The Kitchen Bitch Ponders

Restless

2012-01-26T20:43:00.000Z

Not my garden, sadly.

Like a wasp at the bins of an amusement park cafe who can see a can of Raid on the windowsill, I buzz but don't dive in.

The research assistant position is mine. It involves interviewing eleven students for an hour apiece and then transcribing those interviews. Having worked in recruitment for a number of years the first part shouldn't be too difficult once I've dealt with the rust. The second part, one of my bosses was at pains to point out, will be arduous. Hours of listening, rewinding, straining, and typing. But he gave me some tips and I expect it will be fine once I get used to it. Time consuming but rather interesting. Next week I'll do a practice interview on a willing student, and then begin in earnest. So I have a week of utter freedom.

From my list of 'really want to dos' I'm at liberty to choose. But which one?

I would like to tackle my manuscript and begin the rewrite. I've been itching to do this for a while, but I know I'll need absolute isolation. If I do this I will do nothing else. I'll have to be able to utterly immerse myself in the task, and I fear a week won't be long enough. Time enough to read the thing and make a few notes, though. Should I do that, make a start?

I'd also like to get on with my Burma Book. Dig out the notes I made when visiting my aunt last summer, make the dishes she taught me, take photos, write more notes, before it all becomes a haze. Also, I'd like to have a mini version done by the end of May for a particular purpose I can't tell about just incase a particular person reads this.

And I'd like to work on my photographic post-processing skills – or lack thereof – in Lightroom. I'd also like to read the dozen or so books that have piled up on my kindle. And bake a coffee cake. And finish the few small jobs left in the bathroom (I still haven't chosen flooring, and there's a bit of grouting that needs to be seen to).

The garden needs some attention. The kitchen floor is crying out for a fresh coat of paint. This room is beginning to resemble a junk-shop again.

Ice-cream, cheeseburger, ketchup coated chips, jelly tots, iced bun, chocolate coated melting moment...

The Shrinking of the List

2012-01-25T02:07:00.000Z

Today I completed the last of my 'for other people' tasks. Teaching over, I provided feedback on the last student story, and emailed it to her immediately, before I felt compelled to read it again and add to my comments. Jobs like this could go on indefinitely if I allowed them to.

And I, finally, finished editing the images from an overlarge, overindulgent, photo shoot.

Our local blacksmith plans to clean up the front portion of his workshop and turn it into a showroom for the stoves he sells. So he asked me, through Stevie, if I'd take some photos before he does so. Yes, I said, I'd love to. The place is astonishing, filled with all sorts of tools and boxes, old signs and crates. Buried amongst the drill bits I was sure I'd find the very story of blacksmithing. How could I say no?

But I'm no professional photographer, I'm just a woman with a camera who likes stories, so off I went with my non-professional camera, a tripod, and one light, and snapped away for about three or four hours. It wasn't until I uploaded the shots to my computer and looked at them that I thought, 'shit!'

It's taken me over a month to go through them all and decide on which ones to give him and which to discard. I'm crap at post production, photoshop fills me with dread, so apart from a little cropping and lightening/darkening if a photo isn't any good when it comes off the camera there's nothing I can do to save it. The other problem is I worry that the story in my head, and that comes out in my shots, isn't the same as the story in anyone else's. I worry that the photos I take will be boring for everyone else. So one of the reasons it took me so long to edit this batch was that I spent hours staring at each one wondering if this is what he, the customer wants. That I haven't asked for anything in return, let alone money, doesn't render an affirmative answer to that question any less important. I really don't want to give him a pile of disappointing images. But what can I do, the photos I took are the photos I took?

Now my 'other people' tasks are done I am free to do my 'me' tasks. Though tomorrow (actually today now I see the time) I have a meeting at the university about a research assistant position that has come up. If they feel I can do it, and I feel I can do it this free time will be short. While it lasts I'll come and read as many of your blogs as I possibly can, and finish my book (that's the one I'm reading, not the one I'm writing which will have to wait a little longer).

P.S. Did you hear that Pure by Andrew Miller, which I read during my book a day challenge (see last post) and loved, has just won the Costa?

Wordly Wallow

2012-01-18T20:25:00.000Z

Early last week I stumbled upon Goodreads, a website dedicated to reading. I suppose it's a bit like Facebook in that it's a bit social, a bit networky, only its purpose is more particular. I haven't fully explored it yet, and I probably never will, but I've joined and begun the ride. It appealed to me because I can never remember what I've read and, thus, have a tendency to buy the same books twice, or even three times. I'll start reading and think: "this seems familiar." And Goodreads allows you to see, once you've input them, all the books you have read, and all the ones you want to read. I could, in theory, do that anyway by a) looking at my shelves or kindle, and b) writing out a list, but lists get misplaced and, well, it takes more than a glance at my shelves to show me what I've read. So I joined Goodreads for no other reason than to keep track of my reading.

Then I discovered that it has the facility to allow you to set yourself a challenge to read a certain number of books a year. I've never, ever, considered how many books I read in a year. I know only that some years I read a lot, and other years I read bugger all. But I'm trying to take myself in hand and live with a bit more purpose. It's all very well being spontaneous. Lovely, in fact, when one is young and has all the time in the world. However it gets less lovely when one reaches my age and finds the most spontaneous thing one manages, on a regular basis, is to have an extra biscuit with a cup of tea. So I set my challenge to read a hundred books this year. If I – spontaneously – read more, all well and good.

Last Wednesday I, rather spontaneously, decided to try and read a book a day for a week. I'd read of the death of George Whitman, owner of the luscious Shakespeare and Company in Paris, and remembered the story about how he takes in aspiring writers who need a place to stay. They can live in the shop, sleeping on makeshift beds amongst the books, as long as they read a book a day. When I first read about that I thought it impossible. I couldn't imagine being able to do anything else if I was to try and read a whole book every single day. But on Wednesday I wondered if it was more a skill that with practise one could hone. Why not give it a go? I thought. So I did. I only sort of managed it.

On Wednesday I read

without too much trouble, though having not begun until 10 o'clock I didn't finish it till about 4 o'clock on Thursday morning.

On Thursday I intended to read

but

arrived in the post. I didn't actually order if for myself, it's a gift, but I read it anyway. In about ten minutes. I began Pure at my usual time of much too bloody late, and when at about half past four on Friday morning I was still only half way through I convinced myself that having read the Michael Rosen I had done my reading duty for that day and went to bed.

On Friday we went to a concert, and I did mean to come home early and finish the Miller. But that didn't happen. I got back at about 2am and, although I did pick up my Kindle, switch it on, and stare at the words, I couldn't focus. So I went to bed. This meant on Saturday I was under a bit of pressure, not to mention tired and faintly hungover (the concert had ended in the pub). But by dedicating the entire day to reading (I didn't even get dressed) I did finish Pure and immediately begin

which I didn't finish that night.

On Sunday I had to rethink: I hadn't read a book a day but could I save myself from utter failure? I finished the Joan and picked up

which I did finish before going to bed. Hurrah! On Monday I read

Couldn't find a good sized picture of this one.

which was lovely. And, finally, on Tuesday I read

which was quite a lesson.

So I didn't manage to read a book a day – so much for spontaneity! – but did read seven books in a week. Whether that means I failed is, I suppose, a matter of perspective.

Did I enjoy this week of wallowing in literature? Yes, but I don't think I'll do it again. When I read I often stop and stare into space for a while, and it's not for some time after reading a book that I begin to know what it was all about. Reading one book after another robbed me of the space to process those books. The time to stop and let the images come alive. I could tell you, sketchily, what they were about but not much more. It was more like racing than reading, more about the challenge than the books, and I'll probably have to read them all again if I want to really know them. From now on I'll try for two books a week.

Because I'd already read three books this year I'm now ahead of schedule with regard my target, which is slightly worrying. There is nothing more likely to scupper target reaching than complacency, and nothing more likely to instill complacency than being ahead. Whenever I feel I can do something I relax, often to such a degree that I fail to accomplish it. So we'll see. I have a book a friend lent me that I haven't got round to reading yet, the pressure to return it to her is building up, so I'll start that tonight.

Goodreads, then, I like it so far and recommend it to those of you who, like me, could do with a bit of bookish organization.

2012-01-10T20:44:00.000Z

Mandolin and Guitar, Picasso

Music, argued Nietzsche, is the purest form of art. I think I've read something similar from Picasso and a number of other artists: they would make music, they say, if they could. But they don't have the talent so they paint, write, sculpt. Why "purest"?

No doubt theorists have discussed this to death. I don't want to join them here: research definitions of art and postulate dryly. I just want to feel it. I have seen paintings that stir something physical and make me feel more alive, but music is the only art form that makes me want to dance. I love it, yet I rarely listen to it because when I do I can't concentrate on anything else.

I can't hold a conversation when there's music playing; I can't cook, or read, or write. I can clean the house, so when I remember I put my iPod in a pocket and attach headphones. I can run to music so I do get to listen, and move, to it for an hour most days. On the whole, though, I live a fairly musicless existence. Or did.

There was a time when I was a regular clubber. We lived in Glasgow for a while and there were lots of places a person who likes to dance could go. So I did. I went with a friend, she had different reasons for going to clubs, but that was fine. She would get on with her thing and I would make my way to the dance floor and stay there till the lights came on. Then I'd go home, my friend having long since found what she thought she was looking for and left. For the next few days my life as a young housewife and mother would seem less mundane. My head would be clearer. I'd feel brighter. That was twenty years ago, and it's been a long time now since I've danced regulalry. I'm not sure if that's to do with age or living in the country, there are no clubs here, no dancing opportunities. But if I lived in a city would I still go?

Three Dancers, Picasso

Probably not. In a place full of twenty-somethings I'd feel inappropriate, and as for those over forty nights my experience has been that they're full of desperate men:

"Can I buy you a drink?"
"No thank you."
"Oh go on, it's just a drink."
"It is, but I don't want one."
"You've been dancing for ages, you must be thirsty."
"It's very kind of you, but, no, I'm not."
"Are you a lesbian or something?"
"I don't think so. Do lesbians not get thirsty?"
"Don't get smart with me!"
"Do apologise."
"Come on, let me buy you a drink. Where are you going?"
"To dance."
"One drink?"
"Look," I say, waving my left hand.
"Well, what the fuck are you doing in here?"
"Dancing."
"You're leading people on."
"How?"
"A woman on her own. Where's you're husband?"
"He's at home."
"Does he know where you are?"
"Of course."
"Is he an idiot?"
"Oh, for god's sake! I came here to dance, because I like it. Dance, not drink, not chat. Now, go away."
"Fucking lesbian."
Why does a certain type of man think that's an insult? They seem to be saying: "you want to have sex with the same type of people I do, you freak!"

I do feel I'm being unfair because, in truth, those places aren't about music but about coupling, and being already coupled I don't belong. My clubbing, and thus dancing, days are over. My days of rising with music, though, aren't over at all.

I have found that being in the presence of live music, played by talented musicians who love it, utterly vivifying. I can sit still, listen, watch, and become myself. I've known this for a while but haven't had access.

A few years ago a couple of local musicians started practising on a Thursday night in one of the town's pubs. Word got round and others joined them. They gained an audience. Now on any given Thursday evening the Black Bull jumps. Musicians from far and wide come to join in, sometimes you can't get in to the room because there are so many people with instruments. Guitars, fiddles, accordions, pipes and whistles, last Thursday there was a chap with a double bass. It was fab.

I popped in after our writing class with a couple of my students, we sat in the back-room because there were no seats in the main one and one of us (let's call her Ingrid) can't stand for long. As we chatted I tried to zone out the music so it wouldn't distract me for fear of seeming rude. But once or twice I was grabbed by the sound and had to jump up and go to watch. And when I went to get more drinks I hung about listening for a little longer than was probably polite. When I went out for a fag, ditto. Then Ingrid left so Rosie and I, happy to stand, went into the main room to enjoy the full experience. She knows everyone so we chatted to a few people, but mostly we just listened, and watched. And I wondered if watching a painter paint would be just as enlivening. I'm pretty sure watching a writer write wouldn't.

At one point one of the guitar players walked past with a couple of CDs, and as I'd heard he and his musical partner had just released one, I quizzed him. And then, panning for pounds in the coppery soil of my purse, managed to scrape up the eight quid to pay for the joy of bringing their sound back to my house.

Later, when everyone had left, and I was getting my coat on, the last in the bar, Dave, who I'd bought the disc from came in and said: "Eryl, are you coming?" I thought he meant they wanted to lock up, so I wrapped my scarf around me and followed.

There was a whole crowd outside, and as I emerged they started to move off. I could see Rosie up ahead. I must have looked puzzled because a nice chap came and walked beside me and talked about the evening. On we went up one road and then another before turning into my own.
"Here it is." Said the friendly man.
There was Rosie: "I'm just going to get a CD, he didn't have any more on him."

That made sense. Dave, whose house it was came to the door: "Ah, come in!"
I hesitated, as I had no instrument, like the man who walked beside me, and I already had my CD.
"Eryl, come in."
So I went in, and there was the double bass in the hall, and there was the double bass player making a mug of tea. And there was someone else rummaging in the freezer for vodka. And there was a glass of red wine pressed into my hand. And there was a chair by a bookcase, and a gesture made to sit.

So I sat, and for the next few hours listened to them play, and discovered what Nietzsche meant.

For Weaver

2012-01-05T01:32:00.000Z

I've lived in rural Scotland for fifteen years, though I hail from grimy semi-urban south-east England. When I first arrived here I thought: "Oh, how lovely, how beautiful, how fresh and green and natural!" And then didn't know what to do. It was a bit like looking at a Constable painting through a steamed-up lens, it didn't do anything, it just sat there looking green and pleasant. So for years I would drive up to Glasgow or Edinburgh on an almost daily basis for all sorts of odd, manufactured reasons. The real reason, that I just needed to stew in some dereliction, felt ungrateful.

Reverse parking into a space two fingers bigger than my car while other drivers sounded their horns impatiently made me feel at home. The acrid smell of the previous night's drinkers' bladder contents drying under a graffitied bridge, ditto. Truth is, beyond admiring its general prettiness, and air untainted by fuming taxis, I couldn't see the point of the countryside. And, anyway, I love the smell of diesel. But then I was paid a visit here in my virtual kitchen by the Weaver of Grass. And, as I was politely brought up, I paid her a visit back, and found myself in deepest Yorkshire.

Weaver is a woman who knows the country intimately, and understands all its layers. She loves it for what it is, and she has shown me, if not quite how to love it, how to appreciate it. How to look at it, listen to it, smell it: see it and feel it in other words. If you haven't done so read this post, in a few short paragraphs it evokes the drama of rural life. Wild, vivid, visceral, it's every bit as grimy and harsh as my beloved run-down city peripheries.

So, anyway, the point of all this is to explain why I'm posting the two following shots. Weaver asked to see more of the paintings (comments, 2 posts back) and this is my way of saying thank you to her.

This first is a painting by my sister-in-law, Sue Shields. It's of Goat Fell on the Isle of Arran (about 25 miles off the Ayrshire coast), and I inherited it.

When my mother-in-law died I was asked to choose anything I'd like from her house, and one of the things I chose was this painting. It had been at the top of the stairs in that house for years and it was always the first thing I noticed when the front door was opened on visits. So I began to associate it with my in-laws' cheery welcomes: the end of long, droning car trips and the start of idle summer breaks. Stuck in traffic on the M6, sweating in my un-airconditioned banger, or inching along the M1 it would seep into my mind like sea air. In fact, we only had to arrange a visit and I would see the painting grinning down at me from its spot on the landing wall. So when it had to vacate that spot I knew I had to take it in. Now it's in my work-room and whenever I glance up at it I am reminded of rolling up tired and hungry, knocking on a glossy green door, and seeing my in-laws beaming with joy at the sight of their grandson (and his parents!) on their doorstep.

This painting is by Bea Last (I think that's her name). I bought it at an open studio event and I think it's called Fire Walk II – though it may be III, and it may be bath. I don't really care what it's called, its title is not what I bought. What I bought is a bit of Bea Last and her dynamic studio. I may not remember her name correctly but I do remember her. Or, at least, her energy and vitality. There was something about her and her workspace that made me feel extra alive. And there was something about the story of the series of paintings this one comes from that made me have to bring one home. Don't ask me what that story is, I can't remember. But whenever I look at the painting I see her with her amazing mane of dark gypsy hair and strong hands walking through fire as if it is no more than a stiff breeze, and I feel a little stronger myself, and able to get on with the damn task. Which is what I have to do now.

I have a pile of exam papers to mark, so I'll be on the quiet side for a few days, but I will be back. This isn't going to be one of those extended breaks I'm prone to.

PS please excuse the fuzziness of both these photographs, it's been so dark today that I just couldn't fully focus.

Update: it's brighter today, so I retook the shots and have had slightly better results, the colours are truer, so I've now replaced the fuzzy ones with brighter ones.

2012-01-01T18:24:00.003Z

My friend Katy, a brilliant young writer and philosopher, posted a quote on Facebook this morning and I like it so much I thought I'd share it with you.

Neil Gaiman's New Year Wish:

"I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes.

Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You're doing things you've never done before, and more importantly, you're Doing Something.

So that's my wish for you, and all of us, and my wish for myself. Make New Mistakes. Make glorious, amazing mistakes. Make mistakes nobody's ever made before. Don't freeze, don't stop, don't worry that it isn't good enough, or it isn't perfect, whatever it is: art, or love, or work or family or life.

Whatever it is you're scared of doing, Do it.

Make your mistakes, next year and forever."

It says what I tried to say in my post yesterday, and so much better.

Christmas kindling

A couple of days ago I looked at the pile of paper sticks I'd made for kindling and thought it looked a bit Christmas treeish, so I placed some pine cones on it (thanks for those, Mary) and plonked a star on top. And it collapsed into a non treeish heap. Not a glorious mistake but, for me, a new one.

Happy, Jolly, Splendid

2011-12-31T16:31:00.000Z

Just to say I hope the coming year brings you many little joys, and at least one strength increasing challenge, so that at the end of it you can look back and think "I did good!" XXXXXXXXX

Resolve

2011-12-28T00:39:00.000Z

I came across this quotation from Morton Feldman (who I meant to google, knowing nothing of him, but forgot) somewhere on the internet.

So I stamped it in my journal (with Christmas gift stamping kit!) and pondered.

I don't need to pursue anxiety, it follows me around like a starving dog. So, I'm lucky, I have plenty of material for my art. I just need to stroke it, and maybe give it a sausage, and then get to work.

I'm thinking of advertising my services as a cleaning lady as I need to earn money but want to keep my mind free to work on the second draft of my novel. New Year's Resolution #1: get the bloody book back on track.

I need to get my second book properly underway, too, so that's NYR #2, and learn Latin. I have a teach yourself book somewhere, NYR #3: locate it and spend half an hour a day on it. I wonder if half an hour's enough?

Stevie doesn't think I'll make it as a cleaner because my marketing skills are impossibly bad. But I'm not sure much more than a card in the newsagent's window is required. Of course, that might be because my marketing skills are impossibly bad.

Fairy Lights

2011-12-21T23:09:00.001Z

Today in this the northern hemisphere is the shortest day, in terms of light. The darkest day of the year. Tomorrow will be lighter, and it will, daily, continue to get lighter and lighter, warmer and warmer, for six whole months. At first it won't feel any ligher, and it may be even colder tomorrow, but we will have the sun for a little longer. And so it will go. By February it will be noticeable, and I'll start saying things like: "blimey, it's still light and it's six o'clock!" I love February for that.

One of the benefits of being this age is experience: I know the light will return because it has done so for all of my (fifty) years. Dark may insinuate it's way into my life until it becomes a wall I can't get through or over, but all I need do is look back at all the other walls I have made it past, and not lose hope. It's not always easy to hang on to hope – I often need to manufacture it, and I guess that's one of the reasons we have Christmas: it gives us something to look forward to in the gloom – but it is possible, with a little help. I've just read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and it was exactly the illumination I needed.

I have never experienced anything as cold and dark as the inhabitants of Guernsey did during WW2. I've never suffered long term starvation, or feared for my life, once, let alone daily for five years. And I never had to make a decision about whether to send my child away for his own safety, and then having decided to do so (wisely in hindsight) lost contact with him (and the whole of the outside world) for five years. How must it have felt to not know how one's child is faring, if s/he is alive or dead, healthy or sick? Every day must have felt interminable and barely tenable. My reading was halted at that part by, not just tears, convulsions. I had to take several deep breaths before I could continue. Yet those people, mothers, fathers, grandparents, kept going and, mostly, survived; their children came home, and light returned. I felt much better after reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

We have reached the bottom of the wintry abyss and all we have to do is hang on to hope in order to rise back up to the top. For this I think I'm going to need a lot of books, so if anyone has any light infusing recommendations I'd be very grateful.

Something for the Armoire

2011-12-17T23:03:00.000Z

As I said two posts ago, the room in my head so recently vacated by two of my teaching jobs is large and echoey, and not unlike this:

Source: http://fibreciment.deviantart.com/art/LALM-09-124470018?q=gallery%3Afibreciment&qo=161

As you can see, other members of the dispossessed have been in and sprayed the walls with their secret messages. A stray dog wanders in from time to time, but never stays. A tramp poked his head in the door the other day and asked me if I needed anything. He could spare some change, he said, for a cup of tea. I said, thank you, but once I get the stove

Source: http://thecroft.wordpress.com/2007/01/

lit I'd make some. He was welcome to stay and have a cup, I told him, but he snorted and left. Maybe he was a Twinings man.

Anyway, I'm beginning to feel more at home here, I dragged an armoire off a skip, gave it a lick of paint, and already the echoes have quietened.

Last night, whilst dozily blog browsing I popped into Monica's , briefly joined in the chat about what to do with ideas, and happily left with something (to flog the metaphor to death) to place on a shelf in the armoire. I think it might be fine French linen.

Regular readers of this blog will know I keep a journal, I've banged on about it on several occasions, it's mostly filled with whinings of the "I'm not writing..." sort. Monica doesn't keep a journal, but she does keep a notebook specially for ideas. This keeps them safe for possible future realization. Mmm...

I tend to scribble ideas on my wall, along with lesson plans, to-dos, and all number of other things. But they get wiped off before I ever get a chance to realise them, to make room, often enough, for new ideas. I could single out one of the huge number of note books that lurk, dustily, around this room and use it for the job, but I know myself well enough to know I won't use it regularly. My ideas usually resemble fleshless pinkie bones when they first appear, not really worth writing down on paper.

As I was leaving a comment on Monica's post it suddenly struck me: all I need do to safeguard ideas that may in the future be useful (fleshable), not to mention to-dos that have yet to be done, is take a snap of the wall before each wiping. Or, better still, every morning. This means when I get a new idea and need to jot it down before it evaporates I'll be able to clear a space for it without having to stop and find my camera. Which, lets face it, I'm unlikely to be bothered to do. So that's that then: every morning when I sit down with a cup of tea at my desk I will pick up my camera and take a shot of my wall. Here's the first one (be prepared to get very tired of this):

As you can see there's bugger all on it. And some of it's been there a while. I hope this will change as I retake possession of my head-space.

I wonder if I'll be able to bring myself to wipe these names off now I know they'll be safely stored in a snap-shot? They were the first things I scrawled all those years ago because I was writing a lot of short stories (for my degree), and I kept calling all my characters Lucy.

I don't write short stories any more, so I don't really need them, but, I don't know, there's something of the cenotaph about them which attracts me.

So, recap, a little corner of my head-space is now cosy with the idea to take a photo of my wall every morning, and then wipe it clean. Or, should I wipe it? That could make me anxious to fill it just for the next shot, which isn't really the point.

Hugo

2011-12-11T00:34:00.001Z

I hadn't been to the cinema for ages, and I love films. But not having a tv or radio I rather relied on Bob (womb fruit) to keep me informed of what was on. Now he's gone off to become himself without parental interference I have no clue. However, when I logged on to Twitter for the Foyles Friday book game my eyes fell on a tweet from TED about Hugo. I can't remember what it said but whatever it was diverted my attention from the game and sent me off to find out more. And yesterday we went to see it.

God it was good. It's about secrets, and purpose; losing, finding, hiding, revealing. It's beautifully realised: the colours, the sounds, even the way the characters move contribute to the story. As I sat and watched I was a child again, transported to a more colourful world for a couple of hours. I cried, I laughed, I gasped.

Set in 1930s Paris it's about an orphaned boy (Hugo) whose guardian – uncle Claude (Ray Winstone) – a station clock setter has disappeared. Hugo lives in the station and tends to the clocks while he waits for his uncle to return. While he waits he attempts to continue a task his father had begun before his death: fix an old, rusted automaton and find the key to make it work once more. He feeds himself by snaffling croissants, and does his best to avoid the station inspector (played brilliantly by Sasha Baron Cohen) who has a passion for sending stray children to the orphanage. Then one day he is caught trying to steal a clockwork mouse by the toy booth owner, Papa Georges... Hugo, I'd say, is about as perfect a Christmas film as I've seen in years, and it has set a seasonal tone to the weekend which I hope to eek out a little longer.

As luck would have it today is the last farmers' market before Christmas, thankfully it's neither raining, snowing, or blowing. So I'm off to see if Alison has any chutneys that might spruce up cold goose; what chocolate confections Dennis has to give as gifts, and if that nice smoked trout man has anything left (he tends to sell out early) to brighten the between Christmas and New Year table. I'm hoping the cheese lady is there too, and the man who makes delicious coconut fudge, not his only flavour but my current favourite. While I'm there I'll see if I can uncover a story or two.

Industrial space

2011-12-05T18:09:00.001Z

A friend told me recently that she had started her bucket list, I had to ask what that was. I think I will start one too, there are so many things about which I used to say "one day...", but I am beginning to feel that I have been flung past that day. If I don't make some plans, and implementation intentions, I'll find myself on my deathbed thinking "bugger!"

How cheery of me, first post in a month and I'm writing about death. Do apologise.

I seem to have been caught up in a whorl of work: teaching two community writing classes, and a textual analysis class to first year undergraduates at the local university campus. I love teaching but it takes up all the space in my head, so I get on with the rest of life rather like an ant. Now, though, two of the classes have finished and I should be back to normal, but that space, vacated, resembles a derelict warehouse. There's mould on the walls, a few broken panes, and a twisted tree growing in a corner. It needs a lick of paint, a few pictures on the wall, some heating. It's terribly echoey, and I've been wandering around it for the last week afraid to speak because my voice bounces back to me at an unholy volume. It needs furniture and rugs for absorption. I need to write again.

So, back to blogging: the cognitive equivalent of a huge armoire.

That's all I can think of to say for now, so here's a photo taken this morning from my bedroom window.

Tomorrow I'll see if I can find a little something to put in the armoire, even if it's only a stained tea towel.

First light

2011-11-06T18:46:00.000Z

I have essays to mark. So, naturally, this seems like the perfect time to show you the newest addition to our family: a stove for burning wood (and coal). Installed in my work-room due to the prohibitive cost of mainstream fuel (gas, electricity) and my tendency to shut down when the temperature drops below 30º. Not only does it keep me more than warm enough (woollens have had to be removed!), its surface is hot enough to activate an espresso pot and heat milk to frothing temperature. No more electric kettle for me, not more gas ring, no more microwave: my staple latte can now be made without using any extra energy. I feel so green. Later in the week I hope to make a casserole on it.

Some photos (in the wrong order, really):

First cup of stove coffee.

This morning's coffee brewing (Stevie bought me the pot yesterday).

First fire, made by Derek (who installed it) to show me how to light and 'cure' it.

As Promised

2011-10-24T23:32:00.000+01:00

Today I made our Christmas cake, and as I was doing so remembered I'd promised to post the recipe for the chocolate yogurt cake of a couple of posts ago. So here it is now.

This recipe stands on the shoulders of Nigella Lawson's 'Buttermilk Birthday Cake' though it can't be said to be it.

250g plain flour

1½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon bicarb

¼ teaspoon salt

50g cocoa powder (dark, unsweetened, the real deal)

100g dark chocolate (70%, or near as damn it, cocoa solids) melted

200g Greek yogurt (this needs to be the authentic, thick strained stuff)

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

125g unsalted butter (very soft)

200g caster sugar

3 large eggs.

2 x sandwich tins, lined and buttered

Icing and filling.

300g dark chocolate (70% see above) broken into pieces

250ml double cream

5 tablespoons greek yogurt

Preheat oven to gas 4 (180ºC).

Mix together, in a bowl, the flour, cocoa powder bicarb, baking powder and salt. Stir the vanilla extract into the yogurt.

Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating thoroughly after each (the last one may make the mixture curdle, but don't worry too much about that, it happens, the cake still rises). Stir in the melted chocolate until the whole is a dark chocolatey brown. Add about a third of the flour mix, stir in vigourously. Add about a third of the yogurt, combine. Continue in this way: flour, beat; yogurt, beat, until everything’s in. If it seems a bit solid add a little milk to loosen it. Pour into the prepared tins and bake for about 35 minutes. It’s done when it’s begun to shrink away from the sides of the tins, and/or a cake tester comes out clean.

Put the tins on a cooling rack until they are cool enough to handle without oven gloves, then turn the cakes out of the tins and onto the rack.

Once good and cold you can ice them. To make the icing, put the chocolate and cream in a saucepan, place on medium heat, and whisk – at times idly at others vigorously – with a hand-whisk until the chocolate has melted and combined with the cream. Leave it to cool a little (if you can stick your finger in and leave it there comfortably it’s cool enough). Take about a quarter of the icing from the pan and put it in a bowl. To this add the yogurt, this is your filling.

Put one of the cakes on the plate or stand you plan to serve the it on. Spread with filling. Place the other on top, and cover with the icing.

This is one of those cakes you can't really go wrong with. I've baked it in a saucepan before and it's still come out perfectly, and I have messed about with the yogurt quantities too, depending on how much I had. As with all recipes read it over a few times so you can get the shape of it in your head. Then get everything ready before you begin. This will allow you to go about calmly and make the whole thing fun rather than frustrating.

Note on sweetness: I love cake but am not a huge fan of sugar, if you prefer a sweeter filling and/or icing just add some powdered sugar to taste.

Let me know if you make it and how you get on.

2011-10-13T20:01:00.001+01:00

The bathroom is nearly finished. It's taking so long because we have more time than money, and we have very little time. We also lack skill.

There was a problem with the ceiling: old paper and gloss paint patches we couldn't shift. So we bought some lining paper and attempted to apply it. Stevie on a step ladder at one end, me on a cupboard at the other, long stick in hand, as you can imagine it didn't work. I had to rethink. I didn't want to emulsion over the glossy patches because I worried it wouldn't take, and I didn't want to faff about with oil based paint: too stinky. So we just left it the way it was thinking, all the while, that we would have to employ someone to do it for us when we could afford it. Then I saw a picture of an artist's house on Pinterest: she had wallpapered a room in scraps. I didn't like her choice of paper but I liked the idea, thus Stevie went hunting for odd roll ends. He came back with a huge bag load, but they were all a bit shiny and I'm not a huge fan of shine. Silverware, yes, eyes, absolutely, but not wallpaper. I was after more of an old quilt aesthetic.

I mentioned this to my WOW* ladies one Wednesday as we were chatting after a lesson (they are really coming on, by the way, some of their stories are wonderful) and one of them said she had had some old wallpaper sample books for a project, but they'd disappeared: "Go and ask round the design shops and see if they are throwing any away," she said.

So I did.

I was given six books by a very kind young woman in home-ware shop in Gretna. I only needed a few squares so the rest are going to WOW for an art project.

The blind was another problem. The old one was manky: little black dots had eked their way across the surface, and i couldn't get them off. It had been up there for ten years, and had only cost three quid at Ikea, I figured we were due a new one. So, off we went to get a replacement; they had roller blinds, and slatted blinds, and all sorts of other blinds, but no roman blinds. And it was a roman blind I wanted. I looked online, there were loads, but none were the width of our windows. I could get 90cm, 120 cm, or 60cm; all of which were far enough from the 100cm I needed they might as well have been ten metres. So I checked the cost of getting one made, and found we could go on holiday for that much, and we haven't had a holiday since we went to Cornwall for a week in 2007.

Meanwhile, I kept seeing things made of old burlap sacks (again on Pinterest): cushions, chair-covers, table runners. They all looked jolly nice but I had no idea what burlap was or where it could be purchased. So I googled and found out it was hessian, and after a few clicks of my mouse I found a website that specialises in upholstery material. They sold hessian by the metre, not only that they had some that was exactly the width of the window, and it was only £1.62 a metre. I ordered four metres.

One day one of us will remove the masking tape.

Today I took the old blind apart with the idea of using the bits of string etc to make a roman blind out of the hessian. I cut the required length and attempted to hem, remembered I couldn't sew a straight line and, thus, there was no way I'd be able to make those neat little rod pockets. And, what's more just trying would make the whole enterprise hateful. So I improvised.

Detail: I'm particularly thrilled with the purple dotted line, it reminds me of postmen.

Once the wooden batten was in place – shove, shove– and the little eyelets were screwed into it, I threaded them with the string. Then with a big needle, just caught bits of the fabric with the string where I supposed the rods would be if someone else had made it. It's not perfect, and it probably won't last, but I for now I'm happy with it.

I still have a bit of grouting to do, but can't find the squeezy thing for getting it deep in the crevasses. I need to work out what to do with the bath's side panels (marine ply, not pretty), and order the flooring. So, I'm waiting for more inspiration and pay day.

Now I'm off in search of a musician, so I'll come visiting tomorrow.

*Women of the World: a local charity that helps women who find themselves living here far, far from home.

What is it to be?

2011-09-22T11:59:00.002+01:00

It's been almost a month since my last post. And I've been wondering if it's time to let go of blogging. I started as a way of practising writing, almost five years ago, and I do that by just writing now. I teach writing, and I write. So I don't feel the same compulsion to write a blog anymore.

Most of the friends I've made here I see on Facebook, Pinterest, or Twitter, so I don't need it to keep in touch. And I just don't have time to read and leave meaningful comments on other blogs anymore. I have three jobs, a novel to redraft, and my house is falling down.

And yet...

I had some yogurt to use up, and wanted to practise shooting chocolate cake. So I invented chocolate yogurt cake.

I do have a new thing to practise. I am besotted with my camera (remember, Bob, my son, gave it to me for my birthday?). When I'm not doing work/writing related things, or trying to shore up the pantry walls, I most often have my camera at my face, usually aimed at something edible. I cook, I shoot, I eat. Cooking and baking have always been the way I recalibrate, and now the camera adds an extra dimension. It's turned kitchen activity into more of a challenge, and thus more fun, more rewarding.

Panzanella, perfect when you have a tomato and stale bread glut

But I'm not a brilliant photographer. Not appalling either, just not practised – I haven't put in my ten thousand hours yet – but I'm improving and recently a local restaurant to let me pay in photographs for a couple of meals, rather than the more usual money. I had loads of shots of their food because I like it so much I spend a lot of time there. They wanted to get a website up, and they needed pictures for it, so we did a spot of bartering.*

I don't suppose Nigella Lawson will be calling me to snap the pies for her next book. But as I don't need another damn job (at the moment. I can hear my husband muttering about economic realities) it will be quite nice to keep this as play. You learn more by playing, once something becomes work you stop exploring, I do anyway. Work seems to create stresses which change the whole dynamic. I start focussing on time, and 'product'. And the product never seems to be able to be made good enough in the allocated time.

So, perhaps this blog will morph into a place for me to practise my photography. Scary enough to make me really consider what I'm doing before I share, but not stifling like work can be. Play, but public.

P.S. Blogger has completely changed since I last visited, and I seem to have inadvertently done something that's changed everything!

*Most, but not all the photographs on the site were taken by me.

Hopefully

2011-08-24T10:34:00.001+01:00

this will explain why I'm so silent:

I taste plaster dust at all times. I can feel it coating the inside of my ears. Blinking only seems to smooth it over my eyes, like a tablecloth. But the job should be complete by the beginning of next week. Meanwhile I wake in the night to make revisions to tile colour choice. First thing this morning I was messing with felt tip pens and coloured pencils. I want one neutral and three accents. It's two of the accent colours I've been having trouble with, but I think I have it now. If not I'll have to live with a bad decision for a long time, as they are ordered and we need to get at least one wall of them up before Saturday when the bath et al go in. The fun will start there because I have only a vague vision of random colour bars dotted over the walls. How I will actually achieve that vision I have yet to discover.

The lenghts I am going to to, apparently, avoid even sniffing my manuscript.

The Great Clean

2011-08-15T18:30:00.000+01:00

Bollocks. I keep beginning to write a post, get distracted, and lose my thread.

I've been, since my return from the south a week or so ago, trying to remove the stale smell of thousands of layers of our, and probably other creatures, excretions from the house. Shampooing the upholstery and carpets, vacuuming and washing down the walls, scrubbing the paintwork, bicarb sprinkling and turning the mattresses, beating the rugs...

On and on it goes. Today I tried to lift a carton of yogurt from a shelf in the fridge and it was so glued with spilt-goodnessknowswhat that it burst all over my fingers. And I realised I had only cleaned the fridge once this year. What sort of woman am I?

From now on I will keep an eye on spillage and take a damp cloth to the fridge, amongst other things, weekly. And wipe down the open shelves in the kitchen more often too, yikes they were sticky.

Maybe if I get myself a proper routine I'll transform into the type of woman who can keep chickens. Super fresh eggs would be marvellous.

But the thing that would be the most marvellous would be having no excuse whatsoever to not get on with my manuscript, which is probably what this is all about. I pick it up, read, flinch, scratch out whole lines and ponder replacements. And then I begin to notice the dust on my desk, or a leaf on the floor trampled in from a fag break in the garden. Or I feel suddenly hungry and go to the fridge.

Perhaps I'm not ready for the rewrite, the greatest of great cleans.

Roundup and offski

2011-07-24T22:55:00.000+01:00

This is what I like about cities: a wall just round the corner from Bob's new flat.

Had a rather odd week. The police were involved, scary.

Yesterday we went to Edinburgh to see Bob's new place, it's better appointed than this house! And in a much more interesting place: he has a theatre, art school, cinema, and some fantastic food shops right on his doorstep. Not to mention the river with it's big old warehouses. We lunched in a Turkish café, then stocked up on Japanese mayonnaise (recommended by Parsnip herself!), mirin, Korean hot pepper paste, and sugared cuttlefish at an Asian supermarket, and went to the lovely Cameo cinema to see Tree of Life.

I will have to see that again before I make any judgement, but I found it irritatingly lacking in story. This may well be because I'm not intellectual enough to leap the gaps and make the connections necessary to get what a sharper mind would. It was very pretty, I'll say that, but a bit earnest for my taste.

So, tomorrow morning I set off to visit an aunt in the south for a week, followed by a stay at my sister's, also in the south (of England, I should say). So I won't be around again until mid August. When I get back I plan to do my laundry and dash up to stay in Edinburgh with Bob before the weather turns cold(er), but I'll pop in and say hello while my smalls are being spun.

