Eden & Abi carry on ‘Missed Mother’s’ memories with their recipe book for Breast Cancer Care

Happy Friday everyone! Please take 5-10 minutes out of your day to have a read of this.

Written by Eden Humphreys.

In February 2016, with only a month before Mother’s Day here in the UK, we noticed countless adverts, posters and shop fronts that were reminding everyone of the day where we celebrate the woman who gave us life. As fantastic as it is to dote over our own mums for the day, what about those who don't have mothers to celebrate with? We wanted to create something that would make Mother’s Day slightly easier for those who are in this position, by making the day a celebration rather than a day to dwell. After many discussions and anecdotes we noticed there was a reoccurring theme; baking. 

Some of the fondest memories we have not only revolve around mums and family time, but also the delicious sweet treats we’d all wait impatiently for. We decided to create a recipe book filled with dessert recipes from mums who have passed away to keep their memory alive through baking. All these recipes, unchanged and passed down through the years are ways of connecting the past with future generations and sharing memories, and so Missed Mothers was born. Mother’s Day sparked the idea, however our project continued to snowball and our ambitions grew to be bigger than just one day a year.

Something that was so important to us was making sure our efforts went to a good cause. Abi’s mum, Sandra Williams, went through breast cancer in 2015 and Breast Cancer Care were a huge support for her and her family. So together we decided that all profits from this cookbook will be given to Breast Cancer Care; a support charity dedicated to helping women and families, including our own, when they need it most. A year later, Abi’s mum has been given the all clear, and as a family they are closer than ever before.      

And so we set out to create our first book. Slightly naive perhaps, but optimism and determination were at the forefront. On the recipe pages we’ve included the beloved recipe, method, an illustration of the dessert, a tribute from the mother’s children and a photograph of the mother, so the whole world can put a face to the cake!

After hundreds of emails were sent to friends, family and strangers, we began to receive recipes from children excited to share their mother’s recipes with the world. Some were written on a scrap of paper, other adapted from books and some completely from memory, but all were once made with love by mums all over the world. We also went on BBC Lincolnshire radio to gain more recipes. We received recipes from high profile pastry chefs such as Benoit Blin and Claire Clark who featured in BBC’s Bake Off Creme De La Creme. Also, the hugely talented William Curley. William is a British patissier chocolatier who’s chocolates are sold in Harrods. He first found his passion whilst baking with his mother when he was young, and we’re lucky enough to have one of his mother’s recipes in Missed Mothers.

  

After curating the 47 recipes, and of course tasting a few along the way, we began editing and illustrating the book. We wanted each recipe page to reflect the mother by including how the mother would serve the biscuits for example, and what kind of bowl the trifle would be dished up in. After ordering two proof copies and meticulously scanning the pages for spelling mistakes, along with the website being up and running, we were ready to self-publish. 

We are delighted to be able to bring the cherished memories of mothers everywhere, from Illinois to the Philippines, into your kitchen. Our goal is to encourage more people to create special memories with their families, along with raising awareness for breast cancer and money for Breast Cancer Care.

Share your memories and desserts using #MissedMothers. If you have any recipes from a missed mother that you would like to be in the second edition, please get in touch at abiandedencreatives@gmail.com, thank you!

There’s the story so far, we’re now officially open for business! You can get your copy of Missed Mothers at MissedMothers.co.uk for £9.99 + P&P with all profits going to Breast Cancer Care.

#AOLtakes3Peaks

On Friday the day we'd all been waiting for finally arrived for us to take on the 3 Peaks Challenge.

It was an early start for us, all making our separate ways to Gatwick Airport to meet at 7.30am before boarding our flight to Glasgow.

After arriving in Glasgow, our coach picked us up and took us north-east towards Ben Nevis but first we had to make a pit stop at Tesco to pick us up the fuel for our challenge.

The views during our journey were amazing but in between taking photos we did manage to get a few Zzs. 

Finally around 3.30pm we arrived at Ben Nevis and we had time to prepare, carb load, stretch, warm up and have a few  last minute panics.

Before it was time for us to start our ascent and we were lucky to have pretty clear views the majority of the way up! 

