Masterchef

Oliver is really interested in food.  He likes watching cookery shows and asks me to buy all sorts of 'interesting' foodstuffs at the supermarket, which he subsequently spits out and refuses to eat.  He knows a fair bit about nutrition and has picked up many (useless) tips from countless episodes of Masterchef.  (Useless largely because the chances of us preparing salsify and needing to immediately keep it in acidulated water or having to remove the beak from a fresh squid seem a little unlikely).   He has wanted to cook a meal for us for some time, and the desire to do so flared up again at the weekend.  In the past, his desire to undergo this mammoth operation has been thwarted by a few things; firstly, he wanted to dream up his own menu.  To be applauded for sure, but financially impractical as he was very extravagant in his food choices, and there was no guarantee I could step in and salvage any potential disasters.  Secondly, the idea of actually writing down any ideas/recipes from books filled him with horror.  Thirdly I would just lose my temper with the whole thing and it would get postponed indefinitely. 

Happily, these things have not put him off completely, and bank holiday Monday saw us tripping off to the local Waitrose (yes, we are posh shoppers on occasion) to purchase ingredients from a real live list drawn up by my little chef. 

 

He chose to do pork with apple and mustard (Fay Ripley) for us, and a chard and ricotta tart (River Cottage) for Mark.  Nightmare.  I tried (without success) to steer him towards the 'ooh, lets have something the three of us can eat so you only need to cook one thing' idea, but he was having none of it.  Hell's teeth.  AND we had to buy chard.  Chard!!!! After years of having the national chard mountain growing in the garden, this year we had - none. 

Although the whole operation called for what felt like hours in the kitchen, (it was a long time), I had to admire his application. 

In the end, the pork was undercooked and had to go back in, so the three of us sat down to enjoy the tart.  It tasted beautiful, but hadn't set enough (despite being in at the right temperature for the right length of time) and was very runny.  This bloody annoys me with cookbooks.  I had suspected the pork wouldn't be done, but put my faith into the recipe anyhow.  Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.  I am really proud of Oliver for the massive efforts he put into this, and it all tasted wonderful.  (We had the pork the next day for lunch in the end - sliced and warmed through in the oven with the appley-mustardy sauce.  Bloody lovely.

I have been doing a spot of baking myself lately, and did the red velvet cupcakes from the HB pixie book.  They were fabuloso, and my confidence with cupcakes is growing daily.  I was therefore delighted with the arrival of these:

A selection from the Book People - this little lot came to just under £30 including delivery, which I think is brilliant.  (sorry Kindle)  Note the HB cake days book.  I urge you to get this one - it is the best cake book I have ever read, and I don't think there is one thing in there I wouldn't want to have a go at.  Yummers. 

And finally. 

There sure are moments when I wish I was my cat.

size does matter...

This is a bit of a time-killing exercise, as Match Of The Day (ruiner of weekend TV viewing) is on and I can't bear to sit in the same room.  I have nothing against football, per se, I just bloody well object to it taking over the TV (and my husband's attention) Sat AND Sun evenings for the next nine months.  I think, actually, I have banged on about this before, as it feels horribly familiar.....

Soooo.... here I am.  Tippety tapping away.  This post title refers to a problem I seem to encounter with ordering things from the Internet and then finding them to be ridiculously smaller than I had pictured in my mind.  I will refer you to a children's bible I once ordered, thinking that it was the same as one my SiL had ordered - a proper book-sized book - only to find that when it came, it was teeny and you needed a bloody magnifying glass to read it, the writing was so small.  SiL found this hilarious, needless to say, and this mirth was further tickled by the arrival a couple of weeks ago of a mini-easel to display my 12"x12" scrapbook layouts.  This easel stands at 4.5" tall and is woefully inadequately proportioned to bear the size and weight of my layouts.  Boy it sure looked bigger in the pictures.  And today, my piece de resistance arrived by post - The Hummingbird Bakery book of cupcakes and muffins.  When it fell out of its cardboard sheath, I threw my head back and howled with laughter.  It is 5"x5" in size.  It is barely thicker than a CD, and my face must have been a picture because I was expecting a library-volume sized tome.  I MUST start reading the dimensions of my purchases.  Goodness knows what will pop through the letterbox next.