Bedtime now. See you in a couple of weeks, X

The Art of Change

2011-07-18T18:11:00.000+01:00

In a recent post, writer Sarah Duncan wrote about change in fiction: people want to read about it, she argued. Why? Because they "want to know how a character reacts to that moment of change." We have to deal with it in life, and having read about how others do so helps us recalibrate when that happens. We are constantly having to rewrite the ending to our personal story so having lots of examples to draw upon helps us see how to proceed.

On Friday our son, Bob, left home with only the barest notice. I actually didn't know what to do with myself. Usually when something discombobulating happens I phone all my friends and by the time I've told the story a number of times, and been given lots of sympathy, I can at least get on. But, if I'm honest, I felt a bit pathetic this time: Bob's twenty five, he's left home before, we, I, knew he wouldn't be here forever; would anyone see his leaving home as a hitch? So I just posted something about it on my Facebook page and left it at that. This did get me lots of sympathy, and also a couple of emails. One from by best friend in New Zealand, Mark, and the other from my sister, both asking for the details. This allowed me to verbalise and thus get some purchase on the scene; just like writing a story. Here are the edited highlights of my replies, they were almost identical:
Hello,

here's the story:

On Thursday at supper Stevie said he has to go to Edinburgh next week to see a client, and asked if we wanted to go for the ride.

"Okay." I said.

"I'm going to Edinburgh tomorrow." Bob said.

"Oh are you, any particular reason?" Asked Stevie.

Bob has been going to Edinburgh a fair bit to get a kilt sorted for the wedding of one of his friends.

"Well," he began, and told us about Joe's friend, Chris. He works for a letting agency, and a really nice flat had come up for an unusually reasonable monthly rent.

"So I'm going to look at it." He said.

"With a view to taking it?"

"Well, yeah."

So off he went the next morning and when he came back he dangled a bunch of keys in front of me and smiled.

"Ooh, you took it then?" I said.

"Yup."

"When are you moving in?"

"Now." Big grin. He'd already been out and bought towels and stuff!

Once he'd had a spot of lunch and packed, off he went. Stevie arrived just in time to see him go, though I'm supposing Bob would have hung about for a while had he not.

I cried. Stevie wandered around like a benevolent poltergeist. We went out for supper.

Stevie's fish.

On Saturday I went to clean the attic rooms Bob has been occupying, and found an infestation of moths had eaten my antique kilims. We went to Glasgow to stock up on a few necessaries.

Obviously we stopped for lunch, can you tell what we had?

Yesterday I walked into my workroom and could stand the colour of the mahogany table by the window no longer: a dark reddish brown, like a cancerous stool, it sucks the light out of the place. So I painted it. Farrow and Ball Parma Grey, it's the colour of Kentish skies now.

I realise this is mostly a picture of a melon, but you can get an idea of the paint job.

Bob's like me, we both take a long time to turn things over in our minds, assess all options, process, incubate, whatever you want to call it, but once the period of gestation comes to an end we have to act. We can sit still no longer. He'd been back here for just over a year. I knew he'd be leaving, at some point in the near future, I'd sensed a pattern change. I just wasn't quite ready for the action.

But, thanks to the variety of fictitious scenarios I've read, and seen in plays and films, I had lots of vicarious experience of dealing with change, so haven't chewed off my own limbs in despair. In fact, now the shock has dissipated I'm happier than ever: my son is off on a new adventure (and only an hour's drive away), and I have a table that doesn't piss me off every time I walk in the room. Sarah Duncan, I agree.

More tests, and some bread

2011-07-10T13:11:00.000+01:00

There's something compelling about sun-dried tomatoes. Maybe it's the fact they have the word 'sun' in their name, but they always make me think of lush Italian gardens and loggias with tables large enough to seat a huge, ebullient family as they help themselves to the colourful, fragrant and carefully prepared contents of beautiful pottery bowls; eating, talking and laughing all at once. So, finding some in the local deli I couldn't help buying a pack.

They sat around for a while, peeking redly from their cellophane like a bag of scabs. Then one day I thought to make bread to go with supper and spotting the tomatoes on a shelf decided to add them. I've had bread with sun-dried tomatoes in posh bistros and always enjoyed it.

I didn't have a recipe so I augmented Nigella Lawson's plain white loaf. First I chopped the tomatoes into little slivers, and added them to the water to reconstitute for ten minutes. Then, once the water had been added to the flour/yeast/salt (I use instant bread-maker yeast, it's great you just chuck it in!) I drizzled in three tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. And then proceeded as usual

And here it is, a little dark on top, but none the worse for that, and wonderfully crisp of crust.

Inside it was soft and fluffy with a very slight cakey texture. The flavour of the tomatoes really did permeate the whole loaf, which, we thought, was a good thing.

I served it with cold meats, cheese, and salad.

I'm still not getting this picture thing right, but it's better. Alesa very kindly told me how to isolate each photograph with a bit of HTML code. That seems to have worked, but getting the text under, rather than to the right of, the shots is a real palaver, and so the whole thing seems no speedier than the way I was doing it before.

Some things I've been eating lately, and a self portrait – another test of the new photo uploading process

2011-07-06T09:07:00.003+01:00

Linguine with bacon, garlic oil and parsley. Recipe courtesy of Nigella Lawson.

Wasabi peas.

Chocolate brownie at Harvey Nichols, Edinburgh (it looks prettier than it tasted: not chocolatey enough and fork bendingly hard).

Falafel, yet to be cooked.

Strawberry shortbread cake, Brodies: a fab new eatie place in my own town, and my new favourite place. I've been a few times now and haven't eaten anything that wasn't wonderful. Eggs Benedict and a Bloody Mary at Brodies is what I now call Sunday.

More Brodies: canapés at a recent Moffat Book Events get together.

Melon and pineapple one recent lunch: an attempt to offset the extra calories Brodies is bringing to my flanks.

Every year in Moffat there is an old car thing: hundreds of people come along to show off their ancient motors. So this year I went along for a look, it really is fascinating, cars that came off the production line well before I was born gleam like tart's lips. Here is the tail fin of a Buik.

Trying to do this straight from Picasa, which is a much faster, smoother way of uploading the photos, but I can't seem to make the text work. It's fine in the editing box but all over the place in preview. So all I can do is hit publish and see how it looks on the blog. If anyone has any tips, or knows of a better way to upload photos to the blog, do share.

Test

2011-07-04T21:10:00.000+01:00

Trying out a new (to me) way of posting photos to the blog, do bear with me...

So, I found this dead bird by the bins and brought it to my garden. I don't suppose anyone knows what sort it is...?

Advice

2011-06-20T22:03:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling a bit of a rotter. I've had trouble commenting and it doesn't take much for me to think: "fuck it..." and go off and do something else. Also, last Friday was Stevie's birthday so that took me away from my desk for a bit: there were gifts to buy and wrap, and a cake to make for starters. Then, on Saturday, we went to Kent (370 odd miles away) for my niece's eighteenth birthday party. We drove down on the day, just arriving in time – bloody roadworks all the way from Bedford to Dartford – and drove back yesterday, so spent most of the weekend in the car. I didn't get to bed till 4am yesterday morning and was awake again at eight-thirty. Now I'm knackered. It was worth it, though, I hadn't seen my niece for two years and she is such a lovely girl. And it's fair to say that her mother (my sister) is one of my favourite people in the whole world: I always feel better for talking to her, so I'm really glad we made the effort. But I feel like I'm neglecting my friends which I hate to do, so here are a few gardening tips I picked up yesterday afternoon in Rochester:

Hopefully when I try tomorrow Google will be able to detect the necessary data and allow me to publish my comments.

Of Mud and Interesting Attire

2011-06-13T15:37:00.000+01:00

Family went to the Eden Festival yesterday (Bob was working there but he killed a few hours with his aged Pees before his shift). In the fine tradition of music festivals the weather was unpredictable: the sun almost shone but it rained most of the time, and there was a lot of mud.

I haven't been to a festival since about 1977 and was rather comforted to find the dress code hadn't changed. I felt quite out of place in my jeans and black waxed jacket.

There was fabulous food: Tibetan, Seychellian, Indian, and more.

Here are a few photos, snatched while the rain was off:

Best Van.

Kilted Terminator.

A rather Shakespearean procession.

The Fairy King.

This is one of those looks I've always wanted to emulate but never been able to.

Best hair.

Best trousers.

A dude.

I tried on a hat I thought might make me fit in, but it was too big.

Not quite sure what this is all about.

Goat skull with flower eyes.

Crusty

2011-06-07T17:25:00.003+01:00

For a while there I didn't know what to do with myself. On Friday I finished the first draft of my novel and now it must be left for a while – Stephen King advises a minimum of six weeks – in order that I may read it with fresh eyes for the rewrite stage. Thus the weekend was a bit of a damp squib: so used had I become to my routine of rising, making tea, and getting straight to writing I drooped about noticing all the flaws in myself and how dusty my room was. Most other activities had been squeezed to the borders, like internal organs during pregnancy, and so when the story was out I felt hollow and didn't know what to do. And I missed Cristina, my main character; we'd spent hours a day together for eight weeks and suddenly she was gone. I felt abandoned.

So I read a debut novel: Before I go to Sleep, by S. J. Watson.

It had been all over Twitter where I kept seeing snippets of rave reviews; had already been translated into something like thirty nine languages, and sounded utterly intriguing. I enjoyed it, up to a point. Adverbs irritate me beyond reason. I can cope with a few, one can't expect a writer to show everything, some telling is necessary if only to keep things moving, but Watson relies on them a little too much for my sanity. I also felt he used stereotypes without exploring them, so there was a slight smug, elitist feel about the book. This is a shame as the premise is interesting and the story, for the most part, well told.* The film rights have been bought and filming is set to begin sometime this year and I reckon it will make a bloody good film in the right hands. I also look forward to reading Watson's next book, he will have learnt a great deal from writing this one.

Yesterday I got back to the kitchen, made a loaf of bread, and remembered what I really like to do. I'd asked Stevie, he is the shopper, to get me some wholemeal flour at some point and he did, but it was bread flour. With new found time to spend I can't think of a better thing to do than bake bread. I have never been successful with wholemeal bread though. White, yes, but brown always comes out dense and chewy. I've never known why that might be, but decided to be especially careful when kneading. I love kneading, it makes me feel authentic and strong, and that moment when you feel the dough turn silky and know it's done, it rocks. Whether it was that extra care or just the benefit of experience I don't know, but I'm glad to say this loaf was perfectly bread-like. Here are some shots:

Dough ball rising.

The shape was a bit peculiar, but it had a good crisp crust about which I am particularly pleased.

It looks just like bread inside! (Apologies for the rather soft focus).

We had it with chorizo and white bean soup, which I made because we had a few chorizo that needed to be used and soup is about the best thing to serve with fresh bread: buttered and dipped.

* The Guardian Review says it's marvellous, so don't take my word for it!

Derring Do

2011-06-01T22:30:00.000+01:00

I'm up to my neck in a (fictional) house building project. It's great this writing business, you get to be all sorts of people and do all sorts of things that you wouldn't ordinarily be able to. Who says the world inside your head is less real than the one outside it?

But, I just wanted to share a tale with you. Thankfully, I can do it with nothing more than a link, there's no point in me summarising something that is so beautifully written. Some of you already know UB, or, to give him his full title The Unbearable Banishment, but not all. So, pop over to his blog and read his tremendous tale of tenacity, which spans eight years (I think I've got that right), includes Bruce Springsteen, Nick Hornby, and a lost friendship. And it was all for the love of books. What are you waiting for?

Sprout it Out

2011-05-26T13:12:00.000+01:00

When I was a child lentils were a staple. They thickened soups and stews, and often took the lead in a meal. My Anglo-Burman mother knew a lentil trick or two. But it wasn't until I was in my thirties that I realised lentils didn't have to be orange and split. My favourites now are the tiny slate coloured ones from Le Puy, in France, and I'm always delighted to find something new to do with them.

I'd eaten sprouted seeds on many occasions but had never tried to make them. Instructions regarding blotting paper covered trays and constant spraying to keep them from getting either too wet, or too dry, put me off. So I was thrilled when an hour's idle Pinterest browsing (no doubt when I should have been writing a lesson plan) led me to a simple jar method. Not only was it über easy, it looked pretty, and involved lentils which I had never thought of as seeds before. This is what I did:

I took a handful of Puy lentils and soaked them over night,

drained and transferred them to a jar. Within hours tiny white shoots appeared.

By the next day the shoots looked like this.

And on day three some tiny greens had appeared.

Day five: ready to eat and

bursting out the top of the jar.

They were delicious and are, apparently, scandalously healthy. If you want to do it you need to know that you must rinse them with cold water twice a day, and shake out as much of the water as you possibly can. I covered the jar in a piece of muslin which I then punched holes in with a sharp knife. This allowed me to do the rinsing and shaking without losing the lot down the sink, or faffing about with a colander. You can find the original and much more detailed recipe at Honest Fare, which is a rather nice site.

