My Half-finished Life

Barking Mad in the Botanics

2011-03-06T07:00:00.009Z

A further installment of photos from my recent trip to Edinburgh Botanical Gardens.

Since starting this blog and trying to take more photos, I've been struck by the different scale and perspectives that characterise people's photos. C's photos are often architectural details - carvings, door lintels, high up on buildings (he's tall!). My friend S will produce close-ups of tiny details of flowers or food. I tend to take photos of broad vistas and landscapes. I suspect I could devise some kind of personality theory based on habitual photography style. If I had the energy. It's certainly true that C and S are both detail people, while I am a big picture person, and tend to think in generalisations rather than concrete details.

I remember reading about this notion of habitual scale of perspective in a book on creativity by choreographer Twyla Tharp. She suggested that you should practise changing your scale of perspective - from broad to narrow, from large to small, in order to develop your creative faculties. (You understand that the number of books on creativity I own is in inverse ratio to the amount of actual creative activity I undertake. Same goes for books on time management and dieting!). So I have been trying to focus more on visual details and close-ups when taking photos, just to see what happens.

In the Botanics in February, there isn't much in bloom, and not all that much in leaf in the gardens. Undistracted by pretty flowers, my eye was drawn more to the shapes and textures provided by the trunks and branches of the trees. Once I started looking, it was amazing how much colour and texture tree bark provided in the drab winter garden. So here is my little exhibition of bark! I haven't retouched any of the pictures. These are the real colours of the bark.

This last picture is my favourite. The pattern on the bark makes me think of the indistinct figures in the weathered stone carvings on a medieval church.

Doorway of Notre Dame - Paris, July 2009
- ironically, my close up of architectural detail, not C's.

Look at these picture of Rosslyn Chapel too.

An Edinburgh oasis

2011-03-04T07:00:00.002Z

On Sunday, there was a whisper of spring in the air and so we finally made it to Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh - or The Botanics, as everyone in Edinburgh calls it, to look at the new visitor centre. It's only been open for a mere 18 months. Sigh.

The Botanics is one of those places that makes you want to weep with gratitude for its existence. It is a beautiful space, full of well-thought out distinct gardens: Chinese Hillside; Peat Garden; ; Scottish Heathland; native woodland; arboretum and a giant 165m long herbacious border backed by a two storey high beech hedge. It's a big garden - 70 acres - but it feels even bigger than that, because the landscaping and planting means you move in and out of different sections, immersed in the immediate environment, and unaware of other areas nearby. It's backed up by serious scientific credentials and activity. But as far as I'm concerned, it's just a lovely place to hang out. It's also always immaculate.

Inverleith House Gallery and spring crocus in the Botanics

The Botanics frequently hosts - and presumably initiates - imaginative collaborations with artists - exhibitions and installations, either in the Botanics gallery, Inverleith House, or integrated into the planting or glasshouses. There is a whole series of large glass houses - starting with the elegance of the victorian palm house with its palm and orchid display, and moving through different glasshouses, each representing a different regional microclimate - very welcome on a chilly day. The gardens also boast the largest collection of rhododendrons in the world.

We used to visit the gardens regularly. The Botanics were literally on our doorstep when we lived in North Edinburgh. Our flat backed onto them. The Botanics were effectively our back garden. We looked out onto a seemingly endless vista of noble trees. We would pop in most weeks for a stroll about, and had great pleasure in watching the seasons progress in the succession of budding, flowering and defoliation which marked the passing year. We also fed the very tame, very fat squirrels a lot - spent a fortune on peanuts.

Construction for the new visitor centre started when we were still living next to the Botanics. Infected with the cynicism of disappointed middle age, I confess we watched the progress of the building works with the pessimistic assumption that whatever finally emerged, it would be too large, ugly, a blot on the garden landscape and a basically just a big tacky shop and cafe.

Well, we couldn't have been more wrong. It's not just a visitor centre. The John Hope Gateway, as it is called, is apparently a ' biodiversity and information centre'. Whatever it is called, it is a triumph. It is a beautiful building, dressed with wood and grey stone which blends perfectly into its setting. Yes, there is a shop and yes there is a cafe (not sampled yet). There is also a pleasant exhibition space - currently host to a specially commissioned craft and biodiversity exhibition - and an informative collection of quirky, imaginative displays about botany and the scientific and environmental research of the Botanics. It is just stunning. A well-designed, gracious building, which showcases the fantastic work being done by the Botanics staff, in the gardens and across the world.

Arty Tights!
A specially commissioned exhibition of tights made by students at Edinburgh College of Art,
using plant based textiles and dyes.

Oh, and I forgot to mention: it is free to go into the Botanics. Yep. Let me type that again. It is free to go into the gardens. So you can pop in at any time. Or every 18 months in our case.

If you are in Edinburgh and want to make a 'jaunt' to the Botanics, please note that the bric a brac 'shop of dreams', Duncan & Reid, is a mere couple of minutes walk from the East Gate of the Gardens, and the Circle Cafe - gorgeous food, relaxed ambience and friendly staff - is another couple of minutes walk further along the road. 5 minutes on the number 23 or 27 bus from the city centre. Make a day of it!

Experiments in Sourdough

2011-03-03T00:10:00.003Z

There are certain types of cooking activity guaranteed to produce a beatific sense of satisfaction in the maker. A row of neatly labelled jars of home made preserves. A well-risen cake. A tray of crisp biscuits. Homely, heart-warming produce, that also points to a certain level of technical skill. Surely, most satisfying of all is the production of a loaf of home-baked bread. Even tipping out one of those square loaves from the bread-machine generates a swelling of pride in the chest. But let me tell you, the self-congratulatory pleasures of these kitchen achievements pale into insignificance compared with the thrill of gazing upon your first loaves of sourdough bread, made with your own home-made sourdough starter.

Is there anything more beautiful, more satisfying than this sight?

I don't know when the concept of sourdough bread entered my consciousness. I think I read something in Dan Lepard's Saturday Guardian column last autumn. Next thing I'm avidly surfing sourdough websites. Turns out, there are loads. The world of sourdough is a thriving if somewhat obsessive subculture. Then I found myself impatiently checking my diary for a period when I would be around to deal with the daily 'feeding' of my fledgling sourdough starter. I finally got around to it after Christmas.

For those of you who don't know what the hell I'm talking about, a sourdough starter is the leaven that makes sourdough bread sourdough. Rather than using commerically produced yeast, you create a mixture of flour and water, which if left to ferment, over time starts to cultivate naturally occuring yeasts. You then keep this starter 'alive' i.e. with active yeast, by periodically feeding it with more flour and water. The starter is supposed to create bread with a superior flavour and keeping properties. These starters keep indefinitely, as long as they are fed, and there are accounts of starters which are hundreds of years old. Although there are naturally leavened breads in food cultures across the world, it seems to be in the US where there is a cultish, sourdough community. San Francisco Sourdough is the self-crowned king of sourdoughs, although there are others. There seems to be a culture of swapping and gifting sourdough starters, and traditions such as Amish friendship bread are built on the notion of giving sourdough breads and cakes to friends and those in need. Call me sentimental, but I am a sucker for this kind of thing.

Anyway, my foray into sourdough was motivated by culinary curiosity, rather than any altruistic impulses. After a false start, I managed to create a sourdough starter that survived its first week, and metamorphosed into a pleasant smelling, yeasty, bubbling mixture (the first one went grey and rank-smelling after a week). Incapable of following a recipe, I bodged together bits and pieces of recipes from here and here and here - and probably other places I've forgotten. I used 1 US measuring cup of wholemeal bread flour, 1 cup of bottled spring water, 1 tablespoon orange juice and 1 dessertspoon of malt extract in the first mix. I then 'fed' it at least daily, and even twice a day sometimes, by discarding half the mixture and adding in 1/2 cup spring water and 1/2 cup wholemeal bread flour. I left it 10 days before I first used it, although after a week, the mixture was doubling its size in about 6 hours, which is supposed to be a sign that it is ready. Once the starter is mature, you can keep it in the fridge, and just feed it once a week.

I had a fairly grim first attempt at sourdough baking, which went in the bin after one slice. I then managed to produce an acceptable loaf i.e. edible but nothing special. Having learnt a few lessons along the way and finding a reputedly reliable basic recipe, I created the loaves in the picture of the top of the page. Very satisfying. But this picture is the clincher:

Look at the 'open crumb' on that (as we bakers say ....). By open crumb I mean all those lovely holes. It looks like proper sourdough bread - the sort you buy from expensive delis and the farmers market. It tasted like that as well. This type of bread is always going to be dense and chewy, but this bread was also soft, with a mildly sour flavour and a gorgeous crisp crust. It also keeps pretty well and freezes very well. And it's so damn satisfying, creating this bread effectively out of nothing but flour and water. It's like alchemy - and very addictive.

The recipe I followed for this, my most successful sourdough bread so far is Norwich Sourdough Bread. For once I followed the recipe exactly. Mmmm - is there a lesson to be learned here? Follow recipes? I also think there are a few important factors in the way I approached it:

I used bottled spring water (the first starter I tried to make which died, I made with tap water, whilst the second successful starter was made with spring water. Lots of sourdough recipes suggest you should use spring water).
The dough was very wet, and rather than machine or hand-kneading after the first knead, I used the folding technique, - which is a way of encouraging the gluten to develop and those nice holes.
I baked it using Dan Lepard's technique of cooking it in an oven-proof, lidded casserole dish. You put the dish in while preheating the oven, and then slide the risen loaf into it on parchment paper - a not entirely smooth operation, but the loaf survived. You then spray the loaf generously with water and cook it for the first 20 minutes with the lid on, to create a steamy atmosphere. This means the crust stays soft enough to allow the bread to continue rising during the first part of baking ('oven spring' we bakers call it ...). You then finish baking the loaf with the lid off. I think this would be a good way of baking any hand-shaped loaf, not just sourdough, as it prevents the loaf spreading out while baking.

This loaf wasn't quite as burnt as this picture suggests - but, to be honest, in typical Rosie style, I did manage to let it catch a bit on top. A very crisp crust. Ahem.

I've been a bit sourdough crazy for a few weeks. You have to discard half the starter in order to feed it and if you don't want to bake bread (or if, like me, you decide to make a second white flour starter, and you've already baked 2 large sourdough loaves from the discard from your wholemeal starter, and there are only 2 of you in the household ...) you do look for other things to do with it. It is galling to just chuck it in the bin. So last weekend, as well as our sourdough bread, we had sourdough breakfast pancakes and sourdough pizza. The pancakes were ok - the sour flavour worked well with maple syrup, but if I wasn't trying to use up sourdough starter, I'd probably stick with normal pancakes. The pizza was fab - thin and crispy and tangy. Highly recommended.

The new sourdough fad has also been justification for the purchase of a whole range of new, unnecessary kitchen equipment and cookery books. I obviously needed two new artisan bread books. To be fair, I bought the first one as a present for as friend, and it turned out he already had it, so I kept it for myself. The second was the replacement gift, and it looked so good I bought a copy for myself. I had to buy a linen lined proving basket - who knew such things existed, until you get sucked into the world of sourdough, and suddenly this seems vital. I also thought a special dough whisk would be just the thing. This is actually is very effective - but hardly vital to the process. And I bought some dried San Francisco sourdough starter - just to see if it's better than my home made one, and in case I manage to kill mine (quite likely in the light of my success with plants). Lastly I bought 2 'special' sourdough pots, to keep the sourdough starters comfortable in the fridge. Clearly, I've done something wrong here .........

Fact is, the initial attraction of sourdough bread was that it was supposed to be simple. All you need is flour, water, salt, a tea towel, a baking sheet or casserole dish and some baking parchment. If you are tempted at the thought of trying it for yourself, whatever you do, don't go to http://www.bakerybits.co.uk/. You just know what will happen. You have been warned!

Shock news: Shakespeare is funny

2011-02-25T09:35:00.000Z

If I am absolutely honest, Shakespeare is not my first preference when it comes to theatre. I realise this confession has destroyed any chance of maintaining the illusion that I'm remotely 'cultured', but it's the truth. I enjoyed studying and reading his plays at school but there's something about that reverential vocal style often used in theatre productions of Shakespeare that turns me off. Or productions are so self consciously 'alternative' - set in lunatic asylums, or Nazi Germany - that this gets in the way of the drama itself. I certainly have never enjoyed Shakespeare's comedies. At least with his tragedies you can enjoy the dramatic tension of the remorseless turning of the wheel of fate towards the final reckoning. In his comedies, as far as I could see, there were just lots of mistaken identity plot devices and sometimes some fairies. And the jokes aren't funny.

Well. I was wrong. We went to see a production of the Comedy of Errors by Propellor last night - and frequently laughed out loud. It was definitely not a reverential approach. Set in a South American version of Corinth, complete with mariachi band in sombreros, it was Shakespeare meets panto meets a Ray Cooney farce. The comedy was broad and often physical, but it was smart and imaginative and knowing. All the slapstick - accompanied by the requisite live sound effects - was delivered with perfect timing.

Propellor is an all male company, which meant the female characters were drag turns. There was quite a lot of knowing humour drawn from that - not least in the appearance of the Mother Abbess in fishnets and boots, to the strains of Madonna's Like A Prayer - but it didn't undermine the power of the characters. And let's not forget, when Shakespeare wrote his plays, he was writing for all male companies.

As a bonus, the mariachi band played raucous versions of Eurythmics hits in the interval.

Photo by Manuel Har / Propellor

I hope I haven't made this sound naff or dumbed down. Because in amongst all the cross-dressing and running gags, the language was Shakespeare's and was brought to life in such a way that not only did the plot and narrative tension come through, but the verbal humour made sense. It is a production that embraces and celebrates the original play and injects it with new theatrical energy.

Propellor are touring this in the UK and the US until July. If you would prefer something with a bit of gravitas, they are performing Comedy of Errors in rep with Richard III. Both productions have had rave reviews, and if I didn't have other commitments, I would be going to see Richard III this weekend. They were that good.

Hello Old Fruit

2011-02-20T22:38:00.001Z

I'm just recovering from a lengthy bout of laryngitis. What should I make of the gales of laughter that greets this news when any of my friends hear about it? As if they cannot conceive of my existence without the power of speech. I know I talk a lot but ..... Actually, they have a point. However, it's been surprisingly peaceful, resisting speech. I've discovered it's possible to have a thought, without immediately vocalising it. Who knew. I suspect my other half has been having a peaceful time of it as well.

Clearly, I've been suffering from an even longer bout of virtual laryngitis. So my sincere thanks to Isabelle for her well-timed comment on my last post, which happened to coincide with my own stirrings of interest in trying to pick up this blogging lark again. I also finally managed to install and operate the software for my new camera. Only taken me 3 months.

Last weekend, we were lucky enough to be invited to share the birthday celebrations of our dear friend R. A 'biggie'. There's no bus pass involved, but he may find himself on the SAGA mailing lists.

We spent the weekend in what is probably the most unusual holiday cottage in the UK.

This is The Pineapple - a Landmark Trust property near Falkirk. It was built in 1761, as part of an elaborate summerhouse, along one side of a walled garden. It is flanked by gardeners' cottages which have now been converted into a 2 bedroom holiday property.

No one really knows the reason for Lord Dunmore deciding to build a massive pineapple shaped folly in central Scotland, an area not renowned for its tropical fruit harvest. Pineapples were something of a status symbol in the 18th century, imported by the wealthy from the Caribbean. I remember seeing special pineapple growing glasshouses at Chatsworth House. So I suppose he was just showing off.

The cottage is quite bijoux - and you have to go outside to get between the living area and the bedrooms, and more to the point, the toilet. So take a kaghoul. It was fine for a weekend though. And you get to sit in the Pineapple itself, which is like a very glamorous conservatory. It must be marvellous in the summer. Even in the chill and drizzle of a Scottish February, we managed to brave it for about half an hour, to drink birthday champagne by candlelight.

And we saw our first snowdrops of the year.

Best of all, I got to enjoy all the pleasure of birthday cake and champagne, without being the one turning 50 - yet.

Brace yourself!

2010-11-22T15:47:00.000Z

Hello. I'm back. I make no promises about how long for, based on my 'half-finished' attempts in the last few months. However, I had to share this little snippet of Edinburgh New Town life, spotted last weekend.

A Saturday stroll through Edinburgh's New Town, on the way to lunch back at Leo's Beanery, enjoying the restrained elegance of the Georgian townhouses. But what's that hanging from the top left balcony?

Ah yes, living in a city centre flat can be so restrictive. Where do you dry your laundry? Where do you store your bicycle? But most of all, where on earth do you hang your brace of pheasants?

At last .....

2010-09-14T23:20:00.001+01:00

I'm running a personal development course at the end of October. I'm really excited about it. However, it strikes me that its stumbling genesis is typical of my way of going about getting anything done. It also illustrates perfectly how those of us not blessed with the 'planning and organisation' gene, lurch into action.

First step is to nurture an idea which just remains wishful thinking for ages and ages (about 2 years in this case). Then I start mentioning it as a possibility to friends. Saying it outloud to people somehow makes it feel a bit more real. Then I start prefacing any mention of the idea with half-hearted attempts at commitment - e.g. 'I really must ..' or 'I am determined to ...'. Eventually there's a kind of internal commitment to the project with a vague timetable, e.g. 'I'm going to run a personal development course in the autumn'. This is followed by a hiatus borne out of an illusion of momentum, because I've decided to go ahead with the project. It's as if I believe that, by making the decision I've started the ball rolling and everything will magically come to pass, without me having to do anything. It's like the relief that comes after creating a neat 'to do' list, before you've tried to do anything on it.

Then comes the panic-inducing reality check, usually instigated by looking at my diary. In this case, it dawned on me towards the end of August that if I wanted to run something in 'the autumn' and I needed to get off my backside and organise it.

Even then, I need to engineer some unavoidable imperative to get me into full action mode. In this case it was booking the venue for a certain set of dates. Finally, a deadline, which is the only thing that gets me moving. After that, it's extraordinary just how much I can get done. After two years of thinking about it, in the space of two weeks, I've designed a 6 week personal development course, arranged the venue, designed and produced a leaflet and poster, started advertising the event, and even created a website. Phew.

12 years ago, when I was studying for my counselling diploma, I came across a wonderful illustration of the planning vs 'emergent' approach to things. It was based on the Myers-Briggs personality types, and in particular the Judging/Perceiving dimension: the 'judging' types, being those who prefer life to be planned, stable and organised; the 'perceiving' types being those who tend to go with the flow, prefer flexibility and are happy to respond to things as they arise. I've long since lost the reference, but the illustration of the differences between the judging and perceiving approaches to a task was so apt and so vivid, it's stayed with me.

Judging vs Perceiving approach to tasks

Those of you who are 'judging' types will be baffled by the representation on the right. For those of you who, like me, are more 'perceiving' than 'judging', it will be all too painfully familiar. It is informally known amongst my 'perceiving' friends as the 'squiggle', recognisable from school essays, university assignments, work projects, PhD theses and even the housework (when we have visitors coming). The question is, despite the apparent inefficiency and chaos (and the discomfort of going through this fraught process) is it any less effective than the nice linear version? The answer is probably irrelevant, as I seem unable to circumvent squiggle mode, however many personal development courses I run!

On this occasion, my squiggle has produced this:

More information here (result of another squiggle!)

Awww!

2010-08-31T18:45:00.003+01:00

I am not really one for cutesy things. Although my blog is pink I'm not really a fluffy person. I'm usually a bit too dishevelled to carry off anything twee. However I will make an exception for the following.

There is a luscious flower shop called Honeysuckle which I pass on the way to and from work. It is always fronted by an abundance of extravagant bouquets, artfully put together, which cheers me every time I pass. It never just has buckets of tired daffodils or crysanths on show. If it does have bouquets of single flowers, it's always things like giant sunflowers, blowsy peony blooms or lilac hydrangea flowers. It's the sort of florist you wish your husband would buy you flowers from (hint hint!).

Last week I was trudging to work and enjoying the sight and scent of the floral display as usual. On this occasion, there was a little something extra to enjoy.

If there's one thing I enjoy looking at more than flowers, it's cute dogs. And this one is very cute.

She (surely a she!) is the definitive poodle. Dainty, pretty and perfectly accessorized in pink. She must be called Princess or Precious or something. You can just get a glimpse of her pink and diamante collar. Do you think you can have her delivered by Interflora?

I can vouch for the fact that she enjoys being stroked and petted. Ahem. Sad sight of middle aged woman fussing dog outside flower shop, then taking photos of it. Oh dear. Next thing you know, I'll be buying calendars with pictures of kittens in baskets.

UPDATE: Thanks to a nice e-mail from Honeysuckle, I now know the dog is called Tiara. Perfect.

