WINNERS OF THE MONKEY COMPETITION

We drew the competition this morning. Each entrant was allocated a number corresponding to the order in which the comments were received. I wish you all could have won it always hurts me that I can only give prizes to one or two winners.

We used the random number generator http://www.random.org/

I drew the first winner and number 17 came out and so the first winner is Marshall Sheldon.

My brother Yaya drew the second winnet and number 2 came out so the second winner is Huntyr.

I will DM both winners and I need to you to please visit
http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/in-safe-hands-adoption-packages-form.asp?package=Bronze

and choose your monkey, then DM me on Twitter to tell me what monkey you have chosen, how you want your name on the certificate and the address you want it sent to.

CONGRATULATIONS to both winners and I am sorry to the rest of you I really wish you could all win. You can adopt a monkey at the haven if you wish to by following the link above and I may do another competition in a while so watch this space.

Monkey Sanctuary Competition

WIN A MONKEY ADOPTION!

A new sanctuary has opened on my island for owls and monkeys. The owls are lovely but if I am honest its the monkeys that interest me!! I visited them in August and boy they were fun. So lively we could hardly get pictures of them and noisy! Wow you can believe the noise they make, so much fun! They were glad to see me.

To on find out more about them visit their website: http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/

or follow them on Twitter: @MonkeyHaven.

It is possible to adopt a monkey at the haven and this competition is about giving you the chance to win an adoption. You will be able to choose your own monkey and just look at the characters involved.

http://www.owlandmonkeyhaven.co.uk/in-safe-hands-adoption-packages-form.asp?package=Bronze

If you would like to enter the competition please either add a comment to this blog post or DM me on Twitter @Kolo_Martin

The competition will be drawn on Christmas Eve at 10 am GMT. There will be two winners, I will draw one and my brother Yaya will draw the other.

So come on every one and enter you know how much fun it would be to have a monkey of your own.

Please don't think that this means I am abandoning the donkey sanctuary I will also continue doing things with them.

Anipal Photo Hunt #16: My 2nd Job

This week's anipal photo hunt theme is my 2nd job. I am very happy cos I can do this one. I didn't do it last week cos I'm lucky enough not to have to go to the vet so noooo vet gonna fight this baboon and win (just saying)!!

Now my 2nd job I have several jobs and I'm not sure what order they come in so after my first job of being with my person and making sure they have something to do, is being a professional football fan. Arsenal mainly, then England (perhaps I should say sports cos at the moment I am massively supporting England's cricket team and hoping they win the Ashes). I also gvie my support to the Texas Longhorns (different type of football of course)!

Here I am in my Arsenal supporting outfit kit, very professional I'd say!


What else? Well then I look after the garden. Here I am pruning the fushias, yes I am allowed to use secateurs (even if I can't spell it). My person, however, would never be allowed to use such a dangerous tool, can you imagine the damage they could do!








As many of you know I am also a chef, not in Zack Rabbit's league but not a bad chef! I make cakes but mostly I make pizzas. Here I am with my world cup pizza ready to dish up. This one is red and white for England (its also useful for Arsenal celebrations too). Other friends made pizzas of their flags, Mookie (@Schnille) made a German flag pizza and, in the spirit of international relations (see I'm also a diplomat), I made a German flat pizza too after England had done their usual trick of being knocked out!

Well those are some of my jobs I am a multi-tasking baboon wouldn't you say!


So come on all of you now you have seen how much fun the anipal photo hunt is come and join in. Cokie has extended this one for two weeks so no excuses!

Anipal Photo Hunt #14: MOM

Well you all know by now that we do an anipal photo hunt every week so just come on and join in!! Do it now, don't put it off, you really know you want to.

This week's theme is Mom or as we uptight Brits say "mum". We it does matter what we call it the fact is I don't have one, no stuffed baboons do not have moms, mums or anything of the sort. However, I have got a person (well two acutally but I suppose the second person is really my person's person, confused, you should be) and that will have to do. Of well needless to say my person has got an attack of shyness now pictures are to be shown.

Here is my person very happy in an Arsenal shirt at Highbury. This is her when she is most happy watching the Gunners and this was during the season when they went unbeaten all season so it was very special.

Now this picture is a bit of a shocker, notice what she is wearing, a skirt, well I've never seen that before or since! What was that all about then?

So there you are now you have seen my person, not really my mum more my best friend but the closest I have to a mum so she will have to do. If you are ever looking out for her you are more likely to see her looking as she does in the first photo.

Anipal Photo Hunt #13: From where I stand

This week's anipal photo hunt theme is From where I stand.

Do join in come on you know you want to, click on the button to join us, its fun, you know you want to.









Well this was what I could see from where I stood on a rainy day. Its a nice view but boy was I sick of the rain.




This is what I can see from my window on a nice day. The water is the Solent which is part of the English Channel that separates my island from the mainland. The city you can see in the background is Portsmouth, a big naval city in the south of England, its only about 3 or 4 miles away from us and we get a good view of it.

The town you can see is Ryde where I live.

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.