Then we spotted a few patches of snow and we guess we were doomed from there as the further we climbed the more the fog/mist came in and the spottings of snow became one just mass of snow and we felt like we were at a ski resort minus the skis with only dodgy poles, to help us trudge to the top.

The actually top with the marker was impossible to find and after bumping into some others we found out we were at the top anyway. With time being of the essence, we had minimal time for photos so a couple of selfies on the go had to work.

For me and others in the group the descent was harder, with our knees struggling to take the pressure so we weren't as quick we I thought we'd be. However we still managed to make good time with just over 5 hours, after a quick wet wipe down, a toilet break and change into comfy clothes we were on route to peak numero 2; Scafell Pike.

After a quick snack we all crashed and tried our best to get as much sleep as possible and it appeared that our coach driver decided to take advantage of that by taking a pretty hefty break of his on. Despite the fact that he and the company he worked for were fully aware of our strict time deadline. Meaning that we arrived at our next point way behind schedule. But our bad luck didn't stop there, we also came across another obstacle, due to thin, country roads running to the base of Scafell we had pre-booked 2 mini buses for the transfer and surprise surprise only 1 turned up! And the journey from our coach to the base and back from around 45 minutes. Talk about nightmare. So we had to work with what we had. We decided the slower group should go first because the faster group had the chance to catch up. Hindsight is always a great thing, so in hindsight we probably should have had the faster bunch go up first as we were have had more of a chance of completing it. 

So unfortunately due to time restrictions (yet again) we didn't have the time to complete Scafell Pike but we found out afterwards that (the faster group) we were only 30 minutes from the top, but as I'm sure you'll understand it was pretty frustrating. Congratulations to our fabulous bus company, chin chin! 

Because of the early start, it felt like I'd done a day's work by the time we got to the bottom and the worst thing, by the time we eventually got back to coach we found out that the rest of the group had had a bacon sandwich!! After living on a diet consisting of cereal bars, grapes and cookies I think you can understand how were were feeling unless of course you're veggie! 

Back on the bus it was key for us to get some more sleep before our 3rd and final peak; Snowdon. Here's our final group shot. 

Forgetting the snow on Ben Nevis I actually think Snowdon might have been the toughest. We picked the shorter, steeper route for time and some parts were particularly steep, meaning we literally had to climb and it was also the busiest so we sometimes had to go a bit of the beaten path. And the further we ascended the foggier it got so when we got to the top our view was a little less than spectacular.

After taking a few too many selfies it quickly became pretty cold but we had to wait for the rest of the team to reach the summit. Finally luck was on our side and there appeared to be a cafe with 'panoramic' views (not that we could see anything). We stopped for a quick hot drink before preparing ourself for a speedy retreat. 

Haha oh dear, but it just wasn't that easy. After serious lack of sleep, no proper meals and achey legs we were bound to take a wrong turn at some point and it would be now. A few of us (8) headed off in the wrong direction but we didn't realise until 15 minutes down and after one of the group properly hurt her knee. We found out that we were going down the miner's route a.k.a the longest and almost flat route. Great for those with injuries. We tried to get in contact with the rest of the group but to no avail, we'd just have to meet them at the bottom. 

Oh and it was pretty freezing...

And then finally the sun came out and we got to see some cracking views.

We then reached a cafe and decided to try and make contact with the group and it also made a perfect picture opportunity, captioned 'lost ramblers'. What we didn't realise was that the others didn't have signal but they rang us through the pay phone. 

We were at the bottom apparently but an epic 7 miles away from the others so we got a taxi to join them. Finally we made it, only an hour and a half after the others. It was time for some well-earned beverages, some dodgy bus songs and an extremely long journey home! 

Honestly it was an amazing experience and I 100% want to do it again. Maybe in hindsight it was slightly overly ambitious to bring 24 people so recommendations would be; I reckon max. 12 people and drive yourself don't rely on others and take it leisurely. 

I write this on route Valencia, so keep posted for my next post... 