The sea, the sea

2010-08-24T22:19:00.001+01:00

I'm not really a sea person. I don't dislike the coast but I'm not one of these people who seeks it out or needs periods gazing out across the waves for the good of my soul. I quite like being landlocked. I like lakes and rivers and dales and hills. I like trees and dry stone walls and hedgerows. I like the scope for travel and exploration that the land offers. When we lived in East Yorkshire, near Hull, on the East coast, I felt stuck out on the edge of things and I didn't like it at all. The sea feels like a barrier for me, a dead end. I've never sailed, and suffer from seasickness, so maybe it's just that I don't feel as if I can get about easily on the sea. On land, I know I can walk, or drive to get where I want to go. C says I always need an escape route, psychological and geographical. Maybe he's right.

C loves the sea of course. Another thing we are at odds about! C's brother used to live in the Outer Hebrides and C just loves it there. I know, would love to spend the rest of his days digging peat in the drizzle on an isolated croft on North Uist. On the odd occasion we've gone there together, I've felt really trapped, stuck on an island that you could drive around in a day. C feels the exact opposite. For him the sea is a liberating expanse of space. Oh well, they do say opposites attract.

Odd then that our recent jaunt to the seaside was instigated by me. I felt an unfamiliar desire to escape to the sea. I'd had in mind something quite wild and isolated (also unlike me) but in the end, the restrictions of time meant that we only got as far as Stonehaven, not exactly off the beaten track (in Scottish terms at least). Stonehaven is about 15 miles south of Aberdeen. It's been a fishing village since the iron age into the late 19th century. Presumably it benefited from the arrival of the railway in the 19th century, developing as a seaside resort. It's not exactly Blackpool, but it does have an outdoor heated seawater swimming pool, which the town is very proud of. It also boasts an amusement arcade and a Pitch and Putt course - surely the core requirements for a British seaside resort. Unfortunately, the sea front by the beach is a bit uninspiring, with fairly ordinary modern housing all along it. However, it does have a beautiful old harbour ringed by sturdy, 18th century stone buildings, which are now being done up. The presence of seafood restaurants is a sure sign that gentrification is well underway.

Stonehaven Harbour, at dawn (yes, really!)

Stonehaven Harbour, still at dawn.
The reflection of the buildings and boats in the shallow water shows how sheltered it is.

We stayed at one of the two pub hotels along the waterfront. I am not going to recommend it. The one good thing I could say about our room was that the fixtures and fittings were good quality and new, the hotel having been recently refurbished. However, the room was at the back of the hotel and to access it you had to go through hotel laundry room/chamber maid store, stepping round the cleaning equipment. Rather than being woken at dawn by the soothing splash of the waves, we awoke to the thrum of the washing machine. The room was so small that we had to take it in turns to edge around the bed sideways to get about. And for this we paid £85. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but that seemed a bit steep. We were in Stonehaven for goodness sake! I really think accommodation in the UK is ridiculously expensive and bad value.

Anyway, before I get stuck in ranting mode, let me tell you about the highlights in Stonehaven, apart from the beautiful harbour. We had a fantastic meal at the Marine Inn on the harbourfront. Great atmosphere as well, with quirky driftwood and fishing industry inspired art on the walls, a big open fire ready for the winter and unusual fruit beers on tap. Should have stayed there!

A short, invigorating cliff top walk South brings you to Dunnottar Castle. Surely one of the most impressively situated castles in Scotland (apart from Eilean Donan). The castle is quite ruined, but not to the extent that you can't get a sense of the scale and grandeur of the place.

Dunottar Castle
by Jjhake on http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DUNNOTTAR_CASTLE_Large.JPG

The castle has played a significant role in Scottish history because of the strategic value of its location in allowing control of access north/south by sea and land. The site itself has been settled since Pictish times, in the early centuries AD, although no-one knows exactly when. The first Scottish King, Domnal II died there in 900 AD. The present castle was once the seat of a powerful family, the Earls Marischal of Scotland, until an awkward episode of treason as part of the Jacobite rising of 1715 meant the castle was confiscated by the crown. In 1651, the Scottish crown jewels were taken there for safe-keeping and defended against Cromwell's army. In the 13th century, whilst occupied by an English batallion, it was beseiged and taken by William Wallace. It's most famous for the story of the 170 Covenanters, men and women, imprisoned in a dungeon in the half ruined castle for 2 months in 1685. Few survived the brutal conditions, and those that did, were deported as slave labour to the West Indies. All of which reminds me how ignorant I am about Scottish history, and how useful Wikipedia is! Of course Mary Queen of Scots stayed there as well - inevitably. That woman really got around. There isn't a historic house in Scotland that doesn't boast a bedroom where Mary Queen of Scots reputedly bunked up.

Walk across the cliff tops
from Stonehaven to Dunnottar Castle

First view of Dunnottar Castle

Scottish thistles!

But it wasn't all brisk walks and historic sites. There was time for hedonism as well. More soon ...!

Displacement activities

2010-08-12T22:46:00.002+01:00

There are times when I am faced with the undeniable truth that that I have my priorities all wrong. A quick survey of my current circumstances reveals panic-inducing numbers of tasks and chores that urgently need my attention. Inevitably, there’s the vast quantity of regular household chores being ignored. There's the ironing. There’s always the ironing. At the moment, I’m relying on the ‘iron-on-demand’ system. Similar to the ‘just-in-time’ production management approach developed by Japanese car manufacturers in the 1980s this means that a) I struggle to find something to wear to work without hurtling around the house first thing in the morning looking for the ironing board or b) I’m wearing the same forgiving crease-free trousers all the time.

There’s the oven, which is so filthy at the moment that I could incubate funghi in the bottom of it. We have visitors arriving at the weekend and as I can’t assume everyone has the same lax attitudes to housework as I do, I really need to clean the oven. I think back longingly to the decrepit, solid fuel Rayburn we had in Cumbria. On the outside, it was always covered by a particularly noxious mix of coal dust and grease, because it was old and the flue was a little loose, allowing clouds of soot to escape towards the cooking plate. But Rayburn ovens never need cleaning. You just let the dirt in the oven carbonise in the constant heat and brush out a few innocuous piles of black charcoal flakes now and then. There’s also inevitably a certain amount of remedial dusting, hoovering and bathroom cleaning to be addressed before the arrival of visitors. Plus, relaxing in the sitting room yesterday I idly glanced across to the window and was reminded that the curtains we hung ‘temporarily’ 6 months ago, still have a foot of lining dangling beneath them. It’s chastening just how blind you can be to the half-finished, messed-up things lurking in your home. It’s only with the prospect of visitors that you start seeing everything that needs to be done just to maintain the pretence of being civilised people.

On top of this, we are still in the thick of the agonisingly slow and painstaking process of sifting through boxes of belongings in an attempt, finally, to match the amount of stuff we have to the amount of space available in our flat. This process seems to have been going on for years and consists mainly of taking bubble-wrapped objects out of boxes, unwrapping them, saying ‘oh, I’d forgotten all about that’, then wrapping them up again and putting them into a different box. Although I know we have disposed of lots of stuff, I can’t see any evidence of this in the number of crates and boxes stacked up around the flat. Many of these boxes are in our guest room, so there’s some sense of urgency. At present, I actually have a heavy-duty lawnmower in my study, waiting for us to put it on Ebay. Unfortunately, before we do that, we have to take it down 3 flights of stairs to the communal back garden to make sure it still works, as it sat in a storage unit for 2 years. But in order to check that it works, we need some petrol, which means remembering to go out to a garage with an empty petrol can. You can imagine. The damn thing has been sitting there for 3 months. We were supposed to be selling it at the beginning of the summer, when most people think about buying lawnmowers. Sometimes when I can’t stand having it in my study any longer, it gets trundled out into the hall for a few hours for a change of scene then trundled back into my study again. It’s starting to feel like a silent, mechanical pet.

Who needs a puppy when you have a lawnmower!

On top of household demands, there are the inevitable half-finished craft projects sitting around mewling for my attention like neglected, half-starved children. The length of fabric bought about four months ago to create some curtains to hide some shelves in the kitchen, bought to tide us over until we got the kitchen ‘done’properly. I have a pair of navy linen trousers I ‘ran up’ for my holidays, but didn’t get finished in time. To be wearable, they need hemming and pressing. By the time they’re finished a) it will be winter and too cold or b) it will be next summer and I will probably have put on more weight and won’t be able to get into them.

So as you can see, there are plenty of important things I could be doing. And what do I spend my time doing? I made my own baguettes.

I can come up with no reasonable justification for this absurd use of my time. I supposed I was trying to recreate the relaxed feeling of being on holiday in France earlier in the summer. There has been a disappointing contrast between the baguettes we ate on holiday - crusty, soft but chewy crumb, tangy yeast taste - and the baguettes we’ve bought since then - fluffy, tasteless cotton wool. I suspect the main reason I decided I just had to bake my own baguettes was as a displacement activity, so I could avoid the scary list of stuff I am supposed to be getting on with.

On a positive note, I must say the baguettes were amazing! Better than anything we’ve bought in the UK. Crusty, with a soft firm crumb, and full of flavour. They weren’t difficult to make. The significant factor is that you make a ‘poolish’ – a porridgy mash of water, yeast and flour, and leave that to sit overnight. I had a rather romantic idea that I would get up promptly and have fresh baguettes ready for breakfast time. However I misread the recipe slightly. I hadn't noticed that after the instruction: ‘let the dough rise for 30 minutes and then knock back the dough to 2/3 its risen size’ it stated: ‘repeat 3 more times’. Oh well. We had them for lunch instead. I followed the recipe exactly (amazingly for me!) but I did use a 50:50 mix of strong and plain white flour. I’d read somewhere on the internet that this was a good approximation of French bread flour. Anyway, the results were great and I was left with 2 baguettes to stash in the freezer.

Definitely a 'ta da!' moment

As an absurd way of spending my time, the ‘making my own baguettes’ episode ranks alongside this summer’s violet macarons debacle. This was my attempt at a show-stopping contribution to a chakra themed lunch - don’t ask – it was a Wild Women weekend in a yurt. I had been allocated the violet chakra. 7 hours in the kitchen, during a plumbing disaster which meant in order to empty the kitchen sink, I had to put a bucket under the u-bend and throw the contents down the loo. It took 2 attempts to make the macarons. The first batch of unmanageably friable, puny, flat discs were chucked in the bin. Out of the second batch I managed to salvage enough to cobble together a dozen sad little crumbly macarons of varying sizes. Never again and definitely not worthy of a photo. The sort of thing your 8 year old might bring home from school cookery classes.

Last week, I found myself making my own vanilla essence! Admittedly, this doesn't take a lot of effort: vodka, vanilla essence, vanilla beans, glass jar, shake then leave for 6 weeks. But nevertheless. Do I really have the time to make my own vanilla essence? Is that really a priority? However, if you are similarly at a loose end, by which I mean, so overwhelmed with things you should be doing that you need a displacement activity, the instructions are on Traveller's Lunchbox here.

Oeuf nue a cheval

2010-08-08T09:00:00.003+01:00

In France, a fried egg on top of things like hamburgers or pizzas is rather charmingly called 'oeuf a cheval' - egg on horseback. At one cafe, we came across what might be called an 'oeuf nue a cheval' - a naked egg on horseback. A Godiva egg? Also known, as poor C was to discover, as a recipe for salmonella poisoning.

It was Pasta Carbonara. The idea being that you mixed the raw egg in with the hot pasta yourself to create a really fresh pasta sauce. Nice idea, except that it became clear from poor C's very violent reaction later that afternoon, that the pasta couldn't have been that hot and he'd basically eaten raw egg. Yuk. I'd stuck with yet more duck, and was fine!

Food with a view

2010-08-06T20:02:00.002+01:00

View from Maisonneuve, Lalinde.

We had blissful fortnight at the beginning of July, staying in Lalinde, a little 'bastide' town on the Dordogne, near Bergerac.

Inevitably, on a holiday in France, food is big feature. We ate fairly plain fare for most of the holiday. Plain but delicious. The Dordogne is a region of many medieval villages. Each of these small villages has at least one, if not two markets every week, rich with local produce. My idea of holiday heaven is a good market, and I have the holiday snaps to prove it! Just how many photos of nicely arranged vegetables does one woman need?

Purple Cauliflowers: Villefranche de Perigord market

So most of the time we bought food from markets in the area and spent most of the holiday eating home cooked (or rather home assembled!) meals in the beautiful garden of our holiday home. Baguettes, pain de campagne, cheese and tomatoes and fruit. This most simple of meals was transformed into something quite exquisite, simply because French produce is just so good. Washed down with plenty of local rose wine of course!

Market day: Lalinde

We also discovered the fantastic 'marches nocturnes' in the area. Literally 'night markets', where you can buy freshly cooked food from stalls - freshly barbecued steaks, moules frites, crepes, salads, goats cheeses - and of course wine - and sit at trestle tables in the centre of the market square alongside locals and other tourists, eating, drinking, chatting in broken French and generally feeling pretty damn good about life.

Marche nocturne: Paunat

The most memorable meal we had on holiday was an accident. A very happy accident. We'd turned up at the pretty, historic village of Tremolat, hoping for a 'marche nocturne' but we'd got the dates mixed up; the place was deserted. We asked the staff at the tourist information office to recommend a local restaurant: we were directed to the nearby 'Ferme Auberge du Belvedere'. These 'farm restaurants' are apparently a feature of rural france. Simple restaurants which open during the summer and serve food based on produce from the farm.

This one offered 4 set menus: €15 / €19 / €23 / €27. In some kind of joint madness, we went for the €19 menu, according to the well worn 'how to choose the wine' rule, i.e. second cheapest on the menu. Somehow in this decision making process, we lost sight of the fact that this meant 7 courses. 7 courses!

Ferme Auberge du Belvedere

The first thing that happened was that a 2 litre bottle of red wine was plonked onto the table. No label. Presumably just filled from the barrel. This was included in the set menu. I was still cursing the fact that it was my turn to drive when a jug of ‘kir’ was presented to us. Would we like an aperitif? Well why not?

The first course was soup. This arrived at the table in a large tureen. The tureen was left with us, so we could help ourselves. This alone would have done about 8 people for lunch, rather than serving as a starter for 4. We drew on our scarce resources of self-discipline and were very sparing with our portions, knowing the culinary mountain still to climb. Then we had the 'starter'. Apparently the soup wasn't the starter. The starter was Foie Gras de Canard - i.e. duck fois gras. This area of France is very big on foie gras – goose and duck. It's not something I have ever eaten, nor wanted to eat, because of the cruelty involved in its production. However, as this was a set menu: when in Rome. Not eating foie gras could hardly be described as a big sacrifice to date on my part, because I've never really fancied it. I imagined it would be a bit fatty and too rich. Oh. My. God. It was one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten, even with its garnish of animal welfare guilt. I am trying to forget this experience, so I'm not tempted to eat it in future.

Then came the ‘hot starter’. Apparently, we needed soup then a cold starter, then a hot starter. The hot starter was 'Cous de canard farcis': the less than appealing sounding 'stuffed duck neck'. This wasn’t as grim as you might imagine. It's a kind of duck meat terrine, but stuffed into the skin of a duck's neck, as if it were a sausage casing (which I didn’t eat!). We were slowing down a bit by now, having eating about a full day's worth of food already in this meal. My dining companions were able to wash everything down with the vat of red wine we'd been given. I was limited to my single glass of wine, eked out by glasses of water. You will have also noticed a food theme emerging. It will come as no suprise that the main course was, you've guessed it, duck. I don't know if you've ever eaten 'confit de canard'. It's basically duck legs preserved in copious quantitutes of ...duck fat, then roasted, presumably with some additional duck fat. Doesn't sound great does it? And probably slightly hard on the arteries. It was, inevitably, delicious. Served with garlicky fried potatoes. Presumably fried in ... duck fat. Also, I'm almost ashamed to say, delicious.

Then came the salad - the first green veg of the meal. Even my salad hating husband was driven to munch on some lettuce as an antidote to the duck meat/duck fat overload. At this point, knowing we still had cheese and dessert to come and fearing hospitalisation, we suggested to the lovely, friendly waitress - the "farmer's wife" - that we might just have a small portion of cheese, simply to taste it. She looked heartbroken. Didn't we want cheese? It was all made on the farm. I swear her bottom lip quivered. What could we do? The cheese was fabulous.

And finally came the pudding – warm apricot sponge cake. When faced with this generous slice of cake, I felt like lying down on the floor and whimpering defeat. I only tasted it out of politeness (after the episode with the cheese). It says a lot for the quality of the food after taking one mouthful, we were all wolfing it down. The combination of fragrant, perfectly ripe fruit with vanilla scented sponge was exquisite. Almost perfumed.

Then we were on the home straight – coffee. But were weren't quite finished. When we tried to pay, we were told that we couldn’t leave until we’d had our ‘digestif’. The farmer/chef emerged from the kitchen to serve us a glass of his home-made prune eau de vie! He looked as if he'd enjoyed a few glasses himself, but it hadn't affected his culinary skills. It is only after a meal of such gargantuan proportions and richness that you finally understand the purpose of 'digestifs'. They may taste like parafin and have the alcoholic kick of moonshine, but they clear the head and the gut like nothing else.

This then, was our version of La Grande Bouffe. In the telling it probably just sounds like nausea inducing quantities of rich food. But that's because you aren't tasting it. Everything was intensely delicious. I wouldn’t want to eat like this every week, or every month – but it was a magical experience.

The icing on the cake – or the apricot sponge – was that the farm was situated high up on a hill, overlooking a sharp bend in the river Dordogne and the broad flood plain enclosed. The clue is in the name - Belvedere. You could see for miles – and half way through the evening, as night fell, the most amazing electrical storm played out infront of us, across the whole breadth of the valley. I've never seen lightening like it. If it had been on a film, you'd have assumed it was CGI overkill.

What an evening. I don't know why it felt so special. The food certainly. The setting was stupendous. The light show, courtesy of mother nature. Mostly it was because we only discovered the place by chance. We speculated that if we went back the following night, there would be no trace of the place, and it was a kind of restaurant Brigadoon. But it's not. Here's the website. If you are ever in the area, I would recommend it 100%. But fast for the previous day. Or go for the €15 menu.

View of the Dordogne, near Tremolat, from the Ferme Auberge du Belvedere.

The blessings of the blog

2010-08-02T23:17:00.000+01:00

Sunflowers - Dordogne, June 2010

Well, this was nearly a very 'half-finished' blog. Or rather, a 'finished' blog (an ex-blog as John Cleese might say).

I wish I could say that some great crisis or excitement has prevented me from posting. Alas no. I didn't break both arms in a fluke shopping accident. I haven't been away for four months sailing across the Atlantic single handed. I just got out of the habit of blogging. Then, I'd stopped for so long, I didn't know how to start again. The longer I left it, the more the blog took on the guilt-inducing characteristic of a postponed chore, rather than a creative activity. It was in danger of becoming one more half-finished project in my life, the shortcut on my laptop desktop a constant reminder of yet another example of my fecklessness/ laziness/ lack of self-discipline/ lack of staying power etc. It joined the long list of activities taken on over the years and then abandoned through inertia and procrastination, the knowlege of which gradually chips away at the self-esteem: the oft started but never completed Italian evening classes; the neglected gym memberships; the 'vintage' garden chairs awaiting renovation; the yoghurt maker; the loom (I'll tell you about the loom one day!); the handweights, now lugged on 3 house moves, in pristine condition. Ho hum.

But I've missed the blog. I've missed it because of what it brought into my life. Looking back at my first post I remember that I started blogging in order to 'taste the strawberries' - notice and appreciate the good things in my life. That's what I've missed. There's no doubt that we see what we are in the habit of noticing. The desire to write a blog fuelled a habit of looking out for good things to share, to photograph, to describe. Without the motivation of the blog, I think I've been noticing and appreciating the good things a little less.

In his book Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman reports on research done to measure the positive impact on depressed people of a simple exercise in noticing the good things. Participants in this research were asked to write down 'three blessings' every night before they went to sleep. These 'blessings' were simply required to be good things about their day. Not achievements, not major events, just good things - seeing some pretty flowers, watching a good film, having a chat with a close friend, completing a suduko puzzle, seeing a rainbow, getting kissed - whatever they had enjoyed about their day. They were to do this for a month. At the end of the month, the levels of 'depression' were measured and found to be decreased in all participants.This in itself is interesting, but what is really significant is that 6 months after the exercise, even though those involved were not asked to continue with the blessings, levels of depression were still lowered. (If I were a proper academic, I would have the actual statistics to hand, but I'm not. However you can read more in this report here and Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness website).

Maybe this blog is my 'blessing' exercise? In any case, I'm having another go at this blogging lark.

So what are your three blessings today?

The Shop of Dreams

2010-04-07T23:02:00.003+01:00

A further instalment in an occasional series of posts about shops I daren't go into, unless I am happy to spend some money (see here and here for previous instalments in the series).

It's also probably about time I confessed to my bric a brac habit ....

When we lived on the Northside of Edinburgh, this shop, Duncan & Reid was at the end of our road. C and I nicknamed this shop our 'Shop of Dreams' because we both love it. Every week we would walk past it and get a little thrill from looking in the window and seeing what new treasures had appeared. Practically every Christmas, birthday and anniversary present during our 3 years living nearby came from this shop. Maybe it's just that the owner has similar tastes to me. Every time I look in the window there's something that I love. It stimulates a rather shameful kind of acquisitiveness in me.

