This Girl is...

...fond of weekends

2012-02-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

One of the things I love about our life now is that other than a couple of times a year, Dave and I don't work weekends. Right up until we moved to Dundee, I had roughly one Sunday off every three weeks, and always worked on a Saturday.

Our weekends now fall into two catergories - completely jam packed, as last weekend was, or quite time weekends, like this one.

Note the size of the rocky road compared to the teapot...

Last weekend was of the jam-packed variety. Friday was lunch at Kimbles and a bit of window shopping with one of my very favourite girls, Mhairi and her wee baba on Friday, where I chose what I thought was a rocky road muffin for my puddding. It turned out to be a muffin-sized actual rocky road, and I ended up taking half of it home in my bag. Mhairi also very kindly gave me a coat that is now too big for her, having remembered that I am 'fully jazzed about grey' - her words, and so true! It is military style with a swooshy skirt and I LOVE IT.

Sgt Hughes at your service... (It looks better in person!)

Saturday was a visit to Dave's mum and her soon to be husband's house, where we had lovely stir fry and lots of tea and some wedding and politics and book chat, and from there, we went into Glasgow for our friend Dan's birthday, and what turned out to be a bigger night out than we had intended - drinking, dancing, mocking, eating, giving Dan hair bunches (he has long hair, my friends are silly), Dave photobombing spectacularly - he got IN FRONT of the people in the photo. Home via the kebab shop for a sarbeni, and with lots of silly chat. Oh, and Dave continually doing the 'circle pit' motion from this video (if you don't want to see an 8 year old girl's attempt at a hardcore song, don't click). Also, the boys from Dave's band said I looked like I was part of the French resistance in my coat - the red satchel probably added to the effect!

Dave, photbombing champion 2012 - Ali (the girl) ohas stretched her arm to take the photo and he still got in.
(photo used with permission of Alison Garrett)

Sunday was more family visiting, we went for Sunday lunch with my sister and brother in law and our wee nephew. Roast beef with all the trimmings, baby chat, playing peekaboo, reading stories, and again, a lot of tea.

This is the best lentil soup I have ever made TM

Fast forward a hectic, but for the most part good working week, and it is the weekend again. And it's really cold! This weekend was supposed to be very busy indeed, but a gig of Dave's was cancelled, and we were happy for the chance of having some time to lay low. On Friday I tidied and read and listened to the radio, caught up with blogs, made a big pot of lentil soup.

Book + cider = book being slightly more readable.

Saturday began with a lie-in a leisurely breakfast watching the snow, and continued with four hours of me being confused and trying to do a bit of a redesign of this wee blog. (I'm pretty pleased with it, but please do say if you have any ideas of how I could improve it). The redesign was interspersed with Twitter chat, swearwords, tea, chocolate, and slice and back pudding rolls. I tried VERY HARD to read my Blook Club book, which I am finding fairly mediocre at the moment - I am assured it gets better and it has very good reviews, so I will batter on (mostly because finishing the book is a rule of Blook Club!). Snowy days require hot chocolate, so that is how we finished the day.

Dear hot chocolate, get in my belly.

Sunday. Sunday is my favourite weekend day. another lie-in, bagels and sausages and proper pots of tea and coffee for breakfast. R4, An hour whiled away reading the gorgeous 91 magazine, beautifully put together by Caroline of Patchwork Harmony. The discover of a new (to us) band to love - Hail Seizures - punchy folk punk played fast and skilfully.

And then, the Sunday roast. This is essentially the Rachel Allen recipe that was on Red Online this week, with carrots instead of parsnips. We had half a bottle of about-to-go-off white wine, so I chucked a cup of it in, and covered the stuff with foil for the first 20 mins so it would steam the chicken and veg bit. It is tasty!!

Y to the UM

And soon, Sunday evening (can I just point out that it's 4pm and it's still light!!). Slow preparation for the working week, cooking and washing, savouring that last hours of quiet home time, reading, watching the rest of Birdsong, and a relatively early night.

I love weekends.

...wintering

2012-01-18T21:33:00.000-08:00

on Monday I woke to a world covered in frost!

There's always about a week after I take down the Christmas decorations and give the flat it's after festivities clean where I constantly think about springtime coming. For this week, in my head springtime is in a few weeks.

And then the temperature here hits -6 and I realise we have a couple of months of freezing cold winter before anything approaching spring happens. There's no Christmas to look forward to, so I make my mind up to be excited about and contented with the small things.

The days are slowly lengthening. Most of my journey to work is done in daylight, and at work, I don't close the curtains on the dark outside 'til 5pm, rather than at quarter to four. On sunny days, as it gets to early afternoon, there is that beautiful goldness to the light that only happens in winter.

The flat, having first felt very bare, even with all my clutter, now feels fresh and lovely.

The view from where I sit - the midwinter mantle, and my bright, cheery things!

Detail from the mantle - 'TEA SET' hair pins and ring, from
Rachael of Bunny's Beads for Christmas. My friends are ace.

My sister made me a beautiful mustardy-gold hat and scarf for Christmas, and worn with my red satchel of joy, I feel bright and cheerful going out into the frosty world.

Hat! by Hazel, the best sister ever.
Also, check how long my hair is!

I have long been a lover of hot apple juice with ginger, but have recently discovered that a lump of crystallised ginger, rather than raw, makes it sweet and warm and delicious. I have also finally learned to like herbal tea - I am particularly fond of Pukka's Three Ginger at the moment, and I have a cup of their Night Time before I go to sleep most nights. As I have two pots with infusers, I am going to experiment a bit with herbal infusions in these winter months.

Ginger tea in my V&A mug. :)

The living room window sill is now a window seat for reading
andtea drinking and interneting.It is much brighter and
cheerier than this-so bright that I can't get a good photo!

I have been reading Charlotte Perkins Gilman on my ebook reader. When I was at uni, sociology was my favourite of the theoretic subjects I studied and I miss it. Gilman's work has a strong feminist message, and she herself was an inspiring person, and I am very much enjoying it. I will always read loads, so as setting an 'amount' target for myself in a year is pointless, this year I aim to read more sociological, scientific and political work. I am also very much looking forward to attending the next Blook Club. Life has very much gotten in the way of me going to previous ones, so I am excited. To keep track of what I'm reading this year, and because I find patterns in reading interesting I've started a page on here. It's a work in progress, I will try to make it more dynamic, but at least it's there!

...home, refreshed, and ready for the new year.

2012-01-03T15:42:00.000-08:00

The rooftops of the farm from a high hill in one of the fields.
The obscured mountain in the background is Cadair Idris.

So, Wales was lovely. So lovely that instead of staying five days, we stayed nine. Dave's parent's farm (soon to be run as a smallholding) is lovely - amore than 200 year old house filled with interesting details and corners, heated by wood burning stoves, with wood grown and harvested from their own land. We did a small bit of helping with the harvesting. We walked and drove around North Wales, a place that seems remote but is raw and beautiful,where there are proper communities and every view is extraordinarily lovely. Like any proper holiday in the UK, we went to the beach in the tipping rain. We celebrated Christmas (I made pheasant pate for Christmas dinner starter and it all got eaten!), met new neighbours, spent time with family, ate and drank and were merry. We saw in the new year surrounded by close family and new friends. We read, we watched comedy ans soaps on TV(Dave made us watch Eastenders purely because we knew Pat was going to die), and drank copious cups of tea. It was lovely. I had unbroken sleep every night. It was SILENT there. I had that odd sense that I never knew what time it was, because I didn't need to know - there was no schedule.

(I had intended to add some anecdotal photos here, but blogger is being silly)

I have come back feeling like I have had a proper holiday. The last time I felt that was two years ago, and it's lovely. I spent today taking down almost all of the Christmas things (except the tree), and cleaning and tidying - a New Year's clean, if a little late. I made bread, and in an effort to get back into pre-preparing work night dinners, made a pot of soup. I listened to radio 4. It is so lovely to be home. It is more lovely to finally be happy enough here to be pleased to be home.

Tomorrow I go back to work, and I can't wait to see the kids.

Last year was really difficult for us. There were times when it felt like life was at breaking point. Stuff was just too hard, there was too much. I am normally someone who pushes on through bad stuff, so admitting that says a lot about how hard.

This year has begun well - I am rested, hopeful, and ready to take on whatever is thrown at me. I love my work and my life is full of lovely things and experiences and people. I have a wee list to work through before I hit 30, so those are my new year's intentions this year.

Happy New year everyone - I hope you are full of hope too!! I am ready to kick 2012's arse.

...twas the week before Christmas

2011-12-24T01:28:00.001-08:00

The last week, with the kids at work and last minute crafting and getting ready for two weeks 'away' have been slightly frantic but very festive..

...this is what my week has looked like, except with a lot of bits of felt and thread everywhere and many spills in the kitchen!

I finished work on Wednesday and crafting very late on Wednesday night. We had a family filled (and baby nephew kissed filled) day yesterday, a lovely start to a holiday! As I write this, I am in my father-in-laws car, bound for their farm in Snowdonia. I am in full Christmas holiday mode, and my tummy if full of black forest hot chocolate.

I truly hope everyone has a very lovely Christmas, and look forward to reading about yours in the new year. X

...at home with T Ann Cake

2011-12-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

As part of being happy and content living here in Dundee, Dave and I have been spending many more of our weekends here - it really does feel more like you belong to a place if you spend your non-work time in it. We tend to try to do something on a Saturday afternoon, and last Saturday we headed into town for a wander, and to soak up the Christmassy atmosphere.

me contemplating cake.

One of the things that's nice about Dundee is that it has lots of wee, quiet streets, and on one of those, along with some nice vintage shops is T Ann Cake, and there we had our Saturday lunch. In the interest of honesty, I should tell you that I know of T Ann Cake because our friend Laura works there, but as you'll see from the blog and Facebook, it has a serious following.

Laura came over to show us this, the 'most perfect coffee she
had ever made. So I'm showing you all it's beauty.

As we arrived, the place was packed as usual(I Have gone on a whim a couple of times and it has been so jammed I couldn't be seated), but a couple were leaving a wee table in the back corner and we grabbed it. Sitting in the wee corner, you can see pretty much all of the shop, and it is lovely - red tables, different chairs, vintage lampshades, ROWS of glass cakestands, cosy chairs dotted around. (They also had a framed 'Drop Scones Not Bombs' tea towel, which reminded me I am coveting one!).

Don't you want to live here?

lots of cake and glass and loveliness

The cosy corner :)

It had been decorated for Christmas too, and so had bunting and pompoms and hearts and tiny santas, and handmade decorations hanging from branches attatched to the ceiling. It's sort of full of stuff but still spacious and light. I want to live there, and it's one of the few places I've gone where absolutely everything shouts 'this is me' to me.

Bunting, hearts, bells and cake tins.

The entry corner - perfectly festive.

And the food, oh the food. We had lunch, rather than just cake, and on that day one of the specials was mackerel rarebit. Dave had it and his exactly words were 'oh this is good, it is soooo good'. In the picture his hands are moving becuase he is annoyed at having to stop eating for more than five seconds. I had a brie, apple and red onion panini, and it was delicious and festive and melty.

Dave had a latte, and I had tea (obviously), an was pleased to see that their Earl Grey was from Tea Pigs. Both expertly made, and mine served very prettily. The best thing for me though was the cake. Pretty full from our yummy lunch, we had one cake to share, and chose to have a traybake. Dave is a big fan of mint flavoured things, so choosing the Bailey's and Creme de Menthe Chocolate slice was a no-brainer. The stuff was heavenly. Soft and creamy and a little bitter with coffee and mint flavour all through. YUM. By far the best minty chocolate thing I've ever had.

The best minty chocolate thing ever TM

The whole experience of the place left me completely content. It is ace. We spent a good hour and a half there, and you never feel rushed or invaded. It's cosy and relaxed and just lovely. It is definitely my new favourite place.

...feeling festive.

2011-12-07T05:01:00.000-08:00

So, those two and a half weeks went past quickly! My boss commented recently that my life is very full and that I do 'lot's of lovely, varied things'. She is right, and those lovely things have mean this is the first time I've been able to sit down and blog.

I have had everything scheduled to the half hour for the past two weeks, trying to clean the flat and get it ready for Christmas, make presents, see friends, go to numerous gigs, have afternoon tea with some lovely lady bloggers and my sister and aunt, an of course, work. It has been entirely worth it. Now, in a moment of calm I am sitting in my bedroom with the fairy lights on the tree twinkling away, eating a mince pie and thinking about how thoroughly brilliant my life is.

