...reflecting on a weekend.

Almost perfection

The weekend started rather nicely on Friday, with Lunch with my friend May. tea, chat, laughing, and the discovery that an enormous cheese and ham roll and a sausage roll actually is too much to eat. A wander through town followed, where I picked up a few books from a charity stall. It was for a cat charity and the man manning it seemed to being doing well as there was a wee outbreak of sunshine. 

Bargains - £1.50!

When I got home, I found information trickling through on twitter and the news about the horrific tragedy in Norway.Young people, using part of their holidays to take part in politics, gone. It's terrible, and something I am still trying to process. The Norwegian PM's insistence that the answer to this should be 'more democracy,more openness, and more humanity' is utterly humbling. If only this was how our government sought to deal with things.

Dave and Cairan playing guitar

Saturday began with the news that Dave and Ciaran were having transport issues for their tour, and would be coming back for the weekend. It was my designated 'deep clean' day for the month, and I cleaned, tidied, organised, dusted, and washed. I always feel more settled for things being nice. An hour reading, a bit of a blog catch-up, and just as the boys arrived, the very sad news that Amy Winehouse died. That poor girl. The evening comprised of making pizza, eating and talking about music, and the boys playing guitar. The boys went off to the pub and I had some quiet time, pottering and reading. The internet descended into arguments where people were expected to portion off sadness about current events, and I got so annoyed that to get away while waiting for the boys to come back (we have only one set of keys) I ended up baking a cake a 12.30 at night. A bit more chat with the boys, another cup of tea, and it was bedtime.

Cherry and almond cake

Sunday has been waking up late (9am!!), reading/interneting in bed. Having cake and tea for a very late breakfast whilst listening to Springsteen. I've made more pizza(This is the closest I've come to my idea of perfect pizza), I've sat on a newspaper covered windowsill(the newspaper if for catching drips when the ceiling leaks) with the laptop/my book with BBCR4 in the background. I've eaten more cake and drank more tea than I should have.

My new sunny day perch.
I didn't even move the newspaper!

The thing that I find so odd about life is that things go on. We find out about and are shocked by horrible things happening. We are sad and horrified and angry. We watch the news almost obsessively when these things happen, unable to turn away, partly out of the sheer need to hear one small thing that's positive. But there's still everyday life and fun, eating and laughing. Perhaps these horrible, awful things remind us that we only get one life and we have to use it as best we can. I don't know.  I don't know how to finish this or segway to a recipe either, but I have one so I'm going to stick it below, ok? OK.

Pizza/Garlic bread

Pizza Dough (Makes 2 bases)

500g bread flour

325ml hot water

7g sachet quick action yeast

tbsp oil

pinch salt

Pizza Sauce

1/2 tube tomato puree

3 cloves garlic, finely diced

pinch chilli flakes

Garlic Butter

100g butter softened

2 cloves garlic, pushed through garlic mincer/grated

small pinch chilli flakes (optional)

Toppings

7 Slices German peppered Salami 

7 Slices Chorizo

1 Ball Mozzarella, torn into small pieces

50g cheddar, finely grated

handful mixed tomatoes, torn.

• Put flour and salt in large bowl, stir
• mix yeast into water and leave for 10 mins
• make a wee well in the middle of the flour
• pour yeast mixture in and stir with a spatula till it begins to come together.
• flour hands and work dough till you have a nice, elastic ball
• dust with a little more flour, cover with a dry tea towel and leave to rise - half an hour is fine if your ok with thin pizza, if you want a thick crust give it 1-1.5 hours.
• while that's doing it's thing, mix your butter, garlic and optional chilli fakes in a bowl.
• When the dough has risen, pre-heat oven to 180c
• knock back dough, knead a little and split into two
• dust counter, and roll/stretch out your first chunk of dough.(I roll. I am not ashamed!) for a thin crust, i find about 5 mm works.
• jab with a fork (not all the way through!) in the area where your topping will go
• spread on tomato puree, roughly evenly
• sprinkle on chopped garlic and chilli
• add toppings (I do a very small cheese sprinkle, meat layer, majoirty of cheese, meat layer, veg)
• place on floured tray/pizza stone
• take next chunk of dough, roll out till it's about 1cm thick
• invert a shallow fairycake tray(make sure it has a lip as garlic butter will run!, and place dough on. 
• spread over your butter mixture, more concentrated in the dips, and lightly greasing the higher bits.
• put both in the oven, garlic bread about and pizza below
• bake 15 mins
• remove garlic bread, and leave pizza to finish in the oven if needed (mine needed 3 more minutes)