Crank, Crank

2011-05-23T22:30:00.000+01:00

I started to write a new post on Saturday but abandoned it after I realized it was no more than a gutter full of cognitive puke. My blogese has gone rusty, so by way of rubbing it down with wire wool and a drop of oil, here are some day trip to the English Lakes photographs. We went yesterday, it was cold but mostly sunny. We had fish and chips in probably the most basic café in the non-Soviet world. No attempt whatever to make it anything other than it was: a place to sit down and fill up. Grey plastic everything. I find that quite admirable in these days of beaded tea-light holders on every surface; though once I'd swallowed my last chip I was glad to leave. Anyway, back to the snaps: you may notice not many of them contain lakes, it was too cold for me down by the water:

Lake Windermere, we didn't take the red, or any other colour, cruise.

Bowness town centre.

Modernisation: Back-street, Bowness.

Grasmere just after a shower.

Gorgeous thick green paint on the back window of a Ginger-bread shop in Grasmere.

Pretty rusted bench in the grounds of the lovely, but sadly concrete rendered, Norman church where Wordsworth and his clan are buried. I forget what it's called.

Detail from the Wordsworths' grave plot.

My book's coming on: I now have 57,510 words. I hope to get to sixty thousand tomorrow morning. So it's bed time for me now.

How Long Now?

2011-05-03T22:54:00.000+01:00

My Life Without Me

I haven't abandoned blogging, promise, I miss it. So I've resurfaced to say I will be back soon. Teaching two workshops and writing a book, as well as the usual husbandry duties (why is it called husbandry when it's nine out of ten times the wife who does it?), meant I had to drop either sleep or the blog. I thought I was more likely to recover to blog again if I kept up the sleep.

I have, sort of, been keeping up with you by reading some of your posts on my kindle in bed, last thing. But I can't leave comments that way. And in the morning it's back to it. Anyway the conference I mentioned in my last post was so inspiring I've managed twenty seven thousand words of my book since attending, so things aren't all bad. I should say that reading Stephen King's On Writing contributed too: he deals with some really practical details that helped me properly envision the production process. He, together with the speakers in Glasgow, lifted the final veil, I can't thank them enough. My wrists are killing me though. I'm hoping the first draft will be done by the end of this month, and both workshops come to an end then too. So I'll get a short break from the grind, and be back in full blogging swing. See you soon.

Meanwhile you can find me on short attention span sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.

P.S. In July I'll have a guest blogger, how exciting is that?

P.P.S. Thank you for all the cheery comments on my last post. Pat: do apologise about the odd tiny print, it would not let me make it normal sized, I have no idea why!

Pocket a Poem

2011-04-14T22:22:00.000+01:00

Apparently it's Poem in Your Pocket Day today over the pond. I don't have a poem in my pocket, but do have one in my bag. So, before the day is over here it is:

The Bight

[On my birthday]

At low tide like this how sheer the water is.

White, crumbling ribs of marl protrude and glare

and the boats are dry, the pilings dry as matches.

Absorbing, rather than being absorbed,

the water in the bight doesn’t wet anything,

the colour of the gas flame turned as low as possible.

One can smell it turning to gas; if one were Baudelaire

one could probably hear it turning to marimba music.

The little ocher dredge at work off the end of the dock

already plays the dry perfectly off-beat claves.

The birds are outsize. Pelicans crash

into this peculiar gas unnecessarily hard,

it seems to me, like pickaxes,

rarely coming up with anything to show for it,

and going off with humorous elbowings.

Black-and-white man-of-war birds soar

on impalpable drafts

and open their tails like scissors on the curves

or tense them like wishbones, till they tremble.

The frowsy sponge boats keep coming in

with the obliging air of retrievers,

bristling with jackstraw gaffs and hooks

and decorated with bobbles of sponges.

There is a fence of chicken wire along the dock

where, glinting like little plowshares,

the blue-gray shark tails are hung up to dry

for the Chinese-restaurant trade.

Some of the little white boats are still piled up

against each other, or lie on their sides, stove in,

and not yet salvaged, if they ever will be, from the last bad storm,

like torn-open, unanswered letters.

The bight is littered with old correspondences.

Click. Click. Goes the little dredge,

and brings up a dripping jawful of marl.

All the untidy activity continues,

awful but cheerful.

Elizabeth Bishop

I have a rather literary weekend coming up: tomorrow evening I will meet the organisers of Moffat Book Events, a new venture which sounds quite exciting. On Saturday I'm to spend the day at a conference organised by NAWE and CCA for graduates of creative writing degrees from Scottish Universities. I'm a bit trepidatious about this as it starts at 9.30 in the morning. I'll have to set my alarm for about 6 to get there on time, so I'll be in serious danger of blindly stoving into people. By the end of the conference I'll probably have pissed off all the nice writers I went to commune with.

Creative Control

2011-04-12T23:10:00.001+01:00

The best thing about getting older is, surely, that your birthday presents get better. By better I don't mean more expensive, more elaborate, or more luxurious. I mean more fitting. As friends and family get to know you, develop an understanding of how you work, they are able to give gifts that suit your mind and life. That must be what people mean when they say: "it's the thought that counts." Of course, you have to understand how you work, yourself, before others can.

I couldn't have had a better birthday if we'd been rich and I was given a fifteenth century manor house in Kent. Every neatly wrapped package I opened said: "I understand and love what you are." They will all aid my work, hugely, and my work is me.

I document everything with a camera. This acts as a memory aid, but more importantly slows me down and makes me really look at the world. Thus, I am able to be pretty specific in my writing with regards the details of everyday life. This camera from Bob will help me see even more as I have full manual control: no more point and shoot for me. He even got me a tripod to keep it steady.

No longer a handbag sort I'd been wanting a rucksack to cart my stuff about, and save my back, for ages. I had begun to think I'd never find one to suit both my size (small) and purposes. But Bob researched and found the perfect one for Stevie to get me: collaboration at its finest. (Picture courtesy of present from Bob!)

About this I am evangelical: yes, I love the smell, feel, and look of paper, I've been known to buy books just for the cover, but I don't need two million sheets of it in my house. Acres of wall will now be freed for paintings, and I'll be able to fit a couch – so I can stretch out as I read and learn my trade – into my study. And reading in a breeze just became a breeze.

This arrived in a huge box from my distant (geographically only) sibs. A healthy baby sister for the subject of my last post.

Kelburn Castle. We went on Sunday because I wanted to practise using my camera. I'm using my 30 year old Pentax lenses so am having to dredge my memory for the meaning of f. stops and the like.

Graffiti detail: my old camera would never have picked up this texture from our fenced off distance. Just imagine what I'll be able to show about household implements, and cake.

So, thank you for all your well wishes, I had a marvellous day, and that marvellousness looks set to continue and grow.

Sharing some Joy on this Thursday

2011-04-07T13:45:00.000+01:00

My garden took a real kicking this winter: lots of deads. The beautiful bay that I've had for a good eight or ten years and that adds depth to stocks, soups, sauces, and is regularly plundered for the kitchen, turned brown and friable.

Just look at the poor bugger!

I have been meaning to dig it up and chuck it on the compost heap for weeks. So it's Lucky I am very slow to deal with most things because this morning as I was sipping my morning tea in a slant of sun, I saw a speck of vibrant green peering from under the tragic copper. And voila:

a tiny new born laurel leaf. I couldn't have asked for a better gift on the last day of my fifth decade.

More joys: yesterday I got a haircut. I know this isn't unusual for most people but for me it's an event. I hadn't had my hair cut since last July and it was beginning to drive me nuts: I hate that feeling of wool round my neck, and it was fluffy wool at that, like mohair. Now it's small, neat and sleek once again thanks to Dale, who loves golf and has rather fabulous tattoos, of Toni and Guy in Carlisle.

A couple of days ago a friend posted a quotation from George Bernard Shaw on her Facebook page:

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognised by yourself as a mighty one; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish, selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.

And I realised I used to be a feverish, (though not particularly selfish) little clod of ailments and grievances, but now I have a purpose and it feels like it could be a mighty one: helping people to find their (writing) voices. One of my students is a lady in her seventies who is dyslexic. She has never had the confidence to write. As a child her school-life was miserable: she was told she was stupid, and she grew up believing this. But she has such stories to tell, and now she is beginning to tell them, on paper, in neat, bold handwriting. How joyous is that?

Start the Week

2011-03-28T22:56:00.001+01:00

If this doesn't take your breath away...

Calling the Shots

2011-03-25T21:20:00.000Z

Photo safari 3: This time Alesa her friend Khnoum and I were joined by Kass, who submitted a theme. If you'd like to have a guess at who took which shots (as usual we each provide one photo for each theme) be my guest.

Congruity

The More Things Change

Eggxactly!

The Music in my Head

Rotund

On a Cloth Greenly

Of Angles and Curves

Gourmandise

Emerge

Flowers On Stalks

Twiglet

First I must Dive

ºººººººººººººººººººººººººººººº

I have so many things to tell you I'd have to do two posts a day to fill you in with all the interesting things and people that are suddenly seasoning my life. In the next day or two I hope to do a post on the apple man. (I didn't even know apples grew in Scotland!) And I must tell you about the Women of the World group to whom I now teach creative writing. And then there's my beloved local group who I've been teaching since the beginning of January. I say 'teaching' but it's more like providing them with the right space to organise their thoughts into the stories and poems they are already very capable of writing. They amaze me.

My project is coming along, but I must admit I've been utterly seduced by Pinterest recently and spend far too much time filling my virtual boards, nosing around other peoples', and following links.

Three Delights and a Worry

2011-03-09T18:04:00.000Z

There were three things to celebrate yesterday: Savannah's forty second (yes, forty second!) wedding anniversary; International Womens' Day and Pancake Day.

I was at an event for IWD on Friday, as a kind of writer in residence, at which I won the main raffle prize:

which was very delicious.

I'll be doing much the same at another event tomorrow, though I don't suppose there'll be any chocolate shoes up for grabs.

And, of course, yesterday I made pancakes (crepes) for supper. For which I:

took two decent sized eggs,

flour (110g),

salt (a generous pinch),

milk,

and a tablespoon of melted butter.

Sifted the flour into a bowl, made a well in the centre, broke in the eggs, and began to merge the flour and the eggs with a whisk. As I did this I also added the milk in a thinnish stream, and kept whisking until everything was amalgamated and the batter looked like single cream.

When I was ready to cook the pancakes I stirred in the melted butter

while my small frying pan came to a smoking heat. Poured some of the mixture (roughly two tablespoonfuls) into the hot, butter smeared pan and turned the heat down to medium.

Swirled the batter around so it coated the pan, left it for a minute or two, until, having turned into a pancake, it moved freely when the pan was shaken vigorously. Flipped it over to brown the other side,

slid it onto a plate, and proceeded with the rest until

I had a stack. (It doesn't look very stack-like here but I did make twelve.)

I made them a few hours in advance to prevent the more usual stove-side flap where as I cook the others eat. It was then just a matter of reheating them (on the plate they were stacked on and covered in foil) in a low oven for about fifteen minutes, and they turned out fine, neither dried out or soggy.

I put various filling possibilities on the table and we all just built our own supper. Here I have ham, leafage, and some of the contents from the previous post's jars. The preserved lemons are fantastic: summer holiday in a bottle.

Rolled up and ready to scoff. I should say we had them for both main and pudding courses. For pudding we added Nutella and chopped banana, and (not to the same ones) lemon and sugar but I forgot to take shots of those ones.

The last thing about yesterday is that it left me with only one month to go as a forty something. I'm sure there are things I meant to do before turning old and am slightly concerned that I haven't done any of them yet. Is there anything I should really be getting on with before it's too late, fifty does seem rather on the edge of the abyss?

Jar Head

2011-03-07T22:32:00.000Z

Because they were going cheap in Ikea I bought more kilner jars than you can shake a stick at. The contents of many an opened packet found itself rehomed in glorious glass: crunchy muesli, spelt flour, Lebanese cracked wheat et al, all neatly contained. Now I just need a proper pantry. Bob said yesterday when I was hunting for somewhere to store my baking supplies: 'I think you've exceeded your capacity.' Quite! Especially as I've been fruitfully creating new contents for the rest of the jars:

Moroccan lemons: summer, bottled.*

Brinjal pickle. My mother used to make this when I was a child. Although it was a favourite of mine I'd forgotten about it until I came across a recipe recently. Apparently it's a speciality of the Bene Israel community of India.*

Chilli-fry: the hottest condiment ever.**

*Both recipes from Claudia Roden, The Book of Jewish Food: An Odyssey from Samarkand and Vilna to the Present Day (Penguin, 1996)

**This recipe was given to me via email by my brother, with the addendum: "When it has cooled down and you've bottled it, don't just wash out the frying pan. Pour some oil into it and heat slowly, scraping up all the remaining bits of chilli and onion that are stuck. Allow it to cool, bottle it, and you have a chilli infused oil for salad dressings, pasta, or just to dip fresh bread into." (It's these little asides that make recipes from people you know so much more rewarding than the ones in books.) I just happened to have some bread left over from the previous night's supper; needless to say not much of the oil made it to the bottle:

Wool-Gathering

2011-02-21T22:16:00.000Z

I have this idea (the 'thing'), and am running with it, mostly because I don't seem to have any choice, and it's taking up all of me. Which means I don't have any chat-space in my head. Quite frankly I don't know how some of you manage to do all the things you do, and write blog posts, and get round to visit and make meaningful comments on other blogs. I seem only to be able to do one thing at a time. The 'thing', my writing workshop (soon to be writing workshops, new gig, this one may even be paid), and events in the Middle East are almost more than I can handle.