Baubles - a mixture of mine(my mum's), Dave's,
and ones we have collected together

The first lighting of the tree.

advent calendar for my sister.

mince pies and ginger tea

Christmas stocking :)

Almost a wreath?

Bunting - to be added to!

Our 'mantle'

My current view!

Today, I have the day off work and I have the cold. I am 'taking it easy' as Dave would say, watching Christmas films, drinking hot spiced tea and intending to make some felt bunting.

Christmas time is very much here.

It is currently light for what feel like about 4 hours per day, and even then, the flat doesn't let much in. These photos are a bit dark but are about as good as it gets...

... a Secret Santa!

2011-11-20T07:34:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my lovely Blogging Six ladies and I had our own wee Christmas. Delicious hot chocolate from Coco's on Broughton St, a busride to Leith for a delicious lunch at Mimi's and Secret Santa present swapping and lots of chat and silliness and laughter, near tears and in my case actual tears, but good ones.

Now, about that Secret Santa - we'd arranged to do a small bought gift and a homemade gift. The thing about giving presents for me is it's a double edged sword. I am so excited to do it and find/make something really excellent for the person, but I get really, really nervous about the actual giving and the person's reaction. I assume this is the case for everyone, as it seems ALL the girls felt this way, and as we waited our turn to give the recipient our gifts, everyone's face went from nervous excitement to just nervous to genuine glee at what were very good reactions. This is where my crying came in. Gaynor gave me, as my gift, a framed print of the Dickens Christmas quote - it is so very me-ish I welled up! And also some of he beautiful handmade wine glass charms and snowflake gift tags - snowflakes are my very favourite thing that's symbolic of Christmas.

I had Becca as my recipient, and while I'd gotten her bought gift (which she loved, HURRAH!) weeks ago, I made her homemade gift on Friday night, as it was a 'best made freshly' food gift. Did I mention I also mucked about with a recipe I'd only done once before? Why do I do this to myself?

Anyway, I made the 'Black Forest' version of Nigella Lawson's Christmas Puddini's, and a few more people will be getting these for Christmas in various flavour combinations! The Original recipe says it makes 30, but I ended up with 22.

Black Forest Pudding Truffles (makes 22)
(Adapted from the recipe from Nigella Christmas)

125g Very good quality dark chocolate
350g Christmas pudding, crumbled
60ml Kirsch (mine is Schwarzwalder Kirschwasser, which appears to be quite posh)
2tbsp golden syrup
8 glace maraschino cherries, chopped

100g icing sugar for dusting.

You will need small paper cases for these, they are a little sticky.

melt chocolate in bowl over boiling water
put Christmas pud and cherries in a bowl and mush a bit
add Kirsch and golden syrup and give it a good mix - it should begin to come together
lastly, add melted chocolate and stir well.
leave for 10-15 minutes until chocolate has cooled and mixture is more bound together
place small paper cases on a chopping board, ready for truffles to be added
at this point Nigella says use rubber gloves, which i didn't but do if you don't like messy hands.
taking a half tablespoon lump at a time, roll the mixture into balls. the will be a little sticky, but drop them into each paper case.
when you have worked through, cover loosely with clingfilm and put them in the fridge to chill until they set - 2 hours was fine for mine.
put the icing sugar on a plate and roll each truffle in it to coat
place back in cases
the slightly wetter bits of each truffle will absorb the icing leaving a crackled effect.

After the planning for the swap, and the making, and then our lovely day yesterday, I am very much in the Christmas spirit! The next week will bring a bit of crafting, and a wander around the Christmas Market and Village in Glasgow. I can't wait.

For now I'll settle for a Christmas film, some roast chicken and some spicy hot chocolate.

Thank you for a lovely mini Christmas girls! :)

...a doctor's wife

2011-11-17T14:18:00.000-08:00

Lots of things have happened since I last posted - our nephew turned one, as did our almost-niece (the daughter of one of my best friends), and work has been very good. Of all of the things that have happened, and of all the things that have happened this year, this is by far the best...

hooded, doffed and awarded.

That's my husband in the blue robe with the fur-trimmed hood, officially being made a Doctor of Engineering. Three years of hard work, and long hours researching, two further of writing up and corrections, stress and worry and doubt, validated. I could not be more proud. I am off the scale proud.

from the Program of Proceedings

Dave's mum and grandfather attended with me, both bursting with pride, and his mum's partner was there beforehand and for the receptions afterwards. I had tears in my eyes as Dave walked across the stage, knowing he had the award he deserved and that it was DONE.

David Allan Hughes, Doctor of Engineering

After a few photos (it was, sadly, dark by the time Dave's 3 o'clock grad finished)...

Dave's mum, his grandfather, and Dr Hughes himself.

A celebratory drink

A bit pleased...

...and a few drinks,we went for a really lovely meal at the City Merchant, where we were joined by more family members. There was delicious food, whisky shaped gifts for Dave, speeches of pride and congratulations from Dave's grandfather, and rather touchingly, one in praise of me from Dave's mum.

Family meal, relaxed Dave!!

Afterwards, the grown-ups left to go home, and the after-party began. At Dave's favourite pub gathered the majority of our favourite people, and lots of fun and banter, and drinks, and ill-advised shots were had.

Hamlet or beard stroking - you decide (Dave and his brother Dan)

Dave holding court with the other Very Clever Scientists

Kind of sums up the whole day. :)

After a long and emotional day, we went home, via a takeaway as it seems a doctorate doesn't mean your drunken cravings for pakora go away...

Dan wanted a photo of Dave 'being awesome'. Dave looks
impressively sober. He is really, really not.

I would rather like, though I have said it many times since yesterday, to say congratulations again to my extremely clever, dedicated and hardworking husband. I KNEW you could do it and I am very, very proud of you.

Dr and Mrs Dave Hughes EngD. (WOOHOOO!)

Lots of love
Mrs Dr Dave Hughes :)

...a creature of habit.

2011-11-06T08:50:00.000-08:00

This weekend, it has turned really frosty. I think it's safe to say winter is starting - I woke up early at work yesterday, after doing an overnight stay, to the fields around being blanketed in frost and a world that is almost completely silent. November 5th is am emotion filled day for me, and I woke up very tired since I find it hard to sleep when charged with overnight care of the kids. I spent a lot of the day reading and slowly catching up on blogs and pottering about. In the evening though, rather than going out to the fireworks, I watched them inside, from our window seat, with some spiced cider and a sausage and bacon sandwich. My mum was all about tradition and loved bonfire night, so it seems a good way to remember her. And the fireworks made me grin, and that is a lovely thing on what is a very sad day.

Mini bunting for Christmas. The thread is green :)

Ovened Chips - a Sunday ritual - we have them often,
but we always have them on home Sundays

Today's viewing - There is nothing more Sundayish than a bit of Jane Austen!

And so now it is Sunday. Dave and I are managing to (and have for financial reasons, to) balance life a bit more, and have much more time at home. It means we don't see family as often as we did as we don't travel down to Paisley as often, but it also means we don't spend every waking minute trying to squeeze more in, and that is a nice feeling. As autumn has set in, weekend days when we are free have found a bit of a pattern, and Sundays are quiet and spent at home (We generally go out for a bit of the day on a Saturday if it's not to weathery). Dave spends every Sunday he can having a jimjam day and has a lie-in. I still have my quite hour to myself in the morning, listening to the radio and reading. We listen to music, I cook and bake, I watch a period drama or two (aren't they the most Sundayish of things?) and do little bits of housework - perhaps the only bonus of a kitchen-and-living room is being able to do both - getting ready for the week ahead. I tend to make a wee something, and just now am making little bits for Christmas. Dave does music related things. We eat together and in the evening and often watch a film together. This time spent quietly together, relaxing, really sets us up for the coming week.We will hopefully have children in the future, and of course some of these things will remain, but we won't have many opportunities to have a lie-in or watch a DVD for two hours. We are making the most of the time we have where we can be just a little bit selfish.

... disobedient (or, the ramblings of a Milne fan)

2011-11-03T14:51:00.000-07:00

I'm not going to pretend I'm any good at music-related blogging. I listen to music and go to gigs lots but technically, my judgement is based on if I think it sounds good and if I like the lyrics. Just occasionally though, something gets me so much that I feel the need to write about it, and Chris T-T's 'Disobedience' is one of those.

In Disobedience, Mr T-T took A.A. Milne poems and set them to music for his live show at Edinburgh Fringe (which was brilliant). This is an album of recordings of some of the songs he performed. Now, I want to take a wee step back here. Actually it's quite a big step back, till when I was about 3. My mum read all the Pooh stories to me when I was little, and Milne's poems, and I have such a love for them that as my 21st birthday present she gave me a fancy edition of The Complete Works of A.A. Milne. They have been a constant part of my life, and are a very vivid and good part of my memories of my mum... so obviously, an album putting those emotive words to music could be either a very good thing or a very bad thing.

<a href="http://christt.bandcamp.com/album/disobedience-chris-t-t-sings-a-a-milne">Disobedience: Chris T-T Sings A.A. Milne by Chris T-T</a>

'Very good' are not descriptive enough words for this album. Chris* has take words that mean so very much to generations of children, to so many people I know (and to him), and set them to music that adds to and compliments the depth of feeling within them. This album of nine poems as songs is at turns humorous, comforting, beautiful , melancholy and heartbreaking. Sometimes it is these all at once. It is exquisite.

<a href="http://christt.bandcamp.com/track/waiting-at-the-window">Waiting At The Window by Chris T-T</a>

The whole thing is so close to perfection it's hard to pick favourites, but I love 'Waiting at the Window' for its commentary on two rain drops, given personalities and racing down the window. I adore 'Binker', the rather melancholy story of a young boy's need for his imaginary friend - I'm sad for the boy and I'm sad for Milne, clearly writing these things to try to reach out to his son. Lastly, as a child who sat right there, I love 'Halfway Down', about having a very favourite stair to sit on, out of the way but quite close to the grown ups.

<a href="http://christt.bandcamp.com/track/binker">Binker by Chris T-T</a>

It makes me think of my mum, of a childhood spent with my head stuck in books, of rainy days. For me at least, it is perfectly fitting for this time of year.

I can't recommend this enough. If you like Milne, if you like poems, if you have kids, if you like vocals to be beautiful, resonant and heartfelt, if you like guitar and piano played with feeling and filled with melody, do have a listen and if you love it, buy it.

I'm away to listen to it again. :)

*The use of his Christian name is a dead giveaway that I know Chris. We are friends, but we became friends after I'd gone to a few of his shows, so this is only slightly biased. :)

Thank you everyone for your kind comments on the previous post. I was unable to completely leave the internet for long, as those with twitter will have noticed.. I am getting there, and I am back and writing because I miss blogland.

...taking some quiet time.

2011-10-22T04:16:00.000-07:00

I want to say thank you for the lovely, encouraging words on my last post. They meant an awful lot. I think I'll be able to put my more serious thoughts out there on occasion without being terrified now.

My nana died at the weekend. I'm ok, and I have lots of support from Dave and our family and friends, but I'm going to take a time out from blogging and step back from the internet a bit for a wee while. I generally want this blog to be a happy place and though happy things are still happening, it feels a bit wrong to write about them at the moment. It feels a bit weird even posting this, but I get worried when bloggers I frequently read stop posting, and I don't want to do that to anyone else.

I'll be back soon. x

... World Mental Health Awareness Day (belated)

2011-10-13T12:59:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago, it was World Mental Health Awareness Day. I should have posted this then, but to be honest, I chickened. This is personal stuff, and whilst I know everyone reading and likely to comment is lovely, it's still hard putting it out there. Part of my list of things I want to achieve in the next years is recording stuff about my mum. So here goes. In at the deep end.

People who have been reading the blog for a while, or who know me 'in person', will know that my mum died when I was 21. Some of you know that I was her carer. A small minority know a little of what I am about to tell you - and I'm writing it both to give and inside but outside (since I wasn't the one with agoraphobia) point of view, and so that people are aware of how it affects the people close to a sufferer (that's the wrong word, my mum was incredibly strong, but I can't think of the right one). If any of this sounds a bit 'woe is me', it isn't supposed to. It wasn't a bad or awful experience for me for the most part, it just was.

Before my mum developed agoraphobia (fear of outside) and crushing depression, she was a brittle diabetic - which means that even with medication and monitoring, her diabetes was hard to control. She was also somewhat calcium deficient from having me. My early memories of my mum were of someone constantly doing things - baking,cooking, reading to me, organising a mother and toddlers group, taking us for walks, running around with us. She was sociable and had lots of friends. I say early memories because when I was eight, my papa died. He and my mum were very, very close, and it's about that point she began to get ill. I was little, so I don't remember everything, and now It really annoys me that as a grown up I didn't ask, but I assume that the initial depression was a reaction to grief. Slowly, my mum went out less. Sometimes we'd be downstairs playing (I lived with Hazel, her dad and her sisters and brother as well as my mum) and she wouldn't be around for a bit. She explained to me when I was about 15 that she locked herself in her room so we couldn't see her having panic attacks. When I was 10 (I know this only because my birthday was during the time), she spent time in a psychiatric ward, and on the day of my birthday, going in to visit her, I heard the doctor (rather too casually I now think) tell Hazel's dad she had thrown a tray across the room.

Occasionally I tell people these things, and I can see them thinking 'how awful' and in my head I'm thinking, It wasn't a picnic, but my mum was always my mum. There is this misconception that people with mental illnesses stop being them, stop being coherent, are violent. Other than the incident with the tray, my mum was never violent. She was still her. She loved us, and did her best to look after us (As you can probably tell, I am alive, healthyish and unscarred, other than from my own clumisiness). Personally, I think you have to be pretty lucid to be having the beginning of a panic attack and think 'this will scare the kids, I'll just go upstairs'. She still made a fuss on our birthdays, she still read to us, we still baked. She just couldn't go outside.

I actually mean couldn't. She'd be at the door, trying to leave, and not be able to. Shaking and hyperventilating, and crying because she so wanted to do important things with us and she couldn't. Sometimes, even though she was terrified, we'd go out. If things were all organised, and she knew exactly what the plan was, and there was a routine, she could do it. As well as the fear of going outside, my once social mum really did not like being around people she didn't know. With family, and with long time friends, she was the same bubbly person, but she clammed up with strangers. This meant that when the question of additional help came up, I automatically said no. I took on the role of carer - though I think it's a bit odd to even give a name to looking after someone you love, it's just what you do. I partly took on care of my sister too - cooking dinner, going to parents' nights (odd when you attend the school), looking at her homework. It's an odd thing, being 18 and trying to work out if you can leave your mum and sister at home so that you can go out. The upside of this was that I spent a huge amount of time with my mum, and now it's something I'm really grateful for.

One of the side effects of agoraphobia is that mum's muscles tensed up to the stage that her stomach was rock hard, and her spine curved. This, bones lacking calcium and diabetes lead to her physical health deteriorating pretty quickly. She had been seeing a psychiatrist regularly till I was about 16, but they eventually actually said she wasn't going to get better, and focussed on trying to balance (maybe not the right word) out her condition. So, it was maintained at a level where she could almost function, but it and her other existing medical problems were causing her to get more and more ill.

In the last three years of her life, my mum spent about 6 weeks per year in hospital. Once she had a hypo so bad she went into a coma. She also fell over and broke her hip, and it was replaced. As you can imagine, these things are not encouraging when you are already afraid to leave the house. On a day when I had an exam and she had a hospital appointment, she worked up the immense courage to go on her own,but she tripped, and her movement was so limited that she couldn't get back up, and it completely squashed the achievement for her(fortunately, we live in a village where everyone knows everyone and she was helped very quickly). BUT SHE TRIED. When I hear people flippantly make fun of ill people, I want to scream 'you don't know what it took for them to be outside!!'. I have occasionally said this to people. I am going to say it more.

I became 'primary carer' in our house then. My mum could barely move. Her bed had rails so she wouldn't fall out, and I was at points so afraid she would that I didn't sleep very much at all. I did all her personal care. I can't say I was always very gracious about it. Right before she was taken into the hospital for the last time, I was stressed and hormonal, and very flippant and rude to her. Not my best moment. For about a year, she got a little better, and would walk around in the house, sometimes walk along to my nana's house (she moved out and along the road), do a bit of cooking. Through all this, with us at least, she was still bright a cheerful, and made jokes and sang (badly, which I inherited) . I really think there came a point where she was only still alive because she loved us. I can't imagine how she felt inside, having been so on the go all the time, so vibrant, to be so debilitated. This is what I mean when I say she was strong. She was terrified, and she kept going. She got more and more ill, and she kept going. She broken her hip and couldn't move properly, and she kept going. People have a perception of mentally ill people being weak or in some way feeble. My mum was not weak. She was the strongest person I have ever met (the second being my sister). She struggled, daily for 13 years with crushing fear and doubt, and she kept living to the extent that her brain and body would allow her, and she frequently pushed herself to break point for us.

The last time she went into hospital, she was unconscious. What we didn't know was that the pin holding her hip together had moved in the joint, and she had septicaemia. She regained conciousness for a bit before they took her into theatre to try and fix it, and the last thing she said before she went in is 'I'll be ok, I don't want you to worry about me'. This ended up being the last thing she ever said to me. Again, strength, and love.

I know a little, tiny bit about this fear. A couple of years after my mum died, I had delayed grief reaction, including depression - at least that's what the doctor diagnosed. And I wasn't afraid of going outside, but I was so, so afraid I'd get that ill. And with some help from Dave and some crying and some very bad days and a lot of talking, I got better. Few people noticed I was ill in the first place.

Throughout 13 years of my mum being ill, the thing that bothered me most was the assumptions people made, the things people would occasionally shout when we were out. My mum was not a 'junkie'. She was not 'a psycho', she was not 'mental' - at least not in the way people use it. She was someone fighting very, very hard to get past something that was crushing her, and to look after her children. I think people forget when they see people talking to themselves on the street, or being a bit ranty, or looking a bit gaunt and vague that those people have their fight to fight, and that they have families who are trying to get through it too.

For my part, I hope I learned a lot about being strong and empathic. I certainly learned that I mustn't take things at face value.

There are thousands of children and teenagers across Scotland and the UK caring for parents and siblings with health problems. You can find information from The Princes Royal Trust for Young Carers, which my sister was a member of. They provide respite, councelling and a way to make friends for children who have a great deal of responsibility at a young age.

...is THREE!

2011-10-05T15:42:00.000-07:00

Three birthday candles.

Today, I have been writing in this wee bit of the internet for three years.

I've moved across the country, started two different jobs, baked and cooked lots of things, slightly shoddily crafted, gone to many gigs, gotten a bit excited by things like autumn and Christmas, read many books, joined Blook club, met many lovely fellow bloggers, and written about happenings along the way. I am sometimes a bit neglectful - this post is the first one I've written in more than a week - but I try very hard not to be.

I've tried to explain the appeal of blogging to people before. It's appeal initially was almost as portable storage. I put stuff in here, and assuming the internet survives, it'll always be here. It has become so much more. I read other people's and with a some of them, have formed strong and lasting friendships (you all know who you are), from the others I get ideas and inspiration and find lovely things to cook. I feel that I am quite firmly part of a community - one full of creativity and ideas and opinions, friendship and compassion. I can't imagine a time when I won't consider this am important part of life.

I am ever so grateful to those of you who read, and comment on my wee blog. I am ever so lucky to call some of you my friends, and really mean it. I think we all have those moments where we think 'I might just stop', and knowing that even a few people are waiting to read about what's going on keeps me writing. I may not write very much that is deeply emotional, or controversial, but when something big is happening and I'm trying to process it and I can put it in here, it does me the world of good to put it into words.

a small celebration - spiced brown bread and chocolate spread pudding cupcake
and ginger tea with an autumn apple candle.

Thank you for reading and commenting, sharing your thoughts and stories with me, and giving me support. x

...an organiser of books (30 before 30 update)

2011-09-25T11:13:00.000-07:00

Before - not messy, but in no order.

I am just more than a month into my 29th year, and I have managed to cross one thing of my 30 before 30, and am sort of managing to upkeep a few continuing ones!

During - about the point where I thought 'well, this was a stupid idea'.

If you have a look on my page for it, you'll see that one shiny item, number 22, is marked in red. My book shelves and book piles, are organise into hardback and paperbacks, The paperbacks are organised alphabetically and by genre. The hardback are just alphabetical, as there aren't enough to do otherwise. I have a Christmas book shelf (I collect them) and a kid's book shelf. I am very pleased. I am trying hard not to be bothered that books with the same design aren't grouped together. I also found there are a few books (classics) that I have more than one copy off, so the spares I think will go into the Guardian Book Swap.

Christmas books! (and shoes)

After... some of the hardbacks

After... top - non-fic hardbacks, middle - kids

Uber after... top - classics, 2nd -poetry, modern classics, crime
3rd, more crime, contemporary fiction
bottom - non-fic ( history, musci science), alcohol
side - chick lit.

I also did my cook books, which live under our coffee table and are rather wedged into the space. This was done in the evening of the day I made the cookies (in previous post), it was cold and windy and wet outside, so a good day for organising. I maybe shouldn't have started at 7pm though.

organised cookbooks.

YAY NEW COOKBOOKS!

Today is a similar sort of day, but has have little of this industriousness. Yesterday was a long day, after a night out (to see Great Cynics. who are BRILLIANT), a day made longer by our last bus back being almost two hours late (it was stuck behind a motorway accident), meaning we got home to Dundee at 3am. So today has been some tidying, lots of radio and a lot of sitting on the sofa, blog and cookbook reading, and now, patiently waiting for our very autumnal dinner of roast lamb and root vegetables to be ready. I hope everyone had a good weekend?

The quality of these photos is awful. It is VERY hard to take good photos in autumn, inside, in the evening with a camera phone. Also, I have no idea why the last two photos have two borders. I'm just going to leave them there.

...cooking things I've Pinned (Soup, cookies and a tart)

2011-09-21T06:42:00.000-07:00

So, I'm not doing very well with this whole regular feature thing, am I? Realistically, If I manage to blog once a week I am doing great. Expecting to have a feature every week is maybe pushing it, so, I'm going to aim for once every two weeks, and hope I manage a wee bit of blogging in between. Ok?

Ok.

However, I have actually cooked three Pinned things over the last three weeks, and they have been rather autumnal, so I'm going to share them.

Chicken and Coconut Curry Soup
(adapted from Cooking for Seven)

olive oil
2tsps coriander seeds
2 pinches red chilli flakes
3 chicken thighs, bones removed, cut into chunks
1/2 a red onion, grated
1green pepper, grated
2 carrots, grated
2 spring onion, chopped
2pints chicken stock
400ml tin coconut milk(full fat)

add oil, onions and spices to soup pot, and heat
add chicken and fry till onions are soft and coriander seeds have popped
add other veg, stir in and fry
add stock and coconut milk, bring to the boil and simmer for 20 mins

I left out the flaked coconut so that the soup stayed quite spicy, and added spring onions and carrots as I felt it needed a bit more veg. It disappeared pretty quickly, and is just the thing on a very cold and very wet day.

Rustic Apple and Blackberry Tart

(an amalgamation of these recipes on Tea & Cookies)

...it was too dark to take a pic at night, so we've eaten half by this point

1 sheet ready roll shortcrust pastry (I can make shortcrust, but we had this in the fridge. If you want to make it, make enough for a 9 inch flan tin)
3 large apples, cored and chopped into 1inch chunks (ish)
200g blackberries
1/4 cup apple juice.
3tbsp brown caster sugar
1tsp cinnamon

butter for greasing

put apples into a pan with apple juice, 2/3 of sugar and of cinnamon
bring to boil and cook till apples are soft - about 5 mins
drain (set juices aside, they are nice on ice cream)
grease whatever dish you are making your tart in
drop in pastry sheet,leaving even amounts of pastry around each edge
spoon apples into middle, and add blackberries and a wee sprinkle of sugar (if your dish doesn't have sides, you want about 2 inches of pasty left at the sides
fold pastry edges over, making folds and pleats as you go
brush with a little butter, and sprinkle on remaining sugar and cinnamon.
bake for 35-50 mins, till crust is golden and fruits a bit bubbly.

I should have remembered to put a bit of cornflour in before the fruit to soak up pastry, but I didn't. The result was one side of the base being a wee bit soggy, and some juice escaping. To be fair, it didn't take away from the taste and texture much. This is lovely and fruity and crumbly, but doesn't feel terrible to eat because it's full of fruit. I wanted to eat this too much to faff about with additions, but custard or vanilla ice cream, or even a wee swizz of cream would be lovely.

Chocolate-Fudge-Spiced Cookies

(adapted from the Travellers' Lunchbox)

200g self-raising flour

2 medium eggs

1/2tsp vanilla extract

1/2 tsp salt

130g butter in chunks

1.5tbsp vegetable oil

100g choc chips

100g fudge chunks (about choc chip sized)

1.5tsp cinnamon

Put dry ingedients (except choc chips and fudge) in a big mixing bowl and stir well
melt butter and stir in oil, then combine with dry ingredients
add eggs and combine again
lastly, add in your chunks
you should have a stightly sticky dough
form dough into golf ball sized balls, and place on baking sheet/clingfilmed board
freeze for at least half an hour till the solidify
when ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 180c
place on greaseproof paper on a baking tray , at intervals of at least 2inchs
bake for 12-14 mins, till outside edges are golden and middle is not quite firm
allow to cool a little, then transfer to rack to finish

I've made the originals of these before, but the addition of fudge and cinnamon is lovely in these. there are surprise gooey bits, and there's just enough spice to give them warmth. The balls can be kept frozen for when you need an emergency snack, and also to stop you eating a whole batch. There are five in our freezer at the moment.

I suppose, at least if I am failing at one of my 30, this could technically be cooking one new thing per week, yes?

...an Autumn enthusiast.

2011-09-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

I've wanted to write this post for a couple of weeks, but life was a wee bit stressful, we have been in limbo, and talking about lovely trees and things didn't feel right. This week we found out, after a very long and anxious-making wait that Dave has passed his PhD. He has a few corrections to do and hopefully, *fingers crossed, touch wood, anything else I can do for luck even if I don't believe in superstition* in the next couple of weeks those will be done and signed off and things will be official. This is a tremendous wieght off both our minds. We can go on with life now, make plans, start things. And I can revel in the season.

The autumn leaves are falling from the trees...

With the exception of the last two years, I've been in school since I was three. The autumn term is as much the beginning of a year for me as New Year's is, and with things being suddenly lighter at home, it feels rather more promising than summer did.

I love this time of year. I know some people hold onto the end of summer firmly, but as soon as the first leave tips change colour, I am excited. Cold, crisp mornings filled with autumn sun (less harsh than summer, isn't it?), the sound of windblown leaves skittering down the street, people moving quickly, knitted clothes mixing with the last of summer ones. Autumn and winter clothes are so much better than summer ones, full of texture and warmth.

Autumn, by oldest of my charges.
'Because autumn is windy, and there are lots of colours'
(Given to me. Rather a lovely gift)

Working with kids in the countryside, we spend a lot of autumn wrapped up in jumpers and scarves and hats against the chill, walking through the open country, running through piles of crispy leaves, picking up the very best ones to hang in windows and stick on collages.

Cowl by Hazel. It matches my coat buttons!

I still get excited about getting new hats and scarves at this time of year, just like I did when I was five. This year my hat, one of my 'scarves', a lovely cowl, are extra special as they were made by my sister. I still, having been long time student, like to get a new bag. Once it was my school or placement bag, now it's my work bag - fulfilling much the same purpose since I look after children. This year it - my shiny red satchel - has been provided by Dave. I love it so much I might not want a new one next year!

Hat by Hazel. Good with my new scarf I think.
oh how I love red and mustard.

As I write this ode to the idyllic autumn, it's blowing a gale and tipping it down. We live in a block of tenements, surrounded by other blocks of tenements, and pretty much everything outside is grey. But against the grey, through the drizzle, there are oranges and red and gold on trees, bright against the dull background. Autumnal colours are the very best ones. On days like this I do washing as an excuse to put the heating on, and I am grateful for the warmth of my hot water bottle and blanket.

Hot tea and mug waffles.

Staying inside on days all grey and wet, I read cookery books, make food full of warmth and spice, and bring back traditions of the season. Today I had my first mug top waffle* of the year. I first had one of these in my second week of uni. We sold Fabulous Bakin' Boys ones when I worked in the Student's Union shop, but since then I have discovered Tregroes ones, and the slight cinnamony flavour(which I might be imagining) is more to may taste. Melting caramel atop a mug of steaming tea shouts autumn to me.

Tea, which I am obviously fond of, is joined by other hot drinks - hot spiced apple juice, spiced cider, hot chocolate with spices, and towards the end of autumn (because it is a thing of Christmas really) mulled wine. I tend toward spiced tea too - ginger, Russian caravan, chai (which Elizabeth taught me about, and which I must blog at some point).

As it gets darker, earlier and earlier (it was properly dark at eight last night! I read more, and I look forward to period dramas on TV on a Sunday (now iPlayer), and I really hope this year to craft much more too. I have so many plans and weekends cosied up stretch before me, full of ideas for things to make. I would be grateful for autumn book recommendations - I really enjoy books that are anchored in the season I am in, and of course any recipes are welcome!

*you stick the waffle on top of your mug of hot drink for a couple of minutes. The steam melts the slighty crystallised toffee inside, and softens one side of the waffle-biscuit, so that it is at once warm, crunchy and gooey. They are ace. They taste like autumn.

... A Blook Club member (Book 1 - How to be a Woman by Caitlin Moran)

2011-09-14T03:19:00.000-07:00

'I read a book' worksheets, pops, and 'How to be a Woman'

Sunday was Zoe's practice run of Blook Club (You'll see a wee button in my sidebar if you want to find out about the most recent happenings). Off to the capital I went, a bit nervous, book in my bag filled with notes, reading another book, laughing loudly on the train and being looked at like I am weird. Nick Hornby is funny, and if think that makes me weird, then I am ok with it!

I negotiated the bus to Sofi's, had a quick potter around Leith, and then met up with Zoe before Blook Club stared so that we could catch up. Her choice of venue was pretty perfect I think - cosy chairs, stripy and floral cushions, candles in old candlesticks and roses in champagne glasses. Lovely. Sofi's is like what you want your house to be like (If you are me). I now want to paint all my tabletops white.

Soon after, the other lovely girls arrived, and we got down to business. As an ice-breaker, we all filled in our own 'I read a Book' form, and were offered Zoe's home-made biscuit and marshmallows (which were delicious. I had three). Extra aceness was added by Gaynor visiting for a bit :)

Caitlin Moran's memoirs of life experiences and feminist ideals are a brilliant read. I read it in one sitting, awake until past 1am, laughing out loud and crying at points. Honest, bold, at some points hilarious and at some points utterly, truly heartbreaking, occasionally even a bit scary. She discusses her experience of all the things that affect women, from periods to appearance, childbirth to work, marriage and even abortion(honestly and bravely), and discusses how each has formed who she is, and how strongly she feels about things. I am FEMINIST, and unafraid to say it, and so much of Moran's experience ring true and is familiar. There are a few of her ideas I don't agree with, but then I am not her. Everyone should read this book - not just every woman. Men should read it too. If this stuff was more out in the open, we wouldn't be having the problems we are. Having read it, written my wee notes and discussed it with others, I really do feel it is quite a bit empowering. I'm definitely going to stop calling myself fat as a result (quite a good thing to come from a book I think)

Now, in my brief 'review' just there, clearly there is a lot to talk about, a lot that could be contentious, and most of it very personal. We may have saved the more personal 'til we were a wee drink or two in, but I found the girls open, easy to talk to and willing to join in. I think we may all have said more than we thought we would! The book was rather a brilliant choice for our first meet as, being a memoir, Moran's experiences and opinions were a jumping off point for discussion our own. This lead to some hilarious, and some very personal discussions - with an audience toward the end as we ran over our booked time, to much left to chat about. I've learned that you don't want to be saying 'the thing about porn though' as a big group of people you don't know walk into a room! I also found that you can find out a lot about a person on a two hours train journey, and be very glad to find that person lives quite near, for future coffee and chat!

I joined Blook club for a few reasons - I love reading, and one of the best things about it is finding someone who has read the same book to talk about it with. I also love blogging, and the chances for new friendship it brings - as you get a bit older, it becomes less and less likely that you'll make new friends, and for me, blogging is the thing that means I get to meet new, lovely people. And in the end, tea (and alcohol), books and chatting with interesting people are a very good combination.

Thanks for organising it Z, and for feeding us sugary goodness!

...cooking things I've Pinned! (Baked Doughnuts) and having a quiet weekend.

2011-09-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend has been one of trying to get better, and doing quiet, homely things. I slept late, and spent the remainder Saturday looking through cookery books for autumn meals, reading a little, eating spicy soup and catching up on blogs trying to make doughnuts....

Recipe foraging and ginger tea

Accidental Bready-Scones

... it seems that if you try to make doughnuts, forget to put the milk in, and throw some water in when the dough doesn't bind, you get slightly bready scones. I checked with my American food advisor, and it seems that what I made is akin to an American biscuit. We'll call them bready-scones just now though.

Sunday started earlier - at my normal weekend get up time. I get up at 10 am, have a cup of tea, potter, get breakfast things ready, have a wee look on the internet, and Dave gets up about 11. Today, I made my cup of tea, and whilst the tea bag was steeping, I put together another batch of doughnut dough. A bit more pottering, a lunch of toast and cheese, starting a pot of broth, and a chapter of my book.

I stamped out the doughnuts, setting them on their tray for a final rise, and Dave and I went for a walk in the park - there I did today's drawing (number 12 on my 30 Before 30 list, which now has it's own page up yonder ^). From this very quick, very rough, quite frankly not very good outline drawing, I have had a couple of ideas. for bigger stuff. Let's hope that keeps happening!

A wee doodle - lone man on a park bench

My favourite very quick drawing this week - from Wednesday,
Dave's desk with my teacup. Dave was away for work.

My phone is broken, I'm using Dave's old Blackberry, and I have stupidly deleted the picture of my stamped out doughnuts, waiting to rise. We spent an hour at the park, first wandering round the winding paths and taking photos, then sitting on a bench while I drew and Dave wrote. When we got back, into the oven went the doughnuts.

How many times have I mentioned the doughnuts now then?! I was really craving a doughnut yesterday. I fully intended to make fried ones, but we have an electric hob, in a corner of a small flat, and I got the fear. Putting hot, hot oil into that situation just seemed like a BAD PLAN. I have a fried and a baked doughnut recipe Pinned, so this is sort of a combination of the two (that counts as cooking something I've Pinned, right? I need to do this for my 30 too!) and my need for cinnamon and apple flavouring. I also did two kinds of coating, for experimental purposes.

Baked Doughnuts

(Adapted from recipes by Tartelette and Joy the Baker)

Left :Apple and cinnamon glazed, right - sugar coated

Doughnuts

10g fast action yeast

2 tbsp warm water

500g self raising flour

100mls milk (room temp)

80mls apple juice, room temp

50g butter softened

2 large egg yolks

4 tbsp sugar

1tsp salt

1tbsp cinnamon (yeah, that's about 6 times as much as the recipe says. 'Mon the cinnamon!)

Sugar Coating

100g butter

150g sugar mixed with 15g cinnamon on plate

Cinnamon Apple Glaze

100g icing sugar

2tbsp apple juice

1tsp cinnamon

Mix together yeast and hot water and let sit 5 mins or so, till it bubbles
put everything in a bowl, inc yeast mixture, and mix with a wooden spatula till combined
finish bringing together with hands and knead till dough is elastic
cover bowl with a tea towel, and set in a warm, dry place till dough has doubled - 1.5 to 2 hours
after hours, knock back dough and roll out till about 1cm thick. using a circular cutter (mine is 3 inches) cut out doughnut. Realise you don't have a cutter small enough to do the holes, and do it with an Irn Bru bottle lid.
Place on a tray that has been every so lightly dusted with flour, and cover with a tea towel again. Do a wee tray for the doughnut holes too.
cover with a tea towel and set aside for 45 mins (or 2 and a half hours as i did today).
when you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180c
bake doughnuts for 10 mins.
each topping about will do 6 to 8 doughnuts, just double if you ar American food advisore sticking to one.

To coat with sugar

While baking is going on, melt butter.
AS SOON AS you remove doughnuts from oven and can touch them, coat all the sides of each in butter, and then in sugar mixture to coat.

To coat with cinnamon apple glaze

mix all the glaze ingredients in bowl till smooth and just coating back of a spoon.
take doughnuts from oven, and dunk each one fully in mixture (stir mixture between each to disperse cinnamon)
leave to cool
dunk again, leave to set, and then spoon a last (should now be thickened) dollop on top.

These are good doughnuts. They aren't as fluffy as ones baked in oil, they are a little heavier, but they taste lovely. The come out of the oven with a slight crust (like a browned scone), and it's important to do the butter/icing while they are still warm, as it softens this up a bit. The apple addition gives them a bit of freshness, and the could take even more cinnamon, but these could equally be left out and a bit of vanilla essence could be added if you want something more simple. These were worth the work, they would have been perfect if fried, and it was very, very satisfying making them myself!

... cooking to get rid of a cold(Thai-ish Porkball soup)

2011-09-02T12:49:00.000-07:00

This week has not been the most pleasant. Whilst Dave was away for work, my seemingly rough but not awful cold took a turn for the worse. A 3am, eye's feel like they are going to explode, sinuses swollen, feeling like a poker was being rammed through my brain when I sneezed, bringing on sickness type of worse. I phoned in sick for work, and it takes a lot to make me do that. I stayed in bed on a Thursday, slept most of the day, had wee bits of twitter chat and a few 'are you ok?' phonecalls from Dave. I slept more, took a lot of cold and flu capsules, and woke today feeling marginally more human. I've been pottering around in between sitting, the painkillers are mostly keeping the sinus issues under control, and I went to the shop without people staring in horror, so I must look better too.

I got a late ((late because of the post, not the sender) birthday present in the post, which perked me up no end, and what a beautiful present it is.

I've wanted this since it came out. It's still quite expensive in most shops, so I've been waiting for either a slightly damaged and therefore cheap one, or to find a second hand one. I am very fortunate, as my lovely friend and fellow Christmas lover, Mhairi sent it to me. She is sneaky, but it's the good kind of sneaky. 3 hours of my day were spent looking through it, with a cup of tea. Mhairi says she finds a wee look through it immediately cheers her up, and I can tell it will have the same effect on me! Pretty Nigella, pretty food, pretty Christmas things, LOVELY. Cookery books are so very satisfying.

At the very end, Nigella has put a couple of cold/hangover remedy soups. I've take bits of these, and bits of a recipe for Oriental Porkballs and Greens in Broth(from M&S's Soup Bowl) and bits of my own noodle soup recipe, and this is what I ended up with. It's heavy on chilli and ginger, spices to clear the airways and warm the body. I wanted the pork as an alternative to Nigella's chicken, since we have chicken noodle soup quite often, and it works quite well. If you like your spices to be milder, maybe add half of each, then when you get to the cooked noodle stage, you can add more.

Thai-ish Pork Ball Soup (about 6 portions)

2tbsp olive oil
2.5tsp chilli flakes
2tsp Preserved ginger (I use the English Provender one, so as not to end up wasting ginger), chopped finely
3tsp lemongrass paste (by EP again), though you could bash a fresh stalk
3 large cloves of garlic, minced
3 Spring onions, chopped finely (while chopping, separate the white and oniony part from the hollow shoot part)
2ltr chicken stock
5 pork sausages worth of sausage meat, removed from skin,
1 egg
pinch of pepper
half a sweet red pepper, sliced into slivers
half a large leek, sliced into slivers
2 large carrots, grated into long strands
1 sheet dried fine noodles (I used the Sharwood's ones)

heat the oil over a medium heat in a soup pot
add most of chilli, ginger, most of the garlic, lemongrass, and whites/thick of spring onion
cook for a few minutes 'til everything softens.
setting aside a pinch of the remaining spring onions, and the veg to the pan, and cook for a few minutes
Put your sausage meat in a bowl with the leftover chilli, spring onions, garlic, egg and pepper and squish
form into balls (stir beg occasionally too)
add stock to pan and bring to boil for 5 mins or so
Break noodle sheet into 4 pieces (so that your noodles atay quite long
drop into soup and cook 2 minutes
drop pork balls in, cook for three minutes, and set aside to cool a little.

We has shop bought prawn crackers with this (Sharwood's - they have a bit of an after taste, but it goes once you've dunked them in the spicy broth), but you could buy and cook your own (they are fun to watch puff up from little glasine disks), though the soup is quite filling and hearty on it's own. I was aiming for a light soup, but it manages to be both that and filling at the same time.

I'm sure sometime soon, I'll post something that isn't a soup recipe. If anyone has any cold cures up their sleeve, do feel free to leave details in the comments! I'm away to have a cup of tea and look at my book some more.

...cooking things I've Pinned!(Betty Crocker's Cheesy Potato Soup)

2011-08-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

I've been debating with myself about getting a slow cooker. I have concerns about food being too mushy, but when I asked on twitter, rather a lot of people felt quite strongly that slow cookers are very good and if you are careful, you can avoid mush.

I mostly want to get one because if we continue to live here, and therefore I continue to nanny, I don't really want to be cooking when I get home not much shy of nine pm when it's freezing cold in the middle of winter. When you have an almost unheatable flat, standing at the cooker is quite pleasant, but doing so that late and not eating 'till close to ten isn't(at least not on a regular basis). It will result is us living on pizzas from the supermarket, and we all know they don't taste as good as they look. They taste of cardboard and disappointment.

Since I started think about it, I have been occasionally Pinning slow cooker recipes. This one, for Betty Crocker's Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup, with it's picture reminiscent of macaroni cheese, is one of those ones that could either be ace or really, really bad. Pushed on by my cold addled, carb-obsessed brain I decided to find out. My current lack of slow cooker wasn't going to get in the way.

The original recipe calls for various ingredients from Betty Crocker frozen packs. I substituted fresh, and added more fluid (I assume the frozen ones have been at least partly cooked). I also substituted a leek for half a stick of celery and half an onion. And added bacon to the soup base. Extra bacon is never a bad thing.

Slow Cooker Cheesy Potato Soup (without a slow cooker)
(adapted from the recipe by Betty Crocker)
Serves 4, or makes two lots of dinner for two people

1 large leek, diced
2 rashers of bacon, diced
675g potatoes, diced (i didn't peel them, but if you are not keen on skin, do)
950ml chicken stock
1cup water
180g white mature cheddar
2/3 cup milk (I used a mug. I am not that precise clearly)
2tbsp plain flour

optional topping
3 rashers bacon, chopped small
4 small potatoes diced.
tsp flour
pinch of salt and pepper
20g cheese
pepper to taste

if you are doing toppings, pre-heat oven to 180c
In a big soup pot, put a little oil, leeks and the two rashers of bacon, and cook till bacon is cooked and leeks have softened
add all of potatoes (inc ones for topping), give a quick swish round, and add stock and water.
bring to the boil and simmer for 10 mins with the lid on
remove 20 of your potato cubes, which should now be par boiled.
stick lid back on pot and continue to boil
pat your cubes dry, shake in a little flour, salt and pepper
put a little oil on a baking tray(is used a small cake pan) and chuck on coated potatoes
cook in the oven for 25 mins, turning occasionally
at this point, remove tray and add your chopped up bacon for toppings and return to oven
Remove when bacon bits are crisp (was 15 mins for me, but keep an eye out) and potatoes are golden
stir your flour into milk and add to the soup
cook till soup thickens a bit, about 20 mins
chuck in cheese, stir till it melts
serve with a quarter of toppings sprinkled on each bowl (if you are keeping two portions back, keep in fridge and stick potatoes/bacon under the grill for a bit when you re-heat your soup)

This maybe isn't soup to have every day. It's filled with carbs and cheese, so not the healthiest option. But when you are filled with the cold, it's tipping it down and windy outside and you spent the whole day at the Fringe the day before, walking around and getting soaked, it's very comforting. The bacon and cheese make it a bit like macaroni cheese, but the saltiness of the stock and the texture of the potatoes make it a bit like boulangere potatoes too. I was worried it would be a bit too thick and cheesy, but the additional stock balances out both the thickness and the cheesiness. It definitely came out on the ace side of could be good or bad.

I have actually decided to buy a slow cooker. Sainsbury's have them for £20. It's not an awful lot to lose if I end up not using it.

...'s 30 before 30 (and some birthday photos)

2011-08-21T13:35:00.000-07:00

The satchel of beauty. And my trusty, unbreakable camera.

Fair warning fellow bloggers and friends, this is a LOOOOONG post. Probably not a lunch break read. Tea and nibbles required. Maybe a blanket.

Birthday breakfast - boiled eggs and toast with anchovy butter. mmmm.

So, I'm 29. So far being 29 has included a shiny new red Oxford satchel (thanks Dave!), being given a party at work by the children (I was still 28 technically), birthday lunch out, walking around in the sun and playing with my camera, and Dave's dad and step-mum travelling 100 or so miles to bring us a homemade lunch today, so I'm ok with it. I have been sent cards and given gifts and had lots of messages and things, and even a wee blog post from a very lovely friend, and I feel very lucky. And I'll have some birthday fun next weekend too.

We went to Tonic, a nice coffee place in Dundee for lunch

Nachos and lattice fries. I had nachos on our anniversary too. I LOVE THEM.

I don't have the fear people seem to exhibit over being 30. It's my next 'big birthday' but I'm happy enough in my life and have had so many good experiences in my twenties that turning 30 an starting another decade of cool stuff doesn't seem bad. Ask me again in 9 months though! After a chat with the other one about her 30 before 30 list, I thought it might be a good idea for me to do one too. Some of these are things in my intentions for this year, since I only have 4 months left to try to make a dent in them and have done little about them! Some are big things and some are small, some are close to impossible in the next year, but all are important to me. My plan is to update on here as and when things happen, and do quarterly reports.

My satchel again. I LOVE IT SO.

1. Learn to crochet - this is from my intentions list. It's August and I haven't started. But, my present from the paternal parents-in-law (along with a nice bottle of fizz) was a crochet set, and I am bloody determined to do it.

2. Learn a language - this is also from my intentions list. I'm going to learn German. Theoretically, I know some French, but my accent is coarse and I can't make French sound like French. I reckon German will suit more, and it's an excuse to go there when I've learned a bit.

3. Go to a gig outside the UK - it's be interesting to see how audiences in different places respond to bands.

4. Learn to take good, interesting photos with a anologue camera - spools are expensive, so I want to get to the stage where almost every shot is a good one. If anyone has any tips about books for this then I'd love to know, I've been searching the internet and it is very confusing.

5. By then end of the year, be buying most of my clothes second-hand and altering things to fit properly (I'm excluding jeans from this, it's hard enough to find new ones that fit, and a top from New Look I am coveting).

6. Following from that, get myself back into a size 14 -16. The biggest problem I have buying second hand is that I am too chubby and tall. I figure if I remove one of those, I'll have a better chance. Also, it's the best size and the most in shape I have been as an adult. Time to get back there.

7. Volunteer for a charity. I'm giving myself Christmas as a deadline for this, so hope to have volunteered for at least 8 months by my next birthday.

8. Get the Paisley flat in order - the stairs look exactly as the did in my last post about them. Summer has been busy, and everything else has taken precedent. I need to spend less time Pinning things for the flat and more actually doing stuff to it. we have to - finish the stairs, strip and paint the hall floor, repaint the walls, hang pictures, redo the bathroom, re-floor and shuffle about the kitchen and mend the plumbing, paint the livingroom and cover the sofa, paint the bedroom and make me a craft area in it, and paint and sort out the spare room/office. I also have to make the fabric items for all rooms. We might paint some furniture too. Even if we don't end up living there, it's ours for the foreseeable future. It might as well be ours and be nice.

9. Be more solvent and more in control of money. Dave and I are collectively bad at money. We always muddle through, but it would be pleasant not to spend half the month worrying about paying our rent - we must make and stick to a budget.

10. Make every gift I give for the whole year (or buy second hand/handmade where the person will appreciate it) - this is always my aim but I never quite get there. This begins with making Christmas presents.

11. Re-learn to screenprint - When I studied graphic design, I gained so many skills that I don't use, and screen printing is one that would be handy for band merch and things, so I'm going to re-learn. First i'm going to do the DIY embroidery hoop and glue method, and then I'm going to properly learn to build screens.

12. As of Monday 22nd of August, have a small drawing for every day. I tried to do this last year and failed miserably. Time to try again. The small sketchbook Dave gave me for our anniversary is easy to carry around and I spend a lot of time sitting about waiting for buses, so I have plenty of time. I'm going to get my skills back.

13. Cook one new thing per week. I own 24 cookbooks. Just in those, there are enough things for me to cook a new thing a week for most of my life probably. Time to use them.

14. Paint or draw and accurate portrait. I've been 'doing' art, in a learning sense since I was eight. I still can't draw people. At least not ones that look like the person I'm trying to draw. On my 30th birthday I want to have at least one picture of a person that looks like the person. *grits teeth*

15. Hoard less - Have a clear out 3 times is the year. the first between Christmas and new year, one in April, and one in August, before the next birthday year starts. Get rid of things that can't be re-used, clothes I don't wear, and sort through and file bills. I know we should do this as and when I get them, but I'm being realistic.

16. Make curtains for the Dundee flat before winter. It's already getting colder, and we freezed our arses of last year. I can sew, and I can buy cheap fabric and make curtains. And yet I haven't. If we end up back in Paisley, this with change to 'Make better curtains for the Paisley flat'. The ones there are unlined and unhemmed. I essentially hand-sewed a channel on the top of them and stuck them on a pole.

17. Have a regular weekly feature on the blog. I think it's probably be the 'Recipes I've Pinned' one I started this week. I really want to be a better writer, and the practice and routine should help.

18. Find and procure a pair of well made, properly fitted knee high boots. I am a size 8 shoe and have fat calves. It makes buying boots a nightmare. I would quite like to go through winter with warm, dry feet. Even if it's next winter.

19. Make a dress in it's entirety. Then keep making my own dresses. I can already do this, but I'm rusty. And bad at zips.

20. Do crockery painting. Even if it's just a paint a mug day or something. I've always wanted to do it.

21. Start an art collection. This sounds grandiose, but really I just want to add to and hang the few prints/embroideries/paintings we have.

22. Organise my books. They got all jumbled when we moved, and have been so since. I keep putting it off because we might move back, but we might not. The ones in Paisley are all alphabetical now, and I need to do the ones here. It's about a day's work. That day should be soon.

23. Go to another continent. This is one of the long shot items on the list. I'd like to at least be aiming for it though.

24. Learn to drive (and conquer the fear I have of it). Again, long shot.

25. Tidy and maintain our garden. It is a mature garden and was hard work when we were there all the time, and now we avoid it. It has the potential to be a really nice space again. Even mowing the grass every couple of weeks and weeding would do a lot of good. This year, autumn and early winter will be used to get it under control. Along with this goes collecting all the fruit it produces and using it.

26. Find a trilby style hat that fits my big head (really, it's too big even for men's ones) and obtain it. I tried one on in a shop in France four years ago - grey cord, beautiful - and didn't buy it. I've been kicking myself ever since.

27. Have my hair cut by a hairdresser. This sounds so basic, but the last time I had a proper haircut was before I went to uni. So at least 7 years. I've cut my own since then, and it always looks fine, but a professional haircut seems like a big luxury. I'm letting my hair grow long again, so when it gets longish, I want to have it cut into choppy layers and have a thick fringe cut in (like Anne Hathaway's hair in The Devil Wears Prada). My hair was like that (self-cut) when I met Dave, and it has been my favourite hairstyle.

28. Another long shot, but I'd like to have laser eye surgery. At the moment, having an astigmatism in each eye means it wouldn't be wholly effective, but if at any point the can work around that, I'd do it. I'm happy enough wearing glasses, but to see without help would be lovely.

29. Do a first aid course. I last did one nine years ago, I can only remember the basics, and as I work with children I'd like to be qualified again.

30.Write something, not a book exactly, but something about my mum and my memories of her (and those of the family). If I do have children, I'd like to have stuff written down so that when I can't remember, the stories are still there. I might occasionally add things in the blog, as I intend it to be a record of my life generally. I don't know. Ideas?

So, these 30 things are things I aim to do. I'd better start soon!

...cooking things I've Pinned! (Bill Granger's Baked Porridge)

2011-08-17T03:03:00.000-07:00

I've been squirreling away recipes in Pinterest like there is no tomorrow, but I realised last week that I haven't cooked any of them. As of Sunday, I am aiming to cook one or two of them a week, and I'll share my successes here!

In our Dundee flat, we have two pots -a big soup one and a normal sized one, and a few baking trays and dishes. Since we also have pots and things in Paisley, and the kitchen here is minuscule, I don't want to get more as I'd only have to store them. I generally clean up as soon as I've cooked, but just occasionally I don't want to wash a pot straight away. On Sunday, one in use and one soaking, I found myself searching for another way to cook porridge and came across Bill Granger's Baked Porridge. It is MARVELLOUS stuff. Baked rice pudding like in texture, fruit and spicy, it hits the spot when what you need is comfort. It is a bit of a luxury - anything that uses cream is, but with a few substitutions/omissions, other than some cheap(er) single cream (Granger uses double) I made it from stuff we always have in the cupboard. I don't think it suffered much for it. There are loads of things that could be added - Granger suggests stewed fruit, apples would be delicious, and we though a few chocolate chips sprinkled through might be nice. It is quite thick, so the addition of some hot milk would take it closer to boiled porridge texture if you don't like stodge(it's the GOOD kind of stodge). The recipe says it serves six, but I halved all of the ingredients and we got two decent portions each. I've linked to the original recipe below if anyone wants to try the real thing rather than my cobbled together version!

Baked Porridge (serves 3-4)
(Adapted from recipe by Bill Granger, found on Muesli Lover)

70g porridge oats
10g chopped nuts
50g Dorset Cereals High Fibre Muesli (figured this would replace the nuts and dates I was short of)
40g Sultanas
325ml milk
100ml single cream (if you use double,could you let me know how it is?)
2tbsp caster sugar
1tbsp cinnamon (this is quadruple the quantity suggested. I like cinnamon, and it tasted ace)
1tbsp demerara

preheat oven to 150c
put all your dry ingredients (except the demerara, 1/2tbsp of the caster and 1/4 of cinnamon)) in a deep baking dish (worked fine in my silicone one)
give them good stir to spread ingredients evenly, then flatten it out
pour on milk and cream and stir again
bake for 45 mins
if you think it needs it, add a splash more milk
sprinkle on rest of sugar and cinnamon
bake for further 15 mins, till sugar have caramelised a bit

You should end up with it being thickly creamy (Dave says it's like the rice pudding his gran used to make), and with a slight chewy crunch to the 'crust'. Add a little milk or some fruit or jam if you like. Enjoy your pudding-like breakfast :)

This isn't something I could eat every day, but it's lovely and filling and rich. It's not so very much more expensive that normal porridge (if you tend to make it with milk and have jam with it), and I think it will be something to savour on very cold winter mornings. It might be used as a pudding occasionally too.

...enjoying simple pleasures

2011-08-13T16:52:00.000-07:00

I know it isn't for everyone else, but this is 'the end of the month' for Dave and I. Money is tight and we are living very plainly. This coupled with a busy, stressful week, a tummy bug (thankfully retreating) and some not great personal news has made me seek comfort, and I'm practically hibernating. Doing this, I remember that lots of the things that make me feel better, happy and safe are very small things.

Dinner in good company. Siobhan and her M came for tea on Wednesday. there was comforting food, lots of chat, tea, debate, and getting to know each other a wee bit more. Lovely.
Emails from friends. they have cheered me up over the pass few days. Thank you my lovely girls.
Having a bowl of baked chips late at night, and savouring the really vinegary ones at the bottom.
Buttered toast. Oh how I LOVE buttered toast. Butter is a luxury I won't do without. I have been having just a wee scrape because of the tummy issues, but my it is good.
Planning cooking and crafts for autumn. my Pinterest has seen a lot of action!
Proper cooking. So much of what Dave and I eat, while mostly home-made is basic stuff I can chuck together in 15 mins or so. Have the time to spend a couple hours making a meal and listening to the radio is rare and I miss it. (there should be some recipes up in theweek)
Cups of tea of course, particularly when made by Dave. :)
My new lovely handmade, recycled, eco-friendly leather bound sketch/notebook. It was my anniversary gift from Dave and I adore it. I gave him a leather bound notebook for writing his songs in. Similar thoughts it seems.
Sleeping in,the tummy bug has meant I slept late Friday and Saturday which I never do, and had an afternoon sleep on Friday.
Music. It is an almost constant in our flat(and lives). We have the privilege of calling many of the people we listen to friends, which means the music means even more. The familiarly of songs and the memories around them are lovely when you feel a bit unsettled.
Blankets. After a week of clammy, too warm sogginess, it has gotten comparatively cold and soggy. Staying in and bundling up while it rains outside is lovely.
Jimjam days; Often the best days are ones where you get to wear your jimjams all day. Even if they do need the addition of a cardigan because it's cold. It is an absolutely free luxury!
Finding a really good book! Just now I'm reading 'How to Feed Your Friends with Relish' and it's brilliant - a mixture of advice, personal stories and recipes for all occasions.

These, along with chat and laughs and hugs with Dave are what keep me functioning.

I am aware I haven't written about the riots in London. It is heartbreaking and people I love were scared, places I love badly damaged. The communal cleaning up was heartening - clearly Britain isn't quite so broken as people want to make out. I can't write much more than that at the moment, I don't have the words and I don't know the answers, and I don't want to be another person pointing fingers and blaming this thing or that thing without having had much time to think about it. I am thinking of you all though Londoners, and hope as a society we can fix this.

... three years married!

2011-08-07T01:46:00.000-07:00

The best person in the world.

Today is our third wedding anniversary. Dave has just got back from tour, and we are spending a quiet day together.

This year has brought ups and downs, lovely things and big problems to get through. You realise how solid as a unit you are when things in life aren't good. And you realise that even if they are bloody awful, it's a bit less awful if you have someone else to work through it with. It makes the good things pretty spectacular too, and this year has had it's share of the spectacular. If I were Dave, I'd write a carefully crafted, beautiful song about it, but I'm me, so these few words and some pictures will have to do.

Jan 2008 - Engaged

August 7th 2008 - happily married

Almost a kiss

Happiness, Love and Cake

Christmas 2009 (first shot with a new camera)

October 2010 - Lexapalooza

July 2011 -2000 Trees - tipsy, soaked, happy.

Dave, thank you for being my someone to work through the bad things with, for being the one who sticks by me and looks after me, for being the one I share the epic adventures and lovely times with. I love you more than toast. xxx

...all partied out.

2011-08-01T10:07:00.000-07:00

I've just gotten back to Dundee, having left for Glasgow early on Thursday morning. In those few days, I've done more stuff and seen more people than I'd normally managed in 3 weekends.

On Thursday, I got the train down to meet my SIL, to have lunch and chat, and to spend time with her an the wee smasher (AKA my nephew). From there, we went to Dave's dad and stepmum's house, where there was food, many cups of tea, lots of chat, and some telly watching(it's such a treat now!). I stayed over, and in the morning helped then with the task of cutting their at least three ft taller than me at leas 40ft long mature hedge, and then they helped me being to sort out the abyss our garden has become. From this I have come to the conclusion that helping other people with their garden is infinitely more satisfying than doing your own.

Raking and being methodical - the leaf piles are my work!

One of the rather good things sorting out the garden brought was the discovery that our small raspberry bush had spread among the plants all along one side of the garden. There are hundreds of them, and after about 20 minutes of picking, I had easily a punnet of then and had barely made a dent in the number of them. Our brambles have spread a lot this year too, so jam making is on the cards for the next couple of weekends. In the evening, I stayed with my SIL and BIL, and got to help out with the wee smasher's bathtime, which was really fun. In the morning I spent a wee bit of time with him too, which is great as the time we get to spend with family is so fragmented, and Dave and I really want to be a solid part of his life as he grows up. I realise I am a bit biased, but he is so clever and charming it's a pleasure being with him.

our garden is the path and small lawn square/bushes on the left - it may not look that tidy, but it previously looked like the back right section and the bushes had all blended together. And yes that is my finger.

RASPBERRIES!

Now, the main reason (as well as garden taming) for my being back home at the weekend was that Dave's grandpa on his mum's side was 90 on Saturday(he isn't your average 90 year old mind. He swims at 7am every morning and when I first started seeing Dave he was frequently to be found - at the age of 85 - abseiling down large structures for various charities). Dave's mum and her partner held a party for him, and it was brilliant. An epic spread laid on by Dave's mum, his grandpa's whole family - siblings, children, grandchildren, spouses and great-grandchild (as he put it) - gathered. I met family members I'd never met before, had conversations with everyone, laughed a lot, drank wine, ate, almost cried when Dave's grandpa gave a very touching speech about what he would have loved his late wife to have experienced with him in the last ten years. I was saved from crying only by his perfect comic timing, and bits of humour thrown in. There was cake and more chatting, and as the oldest generation left, a small celebratory drink for my MIL's partner who shares the birthday, and had dutifully and very graciously spent the day making things lovely for everyone else. As it got dark, we ate leftovers from the buffet, sitting outside and talking about an ever increasing range of things late into the night. There might even have been a few rousing political songs (we all have broadly the same socialist politics, so political songs don't cause issues as they might at another party), and when it got too cold to sit out, more chat inside, people going to bed one by one. I think it's safe to say that as parties go, this one reached it's full potential.