Xoxo

Kate's 2016 Challenges

Happy Monday!! What a great weekend! It's a bit of Monday motivation for you, hopefully it will inspire you to take on some new challenges too. This post will be short and sweet but make sure you have a read!

This will be one of my very select few charity/fundraising plugs. 

Challenge 1  |  Running, I've ran two half marathons already, one yesterday being the Putney & Fulham Half Marathon with Nath, plus potentially the Bracknell and Windsor. 

Challenge 2   |  As part of the company I work for a few of us are attempting the 3 Peaks Challenge in under 24hrs. In case you're not aware of what this is, let me explain... We'll be travelling from London up to Glasgow via aeroplane, we'll then get a bus up to Ben Nevis when the stopwatch starts. We'll then climb Ben Nevis (Scotland), get back on the bus and drive to Scafell Pike (England) climb this and then final bus journey to slug to Mount Snowdon (Wales) for our final climb before getting to the bottom in hopefully under 24 hours. Can we make it??? Hmm we'll have to wait and see, hopefully training and my running will pay off and we'll successfully complete the challenge on May 20th.

Challenge 3  |  The epic Prudential Ride London, heard of this? No! It's mental, a 100 mile cycle all around London including a ridiculous climb up the infamous Box Hill. This is something I'm super nervous of, thankfully my Mum and Dad will be cycling with me! It will be a battle to see who comes out on top as good ol' Dad considers himself a Lance Armstrong (maybe not the best explain) with his detachable sleeves. If you are reading this, please never get them they are hideous! They will both be raising money for charity, keep posted for their fundraising pages! I have the bike, helmet and padded shorts, I know just need to get on the road so I have some training before the 31st July (notice it's my birthday weekend, dedicated to the challenge).

Challenge 4 (?)  |  This one is a potential. From now until Christmas my weekends are getting rapidly jam-packed, so I'm running out of time. But I'm hoping to get out there and attempt my first triathlon and I'll start with a sprint one, so keep posted on that.

Anyway, here comes the charity plug! I'll be raising money for the pretty awesome charity which is the key one my company works with, Free The Children! It's amazing and I was lucky enough to experience the awesome work they do when I volunteered at WE Day UK earlier this year at Wembley Stadium (post to follow in the not too distant future) and it's inspired me to make a difference and raise money that can change a child's future.

Please take a second to look at my page and sponsor me as little or as much as you can, as I'm sure you can imagine every little bit makes a difference. The link is below.

Kate Fundraising Page

I'll keep you updated with all my challenges...

xoxo

Welcome to Costa Rica

So arrived in San Jose Airport, Costa Rica around 11am on July 6th. I flew from LA to Fort Lauderdale, Florida and then connected to San Jose. Safe to say I was tired and needed sleep. I was the first Raleigh International Venturer to arrive at the airport, so I parked myself at a cafe with wifi and waited. I then bumped into a few others and got chatting. 2 being my future besties on the trip which was unknown to me at this point.

We had to sit and wait for well over 4 hours but it was fine as we had lots to talk about. Finally at around 5pm the Costa Rican hosts Mal and Arlene arrived to take us to the British School, not far from the airport where we were staying in the gym for the evening. We got there and we all got chatting to the other venturers including the Costa Rican venturers. I quickly discovered who I would be befriending and it was a lovely group of girls including the 2 I met at the airport, Liv and Tash who also happened to be twins and who are British but live in Washington DC as their Dad is a Diplomat. Pretty cool right? 

We had sandwiches with ham and plastic cheese for dinner and biscuits before setting up camp for the night for our first night of many sleeping on our roll mats on hard floors. The group I was with ended up staying up well past 11pm (everyone else was fast asleep) gossiping about normal girl stuff but we soon decided we'd be knackered if we didn't sleep soon. 

We had a 6am wake up call and we left the school for Turriabla which was around 2 hours away and it's safe to say I slept the majority of the way. We arrived at the Catie field base, which is an indigenous area where Raleigh International are based in Costa Rica and it's also a research area. Before being given a tour of the camp we had a traditional breakfast of beans, rice, caramelised plantain, papaya and scrambled eggs. This isn't something I'd usually pick but I rather enjoyed it although papaya and egg do not mix (NB do not try this at home). 