But, whilst twittering today (Twitter is my news channel) I found this and thought I'd share. It's well worth the 19 minutes it takes to watch and it ends hilariously. Get yourself a glass of something, and enjoy. Actually watch it with the whole family.

Hopefully I'll be back in chat mode soon enough.

We Don't Need No Lions

2011-02-15T16:42:00.001Z

Alesa (Part Gilt – Part Gold, check her out, she's great), her friend Khnoum and I have been out on safari again. It's their game but they graciously let me join in. I love it. The rules, if you can call them rules, are that we each pick a theme, go out and shoot, then submit one photo a piece for each of those themes. This time we chose: 'Missing,' 'Consequence,' and 'Landmark' as our themes. Below are the results. Can you guess who chose which theme and took which photo?*

Missing:

Loss of Heart

I"ll Miss You

How Many Waiters Does it Take to Change a Light-bulb?

Consequence:

Ouch!

Life on the Fast Track

The Consequence

Landmark:

I Liked the Monument Before it Made Me Ralph

Windy Miller's New Pad

Too Obvious

*I'm tempted to offer a prize for the first completely correct guess, because it's just so hard.

My Best Friend's Wedding

2011-02-11T18:47:00.001Z

On Sunday one of my two bestest, closest, soul-matiest friends will get married. On the other side of the world, in New Zealand, where he and his man moved a couple of years ago, from here in Scotland. I can't be there to watch the nuptials or celebrate with them, but in a way I don't really need to. I celebrate Mark finding John pretty much daily, whenever he pops into my consciousness. John has somehow completed Mark, made him more fully himself, just by accepting and loving the person he actually is. I'm happy for them everyday. That's not to say that drinking champers, on their lawn, in the sunshine and seeing again how happy they make each other wouldn't be delightful, it's just to say it's not necessary.

I thought this poem, by U A Fanthorpe, though not the most romantic of love poems in the conventional sense, felt right for the occasion. So I thought I'd read it for them. Tomorrow I'll make Devil's Food Cake by way of celebration.

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ABC Wednesday: D for Deli

2011-02-09T00:50:00.001Z

I can't afford to travel so in its stead I like to experience the exotic in my imagination and my kitchen. I read cookery books, dream a little, and then try and recreate the dishes of all number of cultures right here in Scotland. This isn't always easy: Scotland isn't known for its culinary sophistication for good reason. I suppose it's just too small to be able to support much diversity.

So, I dream of delis. I can, and do, get all sorts of ingredients on the internet, but there's nothing quite like spending time in a deli having one's nostrils aromatically teased, one's memory stirred. And one of the best things about a good deli is stumbling upon previously unheard of ingredients and bringing them home to experiment. When, years ago, I visited New York the best part of the trip, for me, was Dean and Deluca (I didn't make it to Zabar's, sadly). I came back laden with maple sugar and spice mixtures with names I couldn't pronounce. I had such fun in the following months encrusting chicken and warming casseroles with new flavours, and creating elegant, pale manilla-hued meringues, that we could have suffered the worst storms in living memory and I wouldn't have noticed. The other good thing about delis is finally finding something you keep hearing, or reading about.

For some time ras el hanout has been whispering to me. It's featured in a few of Nigella Lawson's recipes over the last few years, and now I'm reading Claudia Roden's The Book of Jewish Food there it is again. Ras el hanout, ras el hanout, I didn't know what it was but I began to crave it. So I was gearing myself up to order it from Seasoned Pioneers, when up a Glasgow backstreet last Saturday I found Deli Zique. The second I entered I felt at home:

Proper bread. I took home one of the round sourdough loaves and it had as crisp a crust and as springy a crumb as the best I've tasted.

There's a waiting list for these tins, which hopefully means the deli is popular, thus likely to still be there when next I get to Glasgow.

It wasn't easy, but I resisted.

On my kitchen counter: if you ever want to sell me anything wrap it in wax paper.

So, I now have a little envelope of the coveted spice mix.

Apparently, as well as rose petals, lavender and other spices it may contain the golden beetle. I don't know what the golden beetle is, but am sure it's delicious, my only problem now is deciding which recipe to try first.

ABC Wednesday: C for Cake

2011-02-01T22:39:00.000Z

Specifically: Chocolate Cardamon Chili Cake. Nuff Cs?

For my brother in law Ron's 50th birthday last November we were to go out for a curry. Ron loves a curry. My sister, not the one he's married to, who I was to pick up from the airport on the way up, asked me to make him a birthday cake. I said yes, of course, not much gets in the way of a real, valid cake making excuse. Why not, I thought, try to make one that will, in some way, compliment the spicy meal? As Ron likes it hot, and I had been experimenting with adding chili to chocolate things for a while (I've made some fabulous chocolate chili cookies), I decided to top the cake with dark chocolate chili ganache. Then I remembered Nigel Slater's 'White Chocolate Cardamon Mousse' (in his book Real Food, I think) and wondered if I could borrow from this for the filling. The only way to find these things out is to try, so that's what I did.

The cake itself was the 'Buttermilk Birthday Cake' you can find in Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess. Instead of flavouring it with vanilla I crushed the seeds of a handful of cardamon pods (15?) and creamed them in with the sugar and butter.

For the experimentsl filling I crushed the seeds of another ten cardamon pods, put them in a little jug, covered them with milk (about two tablespoons) and heated the lot in the microwave for about 20 seconds. This was then left to infuse for an hour or so. 200 grams of white chocolate went into the microwave next, but as it melts very easily I just started it off there (1 minute on half power) then stirred languorously till it was fully liquefied (never once dipping my finger in to taste). A carton (280ml) of double (heavy) cream was whisked until it formed soft peaks. The infused milk was strained and stirred into the warm chocolate, followed by the cream which I folded in until the three became one. Then it went into the fridge to chill.

For the topping I melted 300 grams of dark chocolate with three tablespoons of golden syrup, then added three crushed dried chilies. Once the chocolate was coolish I added a carton of double cream and whisked like crazy so all became thick and became very glossy. It too went into the fridge to chill a little, not so much, though, that it became truffle solid.

Once the cakes (two sandwiches) were cool I applied the filling to one and topped it with the second. Scraped the chili chocolate ganache over the top and let it drip down the sides, cartoon style. The result was spicy, fragrant, and moist, if a little on the rich side. But the added chili meant it increased the metabolism by fifteen percent for the next two hours, thus burning off some of the calories. It all counts.

Cake for a Spice Lover (sorry about the photo quality, I'd had a glass of champagne before remembering to snap).

Off to Edinburgh tomorrow to see the play A View from the Bridge (Arthur Miller). The tickets were part of Stevie's Christmas present from me; when we first met (1978?) he was always banging on about Death of a Salesman which he'd just done for English A-level, so when I saw this was on...

Let's hope time and experience haven't changed his literary sensibilities too much.

PS I have tried to be clever and make it so if you click on the ABC Wednesday picture it takes you to the site, however this may not work. If this is so click here.

Close Knit

2011-01-31T19:31:00.000Z

Gosh I've been having fun crocheting characters and rummaging about in my button box.

It's almost as good as baking and doesn't come with the attendent hip swelling problem. Also, I can listen to music as I do it.

The family currently looks like this:

The whole bunch: you can just see in the foreground the, as yet unformed, new baby.

Bianca: my current favourite, I will shed a tear as I seal her into a padded envelope. Don't be fooled by the bright colours and big shades, she is still working out her true nature. Like Victoria Beckham she will find what she loves and what she's good at.

Olive: she is sweet and kind and works hard to keep harmony. Especially between Kit and Bianca, because Bianca is always trying to squeeze into Kit's best dresses and has burst a few seams.

Kit: the lady, she was a bit wild in her youth always hanging about the bins in back alleys. But she found her focus and is now a strict piscatarian who writes books on all things fish, and delivers mentoring workshops around the world.

Hool: the only boy, he is a little shy but if you happen to hit on his favourite subject – town planning – he'll come into his own.

Swapsies

2011-01-30T16:47:00.000Z

I love the whole sharing thing about blogging. We share ideas, values, passions, ideals, stories, poems, interests and more. Mostly (but not always, thank you Parsnip) this sharing is cognitive. Though it can translate to the material, for example when someone shares a recipe. But now here, via Titus, is an actual physical bloggy share-fest. I had to join in because she is making things out of boiled wool and I couldn't resist a thing made out of boiled wool. So:

I promise to send something I make myself to the first 5 people who leave a comment on this post and who, in turn, promise to make the same offer on their blog. The rules are that you need to make the items personally and send them to your 5 folks within 2011.

Got that?

With this in mind I have begun crocheting things out of scraps of old wool and thus far have:

Kit and Hool.

Hool detail.

A Kit close up.

I thought I'd also offer a cake or cookies to anyone who lives close enough for them not to be spoiled by mailing. So, if you fancy a critter crocheted by my own arthritic hands, or a sweet treat baked by them (I promise to ensure they're spotlessly clean!) join in and pledge to make five things yourself.

Share the Joy Thursday: Experimentation

2011-01-27T21:01:00.000Z

There is nothing so joyous as an experiment that yields unexpectedly good results. I have had this

Pashmina for a good ten years. It's gloriously soft and warm but recently whenever I put it on I think: 'nah.' It had become faded and slightly yellow round the edges, and, as you can see from the picture had picked up some pink spots. Rather than stylish and insouciant it made me look pale and grubby.

I'd been thinking I should give it to a worthy cause, but then the other day as I was trying to rearrange the scullery I spotted

the grey dye I'd bought months ago to deal with

my too pink hat. It never got used because it turned out to be unsuitable for the hat's less than natural fibre content. I wondered if I should try it on the scarf. The instructions on the packet didn't bode well: not suitable for wool (pashmina - a type of cashmere - is wool, isn't it?); for use in the washing machine, on the 40 degree programme (would the fabric withstand that?). But I realised I was never going to wear it again, so the risk wasn't, really. I chucked the hat in too for good measure.•

Pah-da! It looks new again, I can't wait to go out now.

For more joy click here.

•This part of the experiment wasn't quite so successful.

ABC Wednesday: Butter

2011-01-26T01:08:00.000Z

Butter, it's the only thing my best friend and me disagree on: she hates it. I love its cool, creamy paleness and culinary versatility. And this is my very favourite sort:

The wrapper alone would sell it to me, did the first time I bought it, but there is something very special about this butter. Too expensive for daily use, I have it only as a rare treat* it makes pastry taste the way it used to, transforms plain cakes (oh the seed cake!), and if there's any left over:

it's worth making jam to go with it on toast.

But the best thing about it is just unwrapping it and sniffing takes me back to the time I first really noticed butter.

I was about fifteen and had been invited to a new friend's house after school. Her mother greeted us and into the kitchen we went. Through a hall twice the length and not far off as wide as our whole house, past semi open doors through which I glimpsed chintzy couches, tables groaning with books, and musical instruments. I'd never been in a house like it, huge and rather seedy, you could imagine Jane Eyre in it.

Anita's mother put the kettle on, some teacakes in the toaster and sent her off to the corner shop for butter: 'Ask for fresh.' She insisted. I hung about on the edge of the kitchen, shyly, and watched as this filmic woman (she was wearing jewelry, eye-liner, and a caftan! (my mother wore slacks)) placed pretty china on a tray:

'Could you put these on the table in the dining room, please Eryl?' Her pink painted lips asked.

When Anita returned we sat at the table. She poured the tea:
'Milk and sugar?'
'Just milk, please.'
Her mother buttered the hot teacakes, and passed them around. One bite and I was lost. The taste was better than anything I'd ever eaten, new yet strangely familiar. Salty and creamy it was the equivalent of a long soak in a warm bath for the palate. As I walked home later I remembered that before my father died my mother baked bread for weekend breakfasts which we ate with strawberry jam. Between the bread and the jam we spread real butter. I remembered, too, rolling small lumps of it in the sugar bowl, while no one was looking, and crunching. Those days were long gone. Now we could only afford margarine with its odd flaky texture and face-cream taste.

In the days that followed I raved about the butter so much that my mother baked a loaf and bought a packet to go with. We all sat in the kitchen and stuffed ourselves. Later my brother told me when he grows up he'll have butter everyday, and I told him I would too.

And while I probably don't, I do use it a lot: in cakes, pastries, certain types of icing (frosting for you Americans), egg dishes, mashed potato, and goodness know what all else. Here's a selection of my recent buttery doings:

Fuel, with crackers, cheese and pickle, for when work goes on late into the night.

A chicken for roasting: thyme, onions, half a lemon (up its bottom), white wine and a good application of butter.

Cayenne pepper, dark muscovado sugar, chopped rosemary, sea-salt and melted butter, for spicing up some lightly toasted nuts.

A rather large tattie scone, made with tonight's leftover mashed potato, cooks in a butter smeared pan.

All through the health scares when oil derived spreads were fashionable I held out and stuck to butter. So I'm rather glad to hear it's been found far healthier than those nasty augmented substitutes. Goodness knows what they do to make olive oil solid!

*at all other times I use a french brand I can get locally

For other ABC Wednesday posts click.

Hooked

2011-01-23T17:04:00.001Z

It was the fourth birthday of this blog yesterday. There seems to be rather a lot of stuff being said about how the internet brings out the worst in people at the moment. I agree it can do, you have only to read some of the snarky comments on the Sartorialist to see that. But it can show, and bring out, the best in people too. So rather than write a gushing post about how great blogging is and how many wonderful friends I've made (lots!) since I started, I thought I'd share with you a couple of examples of the positive side of blogging and the internet as a whole.

The first, I discovered only on Thursday as a result of Meri's joy sharing. It is: The Rug Project and a joy indeed! A group of women in a small Mexican village are trying to save their way of life by brining the rugs they make to the attention of the wider world. Oh man, you should see them, here are a few of my favourites but there are tons more.

And better than just looking at them on a computer screen you can win one. If you click on the link above you will be able to see all the rugs and the women who make them, read the full story, and enter into a raffle. All you need do is send a US dollar. I have three, thanks to Bob, to send off first thing tomorrow.

The second: a young woman inspired to raise funds for the NSPCC has developed the 18before18 project. This is a set of eighteen challenges that she and a group of other seventeen year olds have set themselves before they turn 18. Click on the link to find out more, and read about the tasks they intend to perform. I've promised her a recipe for fried pig's ears for one challenge, which I must now look out.

Share the Joy Thursday: Delayed Gratification

2011-01-20T02:35:00.000Z

How could I not take part in something called Share the Joy?! Thank you camera fiend Meri for the opportunity.

I first had Lemon Polenta cake about fifteen years ago in one of my favourite places: Valvona & Crolla which is a wonderful Italian deli and cafe in Edinburgh. The cake was like sunshine dipped in syrup: lemony, crumbly and moist. It reminded me of the lemon meringue pie my mother used to make, in terms of flavour at least. I looked for a recipe but couldn't find one. It didn't matter so much at the time because we were earning then and I could, and did, go to Edinburgh often. And when I did I always went in to V&C for coffee and lemon polenta cake. Then we stopped earning, enough for frequent city trips and indulgent coffee breaks anyway, so I began to look again for a recipe. I bought several Italian cookbooks including one written by the owner of the deli itself, but no recipe.

I experimented and though I got something near, I didn't get it quite as I remembered. So, imagine my joy when in my Christmas gift cookbook (Nigella's Kitchen in case you've forgotten) there was a recipe for the very cake. I tried it a couple of days ago, and oh my, it's perfect:

The nose: so moist you'd almost call it damp.

The edge: sticky and, almost, friable. Each crumb is an individual in its own right.

Taste test.

It was well worth waiting fifteen years for this. But it gets better: when I was a child my favourite cake that my mother used to bake was Devil's Food Cake. It was dark and velvety and intense with chocolate. I loved it so much she made it for my birthday every year. And sometimes, just because she could, she'd make it for no reason at all. I'd get home from school, tired and grumpy, fumble about for my key, open the door and be instantly revived by a chocolate hit to the nostrils:
"You've made Devil's Food Cake!" I'd almost squeal, running into the kitchen.
"Yes, I have." She'd smile.
"Who's it for?"
"You."
"Me, but why?"
"You like it, don't you?"
"Yes! But it's not my birthday."
"I had a few hours to kill," she'd say, "you know I don't like sitting about?"
That's how I knew my mother loved me. She never said it, she didn't need to.

I've found lots of recipes for Devil's Food cake over the years but none have ever tasted quite like my mother'. Now I find Nigella has a recipe in this book, and with her track record I'm pretty sure it will be the recipe I've been waiting for. I'm going to wait a while before making it, though, wait and enjoy the possibility; the knowledge that it's there and I can make it any time I want. That feeling is almost as good as cake itself.

ABC Wednesday

2011-01-19T04:03:00.000Z

I discovered ABC Wednesday last week, when they were on Z of round seven. This week round eight has begun and as it feels like my kinda game I thought I'd play. It's simple enough: each week you have to post something to do with whichever letter has come around. As this is the start of a new round the letter is A. I've had a little look to see what others are doing and it seems there are stories, poems, artworks, photographs and more. Good, I like a remit that's not too strict.

For my first attempt here is something to charm you with,

okay, maybe charm wasn't quite the word. Alienate. A is for alienating armadillo.

I'm not quite sure what went wrong on the day we saw this in a junk shop, but it came home with us. After having the hideous thing on display for a while I wrapped it up in a plastic bag and hid it in a drawer in the attic. It stayed there for years, then sometime last year I noticed it had been found, and put back on the hearth. No problem, husband uses the sitting room as an office at the moment so I never go in there. If he ever gets a proper office he can take the damn thing with him. Meanwhile I'll share it with you in the spirit of: 'a problem shared is a problem halved'.

on its back.

Detail.

Detail with ear.

Why would you want this in your house?

A mummy and baby in Kelvingrove Museum and Art Gallery (Glasgow).

Hunting for Treasure

2011-01-16T15:15:00.002Z

When Alesa made this post about how she and her girlfriend like to go out on photo safaris my instant reaction was: "I wanna play!" And they said I could. How generous is that? So we set a date, each chose a theme, and the hunt was on. Here are the results, can you guess whose shot is whose? Extra bonus points if you can guess who chose which theme, too.

Change:

Untitled

Life is a Stage

Pocket Change

Mundane:

Mundane Munch

Untitled

A Mundane Bulb

Vital:

The Vital Elixir

Mirror of Life?

Untitled

Update: now if you place you mouse over a photo it will tell you who it was taken by. I have Alesa to thank for showing me how to do this, and you can have no idea how thrilled I am! Also, to let you know who chose the themes: Change = Alesa, Mundane = F, and, well done Titus for guessing this, Vital = me.

The Tyranny of Abundance

2011-01-11T12:34:00.011Z

No doubt dreaming of leisurely weekend breakfasts Stevie brought home a large plastic box of supermarket croissants two Saturdays ago. He didn't eat them, Bob didn't eat them, they sat sweating on the counter for a couple of days until a Greek chorus started up in my head: "Waste not, want not!" By Tuesday I could stand it no longer and toasted one, as I ate half of it the chorus divided: "You will be rewarded for this with enormous hips," wailed one section: "Wasteful, wasteful, wasteful!" the second section worked itself into a frenzy. I clutched myself and threw the rest of the croissant into the bin. I hate throwing food away. I hate throwing anything away. But I hate feeling full more, and it's possible I have an irrational fear of being overweight (I put on four stone when I was pregnant, and still remember the difficulty I had climbing stairs, I never want to feel too heavy for my legs again).

A few days later he brought home a large ciabatta loaf: "You like this ciabatta, don't you?" I do. I rustled up something moppably oily for supper. We ate half the bread with it. The rest joined the croissants in a corner of the kitchen. By Sunday I couldn't even think about the kitchen without the chorus starting up. It sounded like a thousand Kate Bushes singing 'waste not want not' over and over to the tune of Bohemian Rhapsody (remember that?), as a mob swept broken glass with barbed wire brooms. I had to do something and that something could not be me eating half a loaf of brick stale bread and five croissants by myself, they had to be made into something the others would be glad of. But what? At the eleventh hour, just as I was about to throw myself from the tower, in she rode:

My hero, Ms L.

I got her latest for Christmas and have since read it from cover to cover. It's bursting with recipes I'm desperate to try, and it has a whole section on dealing with leftovers, including a recipe for chocolate bread pudding. I decided to make a version of this with the croissants. So after checking them for mold, or general mankiness

and finding them fine (which is in itself alarming given that they were over a week old, but I was able to disable that particular bell), I got to work.

I sliced them into fat rounds, as if they were salamis. Decided against chocolate and smeared them with butter and jam instead (I quite like the idea of finding the odd jam-free one in the dish so proceeded accordingly).

Squished them into a pie dish. Made some custard by whisking together in a jug: three eggs, a couple of teaspoons vanilla extract, 200mls double (heavy) cream, 400mls full fat milk and about a quarter cup of caster sugar.

Poured the custard over the jammy croissant discs and left them to become one for about half an hour. Into a medium low (gas mark 3) oven it went for an hour's baking,

after which it was crisply burnished on top

and moistly custardy within. Delicious. The raspberry jam and vanilla custard seemed to work particularly well together with the slightly salty croissants.

To offset the calories I made

a light supper of chicken Caesar salad. This not only made me feel less heavy, it dealt with the stale bread. That silenced the bastard chorus.

Clean-out

2011-01-04T23:30:00.000Z

We've all had some sort of bug in our house. Or, rather, several bugs as they seems to be dealing with each of us differently: Bob has been snotty, coughy and achey since Saturday; Stevie had a 'bit' of a cough, a 'bit' of a runny nose and this morning a 'terrible' stomach ache - he managed to choke down a Chinese this evening so I guess he's feeling better. I started off with the same symptoms as Bob, though on Friday, felt appalling on Saturday, feel ok now, but can't eat. I haven't eaten since Friday and every time I try a morsel my stomach twists and churns and off to the bathroom I must rush. I think it might be my body's way of disposing of the excesses of Christmas.

Whatever it is it didn't stop me disposing of the house's Christmas excesses yesterday. I love Christmas and all that goes with it, but the minute January comes I want rid of the clutter. All the holly, ivy, cards and baubles have been removed, the chalk tree has been erased (you should have seen the dust it created!), and suddenly the house looks positively monastic. Lovely.

Continuing with that feeling of brusque efficiency today I have been getting on with work: I submitted a poem to Versal (my very first submission, it had to happen), the only lit mag that never fails to make me feel the way Vogue used to when I was young enough to think I could wear everything in it (and would, had I the money).

I also filled out the forms for the council's learning development department I've had on my desk for weeks. Ugh. The workshops I am to 'facilitate' for them begin on Thursday. I can't remember if I told you they can't afford to pay me, but they can pay expenses, so I'm kind of thinking of it as 'experience' and fun. It's only two hours once a fortnight, so it was hardly going to keep me in firewood anyway. I am now hoping that I will be able to eat something before I have to introduce myself, and the course, to a bunch of total strangers, if only because my breath is terrible.

Evolution with an R?

2010-12-30T00:00:00.001Z

As it's the last day of this year I thought I'd share something hopeful with you.

It happened with the plough, it happened with the steam engine, now it's happening with the computer:

the unforeseeable consequences of technological innovations.

Happy 2011 to you all, XXX

Punch and Goosey Show

2010-12-28T20:39:00.000Z

I'm marking exam papers this week. But by way of distraction, and in an effort to hang on a little longer to that Christmassy sense of comfort and fun, here are a few (more) festive photos:

This years goose was not a disappointment (which is good, because we're still eating it).

Sprouts, chestnuts and bacon.

Flaming Norah!

Trifle.

Gifts.

New holes to make belts and watch fit neatly.

Blimey it's Christmas Already

2010-12-25T01:46:00.000Z

Thank you to everyone who said such nice things in the comments of my last post (and please forgive my not replying to you all individually in my usual manner). I expect I shall wear the dress that calls to me the loudest.

It's nearly one o'clock on Christmas morning here and I've only just sat down, I've been buzzing all day. The upshot of this is I'll have bugger all to do after this time of the bed: shove things in oven, open and delight in gifts, eat. That's my kind of day.

After wracking my brains over how to make the house look at least a bit Christmasy without space for a tree I dashed out to Flowers By Fiona, our local florist for inspiration,

and bought some floral things around which to stack the presents.

This didn't seem quite enough so I dragged some holly and ivy in from the garden and generally

scattered baubles

and greenery around.

I even found a spot for our faithful old star.

Still, the lack of a tree bothered. Christmas without a tree feels odd. Then I got an idea and I think this idea came to me because I know you, you've all shared so many ideas over the year, so thank you once more.

The Shields 2010 Christmas tree.

Do hope you all have a marvellous Christmas, XXXXXXX

Frock, Frock, Whoa

2010-12-23T22:18:00.000Z

As you can probably tell Christmas in our house centres on food. But we do have some family traditions that don't involve stuffing ourselves senseless: presents (obviously!), stockings (filled with more presents and, gulp, chocolate as well as the ubiquitous orange in the toe), and frocks.

I do like a new Christmas dress, I don't always get one, but I always try. I think this particular tradition goes back to birth. We were poor, but my father was the kind of sartorial that deals with cuff length in fractions, so we had 'best' clothes for things like church and family gatherings. I remember being taken to London for Christmas clothes, as well as to see the lights, from a very young age. And I remember my father's face softening when I tried on something that looked just so. It was all so exciting, glamorous, and happy making. I've never lost the urge to recreate that feeling. Thus, frock shopping is the first stage of Christmas for me.

The Christmas dress has to work very hard. It has to have an air of the festive about it without making it unwearable for the rest of the year; it has to be washable as I will be cooking in it (though I do wear an apron), and I'll wear it to every occasion over the season ; increasingly it has to be elegant (the older one gets...), and it has to flatter my pie eating frame.