The shop sells books, jewellery, pottery and glass and what I suppose you would call collectibles or curios. It's not a really posh antique shop - not one of those that just has half a dozen monumental pieces of furniture on display, along with a copy of Millers Antique Guide and beeswax furniture polish. Yet it's not merely bric a brac. It's better than that. It is however very reasonable in terms of price. Which just adds to my acquisitiveness. Whilst I wouldn't spend hundreds of pounds, or even a hundred pounds, on a little gewgaw or trinket for myself, I might well spend £20 or £30. It's only when you add up all these little amounts that the truth of your habit dawns .....

My bric a brac habit isn't totally out of control - I don't haunt car boot sales or ebay, snapping up weekly bargains. Months can go by without me buying anything. It is however totally inexcusable, given the amount of clutter and stuff we have clogging up our flat. It is especially unforgivable given the amount of time I spend complaining about C's hoarding habit. We are in the process of getting rid of a store we have in Cumbria, which means finally consigning to charity or the tip all those boxes of unwanted things labelled optimistically 'car boot sale'. Our large dining table is currently covered with random household goods - everything from a yoghurt maker to inherited tea sets to part sets of wine glasses - all waiting to be bundled up and dispatched.

Clearly then, it would be madness to buy more things from my favourite shop ..... but last week I happened to be in the area so I indulged myself in a little window shopping. Well, not just window shopping ........

The McVitie & Price display cabinet always has jewellery in it. Lots of late 19th and early 20th century costume jewellery. I have too many items from this case than I care to admit.

A special display of tea things for Easter.

I've had my eye on the glass comporte on the right for a while.

And look at this extraordinary parrot design tea set! But, for a woman who does not drink tea, I have too many tea sets already ......

This is the effervescent Jo - one of the people who works in the shop. We had an animated conversation about all the quirky and gorgeous things in the shop. She is a graduate from Edinburgh Art School, but said she had lost interest in her painting during her studies (a great advert for art college then!). 10 years later, she says that working in the shop has rekindled her desire to paint, because she has started painting still life studies, inspired by the objects in the shop. She had a fascinating way of describing her work. She said that painting objects she owns or loves is like painting self-portraits, but without having to be in the picture. I thought that was rather cool. She hasn't got a website, yet, but she very kindly showed me a photo on her phone of a work in progress. It was very blue, and very fetching, and managed successfully to juxtapose a teapot and lacy knickers, which is quite original!

This was last Thursday's haul:

This was actually an Easter present for C. A little jam pot. It's 'Hancock's Ivory Ware'. See how I managed to photograph it showing off the chip on the lid. Clever that.

A spotty sugar bowl, to go with my spotty tablecloth. Royal Winton. Very 1950s chintz. I don't take sugar, but never mind.

I fell in love with these champagne glasses. They supposedly date from the 1920s. They are just so plain and elegant. This is for my imaginary life when I lounge about drinking champagne and no doubt smoking a cigarette in a long holder, a la Audrey Hepburn - rather than slumping on the sofa in my pinny with a mug of coffee. I can dream.

Erm, does anyone want a yoghurt maker? I need to make some space .....

Frustration

2010-04-06T22:52:00.002+01:00

I think Mercury must be in retrograde or something. There has to be some explanation for the succession of niggly frustrations and difficulties I have been plagued by for the last 10 days. Nothing has worked out.

Item 1: Friday 26th March.
Brand new laptop delivered 4 days earlier than expected by excellent 'Laptops.direct.co.uk'. (That's not the frustrating bit). Switch on brand new laptop. It doesn't work. Screen knackered. No picture - just lots of thin, multi-coloured lines, like a weird bar code. Takes me until following Tuesday to get company to sort out return arrangements, after various phone calls to call centres in India and exchange of e-mails. The final straw was when the webpages which carried the returns request form crashed, and all I got was error messages when I tried to post the return details. Much swearing and gnashing of teeth on my part.

Item 2: Thursday 1st April
Having finally sorted out collection of non-functioning laptop by Parcelforce, get a text from husband, who was staying at home to facilitate said collection. The Parcelforce man had called at the very moment husband was in the loo. By the time C got to the door, Parcelforce man had gone back to his van and was driving away. I think ringing the doorbell once and then buggering off as fast as possible doesn't really constitute a reasonable collection service. Returns agreement with Laptop company states that if the collection doesn't go ahead because we weren't at home at agreed time, we would have to pay for second collection. Spent an incredibly frustrating half hour on my mobile phone, parked on a side street, navigating automated call routing system of Parcelforce in an attempt to request that the driver turn around and come back to pick up the laptop. At one point, I was connected to some random manager who was on his car phone! And of course, if you end up at a dead end on these automated call systems, you have to start ALL OVER AGAIN and listen to a cheery recorded voice telling you that your call may be recorded for training purposes, and that answers to many queries can be found at the Parcelforce website and that all the lines are busy and I am in a queue but my call is important .... We've all been there. Finally got through to Edinburgh dispatch office and was told that they would try to contact driver, but it was unlikely that he'd be able to come back and I'd probably have to arrange another collection on Tuesday, as Monday was a bank holiday .....

Item 3: Wednesday 31st March - Saturday 3rd April
Return of snow, sleet, gales and general wintery weather on Wednesday. Wednesday evening, central heating boiler breaks down. No heating. No hot water. Luckily, we have one of those service and maintenance agreements with the gas company, so I am sanguine. Foolishly so. 8am Thursday morning, phone to arrange engineer visit. No one available until following day but engineer would come between 8am and 1pm on Friday. Spend Thursday huddled near to electric radiators (before we moved to Edinburgh, we used to live in what was possibly the coldest house in England, so at least we have a good range of mobile heaters at our disposal, which have not quite yet found their way to the car boot sale). Enjoy pleasure of stand up wash with flannel and kettle of hot water.

Wait in on Friday until 4.30pm, before finally being told by British Gas that the engineer wouldn't be able to make it that day after all. This after 4 phone calls from me during day to enquire as to whereabouts of engineer. At each enquiry I had been assured that he would be with us soon, and we were next on his list. In a rare moment of assertiveness (fuelled by blind rage) I insist on being put down as the first call for the engineer the following morning, Despite my assertiveness, I am fobbed off by 'Sean', who insists that this is impossible because the scheduling of the engineer calls is done by a computer. When I ask to be put through to a manager who might just be able to override the computer scheduling, I am told by the charming 'Sean' that the manager is on another call. When I ask to be put on hold until the Manager is free, Sean informs me that this is impossible as he, Sean, has lots of other customers to call. I manage to extract a promise from 'Sean' (he refuses to give me his second name) that the manager will phone me back as soon as she is off the call. She doesn't call back. At 4.55pm, I phone British Gas and get through to the main Homecare call centre, where a very charming man, with much better customer care training than 'Sean' arranges an engineer's appointment at 12 noon the following day and promises that this will go ahead come what may.

Saturday morning. Another nice stand-up wash at the basin with the kettle of hot water. Regret cancelling my gym membership. Even if I never went to the gym, I could have gone and used the shower. Engineer arrives shortly after 12 noon. Switches on central heating boiler. It works perfectly! Let me just type that again so you don't miss it: CENTRAL HEATING BOILER WORKS PERFECTLY. I had tried to relight the boiler a number of times on Wednesday evening and Thursday morning with no luck. But now, it works perfectly. Engineer checks everything, but cannot find a fault. We have been shivering, washing with kettles of hot water and having arguments with unhelpful British Gas employees, and all the while, our heating was apparently ok.

Item 3: Monday 5th April - Easter Monday Bank Holiday
Brief flirtation with DIY - putting up a venetian blind from Ikea - turns into day long swearathon. First I have the wrong screws. Then the wood is so hard the screws won't go in. Then I put the brackets on the wrong way round and have to start all over again. Then I put the brackets on about 2mm too close together so the blind won't slot in so I have to start all over again. All of this done balancing very precariously on top of stepladder, as we have very tall windows. Each time I (repeatedly) drop one of the screws, or the screwdriver or the pencil, or on one rather noisy occasion, the electric drill/screwdriver, I have to clamber down the steps and then clamber back up. Many, many times. What I estimated would take me an hour in the morning takes me until 6.30pm. Admittedly this includes a break for lunch, a break to go to Homebase to buy new screws and frequent breaks to calm myself down. I think the old man who lives underneath us must have been able to hear me swearing, and he is stone deaf.

Item 4: Monday 5th April
Undaunted by gruelling battle with blind, on Monday evening I embarked on a further - and some might say misguided - attempt at DIY. Putting up of very simple brass rod for new lace curtains in bedroom. (Yes, we had been to Ikea on Sunday, along with half the population of Scotland.) More precarious balancing on top of a stepladder. Manage to fix first bracket to carry curtain rod into very hard window frame. Discover I haven't left enough space between bracket and side of bay window for ornamental finial on the end of the rod. Have to start again. Discover that the window frame isn't wide enough to accommodate bracket in such a way that the ornamental finial can fit between bracket and wall. Give up.

Item 5: Tuesday 6th May
Take delivery of new mattress from Ikea. C and I haul old mattress off bed, then wrestle wrapping from new mattress, before dragging new mattress onto bed. Mattress is 3 inches too small. Either Ikea have delivered the wrong size, or we were so confused by the weird Ikea bed sizes that we have ordered the wrong size. Either way, new mattress had to be dragged off bed and manhandled back into its large plastic bag.

Tomorrow I will face job of arranging exchange. Not now. I am just going to sit quietly for a bit, and eat some chocolate.

In our own back yard ....

2010-04-06T07:00:00.006+01:00

When writing about my recent trip to the garden centre, I said my gardening these days is confined to window boxes. This is not entirely true.

I've written about the Edinburgh tenements before. These streets of tenements have little in the way of gardens on show. The ground floor flats sometimes have small front gardens. On our road, the front gardens are about 10ft x 20ft, but on some streets there are no front gardens at all. The effect can be quite austere. But the tenements hide secret gardens. Behind them lie the 'back greens' or the drying greens. These are back gardens, shared between all the flats on a stairwell, and accessed via a common door. They were designed originally as places to hang out the washing. Some of the old cast iron washing line poles still exist. The back greens are little used nowadays, although there is an association in Edinburgh which aims to reinvigorate back greens as common garden spaces:

Edinburgh Community Backgreens Association

Because the streets of tenements back onto these gardens, they create large squares of green space between them. From the streets, Edinburgh can sometimes seems lacking in green space, but as this Google link shows, there are acres of garden, unobserved by passers-by. It's probably only because these spaces have no vehicular access that they haven't had flats or car parks built on them. This is an aerial photo of one of ECBA's 'Community Back Greens' near to where we live. You can see how most of the greenery is hidden within the square created by the tenements.

This is our 'back green', as viewed from the back of the flat. I've used the 'photostitch' function on my new Canon Powershot camera to create a kind of panorama [very exciting - the software patches photos together to create a wide-angle perspective!]. There's a slight 'fisheye' distortion, but I hope it gives you a sense of just how much space there is between us and the flats opposite. The space is divided into small plots - one per 'stair'.

This gives you a clearer view of the backs of the tenements opposite. 19th century high-rise!

No one else on our stairwell seems to use the garden. Last year, our first in this flat, C did a bit of weeding of a neglected flower bed, and mowed what grass there is. This summer we have decided we should try and breathe some life back into it and more to the point, enjoy having a garden ourselves, even if it is shared in principle with 7 other households. It doesn't get a lot of sun as it's North facing, but we should be able to grow something. More on that later - hopefully!

Happy Easter!

2010-04-05T12:02:00.002+01:00

It's Easter. The annual festival of chocolate. The pretty eggs above arrived yesterday, courtesy of C, filled with a Creme Egg, some Ferrero Rocher and in the large egg, a Chocolate Orange. But that wasn't all.

Aw. Look at that poor, lonely little rabbit.

Oh. It's ok. He has a little friend.

Wait a minute. Who's this?

It's Mummy Rabbit! Aw. Sweet.

Hold on. What's this I hear? The jingle of a little bell. The thump of chocolate feet approaching.

Who can it be?

It's Daddy Rabbit!

I think all the chocolate I have eaten in the last few days has sent me slightly mad! Ferrero Rocher are like crack cocaine for me. I know they're tacky. I know it's crappy chocolate, with about 2% cocoa solids. I don't care. I'm with 'His Excellency' on this one. The chocolate orange will have to be deposited in a lead box and buried a mile underground, so I can't hear it calling to me. The rabbits arrived gradually during the previous week. They are probably safe for a while. They are too cute to eat, with their whiskers and little red ribbons. But I know a day will come when C will find me, smeared in chocolate and surrounded by gold paper and some tiny little gold bells. It's sad being an addict. But a very happy, grateful addict.

Spring!

2010-04-04T09:08:00.005+01:00

Despite the recent, wintry spell of weather, spring is definitely taking hold. Never mind the sight of the snowdrops and daffodils in the parks and gardens. Never mind the sound of courting birds. The real evidence of spring is the fact that today I made my first visit of the year to the garden centre.

These days, living in a first floor flat, our 'garden' is confined to a few window boxes and the scope for plant-buying is necessarily curtailed. Which is probably good news - for the bank balance, and for plants, as I've killed far more plants than I've ever managed to nurture to maturity. I suffer from an excess of enthusiasm in the first stage of any project and a dearth of sustained energy as time passes. This counts for gardening just as much as it counts for knitting, sewing, and PhD theses!

It's something of a relief knowing that I have no choice but to limit my ambitions to a few bedding plants rather than purchase on the basis of extravagant planting schemes, which never quite come off , because I don't get round to planting everything out, or I forget to water things. Thanks to a herculean and unusual exercise in self-discipline I did manage to keep the plants in my window boxes alive all last summer. I even transplanted the perennial geraniums into pots, in order to keep them inside until the following year. Unfortunately, they went into the back bedroom, where they got forgotten. Look away now if you are of a sensitive disposition when it comes to inexcusable neglect of plants.

Last summer's geraniums.

Nonethless, with the triumph once more of hope over experience, or self-delusion over self awareness, I treated myself to some cheerful, chintzy primulas to celebrate spring.

And I can't resist old-fashioned violets and pansies. These are a very Victorian dark red.

In a week or so, there will either be some nice pics of window boxes in full flower - or some pictures of withered, dried out plants still in their polystyrene boxes from the garden centre. Fingers crossed.

Aaaargh!

2010-04-02T11:25:00.004+01:00

When will I learn just to leave well alone? I decided I would redesign the look of my blog a little. Try and make it look a bit smarter. Well, after 2 fruitless hours trying out different templates, different photos, I'm practically back at square one. Well, worse than square one. I've lost my greengage photo. When I tried to put it back in it appears as a giant photo, or only one corner appears, but magnified to grotesque proportions.

I give up. For now at least. So it's a very half-finished blog just at the moment. Ho hum.

Wedding Weekend

2010-04-01T18:21:00.002+01:00

March has been a busy month. A weekend, being a wild woman in Cumbria. A weekend "Soul Questing". The weekend in between was the wedding of our friends R & S (they of the gorgeous wedding invitation).

It was a beautiful wedding.

It was beautiful because of the setting, Auchinleck House, an 18th century Landmark Trust property in Ayrshire, once home of James Boswell, esteemed Edinburgh author and diarist, and most famously, biographer of Samual Johnson. Basically, we lived in a stately home for a weekend. Could get used to it - with the addition of some 'staff'. Metaphorically speaking, we were 'below stairs' for a lot of the weekend.

Auchinleck House - nice setting for a wedding.

The Library. This was actually the name of the 40 foot first floor lounge, a room so big it required 2 fireplaces.

One end of 'The Library'

Window in our bedroom.

It was beautiful because of the simplicity and sincerity of the ceremony, conducted by a Humanist celebrant. In Scotland, Humanist celebrants can perform the legal duties of a marriage ceremony. So rather than having to interrupt proceedings at the house in order to dash off to the less than romantic setting of Cumnock registry office to do the legal bit, there was an intimate and personal ceremony in the candlelit study of Auchinleck House. I'm tearing up just thinking about it! In a church wedding, setting aside the issue of whether you believe in the religious aspect or not, I think the ceremony itself can often be quite impersonal and distanced from the couple, because it is a church service and as such is articulated in arcane and standardised language. This gives it gravitas of course. But to sit in a small room, with a dozen people, and watch and listen as your friends say wedding vows in their own words, about 6 feet away from you, was incredibly moving. With no intermediary of tradition or sermon or prayer or priest, the wedding ceremony becomes a direct statement of love and commitment, the kind of which we are rarely privy to.

The study - setting for the ceremony.

It was beautiful because S wove her magic, to create a perfect table setting in the grand dining room. Many of the guests were craftspeople of some kind or another, so have that capacity to effortlessly make things look good. During the morning of the wedding, S and her willing helpers magicked a range of elegant decorations out of a big pile of flowers and foliage, most brought by S, but some also gathered from the grounds of the house.

But most of all it was beautiful because the occasion had a companiable 'DIY' aspect to it. The whole event was created through the working together of a small group of people, united by their affection for the 'happy couple' - admittedly after the herculean task of advance preparation by S & R who were probably knackered by the time it came to the actual event. But during the wedding weekend, everyone mucked in. We divvied up the cooking between us; most of the wedding presents were handmade; C did one of his fantastic 'oldies' discos - or rather, he brought the sound and lighting equipment and his CDs, and then sat back as most of the men, including the groom (ok - and me as well) gave vent to their inner 'cheesy DJ' for a while.

'Blame it on the Boogie' (C's semi-retired mobile disco business) - out of retirement and ready for action! Slightly incongruous setting.

I think perhaps the most important wedding gift on this occasion was the active participation of the guests, given gladly and generously by all concerned. It felt like a gift we all shared in. (If S reads this, she will cry, like she did for a big part of the wedding!).

Ah. Makes me want to get married all over again. (Only joking C!)

Hard Man Gordon

2010-04-01T10:34:00.000+01:00

I assume this is The Guardian's April Fool, although you could almost believe it ..... until you look at the posters.

Another Edinburgh walk

2010-03-27T07:00:00.005Z

For those of you who don't know Edinburgh, the 'historic' areas of the city are split into 2 distinct parts. The 'Old Town' is the earliest settlement, built on a narrow ridge, effectively along one long street - The Royal Mile - which stretches between the Castle, perched on the volcanic plug that is Castle Rock, and Holyrood Palace. The tenements, originally medieval, are tall, narrow and crowded together along the main street and down steep 'wynds' and 'closes', and around small squares. In the 18th century, during Edinburgh's intellectual heyday as the cradle of the Enlightement (well, some French people might disagree about that statement!), the city fathers decided that the well-to-do burghers of the city needed somewhere more salubrious to live than the crowded Old Town (although I suppose it was just the 'Town' then!), where the gentry and hoi polloi mixed cheek by jowl in what was vividly called 'Auld Reekie' (i.e old stinky!).

So a town planning competition was held in 1766 to come up with a plan for a new development on the northern slopes of the city. This was won by 26 year old stonemason (not architect!) James Craig and the New Town was built over the next 70 or so years, sticking very much to the regular grid pattern central to Craig's initial conception, as this aerial photo shows. So the New Town is not new at all.

Both the Old Town and the New Town are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites - which I think makes Edinburgh unique (if I might blow the city's trumpet for a moment!). Edinburgh's New Town is the most extensive and sustained example of Georgian architecture in Britain - and according to UNESCO, in Europe! Bath, your warm golden stone might be a bit prettier than the austere grey of the Edinburgh sandstone, but frankly, eat your heart out!

When I first lived in Edinburgh as a student, over 20 years ago, I always lived in the South of the city, in the Old Town and in the student hotspots of Newington and Marchmont (where I live now). I thought the New Town was cold and cheerless, with the long, straight streets, restrained Georgian townhouses and little greenery to relieve the grey stone. Frankly, it was a bit posh for my tastes then as well. It wasn't until I was forced to live in the North of the city, when I first moved back to Edinburgh, that I learnt to love the New Town. We didn't live in the New Town proper - not in that class! But with the New Town lying between our flat and the city centre, we spent many hours walking through the it, admiring the buildings, the gardens, and imagining a life in which we were wealthy enough to enjoy a New Town address.

Since being over in Marchmont in our new flat, I have rarely ventured North, but a few weeks ago I had an errand in the New Town - buying knitting beads, since you ask. I took the opportunity of a crisp, sunny Saturday to have a mooch about. There's something about the chill, north-eastern, winter sky that sets off the grey stone perfectly. Warm it wasn't - in any sense - but very elegant. My photography skills cannot really do justice to the grandeur of Edinburgh's New Town, but here's a taste.

Heriot Row

Northumberland Street

Typical New Town Townhouse

Good New Town doors

Because Edinburgh is built on so many hills, the street level is often much higher than the ground level. You end up with buildings that are 3 storeys high on the street side and 5 or 6 storeys high at the back. You also get lots of unexpected basements, a lot of which are used as shops, and in the New Town these shops are often rarified antique or art dealers, or specialist craftspeople such as clockmakers or silversmiths. Lonsdale & Dutch (above) are, rather wonderfully, "tinsmiths and lantern restorers", who repair the traditional glass lightfittings and chandeliers you get in the New Town houses.

In another basement on Howe St, I discovered Leo's Beanery. A very cosy and classy cafe, which had only been open a week when I visited. Everything was perfect - to the extent that I felt, perhaps cynically, that they just won't be able to keep up to this standard once they get busy. In addition to the usual newspapers to read, there was a shelf full of cookery books available for browsing. Bliss! And the food was exceptional. Reasonably priced, tasty and beautifully presented.

This was my 'simple' lunch of pate!

I ordered pate and biscuits and this is what I got: 3 types of pate, 3 types of biscuit, olives, rocket and sunblushed tomato salad, served on a roughly hewn slate platter!

This is life in the New Town. Not for the likes of us, except for a Saturday treat!

Wild Cumbrian weekend

2010-03-26T00:10:00.000Z

I was back in Cumbria at the weekend, for my annual 'Wild Women' get together. I joined Wild Women more than 10 years ago, when I first moved to the Eden Valley in Cumbria. This is eastern Cumbria, the bit that isn't the Lake District. Wild Women started out as a creative writing course led by poet and creative activist Vik Bennett. 13 of us would meet every couple of weeks at Vik's cottage in the picturesque hamlet of Whale in the Eden Valley. We would talk, laugh, cry, eat - and write poetry. It was as idyllic as it sounds! After the initial 10 week course, we all decided we wanted to carry on meeting, so we evolved into a writing and performance collective, and set up our own small press, Wild Women Press, and published our own poetry collections and even did some poetry readings. Gradually, the group dispersed, although some continued and continue to write and be published - see Gill's blogs and Ruth's blogs - and Vik has set up another press, Blissfool Books. But the original group members still remain connected as 'fellow travellers'.

The one thing that we have continued (thanks to others more proactive and organised than me!) is our annual 'Wild Women Weekend', usually in February or March. We rent a self-catering property somewhere in Cumbria and get together to reconnect with our shared creative roots. It's always a magical, heart-warming experience. Not just to see everyone again, but to spend time doing the kind of activities that, for me at least, everyday life all too easily pushes out. We write, we dance, we paint, we connect with nature, we share rituals, we light fires and candles, we do tarot readings, we make wishes (or spells if that's what you prefer). And of course we eat and laugh and drink! It's a heady mix and my 'normal' life seems a bit monochrome when I come back after the weekend. But of course the challenge is to bring that Wild Women colour into everyday life. Other members of the group are better at that than me - as you can see from the links above.

This year, we were in an isolated 18th century farmhouse, Carhullan House, west of Shap. It was a fabulous spot. Very isolated, at the end of the track, dwarfed by the wide skies and open views across the hills. On the Saturday, I woke to the typical weather I remember suffering when I lived in Cumbria - drizzle, low cloud and grey, dank skies. It used to depress me. By late afternoon, the clouds were lifting and on Sunday we had the weather I remember loving in Cumbria - bright, crisp sunshine, with a big, blue sky stretching out above the fells. For the first time since I left Cumbria, nearly 4 years ago, it felt good to be back. I'm glad I don't live there any more, but the complicated feelings I was left with about that whole life episode, seem to have eased enough for me to remember why I was enticed to move there in the first place. It's called the Eden Valley for good reason.

Typical Cumbrian weather. Sodden.

More rain.

Low cloud.

Lower cloud.

The clouds start to clear.

Wall and sky.

More walls, more sky.

Carhullan House, Sunday morning.

Haar haar!

2010-03-25T17:13:00.000Z

I've had a very busy month. As ever, when lots is going on and I feel as if I have plenty of good things to share, I'm too busy (or knackered) to write anything. Today however, I am enjoying the first quiet day at home I've had for a few weeks and watching the 'haar' roll in. The 'haar' is a very particular Edinburgh phenomenon - a sea mist that appears out of nowhere and steadily cloaks the city in a grey blanket of water vapour. It can happen at any time of year. One minute the sun is shining and then the next minute the temperature drops and the damp mist seeps its way through the streets. It's all very Jekyll and Hyde.

This is the view from my window at 5pm in the afternoon. It's been like this since about 10am. It doesn't depress me. I quite like 'interesting' weather. And it doesn't last - well, not longer than a day anyway. I know spring is out there somewhere.

Farewells

2010-02-20T11:02:00.001Z

It's odd how often this sort of thing happens. You start thinking about something or someone and then all of a sudden the very thing you are thinking about pops up in the wider world. There's probably some theory in quantum physics to explain it. Quantum physics or Buddhism.

C. is currently contributing to a book on the women about whom pop songs have been written. Sweet Caroline, Maggie May, Lola and so on. His plan on Monday was to write about the 'Sharona' in My Sharona by The Knack. We awake on Monday morning to hear the announcement of Doug Fieger's death, the lead singer of The Knack and writer of the song - not to mention lover of the Sharona in the title. Spooky. My Sharona is definitely a defining song from my teenage years - and we were actually dancing to it in the living room 2 weeks ago, during a ridiculous, drink fuelled, impromptu '80s disco' with a couple of friends.

Then after recently blogging about The Railway Children, I hear the news that the director of the film, Lionel Jeffries has died. Not only did Lionel Jeffries direct one of the best loved children's films, but of course, he played Grandpa Potts in another favourite, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - remember him in his outhouse, being winched into the sky by The Baron Bombhurst's airship, whilst singing 'P.O.S.H'. Who can forget that!

I can look forward to a pleasant afternoon knitting and weeping infront of the tv soon, as the BBC will presumably show The Railway Children as a tribute. Or maybe a double bill with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang!

So farewell Lionel Jeffries and Doug Fieger and thank you.

Sunday in Edinburgh, Part 2

2010-02-17T08:00:00.023Z

I can't describe our stroll through Edinburgh on Sunday, without introducing you to an Edinburgh institution. South Clerk Street in Newington is the home of The Edinburgh Bargain Store. It is an enormous shop where you can buy all possible kinds of household goods. And all at absurdly cheap prices! C used to come here for props when he worked as a stage manager in Edinburgh 25 years ago. It's the sort of place you wander in , just to marvel at the absurd range of items available. Admittedly, much of it is tat. I don't think John Lewis or Habitat are worried about the competition - but there's plenty of perfectly acceptable, if ordinary household stuff here as well. Every student flat in Edinburgh is equipped from EBS I suspect.

Multi-coloured tights? Fancy dress costumes? Sledge? Look no further.

Need some kitchenware? Try Lane 4 - glasses, crockery .....

....... Saucepans? Enamel bowls? Still in Lane 4. Note stepladder in picture above for scale. The picture below was taken beyond the stepladder.

Tupperware?

Not enough choice? Don't worry. Just turn to your left and look .......

I am sure you can find what you want somewhere here.

Need any towels, sheets, knitting wool, haberdashery, stationery, coffee pots, tea pots, small electrical goods, wastebins, ironing boards, linen hampers, baskets, artificial flowers, tools, toys, picture frames, lights ... well you'll find them in Lanes 1-3.

Want to stock up on old-style lightbulbs, now they've stopped making them? Here are a few.

And finally, the Great Wall of Kitchen Utensils. And yes. It can be seen from space.

Just to get a sense of the real scale of this wonder, here's my 6'3" husband standing infront of it. And please note that the wall stretches three times as far as this picture shows. And then round the corner a bit.

It is impossible to come in here and not buy anything. The other weekend we came in here with some friends, 'just to look', and I came out with 12 coloured water glasses, a tub of Astonish oven cleaner, and some wet wipes.

Sunday in Edinburgh, Part 1

2010-02-16T08:00:00.001Z

I'm going through one of those periods when I am intensely aware of the pleasures of living in Edinburgh. We've had a few weeks staying home, after a period of being busy or being away and we've had a wonderfully relaxed and self-indulgent time. Living in central Edinburgh, it's very easy to while away the hours just wandering around the city. All too easy really. On Sunday , C and I were full of good intentions to go and have a bracing walk in the country and try and shake off the winter lethargy - not to mention the winter flab (although in my case, the flab is much longer established than that!). What did we end up doing? A short walk to one of our favourite cafes for a lazy brunch while reading the paper, then a stroll across the city to the cinema for a double bill matinee! This was hedonistic, even by our standards. Blame it on Valentine's Day.

This is just a taste of some of the sights on our Sunday in Edinburgh.

An early (well earlyish) walk through the streets of Marchmont. A few people out walking dogs, or picking up ingredients for breakfast - and as it was Valentine's Day, one or two young men clutching red roses. Aw.

For those of you not familiar with Edinburgh, these 'tenements' are very typical of the inner suburbs of the city. Long sandstone terraces of buildings, each containing 8 or so self-contained flats sharing a stairwell, all built in monumental late Victorian style. We live in a block very similar to this. Tenements were first built much earlier in the city, in the old town - from 16th century I think. I always think this style of building, which Glasgow shares, has more in common with european cities than other British cities.

Walking down a back street we must have been on many times before, we suddenly noticed these graves behind iron railings. Turns out it's the historic Jewish cemetery. The land was bought for the burial ground in 1816 and it was in use until 1867, and, according to some of the sources I came across, the first dedicated Jewish cemetry in Scotland.

The cemetry is opposite Sciennes Hill House, which is apparently where the only meeting of poet Robbie Burns and novelist Sir Walter Scott took place, at a dinner party held by Enlightenment philospher Adam Ferguson. You can't move for history in Edinburgh!

On a less erudite note, this is the fantastic cafe Metropole. We've recently rediscovered it. It's one of those easy-going places where you can sit and relax, read, chat or work for as long as you like. The food, while nothing fancy, is homemade and good. I can personally vouch for the french toast with bacon and maple syrup!

This is the cafe noticeboard - which is always a mine of information about all things 'alternative' going on in Edinburgh.

After our hearty breakfast we headed up South Clerk Street, which is a really vibrant part of Edinburgh. A bit studenty, a bit arty, a bit 'ethnic' and even a bit chi-chi in parts. You can buy anything on South Clerk Street: fish, meat, fruit and veg, second hand records, bicycles, drums, hookas, artisan bread, ice cream, etc etc etc. And vintage clothes, from one of the branches of Armstrongs, who have Edinburgh's vintage clothing market pretty well sewn up (no pun intended).

Even after brunch, there's always room for chocolate:

(I love the fact that the woman in the shop just happened to be wearing a red jacket that complements the display of valentine's hearts!)

Phew. After brunch and chocolate shopping, what next in the list of self-indulgence? It was time for a bit of arty cinema. A brisk walk across The Meadows (past a gang of teenagers rehearsing for some kind of performance/demonstration, singing a rowdy version of 'Footloose'! Honest!) to our favourite Edinburgh cinema, The Cameo.

One of Edinburgh's oldest cinemas, built in 1914 as the King's Cinema. A bit scruffy now, but with many of the original art deco features intact, including the main, large auditorium. It's programme is largely independent cinema, but not unremittingly highbrow. We went to see a Valentine's double bill of 'Before Sunrise' - set in my favourite city, Vienna, and the follow up, 'Before Sunset', set in Paris, which is pretty good as well I suppose. And as a bonus, turned out the second film had a happy ending.

I suppose you're expecting me to tell you that as a finale to our Valentine's Day, we spent the evening eating oysters and drinking champagne at a candlelit restaurant. But no. We went home and ate spaghetti bolognese infront of the tv. Much more our style.

Auntie Flo in town?

2010-02-15T12:44:00.006Z

In complete contrast to my romantic post yesterday, I thought would share this, a poster seen on the back of a loo door at the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh yesterday.

" A week long foray into menstruation ..... with a varied mixture of interactive workshops, gigs, talks, zine stalls, spoken word performances, art installations, photo art and much, much more..."

Great to reduce the taboos associated with perfectly natural female processes. But menstruation workshops??? Interactive menstruation workshops??? Ugh. But then I suspect that I am not really an 'anarchafeminist'.

Call me sentimental .....

2010-02-14T00:05:00.003Z

I went to see The Sound of Music on stage last week. It was great. Laughter, tears, more tears. There are two reasons I cry at The Sound of Music. Firstly, because my mother loved it and we used to watch it together when I was a child. I even had the sheet music and I would bash away at the songs on the piano, whilst my Mum sang (I could never sing and play at the same time).

Secondly, I am a little embarrassed to admit that The Sound of Music contains the nearest thing C and I have to 'our song'. Not long after C and I got together (a mere 21 years ago) we confessed to each other that we both loved the song 'Something Good' from The Sound of Music. (C is straight, honestly!). So The Sound of Music is one of the films we can't watch together without blubbing. That and The Railway Children. But then everyone cries at The Railway Children ("Daddy, my Daddy ..." - you all know the bit).

I am slightly abashed to admit that we even played 'Something Good' at our wedding. It wasn't in church, I should add. Although it would have been quite funny to hear a church organ thundering out hits from the shows. Our wedding was one of those hotel jobs. We played it while we signed the register. I realise that sounds quite cheesy, and it probably was, but we enjoyed it.

When I'm feeling annoyed with C I have been known to amend the lyrics to 'Somewhere in my youth or childhood I must have done something BAD!', and sort of spit it at him. You can imagine. But mostly the song makes me feel fond of C and reminds me how very grateful I am to have him in my life.

As it's Valentine's Day, in an act of shameless sentimentality, here it is.

Happy Valentine's Day to my lovely husband.

Please excuse the lack of multi-media sophistication in this video. It is my first attempt!

Carry a Poem

2010-02-13T21:42:00.000Z

There was a hint of spring in the air today in Edinburgh. And in St Andrew's Square gardens, the shrubs were sprouting poems.

Carry a Poem in Edinburgh

I 'heart' cake

2010-02-12T23:00:00.017Z

When it comes to food, presentation is not my strong point. I know my cooking usually tastes good but it doesn't get arranged artfully on carefully chosen platters. I don't put it in neat stacks. I don't create swirls of 'jus'. I just put it in piles on a plate.

You will therefore excuse this little exercise in showing off because, for once, I produced something culinary that looked beautiful. It was even more of an achievement because it was created for my friend S, she of the effortless style. Usually, my sense of inferiority around S in matters visual means I just don't attempt anything meant to look pretty. But I was experimenting with possible desserts for her wedding, and wanted to try something out when she and her partner R visited last weekend.

Unsurprisingly, we were still riffing on the theme of violet and rose cremes. This stimulated the thought that I could amend my tried and tested rose petal ice cream recipe and use up some violet syrup I once bought in a deli. The addition of chocolate could come from the failsafe chocolate cake recipe from Nigella Bites. I could also, finally, justify the purchase of crystallised violet and rose petals from Waitrose.

Ta da!

OK. I realise that it should probably be on a plain white plate, which I don't possess. And my 'quenelles' of ice cream are a bit ropey - I made a half-hearted attempt with a couple of dessert spoons as I'd seen on Masterchef, and then gave up and just spooned out lumps. But for someone who doesn't do presentation, I think it's a good attempt.

By the way, the plate that the heart shaped cake is sitting on, pictured above, is the Wedgewood Mirabelle dinner service that I inherited from my much loved Auntie B last year. It is very her and reminds me of her on the rare occasions that I use it. It might not be particularly fashionable, but who cares.

But never mind the presentation. What about the taste? Well, the verdict was, in the main: delicious. No surprise really as I knew the rose petal ice cream and the chocolate cake recipe worked. The only disappointment was the violet ice cream.

I was trying to recreate some violet ice cream I ate in the Tuillerie gardens in Paris last summer, which was possibly the most sublime substance I've ever tasted. Velvety and oh so delicately perfumed. In my version, the taste of the violet didn't really come through. I suspect the violet syrup isn't strong enough. If anyone knows where I could get violet essence please let me know. We did discuss the possiblity of dissolving parma violets in alcohol or syrup, and I may yet experiment with that.

Violet Ice Cream in Paris (sounds like the title of a trashy romance!)

Let me give you the recipes that worked though.

The Rose Petal Ice Cream comes from Jane Newdick's Book of Herbs, which my sister gave me for Christmas years ago. It's a herb book, rather than a cookbook and is full of lovely ideas for home-made potions and cordials as well as foods. You are supposed to use real rose petals to infuse the ice cream. For years I only made the ice-cream once a year, when a certain richly scented rose was flowering in the garden. Then it dawned on me that I could just as easily use rose water, and make it whenever I felt like it. You can't beat the romance of using real rose petals though. I used to make this ice cream before I had an ice cream maker, using the freeze and beat method. It is the only ice cream recipe that ever seemed to work well using this method. It was always silky smooth with no ice crystals. It has relatively few egg yolks for an ice cream recipe and maybe this is what helps.

Rose Petal Ice Cream
375 ml/12 fl oz whipping cream
125ml/4fl oz whole milk
4 scented roses, rinsed and dried (or 3tbsp rose water)
2 egg yolks
75g/3oz white caster sugar
2 tsp runny honey
pink food colouring

If using rose petals, put the cream, milk and rose petals in a saucepan and bring to just below the boil. Remove from the heat, cover and leave to infuse until cool.

Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and honey together in a large metal or china bowl until pale and creamy.

Strain the rose flavoured milk into the egg mixture (or if using rose water, add it to the milk and cream now and add to the egg mixture) and place bowl over a pan of simmering water.

Cook very gently, stirring all the time, until slightly thickened (it doesn't thicken all that much). Add a drop or so of pink food colouring so that it is very pale pink.

Chill then churn in an ice cream maker or freeze the mixture in a tupperware box until just beginning to freeze, remove it from the freezer and beat, then return to the freezer. When just beginning to freeze, remove and beat again, then leave to freeze solid. Take it out of the freezer to ripen for 15 minutes before serving.

Chocolate Fudge Cake - Nigella Bites
This is soooo easy and sooooo delicious. I am a competent baker, no better than that, but this always tastes fantastic. Moist, chocolatey with a soft, dense crumb. I think the fact that this is an oil based batter, like American cakes and muffins, rather than a creamed mixture makes it easier to do well.

For the cake:
400g plain flour
250g golden caster sugar
100g light muscovado sugar
50g best quality cocoa powder
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
3 eggs
142ml/small tub sour cream
1tbsp vanilla extract
175g unsalted butter, melted then cooled
125ml corn oil
300ml chilled water

Preheat the oven to 180C/gas mark 4.
Butter and line 2 x 20cm sandwich tins.

In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugars, cocoa, baking powder, bicarb and salt. In a wide-necked measuring jug, mix the eggs, soured cream and vanilla until just blended. In another bowl or mixer bowl, beat the butter and corn oil until blended, then beat in the water. Add the dry ingredients and mix gently to blend, then mix in the egg mixture. Pour the mixture into the 2 cake tins. (It's quite a runny batter - not a dropping consistency). Bake the cakes for 50-55 minutes, until firm and a cake-tester (i.e.a cocktail stick in my case!) comes out clean. Don't overbake them. You want them nicely moist. Leave to cool in the tins for 15 minutes, then turn them out on a rack to finish cooling.

For the icing:
(In the Nigella version, she just uses buttercream. I think that's too much, so I use the amount of buttercream here to sandwich the cakes together, and then cover it in the chocolate ganache below).

Buttercream:
115g good dark chocolate (70%)
165g unsalted butter
180g icing sugar, sifted (yeah right - but you know you're supposed to!)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the chocolate in the microwave, or in a bowl above a simmering pan of water. Leave to cool slightly. Cream the butter and icing sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and melted chocolate and mix well. Sandwich the cakes together using the butter cream icing. (I've sometimes added a thin layer of good strawberry or damson jam as well, just to cut the chocolatiness slightly with something a bit tart).

Chocolate ganache:
150g good dark chocolate
150ml double cream
1tsp vanilla extract

Chop the chocolate into little pieces. Put the all the ingredients into a heavy-based saucepan and heat gently until the chocolate melts. (I confess I have had problems with splitting doing it this way recently for some reason. For added safety - chocolate and cream are too expensive to waste - I would recommend doing this in a bowl over a pan of simmering water.) Remove from the heat and immediately whisk the mixture vigorously as it cools slightly, and it will become thick and glossy. Spread it luxuriously over the cake and leave to cool.

[ Added later: Watching Raymond Blanc on tv reminded me of a far easier and more foolproof way of making a ganache. Chop the chocolate very finely -if you can be bothered, whizz it in the food processor. You want it in crumbs/flakes not chunks. Bring the cream to the boil, then chuck in the chocolate and the vanilla essence and whisk like crazy. The chocolate will melt in the hot cream, and as it all cools slightly whilst you whisk, it will become thick and glossy. There's no risk of the chocolate separating and spoiling if you do it this way.]
Truly magnificent and - trust me - very easy.

