M&I / GBMINI

Le Petit Paris Chocolate Bunnies

Posted on March 26, 2026 by Ian C.

This afternoon I spent a fun (and delicious smelling) time at Le Petit Paris, learning about the process of tempering chocolate and using it to create chocolate bunnies! Stefan showed us the tempering process of warming the chocolate to a specific temperature (which had been done before our arrival), cooling it by a specific amount (which he does by spreading on a metal table) then heating back a little (which he does either by mixing with some not-cooled chocolate, or using a heat gun!)

We then practiced pouring chocolate into molds (trying to get the air bubbles out) – we did this twice for each mold to give a thicker chocolate layer, with fridge time in between. As well as chocolate bunny shapes we did some egg shells and cases that we used later as chocolate stands!

Here’s a lot of delicious photos:

Here also is some video showing some of the tempering process:

X6 first annual service

Posted on March 24, 2026March 25, 2026 by Ian C.

It’s already more than a year since I bought my X6 and even though it’s only driven about 3,700 miles, it’s time for an oil change. I booked it in at Fields BMW South Orlando because I’m still unhappy with the Winter Park location. In hindsight I should not have gone to the Winter Park location when I ordered this car – the only reason that I did was because their website claimed to have a vehicle in stock, and that wasn’t true anyway!

On the other hand, while service at the South Orlando location seems to be better, it was a pretty desolate place to hang out while I waited – there’s only maybe 6 display vehicles there, not a single salesman spoke to me when I looked at the display vehicles (they could not have known that I wasn’t a buyer) … there was happily made-to-order food service at lunchtime (I got a meatball sub). Overall I was at the dealership for about 1-1/2 hours, and headed home with a clean X6 with new oil.

I got this video inspection sent to me, which is quite amusing – the car is just a year old, driven hardly any miles, and unsurprisingly the tires are still perfect, the brakes are unused, and everything looks good!

[After] The Big Freeze

Posted on March 19, 2026 by Ian C.

While we were in Egypt back in January, Florida had VERY unseasonably cold weather – the coldest for 15 years or more, with overnight temperatures well below freezing. We knew about because friends told us, and also because I got thermostat alerts that the house was tool cold even with heat running!

When we got back, I took some photos in the back garden; most plants looked very dead. This is already more than two weeks since, which explains the few new green leaves …

We decided to wait a month and see if anything could recover, but more recently Margaret has started cutting down and clearing dead plants. However there’s a few little green shoots on some – and on those we have cut down to just above that new growth: