Something a little different today… last night I went to a classical concert in Birmingham at the Symphony Hall. It was fabulous.
They played Beethoven 7th Symphony which was amazing… he is my favourite classical composer and the second movement of this piece is simply magical.
Make yourself a cup of tea and sit down. Give yourself a break for a few minutes.
Enjoy they music.
Just quick one today… crazy week, don’t make me go there, we would all be sorry…
I’ve been meaning to mention these things for ages because I think they’re really good.
Let’s start from the beginning: First, I have a tumble dryer. I love it. My tumble dryer is on a lot (less so in the summer obviously but with three children that play a lot of sports and need kit turned around in 24 hours sometimes… it’s an essential item in the household.
Second, I don’t like softeners No, ok, I ‘like’ them because they make clothes and towels soft, but I don’t ‘like’ them because they leave a sticky residue everywhere, it’s more chemicals in the water and more rubbish, be it the packaging or the leftover sheets thingies etc. I sometimes use a really tiny amount of the liquid ones the washing machines, much less than the recommended dose and mainly only for old towels. And sometimes I use the sheets ones that go in the tumble dryer directly. In the past I’ve tried replacing them with those spiky plastic balls you’re supposed to put in the tumble dryer with your clothes… mmmmhhh me not happy with those… I swear they were too rough and suddenly tee-shirts developed little holes everywhere.
Bad balls.
Enter ‘woolly balls’. Woolly balls are soft and dense and they are kind with my clothes and everything comes out nice and soft. Also, there might be an argument for the the lanoline in the wool… I don’t know. Regardless, I think they’re fabulous.
You can buy them on Amazon, or you can easily make your own, there are hundreds of instructions on google.
I bought only two – who knows why – but I’m going to make another one just because I want to try making one… also mine are rather large, which I think it’s good, when you buy them check the size although if you use more in the drum and they are slightly smaller it wouldn’t matter.
If you’re worried about a red ball in dryer with your whites…don’t. Nothing ever happened to either but if you do make your own make sure your wool is definitively colour fast!
They really help softening up your clothes and I promise you they don’t leave any fluff on them at all. I promise.
AND they are the most wonderfully tactile thing ever. You simply can’t resist touching them and holding them. It’s very weird but then again… I always think wool has that effect on me…
As part of one of my modules this semester we’re briefly discussing the Dymock poets, a literary group of poets that in the years before the First World War lived and worked near the village of Dymock, approx 29 miles from my house. And I had never heard of them. Shame on me. Not only that, but Robert Frost, one of my favourite poets,was a part of this group for a couple of years too… did you know that? That he lived in England I mean…
Anyway, I was reading the poetry collection he published during this time and that really put his name on the map so to speak and discovered some really gorgeous new (to me) poems.
Here’s one. Read it aloud and enjoy the rhythm of the words…
The Wood-Pile (by Robert Frost)
… you know when a bored friend sends you a random email suggesting a random activity and you’re bored too so you accept and the main reason is that because you’re both probably having a middle age existential crisis?
Yes, that.
First of all let me tell you something. I don’t like guns. If it was up to me people would not be allowed to hold guns ‘for personal defence’. Of any type. When it comes to hunting… I’m a little bit more ambivalent.. if you kill for trophy it’s a bit NO NO, if you shoot a couple of pheasants and then make a gorgeous pheasant pie… why would that be different from eating a piece of a cow that someone else has butchered? Also why is it worse shooting a bird dead from the sky than hooking a fish from the water? Are birds more sensitive than fish? It is a HUGE subject and I’m absolutely too knackered to tackle it this morning on only one cup of coffee.
BUT I don’t really see a problem in shooting clay discs out of the sky, or shooting at a paper target etc. It may sound hypocritical … and it probably is in certain respects..
Anyway, back to our day out: it was soon much fun!
It helped that is was a glorious day and we were in a gorgeous location near the Malvern Hills, at South Worcester Shooting Ground where BASC had organised a ‘Ladies Shooting Day’ to encourage more women to participate to the sport.
We got split into groups of 6 and allocated an instructor; we got lucky and got Becky who is the local instructor at the grounds and is absolutely brilliant. Patient and knowleadgable and super nice.
A lot of the lesson was – obviously – about safety and security. You don’t want to willy nilly hand rifles to a bunch of peri-menopausal women an let them loose, right? We were there to shoot ‘clays’ (discs made of pulverised limestone that are actually very friable. There are ‘organic/and biodegradable’ clays out there which are becoming more and more popular, but although the ones we shot weren’t, they weren’t made of plastic either), which looked like this:
(although in the name of honesty… the ones we attempted to shoot down were a little bigger…)
That’s me aiming at the little black speckle in front of me.
I destroyed quite a few, suprising myself, especially because my dominant eye didn’t match the shoulder/side I was comfortable shooting on so I had to close it but I can’t wink so I had to cover my glasses with masking tape AND the eye that I was left with was the bad one… it’s never simple.
Say no more.
We had a gorgeous buffet lunch with lots of game pies and home baked bread and pates…
All in all a fabulous day. I highly recommend it.
… and that’s me, this is not a very late post about the boys going back to school… no it’s me. I’m going back to school. School as in college… I am officially an undergraduate student at the local university and let me tell you, it feels exhilarating and absolutely terrifying at the same time.
You know how much I love books and it goes without saying that I’ve always wanted to study English Lit. ‘The first time I went to uni… many many years ago, for some reason or other I chose a different path, but the thought was always at the back of my head. Then life took over… work, children, blah blah… so I just kept the fire alive by reading as much as I could and channel my love of learning into all sorts of other endeavours, mainly the of crafting variety, easier to fit around the day to day.
Recently I’ve been looking at Universities and courses with No 1, who’s coming of age very soon, and the fire started to burn a little brighter.
And then the stars aligned.
A day an email later I was sitting in a seminar room discussing an essay by Sartre.
Crazy.
But brilliant.
But crazy.
And the funny thing is I’m doing it in exactly the same place I got my first degree 23 years ago… except this time I’m older than my lecturers. And the students could all be my children. What do they think of me? Do they think I’m ridiculous? Why do I bother? and I have no idea if my brain still works that way either… Am I wearing the right clothes? Do I need a rucksack? or can I get away with my big brown leather bag? I have always used legal yellow paper to write my notes… will they think that’s stupid? Will they think I’m too keen?
I don’t know how things will pan out around here on the blog either. I’m only a part time student but life was busy enough before… let’s just say the ‘making’ time might be a little reduced… we’ll see. If you’re still interested I’ll take you on my journey with me.
And now if you’ll excuse me I have a ton of reading to do…
I had never heard of sticky toffee pudding before coming to England and because I’ve always been a chocolate girl it took me years to try it; that was a gross error of judgment. It makes me sad to think of all the delicious puddings I’ve missed out on through the years.
There are thousands of recipes out there, claiming to be the best ever sticky toffee pudding recipe… or the easiest… or the most healthy… yeah those one especially make me laugh, it’s TOFFEE pudding people… that means sugar and butter and well… you know where I’m going with that…
If you want healthy make fruit salad… and come back another day… this is not for the faint hearted. I blame my friend Mrs C for this evil recipe.
It’s super easy, has never let me down and its perfect for dinner parties when you need to get things ready in advance and don’t want to leave the table for too long (and miss all the fun!), the only thing you need to do is warm up the sauce and serve, which you can do whilst sipping wine and looking the part of the gracious part of the ‘effortless’ host that you are. Of course.
Let’s get going, first warm up your oven to 180C or 350F, and oil 8 non stick ramekins really well with groundnut oil. Don’t miss this step thinking the non-stick coating will suffice. You’ve been warned.
for the puddings:
3oz of butter at room temperature
5oz of caster sugar
6oz of chopped, pitted dates
2 large eggs lightly beaten
6oz of self-raising flour (sifted)
6 fl oz of boiling water
1/2tsp of vanilla essence
2tsp of coffee essence
3/4tsp of baking soda
Place the chopped dates in a bowl with the hot water, add the vanilla and coffee essence and then the baking soda. Leave to one side.
In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar till pale and fluffy, gradually add the beaten eggs beaten well after each addition.
Carefully and slowly fold in the sifted flour with a metal spoon and when it’s all mixed well add the dates mixture.
The batter will be very wet and quite frankly sloppy, it’s fine, that’s exactly what you want.
Divide the mixture equally between the 8 oiled ramekins and place on a baking sheet and into the preheated oven for 25 minutes.
Leave for 5 minutes to cool slightly after they’re cooked and then carefully slide a knife around them an remove to let them cool down completely (or eat the straight away)
When it’s time to serve them I warm them in the over for a while, usually whilst we’re having the main course. (not too hot an oven… you don’t want to dry them out)
for the sauce:
6oz of brown sugar
4oz of butter
6tbs double cream
1oz chopped pecan
Put all the ingredients in a sauce and slowly melt stirring constantly. You can do this straight away and warm the sauce just before serving or place all the ingredients in a saucepan and prepare it whilst the puddings re-heat. It makes no difference.