I once had the audacity to make this cake for a wedding. Our lovely friends C & A were getting married. It was a small wedding, and the cake was a surprise rather than a planned centrepiece, so the decision wasn't quite as hubristic as you might imagine. And as I've said, it really is a failsafe recipe, which reduced the risk factor. The cake isn't weirdly misshapen, but in a heart-shape, which you can't really make out because of the angle of the photo. Nice though with the flowers, and turned out, the bride was wearing red, so it all looked carefully planned!

Close knit

2010-02-12T10:02:00.003Z

I've picked up my knitting again. It's not unusual in the winter months although I don't really class myself as a 'knitter'. Since childhood my craft of choice was sewing and dressmaking. But over the years the dressmaking fell away and I was left with a 'craft vacuum'. So I started trying to knit. It's not as satisfying as dressmaking. It's slower for a start. And you can't amend your mistakes as you go along. Hence the number of unfinished failed knitting projects lurking around the house in some kind of knitting purgatory. Not quite finished, but not quite allowed to die. If you made a mistake in sewing, as long as it didn't involve scissors, you could usually rescue things with a new seam or a bit of a tuck, or even a 'gusset'! If you finish a knitted garment and discover it doesn't quite fit all you can do is throw it in the bin and mourn the wasted months of your life spent knitting the damn thing. But there is a tactile pleasure in handling the yarn and seeing the colours, so I persist with my half-hearted knitting. It's also a lot more portable than a sewing machine and I can do it on train journeys or sitting infront of the tv (alas, the latter being more important than I like to admit).

Before Christmas, I attended a 'fairisle' knitting class to kickstart my knitting habit again. I've never knitted with colour, believing it to be too difficult, but I love the look of fairisle knitting. It was a delightful few hours, spent in the delicious surroundings of K1 Yarns. Beautiful yarns in a cosy little shop and biscotti available along with the knitting. It was a tiny class - me, the teacher and one other pupil. I don't know whether it was reassuring or slightly disappointing to discover that rather than there being some secret, magic knack to coping with all the different threads in fairisle, the only technique seems to be: 'do it carefully'.

What struck me most was just how much of a leveller and social lubricant knitting is. When we first sat down, I felt very self-conscious. I was quite a lot older than the other people in the group. I thought, we'll have nothing in common - except knitting of course. Before long we were chatting away about our lives and left the session as chums. I don't know whether it's the magic of knitting, or just what women do when they get together, but it was a welcome reminder of the ease of social contact when you switch off the tv, get off your arse and go and do something with other people.

And now I have joined a knitting circle and can be found every Thursday in a cafe in Edinburgh, knitting along with a growing group of women. I confess that not a huge amount of knitting gets done. The discussion isn't really confined to knitting techniques. And sometimes the knitting is disrupted by wine drinking. But it is definitely good for the soul. And my sometimes slightly self-contained life as an emigre in Edinburgh is starting to feel a little more sociable. Thanks to knitting.

Do you want to see my first fairisle knitting attempt?

Ta Da! Isn't it beautiful! The yarn is a divinely soft alpaca, sold at K1 yarns. Can't remember its name, sorry. It's so soft that holding the balls of yarn is like having a little kitten nestling in your palm. But what are these beautiful fairlisle objects I hear you ask? Are they the cuffs of gloves or socks, or the sleeves of a sweater? No, they are ................

Wrist warmers!?! I can't honestly imagine any occasion on which I would wear wrist warmers. I suspect 'wrist warmers' were invented so people would have something simple to knit at knitting workshops. Still, they are sitting around my house looking very 'fairisle' and I feel a little burst of pride every time I see them. And they're finished! An achievement in itself. Perhaps I could make little tiny cushions out of them.

I have been sticking to small knitting projects, in the hope that I would actually finish something and so far it's working.

These are socks for C in a softly marled sock yarn. Knitted using my favourite toe up sock knitting method. This method makes a nicely neat toe with no need for gathering up that little hole you get when working from the ankle down. It also lets you feel smugly skilled and competent using 'wrapped' stitches, a technique I was at first so baffled by, I had to find various instructional videos on the internet. It's easy once you know how!

My current 'knitting circle' project. More socks, from my new Socks from the Toe Up book (because you can't knit for long without needing a new book ...!). This is my first pair of lace patterned socks, with a very satisfying mock cable pattern, which you can't see properly on the picture. The yarn is 'Castle' in the shade 'Ethie', a lambswool/silk mix, spun in Scotland by Rennie and bought from the rather wonderful Woolfish Yarns near St Abbs, whilst on a little seaside jaunt last year.

End of 'show and tell' session. It always makes me laugh that I am so proud of a few knitted socks. I have no desire to parade pictures of my PhD thesis, or my CV. But my knitting. That I want you to see!

Rosie's Health Tips #1

2010-02-11T15:00:00.001Z

Please note the irony in this title.

Have just read in my new cookbook Darina Allen's Forgotten Skills of Cooking that cinnamon is supposed to reduce cholesterol. Which means that the Norwegian Cinnamon Buns are actually health food! Or at least, maybe the cinnamon will cancel out the effect of all the butter, sugar etc. Do you see where I'm coming from?

Ah, the joys of self-deception. Bon Appetit!

Parcel pleasures

2010-02-11T11:08:00.005Z

I have been lucky enough to receive a couple of parcels recently, containing exquisite handmade offerings. Adding to the joy of receiving such items is the fact that they were totally unexpected. They were both proper parcels - wrapped in brown paper and tied up with string (do I hear a song coming on ..??).

The first was in fact a wedding invitation. But not just any wedding invitation. These were lovingly hand-crafted by my friend S, she of the handmade bath products and violet creams. I think you will agree that this is the most beautiful wedding invitation ever.

Here it is, wrapped in its brown paper. There was also some fine, burnished string stuff around it, but unfortunately I've lost that.

And here it is. It's about 10 inches long. The colours in the photo have come out slightly darker and cruder than they are in reality. The palette is very delicate and 'antique rose'. Also, what you can't see from the photo is that it is quilted, with the pictures transferred onto silky fabric. The smaller pieces have little pictures of things that are significant for the happy couple.

Adorable isn't a word that comes often to my lips, but I think it is apt on this occasion.

Of course my immediate reaction was that S should set up in business making bespoke wedding invitations for wealthy people. I had to be restrained from rushing into a nearby, very chi-chi wedding shop and dangling it infront of them. S pointed out that hers is a very small wedding and she'd only had to make 6 of them. It would be a different proposition taking on a 150 guest society wedding. Fair enough.

The second parcel was hand delivered yesterday. At first I thought it was a premature Valentine's gift from C, based on his slightly defensive description of how it had arrived. Then I remembered that I was due a gift, as part of the Soul Quest workshops I have been attending over the last few months. This is a course that mixes 5rhythms Dance - which I have dabbled in on and off for the last 15 years (eek - is it that long?!) - with all sorts of expressive arts activities, such as painting, collage making, writing and performance. It is a heady experience, and one which I don't have time to go into right now. Maybe I will later. Anyway, at the last session we were all given the name of one of the other participants and asked to send them an anonymous present before the next session. A sort of secret soul santa. Unsurprisingly, I haven't got round to sending out my gift yet. Ahem. But this little parcel is my gift from an anonymous Soul Quester.

Here's the parcel - out of focus unfortunately, as I seem to be having trouble with the autofocus function on my camera, and frankly, life's too short to take all these photos again.

Inside, a little gold box tied with glittery ribbon.

In the box, wrapped in scarlet tissue, an egg-shaped casket, embellished with flowers, glitter, and pink and red designs.

Ta Da! The casket contains a rose silk pouch with a tiny, heart-shaped quartz crystal within. Aw. It's like something out of a fairy tale. The quartz crystal apparently: Activates and enhances pineal and pituitary glands. Stimulates brain function. Amplifies thought forms. Dispels negativity in one's energy fields.

Sounds perfect as I am currently suffering from a deep, winter lethargy and existential angst about life in general. Fingers crossed.

Baking not dieting

2010-01-11T13:27:00.003Z

As I said in my previous post, the New Year always brings thoughts of dieting (thoughts, not action unfortunately) and as night follows day, so are thoughts of dieting followed by the desire to start baking. What really set me off was spending some time looking through my cookery books trying to decide what to cook for friends next weekend. I love that process of browsing through recipes, looking for inspiration, trying to develop a theme or a mood for a menu. Most of the time it's just aspirational fantasising and I end up thinking, oh I'll just make my failsafe chicken chorizo roast thingy and buy some ice cream. But I still enjoy the feeling of possibility evoked by my preliminary explorations of the pages of my cookbooks.

What with all the snow, I was deep in wintery Mittel Europa mode. I have a fantastic book by Diana Henry called Roast Figs Sugar Snow celebraring winter cooking of Russia, Scandinavia and Central Europe. It's all snowy fields, log cabins and frosted leaves. It is food porn of the highest order - food, travelogue and interiors. I'm not actually going to cook anything from it, I just enjoyed pouring over the pictures and fingering the pages, mentally donning furs and awaiting Omar Sharif ....

My bed last Saturday morning - bliss! No Omar Sharif, just cookbooks.

All this Central European / Scandinavian fantasising, plus my recent visit to Peter's Yard bakery put me in the mood for some baking. I used to make these cinnamon buns regularly when I was playing at country life in Cumbria and frankly, didn't have a lot else with which to fill my time! They are from Nigella Lawson's wickedly indulgent baking book How to be a Domestic Goddess. This is the sort of book that makes me whimper with pleasure just to read it. Mmm, is something missing from my life perhaps....?!

The great thing about these buns is that they are easy and also fun to make, in that way that playing with plasticine is fun. There's a bit of gentle, tactile faffing involved. They are delicious - dangerously so. Do not bake them unless you have friends coming round. You will eat ALL OF THEM. You have been warned. Best of all, you can freeze them before you bake them, and then you can be about 30 minutes away from aromatic, warm, sticky cinnamon buns whenever you feel like it. And frankly, that is the only way you are ever going to eat them for breakfast. Even with jet lag, it's unlikely that I'm going to get up early enough to make bread dough from scratch in time for breakfast.

I used to make these with the easy danish pastry recipe from the same book. With danish pastry, they have a delectable, flaky quality, but they are even more fattening than the bread dough version. I leave it up to you! This time, I stuck to the original enriched bread dough version. You could easily mess about with the cinnamon /butter filling and add some raisins, or finely chopped pecans. I just love cinnamon, so I want the unadulterated hit of spice.

Norwegian Cinnamon Buns

For the dough
600g plain flour
100g sugar (I used soft brown sugar)
1/2 tsp salt
21g (i.e. 3 sachets) easy-blend yeast
100g butter
400ml milk
2 eggs

For the filling
150g softened, unsalted butter
150g sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon (or a bit more if you like cinnamon a lot!)
1 egg, beaten, to glaze

Preheat the oven to 230C or Gas Mark 8

Combine the flour, sugar, salt and yeast in a large bowl. Melt the butter and whisk it into the milk and eggs, then stir this liquid into the flour etc. Mix to combine and then knead until it is smooth and springy. (NB I did this in my mixer with the dough hook. My mixture was very soft for some reason, and I added about 50g extra flour as I mixed it until it was still quite sticky, but firm enough to form a proper ball.) Leave to rise in an oiled bowl, covered with cling film, for about 25 minutes.

Before ......

After! You only need to leave the dough to rise for 1/2 an hour. This was after 1 1/2 hrs. I got distracted. Magnificent, if a little alarming!

Roll out the dough, on a floured surface, into a large rectangle. I did this with half the dough at a time, to make it more manageable. Each rectangle was about 25cm x 35cm. Spread the filling mixture evenly across the surface of the dough. Then, roll up the dough from the longest side, so you get a swiss roll of dough. Then, cut the roll of dough into 2cm deep slices. Sit these rounds of dough in a greased baking tin, lined with baking parchment. Don't squash them together as they will swell up as they prove. Brush them with beaten egg, and leave to prove for about 15 minutes, then put them in the oven to cook for 20-25 minutes until golden brown.

Ready for the oven - glazed, and then sprinkled with a little demerara sugar and more cinnamon.

The 'ta da!' moment is slightly spoilt by the fact that I burnt the damn things. I quite often burn things, but usually out of bad judgement or absent-mindedness. This time it was because I relied on the recipe. I just banged them in the oven at the specified heat, set the kitchen timer and didn't look at them again until the buzzer went. You should never do that! They still tasted good, if with the faint tang of charcoal mixing with the cinnamon. If I bake some more and don't burn them, I'll put another photo up. You can see how they continue to puff up whilst baking and fill the tin. You could make them nicely sticky by pouring some more melted butter over with them when they come out of the oven, with an additional sprinkling of sugar and cinnamon.

But this is the most satisfying aspect of the whole exercise ..... I now have a freezer full of ready to bake cinnamon buns. I put them on a baking tray, left them to prove and then popped them in the freezer, still on their trays. When frozen, I transferred them into a plastic bag, which is now stashed ready in the freezer. Now what other defense do you need against the snow?

I was on such a roll (ouch - no pun intended!) I then made my first ever batch of choux pastry - parmesan choux puffs. As practice for possibly making these next weekend. Very successful though I say it myself. And not burnt.

All in all a very satisfactory winter's Saturday afternoon.

Making the best of jet lag

2010-01-10T10:22:00.001Z

The disadvantage of jet lag this week has been that I could barely stay awake beyond 8pm. To tell the truth, I was struggling beyond 3pm at the beginning of the week. The advantage of said jet lag has been that I have been wide awake and perky at about 6am. I am not a morning person generally. Yet, I do love being out and about early, with the day stretching ahead of me, full of potential. The fact that this potential is usually frittered away during the day by doing things like sitting around reading, or checking my e-mail account 50 times, or watching re-runs of Friends that I could probably recite I've seen them so many times, doesn't dull my naive, unrealistic sense of expectation in the dawn hours.

So, what a thrill to be wide awake with all that time stretching promisingly ahead of me. Even time enough before going to work to do something other than throw clothes on and bolt some breakfast.

On Thursday morning, having lain in bed wide awake for about an hour, we decided, somewhat bizarrely to go for a walk - this was 6.30am! It was wonderful. The snow still clean and firm, making that polystyrene squeak under our feet, glittering in the streetlights. The freezing air giving my cheeks that prickling sensation, somewhere between invigorating and painful. Very few people around (unsurprisingly!) except a lot of joggers!

Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags across the Meadows

Of course, this being us, we couldn't just go for some healthy exercise - it had to end with some indulgence. Believe me, there are no cafes open in Marchmont at 7am. However, after slithering our way across the Meadows, we discovered the windows of the Swedish bakery/cafe Peter's Yard glowing a warm, candlelit welcome. After all the travelling we've been doing lately, sitting in a Swedish style cafe in the pitch dark eating exotic cardamom buns and lingonberry jam only added to our sense of displacement. Erm, what country are we in?

I was also so excited about my breakfast that I didn't think to take a photo until we'd nearly finished. So, instead of the crumbs pictured here, imagine hunks of rye bread fresh from the oven, hand-made crispbreads and little pots of home-made jam. One of the amazing cardamom buns is pictured - it didn't last much longer.

Two things strike me posting this. Firstly, this blog is pure hedonism, and frankly, my life is quite hedonistic. Good thing or bad thing? I don't know. Secondly, the minute my mind turns to dieting (in the post Xmas despair, heightened by the viewing of the Australia photos, in which I look like I have been drawn to a larger scale than my sister and friend - big cow, close up, in the words of Father Ted) I start having hearty cafe breakfasts and baking. Mmm - doesn't bode well for dieting does it? Might as well strike that New Year's Resolution from the list - again. Brand new year - same old me.

I'm back!

2010-01-09T19:09:00.000Z

Well here I am again, at last. Virtually and physically, in that I'm back blogging and back home after our Christmas trip.

Where have I been? Here's a clue:

Recognise it?

How about this..........?

No? I think this will give it away .....

Yes. We were in Sydney for two weeks, visiting my sister and her family. We also spent 3 days in Melbourne, catching up with a friend whom we met 12 years ago on our honeymoon and whom we haven't seen since. It was great to catch up and amazing how comfortable and relaxed things were right away.

The sharper eyed amongst you will notice that despite the fact that December is high summer 'down under', the weather in these pics is dull and cloudy. This was definitely a case of 'be careful what you wish for'. For the first few days, with the temperature hitting the mid 30s, we spent the whole time whingeing that it was soooo hot. From Xmas day onwards, it rained most of the time! Although it was a shame not to see everything against a bright blue sky, it was probably better for us to put up with a bit of rain and benefit from slightly cooler temperatures. We still moaned about the weather though, in that great British tradition. It makes me laugh that the most frequently used 'app' on my whizzy i-phone is the weather app. I've got a variety of places programmed in, so I can check up on the temperature and forecast at the mere touch of a button, or as I should say in the case of the i-phone, the stroke of a screen. So, whilst we were in Sydney, I would regularly be exclaiming - "My God, it's 38 degrees in Sydney and its -6 in Edinburgh!". Or, "Thank God, it's forecast to be cloudy and 26 degrees in Sydney for the next 3 days..."

Neither C and I are built for hot climates. I don't like extreme heat (and by extreme, I confess I mean anything above about 28 degrees) but I do like a bit of sun and warmth. C however is never happier than when in drizzle, or gale-force winds, or sleet. It's the celtic genes I think.

Ironic then that we managed to be across the other side of the world and miss the first white Christmas in the UK for years. Not that we've missed the snow though. I know everyone here is sick of it by now, but I'm still thrilled, having only been experiencing it since Monday. Plus, I can walk to work and to the shops etc, so it's not really an inconvenience. Since we've been back, the i-phone has been out regularly so I can check my weather app and exclaim - It's minus 10 in Edinburgh - and it's 32 degrees in Sydney! Does it make me weird that I am much happier in the minus 10 than in the plus 32 degrees?Sydney Harbour under cloud.

Christmas Greetings

2009-12-25T12:48:00.001Z

My blogging has been seriously neglected of late, because of the usual Christmas busyness plus some rather exotic travel - more of which later. Once you get out of the habit of posting blogs I've discovered it's really hard to get back into it. So, in the spirit of getting back into blogging mode, and because it's Christmas, here are some pictures I took in late November at Edinburgh's Christmas market. It's the typical German market /big wheel arrangement which seems to be obligatory in British cities in December. I don't mean this in a dismissive sense. C and I are always childishly thrilled by the appearance of the little wooden booths and the fairground rides at this time of year and rush into town on the first possible evening after the market has opened, to munch on Bratkartoffel and slurp Gluehwein. We then have a go on the chairoplane or the merrygoround - usually with me muttering that "we're too old to be doing this!".

On my birthday at the end of November, we were having a rather wonderful, self-indulgent day in town (more of which later!) and spotted this strange aparition at the Christmas market.

These angels were 7 feet tall, with fantastic, white, feathered wings. Best of all, they were on wheels! All of a sudden they would accelerate with no visible means of propulsion. They just glided along magically. Unfortunately the new whizzy i-phone does not have a video camera, unlike my old ordinary phone, so you will just have to take my word for the movement.

The angels swept through the Xmas market and fairground, and then with total disregard for road safety, they swooped out onto the street, joined the queue of traffic waiting at the lights, and then whizzed out onto Princes Street.

I love to think my council tax is being spent on such gloriously eccentric entertainment!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Life lessons

2009-12-08T00:39:00.000Z

Do not drink a mug of strong coffee at 9pm, in an attempt to fend off sleep long enough to get some Xmas cards written and some paperwork completed (and a blog post published!). Result: it's half past midnight and I am wide awake. I don't suffer from insomnia generally. I'm used to getting my sleep! As soon as I realise I'm not going to get at least 7 hours sleep, I start to panic. And sleep recedes further.

I wonder if cocoa would be an antidote? Or a large brandy?

Visit from the chocolate fairy

2009-12-07T21:30:00.005Z

My blogging has been interrupted by strange technical problems - I couldn't upload any pictures. I've also been very busy recently. This has meant that I've had plenty I've wanted to blog about, but haven't had any time to blog. What time I did have was consumed by fruitless attempts to upload pictures. I'll have to do some retrospective blogging over the next few days and catch up.

Anyway, after posting about my friend S being the beneficiary of random donations of violet creams in Manchester, look what arrived for me in the post:

It was an unexpected and delightful birthday pressie from S, who had found the time, in amongst staffing her stall in Manchester, to send me these. Aw. I felt quite teary when I opened them. Lots of other gorgeous things and cards arrived from friends and family. I felt very blessed, not just by the gifts, but by the knowledge that I had been thought of by these lovely people.

Unfortunately, I fear I may never be able to bring myself to eat the chocolates. They are too beautiful. Actually, that's total rubbish. What I really fear is that I will gorge on them in one sitting, rather than delicately savouring one every so often. Frankly, my helplessness in the face of chocolate of any kind means I ought to confine my consumption to mars bars or dairy milk. Giving me expensive, sophisticated chocolate is rather like offering a bottle of fine single malt whisky to a wino slumped on a park bench. But don't stop giving me the lovely chocs, generous friends!!!