See - ordered from Amazon - this doesn't give me the impression of 'miniature'.  I must admit to having not read the description of the book as 'cute, compact gift book', but even then, in my defence I would not have expected a book the size of which would not look out of place on a pixie's mantelpiece now, would I?

Tonight I made pizzas - bases and everything, and happily guzzled three glasses of wine.  I have to work early tomorrow morning and am toying with the idea of going swimming first, but the over-consumption of alcohol may not prove helpful in the plan of dragging myself out of bed and out into ever-cooler morning air.

Today I gave the Daisy ripple blanket to - well, Daisy, actually, for her birthday, and she seemed to really like it.  She said that purple was her favourite colour and when I left, it was draped like a shroud across her father's cocktail cabinet.  (don't ask).

Took Oliver along to golf this morning and was approached by the chap who ran the junior course he attended recently about the idea of Oliver completing a more advanced course with a view to becoming a member and playing next spring.  This is something Mark and I were thinking of anyway, and I am sure that the club is very keen to encourage more juniors along anyhow, but seemed genuinely keen to impress on me how quickly Oliver has made excellent progress in just two weeks and in any case,  it is always very lovely to hear your child described as an 'asset' in any given situation.

Anyhoo, I have a Linwood Barclay to tuck myself up with until an exhausted and too-brief sleep claims me. 

Laters.

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside.....

Well, sometimes I do.  The height of summer ain't particularly my fave time of the year to be so, but yesterday saw Oliver and I strolling the 'prom' with the other grockles in Torquay on our way towards this:

It is The Riviera Wheel.  Finished last Friday, it is therefore seemingly a new thing for the town, and we fancied a spin.  Obvs there was no real 'spinning' involved as it moves very slowly, but it feels a lot higher when you're in there.  And less safe than it appears from the ground ha ha.  We got stuck at various heights as it was loading up with passengers and it was not a nice feeling swaying in the breeze suspended many feet above the rest of the world.  Funny tummies all round. 

See that spacky fringe?  Bloody hairdresser.

Anyhoo, the reason we were in Torquay at all was to visit...

Yes!  MQ#4 was underway.  There is a sci-fi exhibition there for another week or so, and I thought it would be a good one for Oliver to see, and another museum under our belts.  It was a nice museum, although we both came away with the impression that whilst there were several floors of 'stuff', there didn't seem to be anything in particular to hone in on.  I'm not dissing it though, it was a great building and well laid out, but I certainly had a preference for the teeny one at Exmouth.  I am looking forward to the smaller ones more now...

And the traffic was shit.

weed indeed

I arrived at the allotment in a state of a great sulk dragging my wellied-heels considerably,  to be confronted with this:

Even I have to admit the Allotment Manager had not exaggerated about the weed situation.  However, standing there open mouthed and thinking dark thoughts didn't get the job done, so I waded in (literally) and cleared some:

Then I rang Mark and whined that it was going to take hours and I didn't want to do it.  (and bloody well didn't intend to either).  We exchanged a few cross words, mostly based around my effort versus paying someone else and washing our hands of it and the fact that I said I would rather be putting this sort of effort into our own garden, not into a patch of land we intended to give up in a month anyway.  He countered this by saying that I wouldn't put that much effort into our garden, which carried a nasty grain of truth in it.  Just to prove that I can act upon good intentions if I so choose,  I came back and de-weeded/cleared one particularly nasty patch lurking at the end of one of the potato patches.  Then I gathered up all the weedy shite from our garden and wheelbarrowed it down to the allotment for disposal in 'our' compost bins.  By this time I was sweating, filthy and seen more insects than you could shake a stick at, and I hate that.  As Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen once said, 'that's the trouble with being outdoors, it's so full of nature.'  ha ha.  Give me my apron and kitchen any day.  Less crawly wildlife to contend with. 

Anyhoo, the upshot of the allotment debacle is that a couple of emails later has negotiated us a month to move our shed, voluntarily giving up said plot and no mention of payment for some other bod to come in and 'do'.  I know it seems terribly cavalier, but I am glad to be rid of it.  We applied for it before we moved here, when we didn't have growing space, and then got offered it just after we got here with it's humongously large garden.  Having waited over a year for it, I was loathe to turn it down, so we took it and spent the first two years of having ridiculous amounts of veg which we couldn't eat/freeze/preserve or give away fast enough to keep up.  And that's the story of the allotment. 

