to scan in because they were lost when we moved. However we remember her well, she was my person's sister, so I guess my aunty in a way. Her name was Lizzie and she had bright red hair and she was a lawyer, she did very well to become a lawyer because, like my person, she did not do well at school and she was a kidney patient, eventually that is why she died so young. She worked hard to become a lawyer and she never really got to practice law but she was such fun and always laughing so we want to remember Elizabeth Martin (Lizzie), we always laugh when we think or talk about her but we do miss her lots.

This picture is not of her but it reminds us of her because she and my person used to go there on Sundays and walk around and eat dinner and have a lot of fun. It is Covent Garden in London and it was one of her favourite places.

Sorry to have talked so long in this blog entry. We miss our Lizzie and we are glad to tell you about her. A couple of weeks ago my person had a lovely afternoon in Covent Garden and it made her happy to have been there again.

Making rock cakes

We are having visitors for the weekend and I know they like rock cakes so I thought we would make some. Rock cakes are a very British cake so for those of you who don't know about them they are nicer than the sound. My friend Zack Rabbit tells me that Harry Potter is very fond of them. This is interesting because the recipe we use calls them Old Harry Rock cakes. We do make some changes to that recipe though. My new young brother Yaya is helping me cook for the first time so I will have to tell him what to do.






The first thing is to get the ingredients ready, you need:

8 oz of self-raising flour
4 oz of butter
4 oz of demerara sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of allspice
4 oz of mixed dried fruit
Grated rind of one lemon
1 large egg
2 tablespoons of milk (more if the mixture is too dry).






Right we have got all those ingredients so we need to weigh them out. I was showing Yaya the scales and the weights he was very interested in them.

Turn the oven on to 190 C, 375 F or gas mark 5.

Rub the butter into the flour until it resembles find breadcrumbs and stir in the spices, sugar, dried fruit, grated lemon rind, egg and milk and then stir the mixture until it resembles crumbly dough, you may need to add a little more milk but make sure you do not make the mixture too wet.

Now for the fun bit that baboons like me with big paws like best, Yaya will find it more difficult because his paws are very small. Gently squeeze and roll the mixture into about 12 small balls and put them on a tray that has been lightly greased with butter or margerine.

Put the buns in the oven.







Now here is tricky. The recipe says to leave them for 20 mins and we did that for years and it worked very well. However, recently we accidently took them out after 15 mins and they were a much nicer texture and more tasty. So really I think you might need to experiment with cooking times as all ovens are different. See what suits you and your oven.

When you take them out of the oven let them rest on the tray for 5 mins you have been doing all the work but the buns need a rest. Work that out for yourselves I can't figure it out it myself.





After 5 mins put them on a cooling rack, we put a tea towel on to stop them sticking to the rack or getting squres all over their bottoms!

I had to explain to Yaya that they are still very hot and not yet ready for eating.






Finally, make yourself a nice cup of tea or coffee, put your feet up and eat a warm rock cake. You deserve it. Well I say finally, at some point there is a lot of washing up to do, I explained to Yaya that the washing is the job of the under chef. He thought I meant him, obviously I meant our person.

Football pals

Most people who know me know that I support Arsenal and that I live in a household of crazy Arsenal supporing friends. This is fun of course but recently I have had even more fun supporting Arsenal because some of my Twitter friends @marshallsheldon, @OllyTed, @Tweetypie54 @ShanyaCat, to name but a few (there are too many to list them all), have started supporting Arsenal as well and watching the games and some of our friends who support other teams such as @Schnille (Cologne/Koln), @MonkeysBrother (Burnley) @marleyterrier (the real Manchester team) and @WallasEKatt (Liverpool) are joining in the fun.

Of course we all enjoyed the world cup together supporting our own national teams, and now it is wonderful to carry that on with Arsenal and a few other teams.

It is wonderful to see Olly in his Arsenal kit and MarshallSheldon with an Arsenal shield on his Twitter avatar and what could be better than the fact that @Tweetypie54 is called Gunner he is named to support Arsenal isn't he. Olly turns up for games with cakes and banana chips how wonderful. @Leroy_Sealion and I are just so happy that you have all adopted our team, already this season we have celebrated large victories, commiserated over losses and kicked the furniture when we have drawn and you have all stuck with it. It is wonderful after the game to go on Twitter and talk about the game with friends who have all learned so much about the Gunners in such a short time and have such passion.

I am so glad you like the team that means so much to me and thank you to all of you for adding to the fun of supporting Arsenal. I haven't been to the stadium yet this season but I feel as though I have because of having friends to chat with during and after the games.

Most of all GOOOOOO GUNNERS! Let's win something and make all your fans even prouder and happier than they already are and give us an excuse for a red and white pizza party!

Anipal Photo Hunt #11: Trick or Treat

The subject of this week's photo hunt is Trick or Treat. Oh dear this is not really the image of myself that I want to portray. Last year my person made me up to be a pumpkin patch and here I am pumpkins and all. My friend Batty thought that it was a good opportunity to get in the on the trick or treat act so here we are. Oh dear I'll never be able to show my face again!

Come on y'all join in the photo hunt you know you want to its fun and the more people who do it the better.



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Anipal Photo Hunt #10: How annoying

Well I'm not a baboon who gets annoyed easily but something annoying did happen to me recently. My new brother appeared in the house. Look at him he is there all the time, he is another male baboon in the house, he even dresses like me how annoying!!

Well it was annoying to start with but actually I really like him now he is good fun and younger brothers have their uses (see last week's entry for an example). So things may be annoying but they often work out OK in the end.

So friends meet my brother he is quite good fun and not nearly as annoying as he used to be.

This week's anipal photo hunt theme is How annoying. Do join in its so much fun doing the photo hunt, see

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Anipal Photo Hunt #9: Compromising Positions

Ah this week's theme for the anipal photo hunt is compromising positions! Oh yes my brother and I did get caught in a compromising position recently.

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Join in have a go its fun!!

OK so what are we doing, well as you can see my brother is opening the freezer door, I am giving him a hand up there. So what are we doing, well you probably guessed. Yes we are looking for ice cream.

Not only did we get caught in the compromising position and get into touble but would you believe it there wasn't even any ice cream in there, frozen peas, frozen sweetcorn, but no ice cream, booooo!!!! Its a good system though we can use it again in the future.

Anipal Photo Hunt #8: I'm with the band

This week's anipal photo hunt's subject is I'm with the band.

To find out more about anipal photo hunt and to join in see http://www.anipalphotohunt.com/

Eversince we heard some singing gibbons were arriving in the island monkey sanctuary we have been wondering why gibbons sing and not baboons!

So am I with the band, no actually I'm not my brother and I are the band here we are laying down some sounds using our netbook and listening to the feedback through our headphones. We are a really cool band see the adoring fans behind us! See how excited they are too see us!

So we are da band. We are the singing baboons, watch out singing gibbons you have competition! Wouldn't say no to a collaboration sometime though! Call us!