To achieve perfection, I'd add a few slices of pepperoni and some roast peppers. Of course, everyone's Idea of pizza perfection is different (I had some spectacular pizza when I stayed with Han. She used more vegetables. It was ace too!). I like lots of meat and a thin, crisp base. Dave likes it to be a wee bit doughy still in the middle, so I try for that too. This is a good basic dough though.

...on holiday pt 3 (2000 TREES!!)

Artist's camping and backstage access wristband :D

So, after my lovely bit of downtime mid-week, Thursday happened and it was time for 2000 Trees . More exactly, it was time for us to pick up a hire car in Dundee and drive - via Glasgow to pick up bandmembers - overnight to Cheltenham. The weekend that ensued was nothing less than epic - Random radio stations, many service stations, a lot of tea, coffee and energy drinks to get us to...

supplies

ready to go - DH&theRFPB, Gareth, me, Absinthe.

No sleep till 2000 TREES!

....THE BEST FESTIVAL I HAVE EVER BEEN TO. 2000 Trees (which is a green festival) is full of everything I love. Ace folky/punky/accoustic/politcal music. Delicious good quality/freerange/organic food(how many festivals do you go to that have a chorizo stand?!). Lots of crafts and activities. Bunting, paper stars, lace, fairy lights. Cups made from vegetable starch, all wrapping biodegradable. Bins so that you can sort out your rubbish for recycling. CLEANISH TOILETS. Beer and cider from small breweries. And it was on a farm by lovely woods. we camped about 20ft from a pond. A pond with ducks,  a herd of sheep in the next field...

2000 TREEEEEEEEES handmade signs (approx 7am)

...An that's not to mention artist's camping and backstage access, drinking at 7.30am, stupid but hilarious to us catchphrases (SCIENCE!), sheep jokes, Woody saving me and lending me his spare shoes when I got blisters,Absinthe (Oh good God, I have just remembered us drunkenly offering Scroobius Pip some of our Absinthe), walking through a field of poppies to get to the red, leafy, starry, lacy, buntingy tent the boys played in, sitting on bales of hay, fruit juice, Doritos, ice cream for breakfast, singing Party Hard, busking and singing cheesy alt/punk songs in the rain by a fairy light covered tree. IT WAS AWESOME. Our tent leaked and even that didn't spoil the awesome!

breakfast ice-cream (homemade sauce)

poppies everywhere

Woody's shoes. making my feet cosy since 9am.

almost practice

CUP MADE OF VEGETABLE STARCH.

If you go down to the woods today...
 (this is the backstage area!)

Bar tent - lace and bunting!

DH&the RFPB - prettiest stage ever!

FOLK-PUNK

hay-bales and punk boys.

Oxygen Thief 'PARTY HARD!'

Ben Marwood - beautiful, somewhat wistful, earnest music
LOVELY guy.

Jim Lockey and the Solemn Sun, capturing
everyone's hearts on the main stage. <3

Busking in the rain...

 We drove home on Saturday afternoon - sad to miss Frightened Rabbit, but unwilling to sleep in leaky tents again. More banter, more service stations, more chat, and lots of replaying good/funny/stupid/ridiculous bits of the weekend.  I am VERY lucky to live this life, and be part of this.

...on holiday, pt 2 (downtime)

After a not very good(because of nightmares) sleep at Dave's parents house following the Tall Ships, we woke up early and headed back to Dundee. We left a Glasgow filled with glorious sunshine, to meet a grey, drizzly day in Dundee. At home I unpacked, pottered, tidied, and tried to stay awake until Dave got home from work. In the evening, whilst listening to the new Alkaline Trio album (my inner emo-punk kid is clearly never going away) we heard that the Dave's band got the Glasgow support slot for The Wonder Stuff - cue Dave being extremely excited, and not sleeping a wink.