I always make double quantity of the sauce too, which sounds insane… but the most disappointing thing is to ran out of sauce … trust me, I’ve been there and it’s gutting.
Pour rivers of hot sauce (and pouring cream AND/OR vanilla ice-cream ) and … buon appetito.
You’ll never look back.
Fall, Leaves, Fall (by Emily Bronte)
… avocados and fire service… is there a link I hear you asking yourselves.. read on, my friends, read on.
For the past couple of days I’ve been experimenting with dyeing fabric and wool with avocado skins and pits. I put aside a couple of items, a linen top, a skein of dk wool, a strip of muslin for a scarf. On the first day I scoured all the fabric items with soda ash, then I soaked them overnight in an alum bath and yesterday I got out the huge bag of skins and pits that was taking over my fridge and got to the fun part.
First up the wool. Because of the high tanning content of the avocado I read that there was no need to mordant the wool… we’ll see how colour fast it is in a few months but for now.. ta daaaaaaa
the dreamiest, creamiest of pale pinks.
Then I dipped the linen top in another bath (the wool had only pits) with only avocado skin to see if there was a difference, but there wasn’t really.
The colour is slightly mottled here and there but I like that. I’m wearing it today and love it. I feel it has more soul, which is totally bizarre … clothes with souls? … but yes, I’m feeling it.
All the avocados I used were the ones with the very dark skin… I wonder if i’d have got a deeper colour with the green skin avocados.
And the scarf?
Well, the scarf was dipped into the dye bath after dinner last night… slow heat, extra skins because I was looking for a darker colour…
… and then I forgot all about it… I mean… completely forgot… so that when the fire alarm started going off at 4.05am I just couldn’t work out what the smell and smoke were all about… I mean… the kitchen door was shut and there was nothing in the oven or on the cooker, right? It was only when Mr M asked me if I’d left a candle on downstairs then I remembered.
It wasn’t a candle… but rather a charred scarf and a whole bunch of burnt avocado and pits in a now defunct pot.
Oh man the smell…
I took the ‘thing’ outside, open all the window and then had to face two very bemused firemen (actually one was a very sweet firewoman) who couldn’t understand why would anyone ‘cook’ avocado with fabric.
So at 4.32am i stood in the basement kitchen in my nightgown explaining avocado dyeing and dying of embarrassment. Seriously… what a waste of their time, right?
Mr M is not too pleased with me at all, the house stinks of smoke (any suggestions for getting rid of the stench PLEASE… we have all the windows open and I’m going around dusting all the surfaces and next I’ll hoover the carpet but it’s a really cloying smell, sticks to the back of your throat, and we have people for dinner tonight…) and I feel really bad. And sleep deprived. And an idiot.
And the scarf is ruined.
First love, last rites by Ian McEwan
This is the debut publication of Mr McEwan, a collection of ‘interesting’ short stories.
Well, well, well… where should we start?
Uncomfortable, that’s the first word that comes to mind, but then again his writing is never ‘cozy’ or feel good, but this was a very uncomfortable read.
Incest, murder, rape, violence, perversity, dysfunctional families, broken down society. Tense, lyrical, brooding, atmospheric, horrific, mundane and terrifying. I’m not going into any specific story but trust me… they’re not for the faint hearted.
I had always heard that Ian McEwan was capable of all that and in all the books I’d read of him he always made me uneasy (I’m talking of Enduring love and Chesil Beach for example)… but I still think he’s an absolute genius when it comes to writing. Would I have read anything else of him if I’d got to these stories first? In all honesty probably not.
I closed the book after the last page and stared at the wall for ages… I just didn’t know what to think? Why did he write them? Was his aim simply to shock? to mark his entrance in the literary world? I don’t know. I am not really sure what was going on in the publishing world in the middle of the 70s… I’m sure that context has to be taken into consideration…
Have you read it? What did you think?
Two quilts in one month… you could be forgiven for thinking this is a quilting blog like it used to be in the good old days!
Anyway, this is a commission, and like all commission it’s a bit scary because… well… what if the person doesn’t like it? what if I misunderstood what they’re after…
The pale colours are very different from what I normally work with but surprisingly I loved the challenge of this scheme.
It was actually quite a restful experience working with pale blues and sage and gold…
I took a gamble on the fabric for the reverse… I don’t know what it is, I remember buying it years ago in Purl Soho in New York… I still love it but it was time to let it go to a good home.
Yes, I enjoyed this one a lot.
I’ve got another two in the pipeline and I just heard my cousin is expecting a little girl… bring it on!
while you're ahead... 