About me

I have always enjoyed baking and making creations. I like to document my experiments for others but also for a record for myself.

I started this blog up as I wanted to try and learn how to decorate cakes and make great birthday cakes in preparation to having a baby. I have no previous experience in decorating and so am learning the skills from scratch but hope to gain some talents and be able to put this to good use before my family gets too much bigger and older.

I was brought up in London and started cooking for the family from a young age where I made the basics. After doing an undergraduate degree (Biology) I moved away to Leicester for my MSc (Molecular Genetics) before settling down in East Sussex near to Brighton. Whilst down here I met my husband, when we were both working in the same Science lab, and got married in Feb 2012 when I became a Manley.

Since moving down to Brighton I've had more time and space to get cooking again and have enjoyed hosting dinner parties. Now I've moved much more into baking and am really keen to learn new techniques and push myself further, fortunately my husband, Gary, has changed jobs and has colleagues who are more than willing to try out my creations.

For a short while I moved away from Science and trained as a driving instructor in the area, however, due to problems during pregnancy I have been unable to work throughout and have now decided to give up this career and focus on home life. When our daughter, Mia, is born and after maternity I will be working but only part time as I want to focus on her upbringing. This has the great upside that I will have much more time to further develop my cooking skills and work on my decorating.

I also enjoy knitting and sewing so I have included a section on this blog that documents other items I have crafted, mainly for Mia. I also have a blog which documents our allotment as I'm keen to grow our own fruit and vegetables and this shows how we're getting on.

The following blogs are updates on us as a family and how we are all getting on. Starting with when found out that 2 were going to become 3 and the mini Manley (m&m) became reality.

You can find out more here.

20 week update

April update on how things are going

Introducing the Mini Manley

My HG story

Plans for the Future

You can find out more about my husband at his blog, please visit www.ledderhose.blogspot.co.uk