The next three days I spent sitting, pottering, reading, drinking tea, reading a bit more, whining about my gammy pinky toe (it has an enormous blood blister on it), cooking, eating, blogging, twittering and sewing, with the radio on in the backgound. In my jimjams. I think I need a set of special jimjams for just such occasions.

I think I've read five books in the last week.  five is a lot even for me, I average two or three. I am on a bit of an Edith Wharton kick at the moment, and have been working my way through her books for the past three months. This week I've read 'Summer' and 'The Bunner Sisters', both of which I loved. Wharton's novels tend to be a witty  (and scathingly critical) look at high society -  'The Age of Innocence' for example - but she has written a few that seem more Steinbeckian, and those are the ones I favour. My favourite so far is Ethan Frome, which is very simple and pared down, but beautifully written. Both The Bunner Sisters and Summer fall into this category for me.

I have also finally read 'A Tiny Bit Marvellous' by Dawn French. It looks at a family at a turning point in all their lives, and each chapter is written from a different family member's perspective. This is a French's first novel, and while it is a bit by-numbers in places, it is funny and charming, and rather realistic in it's portrayal of the dysfunctional bits of family life.

Oh, and I've been trying to pack for 2000 Trees. The last time we camped at a festival, Dave was less than happy to find I'd packed three lots of footwear. Also, this time we had to fit 5 people plus gear in a relatively small car. Tiny packing required! I am wearing one pair of shoes and hoping it doesn't rain!

I am really glad to have been able to have a wee bit of  'downtime' among all the exciting stuff. After Trees we have to get up stupidly early to drive me directly to work for a two day shift, and the week of work before I stopped was more stressful than your average. Though I agree that a change is good, I don't think it is as good as a rest. Sometimes a rest is needed.

...on holiday, pt 1 (Tall Ships Festival)

Tall Ships

The family I work for are away on their summer holidays, so this week is effectively mine. It's the first time this year it has really felt like summer for me, and so far it has been full of brillaint things. A couple of months back, Dave's band were confirmed as one of the acts for the Tall Ships Festival, which was held this year in Greenock, one of Dave's 'hometowns'. Dave played on Saturday. The weather was glorious, trains were jam packed with people coming down, and they whole place had a really good atmosphere. After a bit of a wild goose chase (and a golf buggy ride!) we got our artist passes, and the fun began - the boys played an ace set in an enormous and history filled venue - the Sugar Sheds, the crowd were responsive, people danced and clapped. All of Dave's local family and a few of our friends came, including our wee nephew, wearing massive noise block headphones.  I managed to sneak behind the stage and get a quick crowdshot. We had beer , cider, and hotdogs. In the evening, we had a family tea at Dave's parents, talking into the night and having some quite heated discussions about the recent furore over the press.

DH & theRFPB (by Alan Hughes)

The band doing their thing. (They like hats!) Look at all the people!

Sunday began with one of Dave's Dad's epic cooked breakfasts, the decision to ingore our wilderness of a garden and spend another days at the festival. Wandering, ice cream, more wandering, beer, very expensive chips, owls!, a Blues Bothers style band, and a walk around one of the Tall Ships were followed by another family meal, a lovely curry, much tea and more chat. We went to bed exhausted, full of food and tea, and content. (quite a few close ups of boat things below)

OWL!!

mast. so tall my we camera couldn't fit it all in.

pulleys - my favourite photo from the boat.

rope coils

Lamps

Bells!

no entry...

...unless you are one of these people

massive metal bobbin things - these are chair-size

chain going into bowls of the boat- links bigger than my hand.

rope coil

hardwear

central mast ropes.

Dave on deck.

Memories are made of things like this. ;)

...keeping it in the family

This week, I am on holiday. I have a bazillion photos to work throught from my trip to the Tall Ships Festival at the weekend but until that happens, I want to indulge in a bit of nepotism. Quite a few members of my family blog, and they are all interesting people who do cool things!

First up, my sister Hazel. She has been writing her blog for a couple of years just now, and is currently using it to chronicle her post university life, while she looks for a job and works out what she wants to do with her life. Hazel is a a keen crafter, and at the moment is knitting and crocheting squares for Knit A Square, a charity who use them to make blankets for AIDs orphans in Africa - she'd like people to join in, and I know a lot of you knit! You can read about her progress on the blog.