We were then given the rules and there were 4:

- No alcohol or drugs ever 

- No forms of communication e.g phones

- No climbing trees

- No riding horses 

We were also given groups in which we would sleep in at the 'resort' I was in the biggest camp (pretty much an army marquee) and I was with all the girls I had made friends with. We were then taken to the local swimming pool for a swimming test, I swear I'm not still at school, guess it's for insurance reasons right. Later in the day we got the opportunity to go to the local supermarket, MaxiPali (you'll later learn this was something we would count down the days for) and we had our last chance to buy things of normality. I got M&Ms, a banana and a fizzy lemon drink. 

For dinner that evening we had rice, beans, palm heart and veg. All these carbs will be disaster for my poor thighs and then my first of many MANY cold showers.

The following day we had an even earlier wake up call of 5am, not sure I'll be able to get used to this. We had a surprisingly delicious breakfast of porridge, I'm not the biggest fan of this normally due to past experiences but I loved it especially with cinamon and sugar. After breakfast we were told which groups we would be in for our project phase and I was so happy that I was with Tash (the girl I met at the airport). Our group was Delta 3. There was no one else I knew in the group but we had a wide variety of international people. From top left; Hubert (French), Arlenne (Costa Rican and our Project Manager), Tash (English but lives in DC), Hila (Israeli), Mundev (English but originally from India), Ollie (English but lives in Majorca), Mike (English and our other PM), Lucy (originally English but has never lived there has lived in Sweden, Russia and now in Switzerland). Bottom left: me, Rhian (Welsh), Sylvia (Costa Rican) and Jess (Northern Ireland. We also had another Tico, Greivin, who's not in the picture. 

We were then told we would be heading off that day to a jungle camp and a practice river crossing for the evening, so we quickly packed our bags appropriately and then distributed the group kit and sure I drew the short straw as I ended up carrying a four man tent (please note the size of my bag in the picture) and poor Tash carried the Comms kit (very heavy).

We left around lunchtime so the midday heat was at it's hottest, not the best conditions. Within 10 minutes I had pretty much sweated through my tshirt and this was with no hills, then we hit a very steep downhill around an hour later which took us to our river crossing where we learnt how to cross the river safely in groups of 4. 

It was a boring and slow activity but because we were so hot it was nice to get to go in the water. It was here we also stopped for lunch, which was crackers (which crushed in my bag) and puréed refried beans (yum) which I decided I would not be eating. 

Later that day we arrived at Jungle camp, which looked like we should be on 'I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here'. We were shown how to create a basher hammock and a basher bed using tarpaulin, string, bamboo, trees and stretcher material. 

Luckily our group managed to put these up fairly quickly as soon after the rain came and good grief did it pour. There was earth-shattering thunder, lightening, torrential rain, gallons on mud and of course millions of bugs yay. Everyone wanted to sleep in the basher bed shown in the picture above and so we picked cards and I won and I managed to have a relatively dry night with only a bit of rain getting in. 

The next day we were up at 4am, why does it keep getting earlier? And surprise surprise it was still raining. We had porridge for breakfast before packing everything up and heading back to field base, everyone was covered in mud and soaked through to our packs. So naturally you'd expect people to be miserable but there is nothing you can do to change the weather so there is no point complaining.

On the way back the Mike and Arlenne set up a scenario where Arlenne had broken her leg and we had to, as a team coordinate a rescue and we had to assign roles for everyone in the group. It was pretty stressful and it was still raining but it was good practice in case we had a situation like this during trek or project.

After returning to fieldbase, we had to wash out the tents and hang them up to dry, have training on how to use the Comms kit and also how to use the tools for project. We then separated our team food for our trek the following day to project and then had free time, during which I signed up to take pictures for the blog and write some of the blog posts which you may have seen. 

For the entire night the rain continued and most of the 'resorts' were flooded, thankfully ours wasn't. We had an early dinner and then a treat of hot orange which we drank out of our mess tins. 

It was then an early night in preparation for our trek to Koiyaba, our location of our project phase.