D.I.Y or is that D.I. whine?

Ever found that watching TV makes you feel like you have done stuff you haven't?

Like Jeremy Clarkson thinking he could speed round formula one race track, cos he'd done it lots on PlayStation- Twit!.

I had my first experience of wallpapering last week. Was pretty sure I'd be good at it as have watched it being done many times on TV and looks pretty easy on 60 minute makeover.

A week later, every muscle in my back and shoulders is still sore, I'm flaking wall paper paste from my elbows despite numerous showers, and a clump of my hair is lodged in the hinge of the ladder.

We have steep, high sloping ceilings. Is very wobbly at top of ladder and paper sticks to everything except wall, there was complicated pattern to match and ... it wasn't remotely fun. Worse, I'm not nearly as good at it as had assumed I would be. Very disappointing. Feel like suing TV for misrepresentation! If I'd known it would be hard, I'd have got Rich to do it.

Far more satisfying to do something really easy that looks Wow, and that you can eat afterwards, So made banoffee pie, used Dulce de Leche - caramel (see previous blog), a biscuit crust, and whipped cream, sliced banana and grated chocolate on top. So easy, totally yum and looks good too. You can use pastry if you prefer and bake it blind before filling with caramel. I like crumbly -ness of biscuit crust. Will put quantities up later- but any biscuit crust will do.

Dulce de leche

Dulce de leche is rich creamy caramel sauce - boiling an un opened can of condensed milk for 3 hours creates beautiful caramel. It is nicer than the ready made one which always tastes wrong to me.

I think from memory in the slow cooker it took 5 hours on high and 7 on low but not 100% sure from memory. Once cooked you can store un-opened.

Always keep the can covered with water while simmering - to prevent the can from rattling in the water (which can be annoying when you consider that it'll need to be in there for several hours) put a rag under the can.