I know for a fact the Charbonnel & Walker box will survive indefinitely in my 'lovely boxes' collection. This is an idiosyncratic and utterly useless collection of 'nice boxes' that things have been packaged in, and that I can't quite bring myself to throw away. For example, I have a tiny, heart-shaped box that a single Charbonnel & Walker champagne truffle arrived in one Valentine's Day. The truffle is long gone of course. In fact, I don't think it survived much beyond breakfast on Valentine's Day. I have a particularly fine collection of empty 'White Company' boxes - remnants of presents from my oldest friend L. There are also a couple of empty perfume gift boxes - the sort that appear around Christmas - which were gifts from my Auntie B. Why do I keep them? The contents, much appreciated, were enjoyed and are long gone. It's not as if the boxes can be used again as gift boxes, as they are clearly branded 'White Company' or 'Clarins'. I suppose part of me imagines I will do something artistic and crafty and paint them or decorate them with 'decoupage' cut outs, and use them again. Yeah - that's really going to happen.

I increasingly fear that I when I die, no doubt alone, or in the company of various smelly dogs and cats, people will discover these odd little collections and consider me totally barmy. Like those people that conserve every newspaper they ever bought, or every plastic bag they acquired, and end up being featured on that tv programme about Sheffield bin men. What will the distant relatives burdened with clearing their old Auntie Rosie's house make of my collection of empty boxes, or the moth-ridden bolts of unused fabric and yarns, or the piles of lovely notebooks and journals, too good to use for 'everyday' notes; or the jars of special jams and spices I was 'saving for best'? I suppose it won't matter. I'll be dead. And it probably won't be relatives dealing with it but house clearance people. Or the council. Cheery thought! I think I'll reflect on my fabulous chocolates instead.

Random acts of kindness - and chocolate

2009-11-23T20:42:00.004Z

My friend S. and her partner are down in Manchester at the moment, selling her beautiful handmade bath and body products at the big Christmas Market. By all accounts it is pretty dismal down there, what with the millenial floods and the recession. She sent me this text today, to post on my blog, relating one of those 'random acts of kindness' that makes life worth living.

Imagine the scene: a damp, discouraged trader standing in a wooden market booth, on the pedestrian precinct in Manchester, in the gloom and drizzle. She has to do this every day for 6 weeks.

S. wrote:
"A customer was saying how my rose hand cream reminded her of rose creams. I said to her that mentioning rose creams made me think of violet creams [S. has a passion for all things smelling and tasting of violet]. The customer said that Selfridges have a Charbonnel & Walker concession, which sells rose and violet creams and we both drooled at the thought. The customer thanked me and then, without purchasing anything, left. 10 minutes later the lady returns with a single, perfect violet cream for the poor, damp trader. All is now well in the world and the trader has something worth more than the sale of a jar of hand cream."

I suppose S. would have liked to sell some handcream and get a violet cream, but maybe that would be greedy. I wish the mysterious violet cream lady could know just how much her random act of kindness meant to S.

By the way, if anyone is interested in some rather gorgeous bath and body products as a Christmas pampering treat, for yourself or someone else, I can recommend S's products (and no, I am not on commission! I am a genuine fan.). They are all made of totally natural ingredients, and because S is one of those (sickening) people with a real eye for presentation and design, everything looks stunning as well. Funnily enough, she doesn't do a violet range .....

You can buy from her website: Pringle and Fairweather. Or if you are in Manchester, you could go and find her on New Cathedral Street outside M&S. And her partner is in Albert Square, selling her 'diffusion range' (is that the right term???) Fanny and Claude's Fabulous Concoctions, which isn't available on the website. If you do see them, say 'hi' from me. Oh, and take her a violet cream.

And whilst on the subject of violet and rose creams (I am a rose girl, rather than violet), I can't resist raving about Whitakers Confectioners in Skipton. We used to go there as a treat when we were children. It's one of those wonderfully old-fashioned confectioners, with everything from humbugs, to fudge, to champagne truffles. We were too young for fancy chocolates then. What we always got was a sugar mouse - white, pastel pink, or pale yellow, with a string tail. As a grown up, with pretentious airs and graces, I have graduated to their very sophisticated violet and rose creams. Although you can get Whitakers Chocolates in shops and supermarkets now, including the violet and rose creams, they have a more glamourous range, which you can only get in the shop, in heavy, plain card boxes, with the little crystalised violet and rose petals on top. Unfortunately they don't seem to be available on the website - so you'll just have to go to Skipton for a jaunt! Great market, interesting castle, canal boat trips - as well as violet creams - so well worth it.

And my final word on violet creams. Here's a picture of a print I have hanging in my study. I don't buy many pictures - I don't have a confident taste in 'art' - but this made me smile so much I bought it.
The title of the picture is 'Cup of Tea and Violet Creams'

The print is by an artist called Louise Quirke .

A picture that features chocolate, dogs and bed, ticks all the boxes for me.

Park life

2009-11-22T23:24:00.000Z

I have been very lax about taking photos of things recently and also not felt as if I've had much to say (loud, disbelieving guffaws at this remark from C presumably). Hence the lack of blog action of late. However, when trudging back from the city centre in the drizzle last week I was experimenting with the dreaded i-phone (which I think I am keeping ..... probably ..... almost definitely..... unless I change my mind.) I took some photos of the remaining autumn leaves on the trees on 'The Meadows'.

For those of you who don't know Edinburgh, The Meadows is a large expanse of parkland just south of the city centre, lying between the University and Marchmont. We are so lucky to have such a generous green space so close to our flat. The Meadows is one of those great amenities you find in some cities. Yes, it's a park, but it's more relaxed than that. It does have a children's playground and tennis courts at one end, but generally it's just a big flat piece of grass for people to use.

On summer evenings, it is thronging with people - having picnics, walking, walking dogs, walking children, jogging, playing frisbee, footie, tag, rounders etc, reading, sleeping, talking, sunbathing and smooching. And there's always at least one group of people sporting dreadlocks and playing drums, or juggling or even fire-eating. (There was actually somone walking down the path on a pair of stilts last week! In this wind, I have no idea how they stayed upright.) During the Edinburgh Festival in August, there's a funfair and sometimes a circus, and also, rather wonderfully, it's where the 'Ladyboys of Bangkok' pitch their tent (I am sure there is some joke here about 'camping' but I can't think of it just now). Even in the winter, at weekends there are groups of hardy - or maybe foolhardy - men playing muddy bouts of rugby or football, and the die-hard joggers.

When I moved to Edinburgh, after years living in a small village in Cumbria, I hadn't realised just how much I'd missed the availability of shared 'civic' space - i.e. parks and areas of countryside, owned and maintained by the local councils, on behalf of the local population. In the countryside, you are always on some farmer's land, so you have to stick to paths and keep an eye on your dog and watch out for marauding cows. Ironically, living in the city, there are green spaces where I feel much freer.

One of the great joys of the Meadows, is the paths lined with cherry trees. In May, they are festooned with frilly, marshmallow pink blossom, which drifts across the park like extravagent confetti. And on a wet November afternoon, in the drizzle and gloom, they were still resplendent in their orange leaves.

I-phone blues

2009-11-19T18:57:00.000Z

I am still in two minds about this i-phone. Damn its sleek black and silver lines and its quirky novelty apps. Despite the fact that the things I used my old 'normal' phone for most - making calls, texting, setting reminders, taking photos and listening to Radio 4 - aren't really as good on the i-phone, I find I am still fatally seduced by all its bells and whistles, which frankly, I don't need. Can you ever go back, when you've tasted the forbidden fruit - i.e. Apple?

I have until Monday to return it and go back to my old phone and payment plan. Decisions, decisions.

Meanwhile I shall spend the weekend exploring my Googlemaps function, my Shazam tune recognition app and my stanza e-books, and tipping my phone screen from portrait to landscape and back again.

Gadget queen

2009-11-16T23:37:00.002Z

Oh God. I've just got an i-phone. It is totally overwhelming. I feel about 100 years old. My reaction to discovering all its many features reminds me of my grandma when she first saw a video recorder: "eeeh, the things they can do these days". And my fingers are too big for the tiny little keys (I am a big boned lass of peasant heritage). Of course they aren't actually 'keys'. They are magic places on a glass screen, presumably operated by fairies or elves.

I think this might have been a mistake. Do I really want to be an i-phone person? I don't work in meedja. I don't own a Mac (I'm a PC as the advert goes). My life isn't really exciting or dynamic enough to require 24 hour access to the internet. I feel as if I am not cool enough to flash it about in public, so I self-consciously edge it out of my pocket to see if I have messages, rather than waving it about ostentatiously. But what is the point of having an i-phone when you don't wave it about ostentatiously?

Oh dear. Is it too late to put my sim back in my trusty old sony ericsson?

Shops Ahoy!

2009-11-12T19:57:00.005Z

When you are on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales in November and it rains constantly, there's really only one thing to do. Go shopping! Well - after you've spent so many hours sitting in the holiday cottage reading that you have a numb bum.

Why is it that whatever shops you have on your own doorstep, everything seems better when you go somewhere else? C would say this is just typical Rosie greed and that I am never satisfied. He may have a point. The grass always seems quite green across the fence. But I think it's about novelty as much as about dissatisfaction. You take for granted what you have at home, so the prospect of different experiences is always stimulating. Living in Edinbugh, we do not lack for shops. Within 5 minutes walk, there are the chic shops and boutiques of Bruntsfield and Morningside, or in the other direction, the food shops of Marchmont - independent butchers, fishmonger, middle-eastern grocers, designer flower shops, delis etc . Within 20 minutes walk there are all the city centre shops. So no, I don't lack for shops at home. You would think I would go on holiday to get away from shops (yeah, right!). It's so pleasant browsing in all the little independent shops you get in small towns, all of them no more than a minute or two's walk from each other. I am a sucker for market towns. Even when there's no market on, there's a bustling, self-sufficient quality about a small market town. When we are on holiday in England, we always check out the market days for towns in the area. In the Dales, and Cumbria, there are weekly markets still in even small villages. I'm not talking about Farmer's Markets, just old fashioned markets, selling everything from sweets, meat, fruit and veg, to all the tat you get on market stalls - cheap clothes and shoes, mass-produced pottery and household goods. And there always has to be a stall selling CDs for a local musician. It's usually a country musician even in deepest middle england, their unlikely twang wailing out across the market from tinny speakers.

Anyway, here's a quick rundown of the nice shops I saw on my hols - or at least the ones I remembered to take photos of.

This is Reeth Market. A grand total of 5 stalls selling veg, meat, cheese, shoes and sheepskin products. A wet, cold day, and a village with a population of 750 but people queueing up to buy! Not bad. (And yes, it was as dull and miserable as the photo suggests).

As behoves sheep farming country, this is the stall selling sheepskin goods - rugs, gloves and slippers. I suspect they're imported from china rather than having ever graced sheep in local fields, but they look the part.

And here's the wonderfully named Elijah Allen and Son in Hawes, in Wensleydale. A family run business, founded in 1860. How can you resist a shop that claims to sell 'provisions'! It's half-way between a corner shop and a deli. Presumably this sort of shop can only survive because the nearest Tesco is at least 25 miles away.

Elijah Allen's window display of local flours, jams, beer and the red-labelled bottles of Hendersons Spicy Yorkshire Relish. It's the sort of shop that sells about 100 varieties of jam. In fact, jam was a bit of a theme in our holiday shopping. The result of 'farm diversification' schemes I suspect.

Here's the window of the sweet shop in Hawes. Tempting .....

And while I'm on the sweet shop theme, I spotted this shop in Masham.

And no, I didn't buy anything!

On a very rainy day, we were just tootling about, trying to find some blue sky, along the back roads of Wensleydale, when we spotted a sign to 'Stalling Busk only'. C can never resist a sign that goes to somewhere 'only', so we crawled up into the misty, low cloud, to the very end of the road, and discovered a hamlet of about 4 houses, and Raydale Preserves. The shop was deserted, relying entirely on the honesty of punters popping round to the 'Jam Kitchen' to pay for their purchases. Mind you, I don't suppose there will be that many opportunistic jam thieves roaming the back roads of Wensleydale. Probably a wonderful spot to visit in the summer. They have put together a really interesting little local history display and a set of leaflets for walks starting from Stalling Busk - clearly a labour of love. There is the promise of coffee and cake in high season ......

I bought a jar of 'Fiery Farmer' chilli jam. I think I was hoping it would warm me up.

This is the pretty little Garden House Pottery- a tiny shop off the market square in Reeth - selling really good quality local crafts, ceramics and award winning damson cheese made by the owners, Ray and Jan Davies.

I bought a beautiful creamware colander. When I will actually have reason to use a ceramic colander, I really don't know, but it made me feel very 'Homes and Gardens'. I imagine it appearing on a table, bearing grapes for a cheese course or something. In that imaginary life where I host elegant dinner parties. I got some Damson Cheese as well. I was seduced by the rather lovely 'packaging' - a creamware bowl. It might yet end up someone's Christmas present, so I haven't opened the box to take a photo. But look at their website. It's classy stuff.

Ray Davies, the owner and ceramicist.

A blogland discovery - Milkchurn Cottage in Hawes, which I'd discovered on-line via Karen, the owner's blog and sought out (you can see her sitting at the back of the shop). A really eclectic, personal collection of crafts and housewares, many made locally. Like going into someone's frontroom. There's a fire crackling in the grate.

As a contrast - we saw this wonderfully old-fashioned shop in Ripon. 'Ladies World'. Presumably boasting everything for the Ripon Lady (d'un certain age I suspect): "Quality Footwear and Leather Goods; Cane Furniture and Basketware; Coffee Lounge". What else do you need?

Haul for the week: a vintage mixing bowl from 'RE' in Corbridge, to replace the one I inherited from my mother, which got broken on the move up to Edinburgh; a ceramic colander and some damson cheese; a wooden christmas decoration and a bar of soap from Hawes; 5 jars of jam and 3 jars of chutney. Excellent. All completely unnecessary purchases, for which I have no cupboard space, but I do like to support local traders (well that's my story!).

Sheep Ahoy!

2009-11-09T21:41:00.000Z

Last week in the Yorkshire Dales, we enjoyed a walk from Reeth in Swaledale, to the very lovely village of Grinton. Grinton is worth a look, mainly because of the perfect little St Andrew's Church, nicknamed the Cathedral of the Dales, with its churchyard dominated by venerable yew trees.

However, our attention was drawn to a very strange sight atop the roof of the village pub.

Yes. It is a sculpture of a Swaledale sheep, with a tuba. No idea why. Nothing on the pub website about it. Marvellous.

A Sense of Place

2009-11-08T21:56:00.003Z

In Coverdale, looking west.

I’ve been away in the Yorkshire Dales for a week, motivated by a longing to reconnect with the area. I love Edinburgh, where I now live and I’ve never actually lived in the Yorkshire Dales. The nearest I got, living in Cumbria along the western edge of the Yorkshire Dales, was a very unhappy time in my life. So why this need to come back? And why does the Yorkshire Dales feel like ‘home’ when I’ve never actually lived there?

I read an article by Madeleine Bunting recently, reflecting on the importance of our personal histories in creating the ‘psychogeography’ of our lives, and how vital this feeling of rootedness in a landscape and in a community is to us in our adult lives, whether or not we still live in these significant places.

I grew up in West Yorkshire, not far from the Yorkshire Dales. I have that typical (and no doubt fairly irritating) pride in Yorkshire that seems to be bred into the inhabitants of England’s largest county (yes – we just won’t accept those boundary changes!). This adds to a sense of belonging and of ownership that enhances my feelings about the Yorkshire Dales. These are my Dales. I experience a breathless delight being back here.

Maybe it’s the memories of childhood pleasures that generate such affection for this place. Although my family never holidayed in the Yorkshire Dales – it was really too close to home – it was the destination for days out at weekends and during the summer holidays (when it was always sunny of course!): picnics by the River Wharfe at Burnsall, where the river widens out in a lazy bend, the shallows warming quickly in the summer, the river bed sandy and perfect for paddling; ‘proper’ high tea (ham, eggs, bread & butter followed by cream cakes) at a café in Grassington; walks in amongst the ruins of Bolton Abbey;, playing an extended game of hide and seek in amongst the weird rock formations at Brimham Rocks as a teenager, far too old for such things, hoping to be ‘found’ by a particular boy. These memories are as pungent with remembered pleasure as any I can recall.

Maybe it’s the connection with lost people. The love of the Yorkshire Dales was something I learnt from my mother – now dead for 14 years. She was always frustrated by the unavailability of my Dad at the weekend, because of work and golf, and she was limited in the distances she was able to drive herself, because of painful rheumatoid arthritis. As soon as I could drive, my mother and I would go out on our own ‘jaunts’, which would always involve heading out along the A625 to Skipton, and then carrying on into the Yorkshire Dales and ‘tootling about’ as we called it. My Mum loved map-reading and she took great delight in planning our routes. We would seek out the narrowest roads, advancing across the highest fells and moorlands. If we could find a single track road with passing places, we were very satisfied. If we could find a road with passing places and gates – we were beside ourselves with glee. I suppose for my mother, who had loved hiking in her youth, the Yorkshire Dales were part of her ‘psychogeography’. She had been courted by my father on Youth Hostelling holidays there. These outings were a pilgrimage into her past. They were also a form of freedom for her. She couldn’t do these drives on her own and she could no longer walk these dales because of her illness. By heading off along ‘C’ roads, maybe we were getting as close as we could to her memories of hiking in these places.

Heading over into Swaledale - a road my Mum would have approved of!

As you lose people, maybe you need to connect with them through the places you shared. It’s not painful to go back there – rather, it allows for a pleasant intensity of remembrance that increasingly evades me as the years pass.

Maybe, as I’ve moved into middle age and found myself somewhat displaced because I’ve moved around a fair amount, it’s a way of reconnecting with my self, through the places that have made me.

Or maybe, it’s just a beautiful place!

Here are a few pictures to try and show you what I’m talking about. The weather wasn’t that great and my landscape photography skills aren’t really equal to the task of representing the views of Wensleydale and Swaledale. And I suppose, you won’t share the same ‘psychogeography’ as me, so these images won’t mean as much to you. But this place, it takes your breath away. It really does.

Coverdale again - my Mum's favourite of the dales

Swaledale again - my favourite of the dales. Crossing from Wensleydale, via Buttertubs

Walking from Reeth in Swaledale, to Grinton, along the River Swale. A good example of the dry stone walls and field barns typical of the Dales. Not raining for once!

The pretty little village of West Scrafton in Coverdale. Blue sky - briefly.

Off on a jaunt!

2009-11-02T16:22:00.000Z

Turns out that I have something in common with the artist David Hockney apart from growing up around Bradford. Not artistic ability, clearly, or wealth. But our love of jaunts.

I was reading an interview with David Hockney in the Sunday paper. He was saying how important it is, as you get older, to try and maintain your spontaneity and your openness to new perspectives. In order to do this, he is very fond of ‘jaunts’. I’ve never thought of my love of jaunts as an attempt at maintaining spontaneity or creativity, but rather as unfettered hedonism. This love of jaunts is something C and I share. As we’ve got older I suspect our ‘jaunts’ have taken on an increasingly ‘Darby and Joan’ flavour. When we first moved to Edinburgh we were so thrilled at the availability of public transport after 10 years in the wilds of Cumbria, we spent a Saturday travelling around the city on buses, making the most of a £2.50 ‘day ticket’. I do wonder at the sight of a middle aged-couple sitting on the front seat of the upper deck of a bus (double deckers – you didn’t get those in our bit of Cumbria!) looking excitedly out of the window. At least we haven’t started taking flasks of tea and Tupperware boxes of sandwiches out with us. Whenever we have taken a packed lunch out with us on a ‘jaunt’, in an attempt to save money, we always end up opting for a nice café instead and bringing our picnic home with us, uneaten. After all, half the joy of a jaunt is the opportunity for a good cake!

Whilst on the topic of David Hockney and jaunts, I should mention that a particularly excellent ‘jaunt’ is to Salts Mill, in Saltaire near Bradford in West Yorkshire - an art gallery dedicated to the work of David Hockney. It’s housed in the monumental Victorian mill buildings of Sir Titus Salt. Salt built the whole village of Saltaire around the mill for his workers – complete with cottages, a reading room, chapels, doctor’s surgery and so on. One of those extravagant schemes so beloved of the non-conformist industrialists of that era - charitable paternalism or economically motivated social engineering – depending on your view! The mill conversion, creating galleries, cafes and shops, has left many of the old mill features intact. I love the unlikely juxtaposition of the great halls, which would have housed the weaving machines and large lumps of redundant machinery, in amongst the art books, the paintings and the chi chi kitchenware and gifts. I was never a huge fan of David Hockney’s LA works, but I love his more recent work now he’s settled back home in Yorkshire – startling, expressionist landscapes of East Yorkshire. The intense and extravagant colours of his pictures and their slightly skewed perspective jolt you into considering landscape with a different eye. Anyway – more info on Salts Mill and Saltaire if you are interested.