Sunday was a more relaxed affair - people waking up a little at a time, more nibbling leftovers, strong cups of tea and chats, going over the events of the previous day and being ever so pleased for Dave's grandpa that he'd had a lovely party with his 'full cohort' of family(and please for Dave's mum who had been very worried and nervous about the party in the run up). A wander to Afternoon Twee Vintage Market a little up the road to see my friend Rachael and browse through the vintage and handmade goods, a relaxed dinner, and a tea or two with the other Lisa-Marie and her Jay, who happened to be in the South Side at the time. A wee drink in the a local pub, and then into Glasgow for Dave to get the overnight bus to London, and me the train to Paisley. While I had a lovely time over the weekend, I have to say it felt very nice to be on the flat, on my own with my book.

This morning I stayed in bed till nine reading my book, woke up slowly and went into town to get a few gifts and to met my sister and her lovely fiancée for lunch. Tea, food, and chat about life plans and dreams, hugs goodbye, and I was on the train, headed home and ready for a bit more quiet time, and a few hours to acclimatise to being here before I go back to work tomorrow. I think looking at pretty stuff on the internet and drinking tea is about all I am good for today!

I am exhausted, but this weekend truly was epic. :)

...reflecting on a weekend.

2011-07-24T12:31:00.000-07:00

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!!)

2011-07-20T13:41:00.000-07:00

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.

O xygen 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)

2011-07-18T04:09:00.000-07:00

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)

2011-07-15T02:46:00.000-07:00

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

2011-07-12T11:32:00.000-07:00

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!)

2011-07-06T14:16:00.000-07:00

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.

...a lady who lunches

2011-06-29T05:09:00.000-07:00

Welcoming entryway

On Saturday, before going to A Dizzy Girl's quite frankly spectacular wedding reception with a few other bloggers(which I'll let her tell you about, not spoilers here), I met my not-so-little little sister and my auntie in Glasgow for a celebratory lunch. Did I mention my sister is about to graduate with a 1st? She's a smart cookie!

Chandeliers, stairs, crockery everywhere

Hazel book as a table in the newly opened upstairs room of The Butterfly and Pig Tea Rooms. I've been in before, and Dave and I had our engagement party in The Butterfly and Pig's bar, so this is a place I am already quite fond of. This visit has only added to my appreciation of the place.

Plates, and very Scottish paintings!

Walls with mismatched paintings, chandeliers, plate displays. Cabinets loaded with mismatched china. Cornicing, fireplaces, sweeping staircases, an assortment of wooden chairs. If I lived in a Victorian house, it would look very much like these tearooms! The staff are lovely helpful, and not too intrusive, and the atmosphere is homely and comfortable, but still a wee bit grand.

The very large fireplace in our small room

We each had a cream tea, and they were wonderful. The basic elements of a cream tea were there - steaming hot tea, sandwiches, scones and cakes. The sandwiches however, rather than being dainty little ones, were hearty and generously filled - chicken and bacon, chicken salad, cucumber, but with cm thick cream cheese, ham and mustard- on home-made bread. The scones were big and light, filled with cherries and heaped with rhubarb jam and cream. The cakes were flavourful, dense, and icing topped. Add to this steaming hot tea, oatcakes with salmon and cheese and plum chutney, and cucumber pickles and you have happy people.

Cherry Scones with rhubarb jam, chocolate slice, coconut cake,
jam filled cupcake, banana loaf with coffee icing

lovely chunky sandwiches(and crockery!)!

I should explain that the thing I was most impressed with, I didn't actually eat! My auntie is Coeliac, which means she can't have gluten or wheat. When Hazel booked, they asked about dietary requirements, and having explained, we went feeling sure they would have at least gotten some bread so that my auntie could have a sandwich, and maybe made a cake. When Hazel and I ordered our Afternoon tea, my aunt tentatively mentioned that the she was Coeliac, and was promptly offered an afternoon tea of her own. She got the same fillings we had on home-made gluten free bread, three kinds of cake, wheat free crackers, and the same extras we had. Having frequently gone to places with her where she could have maybe one thing for the menu, it was an utter delight to see her given more options than she could actually eat.

Auntie's gluten free cream tea, with
three kinds of cake and pickles!

We sat, we chatted, we drank tea, we ate. We marvelled at the artwork and the beautiful fireplace in the wee four table room. We ate a bit more, and we realised we weren't going to be able to finish. It's a sad thing, the thought of leaving cake. We didn't have to though, as we were given the cake we couldn't eat to take home. Another rather generous touch I think. We left with our little bags of goodies, full-tummied, happy, and saying we would definitely be back!

...has grey stairs (Hallway Stairs makeover phase 2.)

2011-06-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well begun is half done...

When I posted about the beginning of our stair makeover, I really thought we'd be finished by now. Remember the plan to strip and varnish the stairs and paint the uprights? Oh how optimistic that was. The week after, I went down to Paisley on the Friday and started the arduous and ultimately pointless task of stripping the old paint from the stairs. The paint turned out to be thicker than we thought, which meant the sander melted it rather than removing it, so I moved onto plan B, paint stripper. Rather than the paint stripper removing the paint, it mixed with it and became a bit tar like. And then I realised the bottom layer was more than likely lead paint(our flat is about 80 years old, I suspect the bottom layer of paint is too) and I shouldn't really be pouring chemicals on it. Realising this four steps in was a bit of a worrying moment!

The stairs after 4 hours of me attempting to strip them -
hopefully you can see why I gave up.

At this point, we decided it was going to take a hundred years to remove all the paint, so two weeks later (this weekend) we bit the bullet, sanded the stairs, removed the square metre of cork tile topper board nailed atop the landing floorboards (I have no idea why they didn't put them on the actual floorboards, we keep expecting to find a dead person or something), hammered in the millions of nails we couldn't remove, and painted the stairs grey(Dave painted them. I wasn't allowed. I have a tendancy to spill things).

Cork glued to board nailed to floorboards. I don't understand!

Dave doing some painting

For the moment, the uprights are grey too. They have A LOT of bent nails hammered in as far as possible, and it would take a few more coats of paint to even vaguely even the surface up. It's a bit unsightly at the moment. Originally, we were going to paint them yellow, and I was going to stencil a pattern of some sort on, but it seems we night have to use something a bit sturdier. We have considered wallpaper, but anything I think nice enough is well out of our price range(the most we can spend on this is about £30, and also, we'll only need about two metres, it just seems like a waste). I have been reading up on wallpapering with fabric, and I think starching thick fabric and then varnishing over it might be the trick as it might smooth over where bumps are.

HURRAH! Grey floorboards!
(excuse the mess at the bottom, and paint on the walls)

I thought stripping the stairs would be fine though, so we'll see! Next task is to give the walls a new coat of white and find something for the uprights.

...trying very hard to be positive.

2011-06-12T07:33:00.000-07:00

this used to be where our telly was. now it has newspaper and
various vessels to catch the drips. Every time it rains.

This week has been pretty awful for us. Dave submitted his thesis corrections on Tuesday, so now we are playing the waiting game till he gets his results. On Wednesday, the ceiling started leaking, bringing for both of us flashbacks of exploding pipes and a completely soaked flat. Fortunately, it's in the Dundee flat, and we aren't financially responsible for it. Unfortunately, the problem is an outside the building one, meaning the other flat owners are responsible for it as well as our landlords, and they have to go through all the stupid bureaucracy and money issues for it to be sorted out. so that's another waiting game. And it dripped on our telly. Work has been extremely challenging for me this week, and I an utterly done in. Dave has a bad cold and with it, a quite large eczema outbreak. Life is not what one would call fun. We have done pretty much nothing other than lounge and read and listen to music this weekend, and my goodness we need it.

Added to this, once we had decided we were aiming to move back to Paisley, I sort of mentally moved. The plan has highlighted stuff in our life here that is not at all ideal. I love my job(there are no words to explain how much), and the thought of not seeing the kids all the time is heartbreaking. Still, I think ahead to another winter of snow and bus travel, taking up to 4 hours to get home, being cold and wet, and I want to cry(sometimes in winter I did cry). When we are in Dundee for the weekend and it's nice, I fret about the Paisley garden becoming overrun. We are paying for the upkeep of two places (though curiously, since we probably will move back, it's seems to have been the means to an end). And our wee nephew is growing up quickly, and we only get to see him every few weeks. It feels like we are missing an awful lot.

Having the plan, while helpful, doesn't mean we don't have to wait though. I am trying very hard to remind myself of the reasons I like Dundee, and this flat. About the skills and experience Dave has gained in his job. About the lovely family I work with, the respect I am given. AND, Dave and I have each other through all this, an that makes it manageable. I have been looking for ideas for the rather neglected Paisley flat for when we do eventually move, and small things we can do there in the interim. I have taken pictures of the bits of the flat I like here, not to replicate, but perhaps to incorporate in some way.

Clockwise from left - my corner of doom, cluster of hung objects(Painting, the love knot
was a wedding gift, Dave's bodhran, Winnie the Pooh) our fireplace headboard, the corner sofa.

It's not all bad. We will be alright. I love my job. We have a roof over our heads, food to eat, and people we love to help us. We'll move when we can. But I might need reminding of this occasionally.

...Last Year's Girl (guest recipe post)

2011-06-08T04:16:00.000-07:00

For my first ever guest post, I have a recipe from the awesome Lisa-Marie of Last Year's Girl, a quite frankly brilliant music blog! As well as our name, Lisa-Marie and I share many things - a love of tea and cake, of punk/folk music, of photography (though Lis actually also has a talent for it!), of reading until later than we should be awake, the need for many, many 50s style dresses, and a penchant for skinny punk boys with acoustic guitars. We also share our very own hashtag on twitter - #LisaMariesAreAwesome .

#LisaMariesAreAwesome

This post came about a couple of drinks into a Friday night gig, when Lis was being VERY excited about this cupcake recipe. I love eating cupcakes, but I don't enjoy the faff of making them, so this seemed like the perfect guest post!

So, here's the girl herself :

I am a lady who likes her desserts. And when these little beauties - combining two of my all-time favourite things in the form of cupcakes and cookie dough - I couldn't resist giving them a go.

There's just one problem: I'm not exactly your 1950s housewife type. But hey, what I lack in a piping bag and the knowledge of what differentiates between baking powder and baking soda I make up for in enthusiasm. Much batter was consumed in the making of these cupcakes.

The original recipe makes 24, so I cut the quantities substantially to avoid drowning in baked goods all weekend. I'd recommend using muffin cases rather than fairy cake sized ones, because there's a lot going on here.

xxx

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

(From Tidy Mom)

For Cupcakes

3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

1½ cups light brown sugar, packed

4 large eggs

2 2/3 cups self-raising flour

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. bicarb 0f soda

¼ tsp. salt

1 cup milk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

For Cookie Dough Filling

4 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature

6 tbsp. light brown sugar

1 cup plus 2 tbsp. self-raising flour

7 oz. sweetened condensed milk

½ tsp. vanilla extract

¼ cup chocolate chips

For Icing

3 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

¾ cup light brown sugar, packed

3½ cups icing sugar

1 cup all-purpose flour

¾ tsp. salt

3 tbsp. milk

2½ tsp. vanilla extract

Make the Cakes...

preheat the oven to 350° F.
Cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy,
Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.
Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in bowl.
Alternating, ad a bit of the dry ingredients then a bit of milk to the wet ingredients bowl, till just incorporated
Add vanilla.
Add chocolate chips.
Divide the batter evenly between 24 cupcake cases. Bake for 18-20 minutes, allow to cool, then remove from pan to cool completely.

Make the filling while they cool...

Cream butter and sugar in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy
Add flour, sweetened condensed milk and vanilla and beat until smooth.
Stir in the chocolate chips.
Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until the mixture has firmed up a bit, (approx1 hour).
Cut a cone shape from the middle of each cupcake, and add a blob of the cookie dough mixture

Make the icing

Beat butter and brown sugar till fluffy
Mix in the icing sugar until smooth.
Beat in the flour and salt.
Mix in the milk and vanilla extract until smooth and combined.
Add to cupcakes and sprinkle on chocolate chips

As the first image of the post suggests, these should be accompanied by a cup of tea!

Thanks Lis! x

p.s. Siobhan, Dee and I have guest posted our experiences of 'becoming a bride' on Cakes and Bunting! Please do have a look!

p.p.s I have no idea what is going on with the HTML in this post, the spacing is all weird. SORRY!