Next is my father-in-law Alan - he has just retired, and he and his wife are working toward self-sufficiency and trying to be more green. His blog is a mixture of their adventures in growing food and being retired, photos of their travels, and the occasional bit of medical research (once a doctor always a doctor!). His post about a boat trip on the Clyde reminds me of every school trip I have been on involving a boat!

His sister, an therefore my aunt-in-law Gwenda is a member of a guerilla gardening squad in London called N2 Gardeners. Based in Finchley, their blog (which Gwenda writes) has meet up times and details of their efforts to make their wee bit of London prettier. I imagine the green-fingered among you might enjoy it!

And so to music - this is a really exciting time for Dave and his band. They've just found out they will be supporting a rather cool band, they played at the Talls Ships Festival to about 500 people on Saturday, and this weekend they will be playing 2000 Trees Festival(which I get to go to, YAY!). His blog chronicles such adventures!

My brother-in-law Dan is also a musician (Dave would agree the more accomplished, so I feel I can say it too). He is in several bands, and has recently started a distro, and an accompanying blog discussing it's contents.

Now, I'm away to have a baked potato an continue my holiday pastime of wearing my jimjams and not doing very much!

...baking with the kiddiewinks (a nanny's guide!)

Most of you will know that I am a nanny. When people ask me what that involves, it's not an easy thing to answer. It's a bit like parenting without actually being a parent, slightly on super-alert, but lacking a layer of the intuition parents seem to have. My days are varied, and I am constantly learning. The good times far outweigh the stressful times, and I get to do fun things on a daily basis. If it's sunny, we can be outside all day, if it's rainy we bake and paint and read stories. It balances out doing nappies.

One of the things it involves about twice a month is baking. Baking with wee kids is really good fun, and quite rewarding. It is a brilliant rainy day activity. It's all about ceremony, routine, and everyone having a job and joining in(and organsiation if you are the grown up!). My wee ones know that they  wash their hands first, and to get their aprons from the hook. They bring 'grown-up' chairs over to the counter to stand on. Alternately, each of them puts their finger next to the line on the scales for the weight of the ingredients (they look at the number on the recipe, then on the scales, it reinforces their number recognition) while the other helps me tip it in, and then pours it into the mixing bowl. I do the first big stir, and then they have turns. The kids and I do exactly the same amount each of dropping mixture into cake cases. It probably sounds really regimented, but they really enjoy it!

I tend to choose relatively simple recipes, dictated by what they ask to make (generally either chocolate cake or carrot cake!) and I've found this recipe always works, is simple, and is tasty and has a little bit of brownie-ness going on. They are really good, even if your aren't a child!

Chocolate on Chocolate Cupcakes 
(makes 12 full case fairycakes)

For cakes
55g self raising flour
55g cocoa powder
1tsp baking powder
110g golden caster sugar
110g butter, melted and cooled (make sure they are cool, otherwise you risk scrambling the eggs)
2 medium eggs
2tbsp milk
1tsp vanilla essence (optional)

For icing
225g icing sugar
2-3tbsp lukewarm water
1tsp vanilla essence (optional)
SPRINKLES!

• pre-heat oven to 180c fan/200c
• line a fairy cake tray with cake cases
• put all of the cake ingredients in a bowl - dry first then wet 
• stir with a wooden spoon (take turns if baking with kids!) until all just combined
• dollop into cake cases until the are 4/5ths full
• bake for 15-20 mins, until tops are slightly crisp
• set on a rack to cool
• whilst they are cooling, sift icing sugar into a bowl
• add vanilla if using, 
• add water a little at a time, till icing is between 'coat a spoon' texture and texture of thick honey
• when cakes have cooled, put a heaped teaspoon sized dollop on the middle of each cake and spread round with back of spoon to coat
• let dry slightly and add sprinkles
• eat

Afterwards, I get the kids to help with the washing up, and then wash their hands and hang up their aprons. The are allowed to 'lick the spoon' at various points, but they have clean one each!

If anyone would like to add simple recipes for baking with kids in the comments, I'd really appreciate it, I am always looking for new ones to add to my collection.