I am currently on an extended jaunt, which is a bit of an experiment. I have rented a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales for a week. The first 4 days I am here on my own, and then C is coming down on the train to join me for the second half of the week. I wanted some peace and quiet. I also wanted to reconnect with the landscape of northern England, which I love and which I miss now that we live up in Edinburgh. I will report back on the experiment. I confess, I’m not loving the isolation so far. Not even a mobile phone signal in the cottage! We shall see.

On the drive down I stopped for lunch in Corbridge, in County Durham, near Hadrian’s Wall. Corbridge is a very pretty and historic village. It’s also quite posh – something I hadn’t really realised until I went back this time. It boasts an unusually high quota of independent clothes boutiques, antique and interiors shops, clearly targeting the ‘ladies who lunch’ market.

Corbridge is also the home of what is surely one of the most beautiful shops in the UK. ‘RE’ is a treasure trove of second-hand and new retro-style household items. They have a lot of unusual French goods, which I assume they source direct from French suppliers. They also have really obscure stuff, none of which you need, but all of which looks charming because of the way it is displayed: religious statuary; glass jars of tailors chalks in pastel colours (which I thought was Edinburgh rock until I read the labels!); decorative boxes of matches; a vast array of plastic poppies. It’s very Cath Kidston, but with a lower chintz quotient. My only criticism is that it doesn’t have a café. How can you have such a magnificent array of cake stands, tea pots and tea cosies and not feel tempted to open a café?

Anyway – feast your eyes on these photos – and visit the website if you fancy more domestic eye candy.

French bath stuff and cake stands

Silver rabbit blancmange moulds, wooden rolling pins, wooden bread boards - all vital to any modern kitchen of course!

Every possible size of brown teapot and a small selection of tea cosies

An enormous glass display case of .... glass cake stands - can you see them all?

Lots and lots of lovely boxes of candles

The garden corner

I think I might have got a bit carried away ......

Quince Pickle

2009-10-31T09:00:00.004Z

I am proud, if a little surprised to report that the quinces are already transformed into quince pickle. I only got them on Wednesday evening. I’m not sure what has spurred me on to this unusually decisive and prompt behaviour. Maybe it’s the thought of explaining to the kind friend who gave me some of the quinces she'd spent her Saturday morning picking, that they’d ended up in the bin. Or maybe it was the prospect of either spending the afternoon pottering about in the kitchen chopping fruit and stirring simmering pickle, or cleaning the bathroom. Whatever the motivation, a mere 4 hours of labour, a blister on my index finger, numerous bowls full of washing up and about a fiver’s worth of raw materials have resulted in ......... 3 jars of pickle. But they are my jars of pickle. (Please don’t remind me how little a jar of Branston costs.)

Ta da!

I wanted to do something tangy and savoury with the quinces and something that I would actually want to eat regularly. As I’ve said before, I’m not a huge fan of jam or poached fruit – which has been the fate of quinces in past years (those that have avoided the dustbin). I once carefully poached sliced quinces in a rose water syrup and bottled them in a quaint, French, glass preserving jar. They looked beautiful. Delicate pink slivers of fruit suspended in a blush-coloured syrup. I never ate them of course. They just sat on the pantry shelf gathering dust. After about a year I decided to turn them into jam with instead. So a jar of quince and rose jam was produced. I ate very little of it, but I did feel pleasantly smug bringing it out for guests.

This is a pickle rather than a chutney recipe, so the fruit keeps a bit of texture rather than going completely to mush. You can also eat it immediately, unlike chutney which needs a month or two to mature. It tastes pretty good. Quite sweet and sticky, but with a rasp of vinegar and a definite musky flavour of quince.

The original recipe came from here.

Here’s my very slightly amended version and for half the quantity ( I only had 2lb of quinces). I used brown sugar, because that’s what I usually use for chutney. However, it struck me that the original recipe might have meant you to use white sugar, so you can see the pink colour of the cooked quinces, rather than the brown sludge produced in my version. I don't have a lot of experience making pickles! I added the crushed chillies to the recipe, because I wanted something with a bit of bite. I think if I make it again, I will add a bit more chilli. I was a bit nervous of making it too hot, but I’ve probably erred too much on the cautious side. I would probably also slow the cooking down a bit by simmering it with the lid on for half an hour or so first and then cooking the pickle with the lid off to reduce it. The texture of the pickle was ready - i.e. the juices reduced down to a rich syrup, but the quinces were a bit chewy.

Quince Pickle

2lb quince, cored and diced
1 ¼ cups white wine vinegar
1 ¼ cups red wine vinegar
1 ½ tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 tsp crushed, dried chillies
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground black pepper
1lb 12 oz sugar
1 tsp salt

Wipe the quinces with a damp cloth to remove the fuzz, then core and dice them. Don’t peel them. Place all the ingredients into a large, heavy-bottomed pan, and simmer, uncovered, on a constant low heat until the quince is a dark rose colour (or brown in my case!). This took about 1 ½ hours – although the original recipe stated that it might take 3 hours. The liquid will reduce down until it has thickened, and barely covers the fruit.

This is what it looked like when it first went on the heat.

This is what it looked like after 1 1/2 hours cooking. Note that it is now in a pan about half the size of the original. I let the pickle catch a bit - ooops - so I put it into a different pan to prevent it being infused with the taste of burnt pickle.

Bottle in sterilised jars with vinegar-proof lids. Keep in a cool place, for up to 2 years (now that's what I call a shelf-life!).

The friend who gave me the quinces recommended this recipe for Quince Balsamico Chutney which she has made in the past. It sounds lovely, but I couldn't quite face the faff. Worth a look though.

Oh dear - do you think I'm in danger of starting to finish things, thereby making the title of this blog redundant? Oh - there's always the bowl of soaking chick peas lurking in the bottom of the fridge which I intended making into hummus last weekend. A fairly unlikely prospect at any time, but considering this was intended for a 'shared lunch' at a weekend course I was attending, and therefore would have meant me getting up early on the Sunday morning to make said hummus, it was pretty much doomed from the start. Turns out that chick peas develop an unappetising scum very quickly when left in the fridge.

Plot Night

2009-10-30T09:00:00.003Z

Vital ingredients for 'plot night' baking

Those of you who didn’t grow up in Yorkshire (poor things!) won’t know what ‘Plot Night’ is. It is Bonfire Night, or if you are very posh, Guy Fawkes Night. Looking back to my childhood, Plot Night was one of the highlights of the year. It hadn’t been eclipsed by Halloween in those days and there wasn’t the same health and safety hysteria around fireworks then - although, it should also be acknowledged that the most powerful firework you were likely to light was a roman candle or a slim rocket, rather than the pyrotechnical monsters you can buy nowadays. The most dangerous event I remember was when a spinning Catherine wheel flew off its nail. Dads were blamed of course, responsibility for the fireworks being the men’s job. In those pre-BBQ days, it was the most primal display of virility available to the white collar Dads of my friends.

Plot night marked the start of the run up to Xmas and my birthday, which is at the end of November. It was very much the start of my ‘festive season’. The fact that bonfire night and its associated celebrations could fall midweek added to the sense of slightly subversive fun. Being allowed to be out and about on a school night, with lots of other people, playing with fire and of course eating lots of party food, was a heady mix.

I don’t remember getting involved in the ‘penny for the guy’ run up. I don’t ever remember seeing any ‘guys’ at all. This may have something to do with the fact that Guy Fawkes was a Yorkshireman, so we might not have wanted to burn him in effigy (but that’s just speculation on my part). The night before Plot Night was Mischief Night, the traditional time for practical jokes. Being ‘nice girls’, rather than ‘rough boys’, me and my sister didn’t get involved in that - of course! On the evening of 4th November there would be the sound of bangers being set off in the street and occasionally knocks at the door from people who had disappeared by the time you answered. There were stories about treacle being spread on door handles or gates being lifted off their hinges and hidden, but it was all pretty harmless.

The main reason I loved Plot Night was the food. It was one mouthwatering delight after another. You started with warm pork pies with mushy peas and mint sauce, followed by baked potatoes, cooked in foil in the embers of the bonfire. All this food tasted a million times better because it was eaten outside, in the crisp night air, a sparkler clutched in your hand, the smoke stinging your eyes and the heat from the flames scorching your cold cheeks.

And then came the sweet stuff. My grandma used to make ‘Plot toffee’, treacle toffee by any other name, in great, spiky shards. It was the sort of sweet that changes the outline of your cheek whilst you eat it because it is so big and unyieldingly angular. I have no idea why ‘plot’ baking is so dominated by ginger, but it is.There were ginger biscuits and gingerbread pigs. But my favourite was always the parkin. Parkin is not gingerbread. Proper Yorkshire parkin, features oatmeal as well as ginger and has a dense, nutty consistency with just a hint of stickiness on its surface.

I was so disappointed when I moved to Scotland to discover that people don’t celebrate bonfire night up here. There are understandable historical and nationalist reasons for this, but what a wasted opportunity for some smashing food (in the Enid Blyton sense) and fire-gazing. This year however, I am going to be in Yorkshire for Plot Night. I am sneaking off for a break in a cottage in the Yorkshire Dales. In preparation, I’ve made some parkin to take with me.

The old school recipe book.

It’s ages since I’ve made parkin. I decided to go back to grassroots and use the recipe I was taught at school. The only change I made was to replace some of the golden syrup with treacle. I think ‘plot’ baking needs that dark hit of treacle to give the flavour proper depth. It hints of the smokiness of the bonfire. It also gives it the dark chestnut colour I remember.

You will also note the use of lard. Not a fashionable ingredient these days. I stuck to the recipe, but you may well want to use all butter instead. The original recipe also specified margarine, not butter (it does date from the 1970s!) but I hate margarine.

Parkin should be made at least a week in advance and then left in an air tight tin to acquire the proper sticky texture. If you can hold off long enough!

Yorkshire Parkin

(Source: Bradford Girls' Grammar School, circa 1976)

8 oz plain flour
8 oz medium oatmeal
8 oz soft brown sugar
1 level tsp bicarbonate of soda
1 heaped tsp ground ginger
Pinch salt
2 oz lard
2 oz butter
6 oz golden syrup
2 oz treacle
3 fl oz milk
2 med eggs

Preheat the oven to 325F/170C/Gas mark 3.

Grease and line the base of an approx 12inch square traybake tin (I used a 9 inch square tin and it was a bit small – the parkin ballooned above the tin during cooking and then collapsed a bit).

Mix all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Rub the fats into the dry ingredients. Heat the milk and syrups together gently, stirring until combined. Don’t let it boil. Add to the flour/fat mixture and stir in. Add the eggs, beaten, and mix well. Pour into the tin and bake for 50-60 mins until deep brown, firm and shrunk slightly away from the sides of the tin. Don’t open the oven for the first 45 mins, or it will sink – like mine did! Leave it to cool in the tin. When cool, cut into squares and leave it in an airtight tin for 3 days to 2 weeks, to ‘mature’.

I confess, I scoffed a piece, just for the purposes of research of course. Very nice – sticky and nutty with the soft warmth of ginger.

When I was looking for a recipe for parkin, I found one in my old Yorkshire TV Farmhouse Kitchen book. It included this unexpected advice about ingredients: “If you have no treacle add 1 or 2 drops of gravy browning to the mixture to get the true dark Parkin colour”. Please note: there is no gravy browning in my parkin!

I'm getting the hang of this 'food styling' photography!

I blame Nigella

2009-10-29T22:26:00.001Z

Did Nigella Lawson invent quinces? I mean, until I read ‘How to Eat’ for the first time, I’d never even heard of quinces. Next thing, I notice them appearing in the greengrocers in October. Before I know it, I’m looking forward to their arrival, as if it’s some sort of long established ritual. As if autumns when I was a child were always marked by the purchase of quinces with my mother. I have somehow taken on Nigella Lawson’s quince habit, as if it were my own.

So for the last 8 years or so, early November has meant the annual buying of the quinces. This is followed, about 4-6 weeks later with the associated annual ritual of the throwing away of the mouldy quinces, or, if I catch them in time, the dumping of the (very) ripe quinces into a jar of vodka with some cinnamon sticks, in order to make some kind of ‘interesting’ liqueur. I have a jar of quinces steeping in vodka which has now accompanied me on two house moves. I finally got round to straining and bottling the liqueur a week or so ago, when I was flushed with the success of my damson gin making. The faded label on the jar said: Spiced Quince Liqueur - November 2003.

I don’t even like the taste of quinces that much. Sorry, I realise this is heresy amongst the Nigella reading public. I’m not really a fan of poached fruit and poached quinces are tooth-screechingly sweet. I’m not a huge fan of jam either – whether quince or otherwise. I’ve also made Nigella’s quince mincemeat, which I’m afraid didn’t taste that different than ordinary homemade mincemeat, and you’ve guessed it, I’m not that fond of mincemeat.

I just like the idea of quinces. I’m driven by some ridiculous self-delusion that I am connecting to ancient Christmas traditions, reaching back to medieval times or tapping into their exotic, middle-eastern roots. Or maybe, in that sad way that people buy celebrity perfumes to try and acquire a touch of their favourite star’s magic, maybe I think buying quinces will make me like Nigella Lawson – beautiful, oozing sex appeal and rich. Instead, I am still just a slightly frazzled, overweight, middle-aged woman, but one with some rotting fruit in her kitchen.

You can imagine the combination of delight and dread with which I greeted the news from a friend that she had discovered a source of quinces, growing here in Edinburgh. Would I like to share the fruit with her? Delight at the prospect of locally gathered, free fruit and magical quinces to boot. Dread at the thought that yet again I would fail to do anything useful with them and just feel even guiltier at the waste this time around, because the fruit had been generously given by a friend. But could I resist? Of course not. It’s quince season again.

What goes around comes around

2009-10-27T22:22:00.000Z

Do you ever have those moments in life when you feel as if you are experiencing a kind of living parable?

I am a great believer in the maxim ‘what goes around comes around’ – by which I mean a sort of woolly, secular belief in karma, but in this life, not in the next. At the risk of sounding priggish, I like to think that that putting goodwill or good deeds out in the world makes the world a better place generally. My less altruistic motivation for this attitude is that I believe it results in good things coming back to you. Of course most of the time, I forget to think this way or I am feeling far too full of self-pity and irritation to sustain goodwill to others, but I do try.

Yesterday, I experienced a little incident that attested to my ‘pay it forward’ principle. I could call it 'The parable of the pound'.

I was rushing from the office to a meeting and I stopped off en route to get a coffee. On the way into the coffee shop, I noticed a sign on the door letting customers know that as a result of temporary technical problems, credit card payments couldn’t be accepted. A couple of students were ahead of me in the queue. One of them was trying to pay for his lunch with a card, not having noticed the sign. He had no cash with him. His companion dug around in her purse and lent him some cash, but he was still a £1 short. He patted his pockets helplessly for a moment and then started saying he would have to go and get some cash. On impulse I said to him I’d give him the £1. He looked at me in disbelief and I repeated my offer, adding that he could put £1 in a charity collection box at some point in return. He thanked me, paid and went off with his friend to sit down. This had all taken place infront of the till, observed by the staff.

When I came to pay for my sandwich and coffee, the guy behind the counter said that they wouldn’t charge me for my coffee – because I’d just given the student the £1 he needed. He then passed me my £1 change.

I thanked him and on a whim, chucked the pound coin into the tip jar.

By my reckoning, the student ahead of me in the queue, the coffee shop staff and I all benefited. The only people who lost out were Starbucks, and frankly, I think they can afford it.

What goes around comes around. Sometimes, surprisingly quickly.

Guilty pleasures: comfort food

2009-10-22T17:48:00.002+01:00

The concepts of ‘guilty pleasures’ and of ‘comfort food’ have become so popular that they now denote things to be proud of rather than guilty about, as retro, nostalgic, post-modern, ironic statements. Listening to cheesy disco music for example with just the right degree of archness (think Mamma Mia!) or even (God forbid) enjoying wide shoulderpads and electro-pop as the 80s return, is actually very hip. (I’m dreading the time, which must come soon, when fashions I was already too old to be part of are reclaimed as 'retro'.) Cookbooks celebrate the supposedly guilty pleasures of comfort food. The Domestic Goddess herself devotes a whole chapter in Nigella Bites. Nigel Slater’s recent book Eating for England is one long paean to comfort food – with entries for Dairylea Triangles, Fray Bentos pies and Kitkats. There’s even a restaurant in Edinburgh, the wonderfully named Monster Mash (how 1970s can you get?), with a menu based entirely around ‘british classics’– pride of place given to humble bangers and mash of course, but featuring other old faves such as shepherd’s pie and macaroni cheese.

But what about the comfort foods that are too dull, too downmarket for a gastro-rennaissance? These are the truly guilty pleasures. The pleasures that you don’t admit to and certainly don’t serve to dinner guests as retro chic. Is it just me or does everyone have a selection of favourite foodstuffs (‘dishes’ is far too sophisticated a term for the things I have in mind), mostly drawn from childhood it must be said, and therefore fuelled by a degree of nostalgia rather than just taste, that are so ordinary, so plebeian, but so fantastically yummy that in the privacy of your home you eat them with shameless relish?

I was reflecting on this yesterday evening when, just back from work and turning my mind to cooking, I discovered that there was nothing in the fridge and that everything in the freezer would take too long to defrost. I stared despondently at the pantry shelves, thoughts of takeaways beginning to form, when my gaze alighted on a tin of corned beef. Oh joy – I knew exactly what I wanted – Corned Beef Hash. God, I love corned beef hash. It’s quick and easy to make. It requires only store-cupboard ingredients. It’s cheap. And it has that stodginess that I find is essential to true comfort food. It’s like an internal duvet – soft, warm, wrapping you up from the inside. Comfort food should be a bit heavy. After eating it, physical movement should become slightly difficult, thereby confining you to the ‘comfort’ zones of sofa or bed.

What would Masterchef make of these ingredients?

The ‘recipe’ (ahem!) is delightfully simple: boil some small chunks of potato. Meanwhile, in a frying pan, sweat some chopped onion in butter, or even, as a sop to the world post 1978, some olive oil. Dice the corned beef and add to the pan. Add 1 tsp tomato puree and ½ tsp dried mixed herbs. You must use dried herbs. You want a dusty, bass note, not zingy green freshness. Then, the piece de resistance: the ingredient that makes this meal off limits to anything other than private, family dining (as if the tinned corned beef and dried mixed herbs hadn’t already done this!) - add one small tin of baked beans. I confess, I sometimes add a small tin of chopped tomatoes as well – which is verging on an acceptable foodstuff for the noughties. Drain the cooked potatoes and add them to the hash and then cover and leave to simmer gently for 10 mins or so. I sometimes add a dash of tomato ketchup as well – just to reinforce the déclassé credentials of the dish. Under no circumstances serve it with anything green, to try and rescue it from the culinary fourth division – for example a mixed salad or watercress or pak choi. You could possibly justify serving it with some Marrowfat peas (see below). Otherwise just pile it on the plates and eat it with a fork, preferably whilst slumped on the sofa, watching rubbish on tv. Add extra tomato sauce to taste ….

This should probably be followed by something like a wagon wheel biscuit (do they still make them?) just to recreate the full 1970s home-cooking experience.

They do still make them!

Here are some of my other favourites from the comfort food hall of shame:

Mince and Potatoes (or Mince and Tatties – to translate for my Scottish husband).
Beef mince, chopped onions, browned then simmered with salt and pepper and probably an oxo cube, or similar. You may add some diced carrots, or even frozen garden peas. But nothing else. Serve with plain boiled potatoes. What’s not to like? When I used to come back home for the holidays from university, this was what my Mum always cooked for me on my first night home, because she knew I loved it so much. Aw. I’m easily pleased.

Pilchards on Toast
Even I think this is pretty weird if I’m honest. Take a small tin of pilchards in tomato sauce. It is important that they are in tomato sauce. You aren’t going to incorporate the tomato sauce into the meal, because it’s too sloppy and bland. However the fish will have steeped in the sauce and taken on some of that innate tomato-iness. With a fork, slide the fish out of the tin and put them in a small bowl. Mash them coarsely with the fork and add a dash of tomato ketchup (again!). Meanwhile toast two slices of bread. Butter the toast and spread the pilchard/ketchup mixture on the bread. Pop the fish covered toast under a medium grill for a few minutes, to warm the fish through. I confess, reading this, it sounds pretty disgusting even to me, but it is strangely delicious - trust me.

Fish Finger Sandwich
More ketchup with this one. Doesn’t really need any explanation. Almost health food – well, it’s fish, and you could use wholemeal bread.

Eggy Bread
Ok – I could call this ‘french toast’ and feel quite sophisticated – but is it still ‘french toast’ when accompanied by tomato ketchup? Actually, this is one of C’s comfort foods, which I never ate as a child, but I have learned to love as an adult. To serve 2, beat 3 large eggs, with about 2 tablespoons of milk. Add a bit of salt. Put the egg-milk mixture in a shallow bowl or rimmed plate– big enough to lay a slice of bread in. Plonk a slice of bread in the mixture, so that it soaks it up, then turn the bread over to soak up some more. Fry on a medium heat, on both sides, until it is nicely golden brown. Repeat with more bread until the mixture is used up. Serve with – yes, you’ve guessed it, tomato ketchup. Although C is also partial to brown sauce with this.