...baking comforting cake. (Blueberry and Lemon Cake)

2011-06-01T05:13:00.000-07:00

So, I have the lurgy again. Everyone I know seems to have some stage of this cold (feel free to moan in the comments if you have it too). Also, after one sunny and relatively warm day yesterday, it's cold and windy again. Cold weather and the cold bring out a need to make lovely, cheering things in me, and there aren't many things more comforting than cake. My friend May is coming for tea and chat this afternoon too, and if I have time to bake, I'd much rather give someone my own (generally slightly wonky) cake.

When I went to the shop to get the ingredients, I had a list for, and was intent on making Smitten Kitchen's Raspberry Buttermilk Cake, but our local Co-op didn't have raspberries or buttermilk, so I substituted similarly textured ingredients, and ended up with this....

Blueberry and Lemon Cake

Does everyone else see a Pacman?

180g self raising flour (added 50g to balance extra eggs)
60g butter, melted
140g caster sugar
3tbsp (heaped) lemon curd
3 large eggs (for volume)
120ml double cream (sort of buttermilk-ish, no?)
handful blueberries
25g caster sugar for sprinkling

Topping
1tbsp lemon curd
1tsp icing sugar

Now, this is where you can use Deb's proper method, or you can use my 'chuck it in and hope for the best because standing up is too much effort' method. Here is mine...

Preheat oven to 160fan/180C
put all ingredients (except blueberries and sprinkling sugar) in a big bowl
whisk with a hand mixer till you have a smooth batter. It should puff up slightly as air goes in.
Grease and line 9" cake tin if required(mine is silicone)
pour in batter and spread evenly.
sprinkle blueberries over
sprinkle with sugar
bake for 25 mins
sit down, have tea, watch daytime TV, read blogs
allow to cool 10 mins, then turn out.
when cool, spread top thinly with lemon curd, and dust with icing sugar

I figure it has fruit in, so is somewhat healthy, and if we are supposed to feed our colds, why not feed them tasty good cake? Also, lemon and blueberry is a really good combination! Yum!

... spending Saturday sewing.

2011-05-28T13:41:00.000-07:00

This morning, I purposely got up very early for a Saturday. On the way home from work on Thursday, I notice a lovely sewing box on legs and with ornate hinges in the window of the charity shop round the corner from our flat. I am at work for the whole time the shop is open, so I was hoping, HOPING it would still be there.

Yes, I Have floral tools. Makes DIY more fun. :)

And it was! Isn't it lovely? It's edges are all dove-tailed, so I think it may be hand made. It was a bargain at £5. Look at those hinges! I am considering painting it red and giving it new handles. Fay suggested lining the drawers with felt, which I will definitely do, but what do you think of it being painted? opinion seems to be divided so far.

Having gotten home and admired my sewing box (I keep walking past it, and opening and closing it, eliciting a 'you could put stuff in it you know' from Dave), and done some housework *yawn* I set to my next task of the day. The tension on my sewing machine has been wonky for months. Normal methods of adjusting it did nothing to sort it, and I was almost ready to throw the machine out of the window after my 3 hr attempt last time. I sat down to deal with it, and miraculously had it working after half an hour.

My first task with my newly functioning machine was to finish the cafetiere cosy I made for Dave. Despite measuring everything, it's a little to short, but it will do the trick I think. As Dave is the coffee drinker, I used nice manly dark grey t-shirt material. He seems pleased with it.

I was aiming for a sunburst effect with the quilting.
It is moderately successful!

Next, I paid some attention to the sewing box I already owned. It was a gift from Dave's mum, and is perfectly functional, but after a few years, I have gotten a bit bored of the fabric covering the lid section.

A couple of section of fabric, some embroidery and a few sewn on buttons do a lot for it I think! It's far from perfect, but it will do for me.

I haven't done much sewing since Christmas time, and I am glad to have jumped back in! I hope everyone is having a good Saturday :).

...houseproud (Hallway Stairs Makeover phase.1)

2011-05-25T10:49:00.000-07:00

Dave and I headed to Paisley at the weekend. Among other things, Dave played a show with (and we got rather drunk with) Miles Hunt (of the Wonderstuff), we visited my SIL, BIL and adorable nephew, went for delicious Vietnamese food with Dave's family, and did a lot of staying in and avoided the rain. It was a good weekend all in!

We also decided we need to focus more of our effort and money on renovating the flat. It is not even close to what both of us want it to be, but when we lived there all the time, we were both students and didn't have enough money to deal with the fact that it's rather shabby (and has dodgy plumbing). We pretty much just mended things once they got to the point of no return. Now we live between two places, and are only just getting to the stage where we can afford to do little bits.

Since one of our plans to move back to Paisley full time, we talked about doing the small, inexpensive things now, and saving up to do bigger things (even if we don't move back, it will add to the value, so it's win-win). I've been wanting to do something with the hall for a long time, and on Sunday afternoon, I convinced Dave we should have a look under the carpet. We actually did this tentatively a few months ago, but realised there was a whole mess of stuff underneath and put them back.

Imagine this, but stairy (also, this is a sneak
peak of my completely free picnic basket!)

this is just after we have taken up both layers
of carpet. Note the weird white edging. it's laminate!

I really did want just to have a better look and make a plan, but after pulling the carpet up and revealing many layers of mismatched flooring, and then pulling those up,we found that we have beautiful solid wood stairs (with a lovely overhang on each step). I showed Dave a few pictures of ways we could paint them, and we decided to start right then. Otherwise, we really might have just put the carpet back.

cream carpet over green runner edged with white laminate,
overcork tiles, over boards, over original floorboards.

I say we, but our stairway is narrow, so actually Dave pulled everything - carpet, runner carpet, really weird nailed in laminate edging, many different sized nails, 19 of those horrible carpet gripper things with the sticky our nails - up, and I tidied around him and made the dinner. I can't help but feel ripping up carpets and things must have felt satisfying after hours of thesis work.

Lovely stairs. Horrible laminate(it was on the uprights too),
nails and carpet grippers.

Dave at work

The evidence - finished stairs before tidying

This is the result. It's far from beautiful, but it's not bad for a few hours work! At the bottom, we discovered concrete (currently covered by the rugs) and are thinking we'll have floorboards cut for that area so that everything matches.

How they look now - from top

how they look now - from bottom

At the weekend, we are going to sand all that paint off, and eventually, we'll varnish the floor, give the whole stairway a fresh coat of pain and paint the stair uprights, and hang pictures. we are aiming for something like this

via The Decorologist,

...with darker steps (Dave's choice. He was firmly against white. quite sensible really) and yellow uprights(he was also against painting each a different colour), though not with pattern. I think both of us feel like we are actually doing something about our current life situation - we are making the best of what may well be our proper home again. We aim to work our way through the flat from front to back. As and when we move back,we will move back to a better cared for, brighter, cosier place.

Oh, also, I have a Pinterest now, where I am collating ideas for each room. as well as recipes and dare I say it, Christmas ideas. It is a bit addictive, so I apologise if you add me and see a bazillion things I've posted for the first we while.

P.s. Be honest here - are you going to get bored if I continue showing these happenings step by step? I assume other rooms will be done more as a whole, this is just a big job. I thought about saving it all until it's done, but that could be a month from now and I am very excited about this!

...a sweetcorn hater.

2011-05-21T05:55:00.001-07:00

First of all, thank you for everyone's really lovely comments on the last post. Empathy and insight are alive and well in the blogosphere it seems. :)

Now, with regards to the post title. I hate sweetcorn. I hate every form of it. It's too sweet, and it is all membraney on the outside and squishy on the inside. I hate peas for the same reason.

Dave, however loves sweetcorn. He has been bemoaning the fact that Covent Garden Soup Co have stopped doing thier sweetcorn chowder for a couple of years. So on Sunday, while Dave was doing thesis work and we were both trying to make the plan(s), I gave in and decided to try to make some. And make it so that I could eat it too. Handily, It also used up chicken leftovers, stuffing and stock made from the carcass. I think by not using seafood stock, I might be cheating, but chicken is what I had.

Sweetcorn and Chicken Chowder

600g sweetcorn (half tinned, half cut from cobs in my case)
300g cooked chicken (leftovers)
1 onion (baked in quarters)
2 cloves of garlic (baked whole)
1/2tsp fresh ground pepper
1.5l chicken stock
1/2pt milk

I baked the onion and the garlic inside a roast chicken, if you aren't using leftovers, dice and fry for 5 mins on a medium heat in a soup pan.
Put the rest of ingredients in, turn up heat and bring to the boil. 3. Turn down, simmer for 25 minutes till liquid has reduced and thickened.
I blended it till it was quite smooth, but if you like soup on the chunky side, whizz it for a wee bit to thicken slightly and leave chunks.

I am really pleased with this, I think I may have been converted slightly. The pepper takes the edgy off the sweetness, and blending it got rid of the texture issue. The chicken flavour cuts through too, though Dave said he thought it still very sweetcorny in flavour. I'm calling this one a win!

...ready for some changes

2011-05-19T01:27:00.001-07:00

I've been trying to write a post for a few days about something fairly personal. I try to be honest in here, but I also don't want to overshare and i feel really strongly that the other people in my life deserve privacy. On the otherhand, I started this blog because I wanted a record of my life, and i can't just post recipes and happy thoughs while big things are afoot. I hope this strikes the right balance.

The long and the short of it is that Dave and I have realised that long term, living and working in (or in my case near) Dundee does not seem to be for us. Neither of us is particularly happy here, and whilst we are managing fine, it is a big strain financially keeping up two places. We are very much still tied to Paisley, by family and friends and by our flat, and we feel quite strongly that moving back would be a good for us. Our eventual aim in life was always to end up living somewhere near there anyway, but we've gone from thinking 'eventual' to 'as soon as possible'.

We have a sort of plan, and we won't be moving in the immediate future, but we will be working towards doing so. The worst thing when you're in a bad situation is to feel stuck, and fortunately we have been able to make loose plans for a few eventualities, and that got rid somewhat of the being stuck.

I will update on all this when things are more concrete, and until then the recipe posting and life cronicling will continue.

...baking a classic

2011-05-14T10:07:00.000-07:00

It may not be beautiful, but it's tasty good.
Dave took that whole enormous slice!

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been giving the blog a bit of an update. I'm trying to organise it a bit more, so I've removed unnecessary tags, and there is now a recipes page! I realise when I was sorting the recipes for the page that I haven't posted a recipe for six months. SIX MONTHS! We have been having a lot of the same things for dinner - quick, thrown together things, and I really haven't baked very much at all. Life is all over the place and very busy at the moment, and having more than a couple of hours to spend doing something doesn't happen often.

Today though, Dave has been doing thesis work, and it has been tipping it down on and off, which makes it a perfect day for baking, soup making and pottering about. I like making cakes that don't require much faffing about or delicate decoration - I am in awe of other people's, but don't have the patience to do them myself - so to ease back into recipe blogging, I decide a classic was the way, and there aren't many cakes more classic than a Victoria Sponge. This is my take.

Victoria Sponge
(the recipe I worked from was for a 7" cake. My pan is 9", so I added half again to the mix. The cake is bloody enormous as a result! If you have a 7", take a third of each measurement).

The outside of my sponge is slightly overcooked.
It tastes ace though!

For Cake
335g butter
335g caster sugar
6 medium eggs
335g self raising flour
3tsp vanilla essence

For Filling
200ml extra thick double cream (you could also use whipping cream and whip it)
50g icing sugar
100g good quality fruit jam (I used raspberry)

optional
Sliced fresh strawberries, fresh bluberries or raspberries can be used as well as or in place of jam

Pre-heat oven to 160(fan)/180c
if your are using tins, grease and line two 9"(I have silicone pans)
in a large bowl, cream butter till soft
add caster sugar and cream together well
beat in each egg separately, followed by a bit of flour each time(keeps cake fluffy)
add vanilla essence and beat quickly
divide mixture between two tins
bake for 25 minutes, till golden and springy to touch
allow to cool.

once cool, spread jam on cake one (if using)
mix 30g of the sugar into cream
spread cream on top of the jam
if wanted, top with fresh fruit
add second sponge to the top
dust with icing sugar
If you feel a bit fancy, decorate with more fresh fruit or a ribbon. ribbons are always fun.

If you could have a look at my recipes and tell me if you think I'm drastically lacking in anything, I'd be grateful. I think it definitely needs more salads (to balance out thinks like this cake!)

I'm away to have a wee slice and some tea and watch Apollo 13. Hope everyone is enjoying their Saturday.