A display of a complete lifecycle on one bush.

And I thought I was confused.

jog on

Indulged in a spot of this lately:

Cannot even begin to think how many calories are in these - there is a blob of nutella nestling inside each cake too..... very, very, super sweet cakes, but have that lovely,  chocolatey-ness that lies thick in the throat, if you know what I mean....  Bit unsure about the turd-like appearance of the icing too, but I'll forgive myself ha ha. 

Went to a massive warehouse-type antique place yesterday in the quest for something pretty (preferably a milk jug as I like the look of them) for my dresser.  I came away with this: 

It was cheap (£3) and I like the shape and the 1940/50's look of it.  I think it is a creamer rather than a milk jug because of it's size.  It's harder to browse for something indefinable that you 'like' rather than having something more specific in mind.  After 3 floors of 'stuff' I felt quite dizzy, and unsure about what I actually did like.  Thankfully I had found my little juggy on the second floor halfway round, or I could have been quite swamped by it all.

Whilst Oliver is at golf today, I must go down to the allotment and do 'something' with it.  I think this will consist of ridding the plot of a covering of bindweed which, the allotment manager tells me, has reached such proportions that if we don't deal with it, a contractor must come in and spray it to prevent the spread of the 'noxious weed'.  He made it sound like Day Of The Triffids.  I am quite tempted by the whole 'getting a contractor in' idea, but Mark says we will get charged for it.  I am still tempted.  Sigh.  I will at least have to GO there and check it out.  Something to look forward to.  NOT.

I just got interrupted by a man delivering tiles.  He couldn't manoeuvre his lorry down our narrow lane so I have just had to go up to the top of the road in my pyjamas, bed hair and scary morning-face,  to move my car for him to leave the tiles in my space.  Hells teeth.  I like to think I'm a modern-day sort of gal but even I draw the line at standing in the street chatting to delivery men in my PJs. 

...and on to Rio.

I feel deeply saddened by the end of the Olympics.  I think  I have matured into them as I really couldn't be doing with them at all in my youth, and my Mum and Dad loved them.  Now I think they are the bees knees and I have raved on about them with Oliver glazing over on a regular basis.

Now I have to wait another four years to watch minority sports with a running commentary on the nuances of each and every rule.  Love it.
It also may have been because I have been hanging around at the Golf Club waiting for Oliver for up to two hours every day and so have been drip-fed the Olympics via big screen.  I have watched open swimming, the triathalon, Tae Kwon Do, rowing, gymnastics, diving, dressage, etc etc none of which I would bother to give the time of day for under normal circumstances, but hey - this is special.

Oliver's golf proved a successful choice of summer entertainment, and his week culminated in him achieving this:

which he is incredibly proud of.  It is for the most improved golfer of the week.  Since he was a complete beginner on Monday, he probably had a better chance than some of the others at this anyhow, as some seem like mini-pros already -  but I am not knocking this - it is a great achievement for him and I am ridiculously pleased for him and proud of him.

What else, hmmm, oh, I had a hideous haircut last week.  The girl who snipped it this time, or Edward Scissorhands as I now like to think of her, was the same one who did it last time, but she managed to hack Oliver's a tad short at the back, which he is none too pleased about and for some reason ballsed up my fringe so I look as if I popped in for a short-back-and-fruit-bowl cut in 1958.  Bloody hell.  I have spent the last five days grasping hold the fringe and dragging it across my forehead to hide the fact that it is waayyyyy too short and makes me look a bit simple.  Quite frankly I felt like demanding £20 off of her at the end for my trouble rather than handing it over as payment for a job done.  Pah.  I have at least another week of fringe-induced trauma ahead of me because of her and her over-eager scissor fingers. 

I swam again this morning and think that at the end of this week, I won't go again until next May, when the pool opens up for the 5 month early morning go-ers stint.  It's a bit tough getting up that early to swim, but it is a lovely feeling afterwards and I really think it is a far better exercise for my aching bones and muscles than anything else.   We'll see in May...