Tinned Marrowfat Peas
Have to be tinned. Have to be marrowfat. NOT mushy. Best eaten with something like a warm Cornish pasty or a meat pie. By the way, don’t make the mistake of uniting marrowfat peas with any other foodstuff during the cooking process (not that you would!). One of my more memorable meals as a student was preparing a haddock and haricot bean casserole. As I didn’t have any haricot beans - I was a student! It was 1983! - I used marrowfat peas, ‘fresh’ from the tin. After half an hour in the oven, the fish had turned luminous green. Presumably a result of the dye in the peas. Not an appetising look for fish. I think it’s the only time my flatmates actually refused to eat what I’d cooked for them.

In all the above dishes, note the lack of fresh vegetables, the high proportion of starchy foods, red meat - and ketchup. Turns out tomato ketchup is one of my comfort foods. All of these dishes could appear in some kind of postwar, austerity cookbook written by Marguerite Patten on behalf of the Ministry of Food.

Mmm. Don’t think I can open a restaurant with this kind of fare. However fashionable the 1970s are. And don’t get me started on sweets. Sherbert Dib Dab anyone?

Anthems #1: Is that all there is?

2009-10-19T22:28:00.001+01:00

I think this says it all. Has to be the Cristina 80s version, not Peggy Lee or PJ Harvey. Hey, I'm a child of disco (or punk, depending on my mood). Sometimes this sounds like an existentialist anthem to living in the moment. Sometimes it just sounds bleak. Either way, I love it. Hope you do too. Preferably listened to whilst drinking strong liquor. Alone. Laughing bitterly to yourself. Or maybe that's just me.

Damson Gin

2009-10-19T07:00:00.004+01:00

Well this blog has already justified its existence (for me, I mean). Writing about my half-finished projects has guilted me into getting on with something. Is the giant Yorkshire embroidery finished? Is the William Morris tapestry adorning a cushion? Am I sporting a chic, hand-knitted cardigan with tonal detailing on the sleeves? No, don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. But I did finally get the damsons out of the freezer and bung them in some gin.

For those of you not initiated into the delights of the damson, let me urge you to explore the tart, dense flavour of this fruit. I had never come across damsons until we lived in Cumbria. The Lakes are famous for their damsons. Even in the less sheltered climes of East Cumbria, where we lived, there were damson trees. We were lucky enough to have a tree in our own garden. The first year we were there was a record harvest and I made gallons of damson gin and jars of damson jelly. There’s something so deeply, intensely fruity about the flavour of damsons that is unique. They make ordinary plums seem bland. The rich, purple colour of the cooked fruits just adds to their appeal.

Alas, whatever other delights Edinburgh has to offer, I haven’t seen any damson trees - yet. My damsons were bought from the greengrocer. They ended up in the freezer partly because I’d left them so long in the fridge that I was worried they’d go off, but it’s also a technique for softening the skins so they release their juices into the gin. This is a way of handling sloes for sloe gin, in order to avoid having to prick every single fruit. You’re supposed to pick sloes after the first frost, so the skins have been softened but you can just as easily throw them into the freezer for a while instead.

Somewhere in the move from Cumbria to Edinburgh, I’ve lost my little notebook with records of my various attempts at making fruit liqueurs, preserves or pickles, so unfortunately I don’t have my tried and tested recipe any more. Instead, I’ve used Nigel Slater’s recipe. He’s usually pretty reliable about this kind of thing. He does say you can use damsons or sloes for this recipe. Sloes are so much sourer than damsons, I’d be tempted to put in more sugar but you can always do that later, once you’ve tasted the finished drink.

I got into the habit of leaving the fruit in the gin indefinitely, and just siphoning off the liqueur with a ladle when I wanted it – not the most elegant way of serving an after-dinner drink admittedly. However I read on a website somewhere that after a year, you might spoil the flavour of the liqueur if you leave the fruit in. This still means that once the damson gin is ready (after 2-3 months) you do have about 10 months to get around to straining and bottling it. Surely that’s time enough… ahem. Once strained, the gin will last indefinitely. Unless you drink it of course.

The wonderful thing about damson and sloe gin is that it is so incredibly easy to make and yet gives the impression of ‘domestic goddess’-like skills, especially if you bottle it in some quaint, decorative glass bottles (bought from the not so quaint Ikea!).

By the way, do not ever make champagne cocktails using damson gin, along the lines of a Kir Royale. I have a vague but nonetheless hideously embarrassing memory of trying - and failing miserably - to play the piano for my friends fuelled by damson gin cocktails. Think Les Dawson’s piano playing sketch. Please note, this is not something I would ever try and do sober. At least I didn’t try and sing as well. Or did I…..?

As a bonus, here’s a damson inspired recipe I cobbled together from various ice-cream recipes. I made it once, ages ago and it was delicious. I made it a couple of weeks ago, and it wasn’t quite as good. This was partly because I couldn’t get the ice-cream to set – so it ended up as a sort of very cold damson ripple custard (sorry dinner guests!). I also had extra damson puree which I chucked in and the damson flavour was too dominating. But if, unlike me, you follow the damn recipe, you should be fine.

Damson Gin and White Chocolate Ice Cream

350ml milk
150ml double cream
4 egg yolks
50g caster sugar
200g white chocolate
100g damsons
2-3 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp gin

Put the damsons in a heavy bottomed pan, with a tablespoon of water. On a very low heat, simmer them gently until the skins begin to break and the fruits soften. Leave to cool slightly then push the fruit puree through a sieve. Whilst still warm, stir in 2-3 tbsps sugar and the gin. Taste the puree and add more sugar if necessary. You want a tart puree, but not so much that it puckers your mouth!

Warm the milk and cream in a double boiler or in a bowl over a simmering pan of water. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg yolks and sugar together, then pour the warmed milk mixture over it, whilst stirring. Return the egg and milk mixture into the double boiler, and cook gently until the custard thickens. Meanwhile, melt the white chocolate and leave to cool slightly, then stir it into the custard. Leave to cool.

Freeze the ice cream in an ice cream maker. Or, to use the freezer method, remove the freezing mixture every 30-40 mins from the freezer, as it is just beginning to freeze around the edges and stirring to prevent ice crystals forming. When the ice cream is frozen, but still soft, layer it in a suitable Tupperware bowl with the 2 thin layers of damson puree (so you have 3 ice cream layers around 2 fruit puree layers). Then use a skewer to ‘ripple’ the puree through the ice cream. Freeze.

Autumn Sunday

2009-10-18T18:13:00.003+01:00

Autumn seems particularly beautiful this year. The red and yellow hues of the trees in our area of Edinburgh seem unusually strong. This is the view out of my window. Who needs New England!

At this time of year it seems a sin not to get out into some woodland and make the most of the season. It's not just the way it looks, it's the way it smells. A potent mix of leaf mulch, damp earth, blackberries, the fusty scent of misty air, with an (imaginary I suspect) hint of woodsmoke.

We had intended going along to a 'fungus foray' out at Almondell and Calderwood Country Park in West Lothian. This area is a new discovery of ours. As well as walks in the woodland along the river, there is a great little visitor centre serving coffees and teas which you can sit and drink in the pleasant walled garden. It also boasts a small aquarium with examples of local river inhabitants, including a fairly scary, and it must be said, quite cramped looking pike.

For one reason and another, we decided against the drive out to West Lothian and instead embarked on our own private fungus foray in the Hermitage of Braid, a nearby beauty spot and nature reserve. The colours of the leaves were stunning. More yellows than reds and oranges. My photos don't really do justice to the intensity of the colours. There was a carpet of ochre leaves covering most of the ground.

As for the fungus side of things, well nothing too amazing to report. To be honest, I can only recognise about 3 types of edible fungus - penny buns, giant puffballs and horse mushrooms. None of these were lurking in the Hermitage today. But it's always fun to notice the mushrooms and flick briefly through my mushroom book before accepting that I haven't a clue what I'm looking at. If anyone knows what these are, do let me know - especially if they're edible!

Here's some evidence that I can do some useful foraging. These are dried slices of the very highly sought after 'penny bun' mushroom or what the Italians call 'porcini' that we found in the woods up near Dunkeld, north of Perth, a couple of weeks ago. Don't be deceived by the scale. The jar is about 4 inches tall with about 1 oz of dried mushroom in it. Maybe enough to make one tiny bowl of wild mushroom soup.

This is what they look like 'in the wild' as it were. This isn't the one I found - but it looked just like this, honest!

My Chair Affair

2009-10-18T10:57:00.002+01:00

I am in the throes of a great passion. There’s a new love in my life. The object of my affection waits ready to welcome me into a soft, warm embrace whenever I am in need of comfort. I am in love with my new chair.
What I love about my new chair is that it is mine alone. Does that make me sound selfish? Well, it’s the truth. I didn’t have to negotiate the purchase with my husband. It doesn’t represent a hard-won compromise between our individual tastes. It’s not an inherited family piece I had to find house room for. It wasn’t a choice based on cost considerations rather than aesthetics. I saw it, loved it and bought it.

This is part of the intense pleasure I am discovering from, in Virginia Woolf’s words, having a room of my own. In our new flat, me and C are lucky enough to have a ‘room’ each. (‘Study’ sounds a bit grand; ‘office’ a bit business-like; ‘den’ a bit American; workroom a bit dull, not to mention, inappropriately industrious!) I’ve never had such a thing before. A room that’s just mine, to do what I want with. To furnish it, I already had my desk, a bookcase and a cupboard. But what I wanted was a chair. A chair to sit and read in, to think in, to rest in.

We have lots of chairs in our flat – most of them acquired from C’s parents (for which I am very grateful in the main). But none of the chairs we already had was exactly what I wanted for my room. I felt I couldn’t really justify acquiring yet another chair, especially as I spend a lot of time moaning at C that we need to get rid of some of the ridiculous quantity of furniture we live with. But secretly, I dreamt of acquiring the perfect chair. It needed to be comfortable and cosy, but not too big, as I don’t have much space in my little room. I wanted a second-hand chair, that would complement the ‘lived in’ (!) nature of the rest of the furniture in the room.

Last weekend we discovered a fantastic second-hand furniture warehouse on Leith Walk. We were actually on the hunt for a wardrobe. Whilst we were enjoying wandering around the showroom, the owner approached us with the magic words “would you like to look in the warehouse?”. Oooh- yes please! He took us down a lane at the side of the shop, across a yard into a huge storage unit, piled high with an extraordinary range of second-hand furniture. There was everything – wardrobes, bookshelves, desks, dining tables, marble topped washstands, cheval mirrors, wooden bed frames, an early record player in an imposing, mahogany case. And there it was. Hidden behind the broken frame of a rocking chair. My chair.

I’ve no idea how old it is. It is in reasonable condition – all the rattan is intact and the cushions have been reupholstered I think. It fits me like a glove. Best of all, the patina on the armrests, where the polish has been rubbed away suggests that this chair has been sat in a lot. I like to think that it was someone’s favourite chair. And now it is mine.

Part of me is loathe to share a good source of second-hand furniture, wanting to keep any potential bargains to myself, but one of the reasons why I started this blog was to share my enthusiasms (of which there are many). So for those who are interested, the furniture warehouse is: Crawford's Salerooms, 250 Leith Walk, Edinburgh. No website.

Belbin is right

2009-10-15T15:25:00.003+01:00

Have any of you done the ‘Belbin team roles’ inventory, which tells you what kind of tasks you are most comfortable with? For example, ‘Co-ordinator’, ‘Implementor’ or ‘Monitor Evaluator’? What is abundantly clear, and I don’t really need to read Belbin to know this, is that I am not a ‘Completer finisher’ (the clue is in the title of the blog). In fact, finishing things, without the motivation of some kind of unavoidable, external imperative, such as the threat of public humiliation, redundancy or death, is very difficult for me.

A great bonding moment was hearing a friend tell me about the time she’d bought green tomatoes in a fit of domestic goddess-like enthusiasm, intending to make green tomato chutney. She took so long to get around to making the chutney, the tomatoes had ripened in the interim. Ah, a woman after my own heart. In the founding spirit of this blog I think an honest post is in order, laying bare and accepting (celebrating?) my long history of enthusiastically taken-up but unfinished projects. I think there is a psychic weight of guilt and self-hatred attached to these things. Occasionally I wonder about throwing them away and releasing myself from the burden. But with the triumph of hope over experience, I still labour under the naïve belief that one day, these things will get finished. So here is the great unfinished projects list (a selection!).

Knitting projects:
This is the most pernicious area of unfinishedness and most sinful because it represents quite a lot of money, the cost of nice yarn being what it is. I’m not even going to mention the collection of balls of wool, bought in various sales for as yet undefined projects that haven’t quite got off the ground. Let’s just look at projects that have taken not only money but my time to get close to completion.

In my cupboard, I have 2 unfinished, hand-knitted cardigans, which have been sitting there for about 4 years (that’s a lie – it’s actually much longer, but I have some pride). To be fair, these are unfinished because they have gone so terribly wrong that I can’t quite work out how to save them, yet I don’t want to admit defeat and throw them out. One cardigan, in a lovely, soft, teal, is a demonstration of the fact that yes, the same yarn from different dye lots can be significantly different in colour, and doesn’t actually represent the bargain it seems to be in the mill shop. What a shame it is to discover this half way through knitting the last piece of a cardigan. I have a vague solution in mind of unravelling both sleeves and re-knitting them, somehow creating a fetching cuff arrangement, using the different colours as accent, but I haven’t quite been able to face it - yet. I haven’t been able to face it for at least 4 years.

The other cardi – a dark green chenille item - is all but ready to sew up. Unfortunately, having been interrupted by circumstances (another lie – not circumstances but apathy and carelessness) I’ve lost the pattern and don’t quite know how the different bits go together. I’ve got baffling, unidentifiable bits of knitting dangling off stitch holders. I think they are pockets and bits of collar but I’m not sure.

Does failure to start count as failure to finish when you’ve bought the project materials? If so, I could include the stunning Debbie Bliss knitting kit which I treated myself to last year and which is still sitting in all its tissue-papered gorgeousness in the cardboard box it arrived in. But, at a year old, this is just a baby of an unfinished project. No urgency there yet.

Embroidery projects:
These represent my greatest failures to finish as well as the most self-delusion in my belief that I will ever get around to finishing them. About 18 years ago, when embroidery was my craft activity of choice, my lovely husband bought me a beautiful embroidery kit: to make a gigantic, antique map of Yorkshire (my home county). The picture on the kit of the finished object is gorgeous and I would really like to have such a thing on my wall. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to do. It involves lots of charts and fiddly bits of different coloured embroidery threads. The most alarming aspect of this kit is that the pattern isn’t printed on the linen. You have to count it off a chart. It is quite easy to go wrong and end up carefully stitching York Minster where Hull docks should be. I’ve lost heart. The embroidery, with my first faltering stitches, is in one of my boxes of broken dreams (i.e. unfinished projects) and has accompanied us on 5 (yep, count ‘em) house moves. But I will not admit defeat and throw it away!

I also have an elegant William Morris design tapestry which is unfinished. The hard bit is complete (for hard, read ‘interesting’), i.e. the intricate design of birds and flowers. There is also great deal of plain, blue stitching still to be done to complete the whole design. A few years ago, in a fit of determination, I dug out the half-finished tapestry and attached it to a tapestry frame. But now the tapestry has been sitting for so long on its frame awaiting my attention that I suspect it has faded slightly. If I ever get around to excavating the blue tapestry wool from its resting place (nestled alongside the Yorkshire embroidery kit) it will be a different colour from the bits I’ve already done. Perhaps I could use it to make some cuffs for that blasted cardigan…

Household projects:
Does anyone else have home-made curtains hemmed ‘for now’ with safety pins? Please tell me I’m not the only one. Or how about these:
· Collections of old prints or maps, picked up cheaply at car boot sales or on foreign holidays, sitting unobserved in a cardboard folder, awaiting framing and hanging.
· Pieces of boring brown furniture bought as ‘shabby chic’ restoration projects, waiting for the time when I will a) make my mind up about the colour of paint to buy, b) buy it and c) sand, paint, distress and varnish said piece of furniture. Don’t hold your breath.
· ‘Family heirloom’ items, such as antique wooden trays and writing cases, inherited in a totally trashed state but because they once had a value, we are (according to my husband) not allowed to get rid of them. Instead we will hold onto them until the mythical time when we will either a) restore them (erm, once we have done a course in restoring wood inlay, or silversmithing?) or b) take them to an antique dealer for valuing (who will tell us to throw them away).
· The ever-multiplying ‘car boot sale’ boxes – full of the junk that even my dear husband can’t pretend is of real value. We have actually managed to do two car boot sales. 14 years ago. We haven’t done one since.
· The ‘mending and alterations’ pile. In these days of economic downturn and eco-motivated thrift, it is surely important not to throw clothes away that just need a few minutes attention with a needle and thread. Instead, pop them in the wardrobe in the spare bedroom for a few weeks/months/years, or until they can be termed ‘vintage’ when you can transfer them to the ‘car boot sale’ box indefinitely. But at least you haven’t just thrown them out.

This is a very long post. It could have been much longer – I haven’t even mentioned the bags of damsons and sloes in the freezer - but I am beginning to feel ever so slightly embarrassed.

Some projects do get finished ... Hic!

Blogs Away!

2009-10-14T16:30:00.003+01:00

Well this is it. I’m finally joining the 21st century. I’ve managed to resist Friends Re-united (remember that!), MySpace , Facebook, Twitter, even MSN. However, reading some fantastic, heartwarming and inspiring blogs (see below!) has convinced me to put a tentative toe into the blogosphere. What strikes me about so many of the blogs I’ve been drawn to is that they celebrate the everyday pleasures of life. They are often very domestic in scale, often linked to cooking and home-making and crafts. They are an expression of gratitude for the little things: a walk in the autumn countryside; a row of pastel, iced buns in a bakery window; the fruit gum colours of a crocheted blanket. I suppose I hope that by joining in, I will increase my own capacity to notice the good things in life. Contentment does not come easy to me but I think it would be a good habit to develop.

Years ago, someone told me this supposedly ‘Zen’ parable:
A Buddhist monk (don’t ask why it is a monk – it’s a Zen parable) is walking through the jungle. He starts to feel as if he is being watched. He glances behind him and sees that he is being stalked by a tiger. He carries on walking and the tiger follows him. Starting to feel anxious (in a kind of accepting, Zen way presumably) the monk starts to walk faster. The tiger keeps up. The monk breaks into a run and the tiger also picks up the pace. Soon, the monk is running for his life, hotly pursued by the tiger. The monk is running so fast, he doesn’t notice he has come to a sheer drop and before he can alter his course he falls over the edge. Luckily, he is able to grab hold of a sapling, growing from the cliff face and this interrupts his fall. So there he is, hanging from a small tree. Far below him, a river racing across boulders and rocks – certain death if he falls. Above him, the tiger, still intent on its prey. The monk then notices that the roots of the sapling are starting to give way and will soon come away from the cliff face. At this point, he notices a small wild strawberry plant growing in a crevice in the rock, bearing a single perfect, red fruit. With one hand, he plucks the strawberry and eats it. And he enjoys it.

I’ve no idea about the provenance or authenticity of this ‘parable’ but it’s always stuck with us. Whenever me and my husband are feeling frazzled or discontented, we try and remind each other to ‘taste the strawberries’ (in between sulking or grumbling at each other of course!). So my intention in starting the blog is to encourage me (and anyone who reads it) to stop and taste the strawberries.

The picture above is my study - and if you look very carefully you can see my windowsill 'garden' - which included a few strawberries this summer.

So why have I called it ‘my half-finished life’ and not ‘taste the strawberries’? Well, it’s a kind of reminder to myself not to get too hooked up on perfection or rather the failed search for perfection. I’ve been thinking about starting a blog for ages, but I kept putting it off because I felt I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t think of a ‘good’ name. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to write about. I wasn’t sure which blogging site to use. I wanted to wait until I’d moved house. Then when I’d moved house, I thought I ought to wait until the house looked better, so I could put in some pretty ‘Cath Kidston’ style photos. Or I wanted to wait until I’d finished some nice craft projects, so I could show them off, which I’ve seen in the blogs I like. Or I wanted to put off starting it until I’d lost weight/dyed my hair/ acquired a more interesting personal style etc. All of which meant I didn’t get on with it. Like so many things in my life. So this blog is also intended as an acceptance of just how half-finished and ‘imperfect’ my life is. But after 45 years on the planet, I’m probably not going to suddenly morph into someone who is good at finishing things, so I might as well enjoy the half-finished things. And even though I am tempted to polish and improve this post or to leave it for a couple of days to ‘finish it’, in the spirit of this blog, I am posting it now.

The only mushroom we saw on our 'fungus foray' in West Calder woods last week. It's about 1 inch tall. Definitely a question of appreciating the 'little things'.