This week Oliver is playing out on the course, which is giving me more free time per day.  I spent yesterday trawling charity shops with my Mum (a much loved hobby) but they seemed full of modern, cheap tat and were quite depressing.  Today I intend to come home via Tesco (which I hate now - think it's gone way downmarket) and cook pretty cupcakes for Oliver as a treat.  And I shall crochet and indulge myself in a little catch up TV.  Oh yes, that's the kind of me -time I like. 

Only one al fresco opportunity last week.

Notice I have changed my customary diet coke for a glass of wine.  ha ha.  It was Friday.  There still is something a bit special about Friday, and the squeeze-yourself-with-joy feeling that Fridays bring.  Hence the wine. 

Laters.

standing up to be counted

I watched a fair bit of the Olympics yesterday,  feeling lifted by the joy of achievement and triumph over adversity and was moved to tears at several points.

Along with the gold medal performance at the dressage (dressage? I can't be doing with horses normally) which made me start snivelling, and the boo bo-ing over tales of the struggles of athletes I have never seen from countries I have never even heard of, there was one story which touched me enormously, and one I want to record here.

In the Mexico Olympics of 1968, the 200 metre medal ceremony attracted massive controversy and outrage because of this:

It is commonly known as the Black Power Salute,  demonstrated by Tommie Smith and John Carlos, signifying support for the human rights movement, notably the struggle of black people for equality.   

This story focuses on Peter Norman, the white guy in the picture.  He was Australian and came second in the race.  Smith and Carlos told Norman before the ceremony what they planned to do, and Norman pledged his support, saying 'I'll stand by you.'  At the ceremony he wore this badge:



which got him in a whole heap of trouble.  Smith and Carlos were banned from the Olympic village and expelled from the Games.  Peter Norman was shunned and ostracised from Australian athletics for the rest of his career, and despite making the qualifying time for the next Olympics, was not selected to represent Australia in Munich.  His silver-medal time at the Mexico Olympics of 20.06 still stands as the Australian record. 

The Sydney Games of 2000 saw him excluded from events completely, but subsequently received an invitiation from the Americans.  I find this gratifying enough, but what moved me to tears was that when Norman died in 2006, both Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral and both gave eulogies. 

The support offered and the sacrifices made by this white athlete had clearly not been forgotten over time.

Not sure how many more of these sorts of stories I can take before I have an emotional collapse....

Fore!

Last week my dresser arrived.

second hand from a local charity shop, a real find

Ain't it fab?  Well I think so anyhoo.  It fits just where I wanted it to, is a bit knacked pine and (I think) makes the room cosier.  The things on it, however, are there just to fill gaps - it is not in its finished full-of-my-crap state yet. 

Love you.

This week Oliver started his golf academy course.  He is really enjoying it, and I am really enjoying his joy.  We 'invested' in a second hand set of junior clubs for him this two week stint and he goes off kitted out with a Slazenger jumper, polo shirt and proper trousers every day.  Dressing up as a golfer suits him ha ha.  He has a nice little golf swing and could be quite good at it with some application methinks, but unfortunately he has seems to share both mine and Mark's antipathy towards the length of time playing a round of golf takes (hours and hours) and his concentration wanders.  This week is short sessions focusing on skills (putting, chipping etc blah blah) and next week is a series of 4 hour stints out on the course.  Blimey.  Hope he gets on OK.  I have no photos to share of the golf progress,  as the suggestion of coming down to take a pic was met with total horror and rejection.  Pah.

These shorter sessions this week are particularly lovely for me (yes, it's all about me again) as I get to sit in the clubhouse drinking latte and feel very middle class.  Ha ha.  I also sit my arse in front of the big screen, soak up the Olympics and continue work on this:

Happy days.

BTW, I think these Olympics have been brilliant for the morale and sense of 'belonging' in this country.  I was listening to someones opinion yesterday on how so many sports should not be included in the Olympics because they just 'shouldn't', apparently, and I listened politely.  (it was my uncle spouting forth whilst in my parents home, so it would have been rude to tell him not to be such a twat, although I was sorely tempted) Musing on this I have decided that I think, actually,  it's bloody brilliant to include as many sports and games as possible, as this is now the biggest sporting spectacle in the world and much anticipated when it rolls around every four years.  To win an Olympic gold is the dream of millions, and should be nurtured, not derided.   True, BMX and handball seem a little odd now, and tennis and football still both seem a little out of place at the moment, but to put yourself out there against the rest of the world and come out on top must feel wonderful, and should be thus applauded and admired.  Some puritans also bang on about the fact that the 'original' Olympic events were athletic-based and therefore feel that track and field are the only 'real' Olympic sports of worth.  As I understand it, the original Olympic games featured no women and clothes were not worn.  Some things just need to move with the times......

At the weekend, for the first time in a long time, I made jam.  I forgot how easy and bloody lovely it is.  The strawberries were given to me, and the redcurrants were from the Salvation Army hall next to the quaint musuem in MQ#3.  This has encouraged the making of hot toast and real lovely butter to go with the spiffing jam, so not sure how much of a good thing it will prove to be for my still-hanging-in-there at 9lbs lighter waistline.

On today's agenda is golf, library, haircut, butchers, doctors, swimming, and supermarket.  In that order.  Somewhere in there I have to make time to do the usual household drudgeries (dishes and washing) and eat. 

MQ#3 Exmouth

A big success this one.  I was expecting far less from Oliver this time and it paid off big time.  This is a small museum and pretty much what I expected in terms of content, but he loved it.  When Mark asked him what he thought of it later on in the evening, the answer 'it was brilliant, the best one yet', which took Mark aback somewhat.  It is small, charming and staffed with very enthusiastic volunteers.  There are things to engage youngsters such as find the cats:

cup and ball

back to school (ha ha)

a change from the computer

and things of interest:

Oliver asked for his notebook and voluntarily went off to do this:

which is this:

It might not seem much, but it is a lot for him, and his smiling face and 'I really enjoyed that' on the way out has lifted me enormously.  Ahhh, home ed.  When it works.  It so works.

meanderings

Well, I found that a bit of a let down in the end, sorry.  I know that the youngsters chosen to light the Olympic cauldron were representative of encouraging youth through sport blah di blah, but I wanted more of a dramatic choice.  I had built this up in my mind so much that no-one less than the Pope would have done in the end, I think.  Anyhoo, the games progress in a state of steady Olympic spirit and the uncanny ability of the British to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory wherever possible.


Off of the soap box now, and into Housewife World.  I wonder if that is a chain store in America?  It should be. The weekend saw me a-cooking muffins - 28 in all, in my apron, humming away to radio 2.  Happy days.  Really, it doesn't take much to make me content.  I have frozen said muffins, and  every night I take a couple out to defrost for the morning. Thus I find I can enjoy that well-done-me feeling on a daily basis as I pack Mark off to work knowing he will have a home baked fresh muffin with his coffee.  Like I say, it doesn't take much.

I have started a new project:

Quite simply a scarf, in the Baby Rico leftover from my lovely ripple I was doing at Christmas.

This scarf will be edged in black, I think, and nice and long to do at least two laps of my neck comfortably.  A la Dr Who.  Last week, on a hot but breezy day, too windy for the parasol, I set myself up in the shade around the corner, on a lounger, cup of tea to hand and carried on with this:

It was a bloody lovely way to spend an hour.  Yup, it really doesn't take much....

Scrapbooking was really good on Saturday.  I haven't got decent enough pics to share yet, so I will post them when I can get a good shot in a good light.  Or at least a not-bad one.

I have harvested a few courgettes from the garden so far, but found (due to inexperience) that I planted too many in the bed, and had to pull a few up.  Since then, they have done better and somehow I missed the big bugger there for days on end!  And, joy of joys, these are my first runners of the year.  These haven't done as well as previous years, and I am going to put that down to the rain.  So there.  We have had a snotty letter from the allotment manager about 'non-cultivation' of our plot so I have to get down there pretty sharpish and do a spot of 'cultivating'.  Since some people have rusty ploughs and eight feet tall weeds on their plots, I do feel a tad singled out for criticism.

Ooh, ooh, and yesterday I bought a welsh dresser for the kitchen.  Yay!  I have wanted one for a while - it is the epitome (for me) of a homey kitchen, and I found it in a local charity shop.  It is three door pine and is very 'homey' indeed.  Next I'm getting an Aga and a matching spaniel.  Text book life.  Haaaaa haaaaa.

I am taking Oliver off to do MQ#3 today.  Stand back, don tin helmet, adopt brace position......