For the last few years I haven't been able to find a dress that fits the remit, and have come home sadly empty handed. So when Stevie and I went to Edinburgh last week I didn't hold out much hope. I presumed the shops would be filled with the usual too short, too sparkly, too frou-frou creations. Our first stop, Top Shop, bore me out; in fairness to it I'm not exactly within the bounds of its target audience, so I wasn't surprised.

Our second stop was Jenners, Edinburgh's venerable old department store. Jenners used to be the sort of place Miss Jean Brodie types bought their twinsets and sensible shoes, but since Harvey Nichols opened about eight years ago it's become rather chi-chi. Still, this didn't raise my expectations: my budget didn't run to anything from the posh brands, and as I looked across the ladies floor I was nearly blinded by bling.

After a quick scan I homed in on Biba. Biba was the dream brand of my early teenage years, but by the time I was old enough to go up to London by myself it had closed its doors. Their stuff looks much the same as I remember it from pictures in Vogue during the 70s: all ankle length velvets and silky prints. Ankle length, that is, if you're 6ft 2, which I'm not. For nothing more than old time's sake I wandered around and fingered the satins, wondering about leg extensions, and in the process stumbled on a definite maybe: fluid knee length black jersey, a floppy tie front and, much sought after, long sleeves. I would try it on. As I looked for the changing rooms I spotted what I can only describe as a Parisienne dress. Stevie said he didn't think much of it but by then I was already imagining myself striding across a parquet floor with scarlet lips, so I picked it up. Then I spotted a dress so bizzarre (like a deflated balloon with a doily attached ) that I decided to try it on for the experience. The result of taking three dresses into the changing room with no expectations whatsoever:

The Biba.

The Parisienne.

The Freak.

They all came back to my place. Two of them were less than half their original price, and I feel I've made up for the last several years of coming home empty handed. The only problem I now have is: which one do I wear on the day?

Oh, the Pie!

2010-12-22T23:39:00.001Z

For about a week and a half at the end of every year I love mince pies. I start craving them around mid November, but I keep my greed in check until two or three days before Christmas. Shop bought mince pies are almost always disappointing: the pastry is flaccid and the filling is overly sweet. They never have enough booze in, either.

As with everything in the kitchen I've experimented with every aspect of the mince pie over the years. I've used just about every type of alcohol, all sorts of fruit mixtures, varied the size and tried every pastry recipe that's come my way. Today I tried almond pastry for the first time, and it was the best yet: friable, buttery, and crisp (for the recipe see Nigella Lawson's How to be a Domestic Goddess, or How to Eat). For those of you who don't know what a mince pie is, here's the gist:

Into a saucepan I put about 1 cup each of currents, sultanas, raisins and dark muscovado sugar; a cinnamon stick, one star anise, a teaspoon of mixed spice, and a teaspoon of ground cinnamon for good measure;

add to that the juice of an orange and about 100ml of red wine. Bring it to the boil and simmer for about 10 minutes. Your house will smell like a morning stroll in Sienna. Leave to cool.

Tip into a bowl, add chopped candied peel (no quantities, I just put in as much as I can be bothered to chop), a handful or so of dried cranberries, a glug each of brandy and Amaretto and some (didn't bother to measure) suet. Stir it all together and fill your pastry cases.

I like to make marzipan stars to top the tarts as marzipan kind of melts a little into the fruit but goes nice and crisp on top, too.

Ready for the oven: gas mark 6, 15 minutes. Because these are best fresh I make only a few at a time, keeping the rest of the pastry and fruit mix in the fridge at the ready.

Result: three or four light, sticky, melty bites to each one.

Tomorrow: A pie eater's frock dilemma.

Citrus Skinny

2010-12-21T21:40:00.000Z

Ye gads, I hated candied peel when I was a child. I used to beg my mother to keep it out of the fruit cakes she made, but she put it in anyway. I remember once spending hours removing all the horrid, bitter little cubes from my piece of Christmas cake and piling them up on the side of my plate. Unfortunately, before I could get them to the bin my father saw and made me eat them, muttering something about wastefulness.

I was in my thirties before I discovered that candied peel didn't have to be vile. It didn't have to come pre-chopped in plastic tubs, and when it didn't it was delicious. It was also expensive, and required a trip to the city to procure. When we were earning I happily made the trip, but my second peel revelation was that it is easy to make. Not only that, it makes you house smell like luxury-end scented candles. The sort with names like Citrus Noir.

So, as Christmas isn't itself without mince pies, and mince pies aren't themselves without candied peel, today I made some:

First, peel your fruits: I used two oranges, a satsuma, a lemon and a lime.

De-pith: a scalpel is perfect for this, so much easier than a kitchen knife.

And it allows you to get them really thin.

Put your now skinny rinds in a pan of cold water, bring to the boil, drain, cover in more cold water, bring to the boil and drain again. The recipe I have recommends you do this three times, but I get bored and haven't noticed cutting it down to twice makes any difference whatsoever.

Place in a saucepan in which you have heated 1 1/2 cups of sugar together with 1 cup of water. Bring to the boil, turn down to a simmer, and leave to cook for about 45 minutes. Don't be tempted to stir.

Arrange on waxed paper to dry.

I was hoping that they'd have dried out enough to make the pie filling today, too, but no. I think I may have used too much water in the syrup. As for the syrup, don't chuck it: faintly citrusy, it's wonderful for Christmas cocktails.

Christmas Conversion

2010-12-20T19:28:00.000Z

We always used to have turkey for Christmas lunch. This tradition came from both Stevie's and my families, altered only slightly from the huge, frozen affairs our mothers favoured, to a Kelly Bronze or a Norfolk Black. Then, about six or seven years ago, we were too late to order either, but we could get a goose. It was organic, free-range, and extremely expensive, but we took it. I'd never cooked a goose before so I turned, as I always do in such circumstances, to Nigella Lawson for advice. What a palaver: it had to be dried out over night, by an open window before being placed in a very hot oven for three or four hours. Her recipe called for it to be stuffed with mashed potato, so this is what I did, and it was delicious.

We've never looked back. Hot, it is crisp on the outside like Chinese roast duck, and moistly tender within. Cold, it's fantastic with crusty bread, salad and pickles and just seems to get better day by day. From then on goose was our Christmas bird of choice. I've messed with the recipe since then, I no longer stuff it at all, and I dry it out in the fridge. We have it with the usual festive trimmings: sprouts with chestnuts and bacon, Bob's favourite sausage balls flavoured with sage and garlic, roast spuds, and goosey gravy made in the roasting pan with Marsala.

Two years ago Stevie was made redundant, as most of you know, and the price of an organic, free-range bird became beyond our new means. Enter Lidl. Whilst browsing for bargains one day I saw they had frozen geese for twenty quid. This was about a quarter the price of the fresh ones we'd been accustomed to. I had my reservations but needs must, I set them aside, and hawked one to the till. Squeezing it into our modest freezer was challenge enough, then I had to remember to take it out almost a week before Christmas to ensure it was properly defrosted. That done, I treated it exactly as I did a fresh one.

And here it is. I have no idea whether my mind was playing tricks on me, or if my standards had slipped, but this goose was the best we'd had so far: crisper, moister, and tastier. This year's goose will be moved from the freezer to the fridge this evening. Fingers crossed it doesn't disappoint.

Seasonal Snippets

2010-12-19T15:06:00.000Z

As I've been a little lapse with the whole blog thing recently I thought I'd make up for it with a Christmas post a day in the run up to the great eat off.

One of the things that makes Christmas Christmas is the music. The Little Drummer Boy is beyond a shadow of a doubt my favourite Christmas song, and these are my (current) favourite versions, in order of preference.

Bright Eyes: this is from the album that is Christmas in our house, which, one family get together, made my brother-in-law, Paul, leave the room it pained him so.

The Dandy Warhols: this is a new discovery but I do like the Dandies and this video is hilarious.

I'm only just beginning to get into the Christmas way. As I think of things I need for the festive larder I write them on the kitchen wall:

Next week I will be mostly baking, wrapping and decorating. As this house has become more like a suite of offices than a residence, with only the kitchen as a communal room we don't have space for a tree, so I'll have to be a little creative.

Cloud Theory

2010-11-28T14:17:00.000Z

I find myself with an unexpected free day. I should be at the paintball site, but unable to schoosh my windscreen clean I stopped at the garage on the way out of town to refill on 'wash'. On opening the bonnet I found the car's innards glistering with black slime. 'What's happened?' I asked it. A man who was checking his tyres heard and came over: 'Oil cap's missing,' he said, pointing at a lidless well, 'you'll need to check your oil.'

My oil was all over the engine, the battery, the radiator, everything! The sump was empty. I phoned Stevie: 'You won't be able to drive it,' he said, 'the engine will sieze. You'll have to stay home.'

I thought of the sausages, bacon, eggs, milk and rolls I'd just bought; of the frying pan on the backseat; the cups, plates, cutlery, teabags and sugar I'd packed. It's freezing here so I had planned to make everyone a hot, sustaining breakfast as soon as I arrived at the site, and keep the kettle at a peep all day in readiness for much needed warming drinks. The boys will be out, on their feet, in the cold all day. There'll be no time to drive into town to get food.

The garage lady came out: 'Oh, your oil cap's gone!' She said, 'You'll no be able to drive it like that, your engine will sieze.' She searched for the lost cap amongst the greasy hoses and wires: 'Just in case,' but it wasn't there. I closed up the car and brought it the quater mile home.

It's warm and bright in here, and smells deliciously of the slow roasting leg of lamb I put in the oven before I left. The sausages and bacon are now in the fridge, slippers have replaced the boots on my feet, and I have a large frothing cup of coffee beside me on the desk. I feel rather grateful to be home.

But, tomorrow we have 60 odd college students coming to play paintball, as we are short staffed I'll be needed. This isn't a problem in itself as I can go with Stevie and Bob. However, I also need to be able to rush away from the site and get to the university where I'm meant to be acting as second marker for a colleague's students' group presentations at 3pm. How can I fabricate a temporary oil-cap to get me through until a proper replacement can be sought?

So, I

2010-11-06T23:38:00.000Z

was thinking of writing a post. One
day, I'll have the space
in my head to do
what I'd like to.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-31T04:28:00.001Z

Marking essays at the moment. But because I just had to stand up for a while I faffed about with a small squash and a scalpel for ten minutes or so at around 2am.

I had made squash risotto earlier in the week so I didn't have to do any scooping of seeds and flesh. Thankfully.

It was very delicious, if slightly gelatinous.

Now I must get me to bed. Don't let the spooks in.

Day of The Bearded One (International Kim Ayres Day)

2010-10-25T05:01:00.003+01:00

A photographer with a passion for faces; a damn good writer; a teller of stories; a philosopher; a web designer (ex) who will wrestle HTML to the floor until it gives in and does what he wants; an über blogger; a husband to a marvellous artist, and a father to two smart, beautiful, witty, stylish kids.

On a day so wet and windy roads were closed by fallen trees and floods, Stevie and me gritted our teeth and drove into the wilds of Galloway to attend a weekend storytelling workshop. It was November 2006, not my time of year, and so far not my year. And now the weather howled: "Go back to bed!" I'd have obeyed, gladly, but I didn't want to let down the young friend I'd arranged to meet there. I cursed myself for having done so. But today how glad I am. It was in that cosy, picture lined school hall, in a village so small you're more likely to meet an astronaut from Timbuktu than someone who was born there, that I met the subject of this post: Kim Ayres (aka The Bearded One), whose birthday it is today.

I can't say for sure that if I had never met Kim I would never have discovered blogging. I can say for sure that he's the one who convinced me to give it a go. Good writing practise he said, and it forces you to write regularly so as not to let people down. Previously I had imagined blogs were the domain of a particular sort with whom I had nothing in common. The other thing I can say, with some conviction, is that even if I had discovered blogging without knowing Kim, I would not have met the same people (i.e. you) because when I first signed up he was the only person I knew with a blog. So almost everyone I've met in blogland I have met either directly or indirectly through him. So I'm grateful to him for that alone.

But blogging isn't the only thing I've gleaned from Kim. By telling his story so frankly he's shown me how to take a step back from certain irritations and look at them rationally, ridding them of their power over me. He's helped open my eyes to the complexity of our relationship(s) to the rest of the world (along with Nietzsche), and thus helped me not to judge myself, and others, quite so harshly. And he's shown it's never too late to change direction. Not to mention how much one can achieve in the most difficult of circumstances if one is passionate about one's task.

Since I've known him Kim has taken up photography as a full time, living making, occupation. It's been a joy to see his work go from strength to strength, his enthusiasm grow, and astonishing given that that for this whole period he's had to contend with extreme Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. How he does it I don't know, but I do know we can all learn from his experiences if we want to.

So, why don't you pop over here to say:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIM

One of Kim's early practise shots, of me in an old burnt out hotel.

To get a good look at his recent work go to his website: Kim Ayres Portrait Photography.

Others who are honouring Kim today are:

Debra, whose idea it was in the first place. Thanks Debra!

and Mary

Lifting the Veil

2010-10-18T16:55:00.000+01:00

As most of you know (due to various past posts), I didn't go the traditional route to university. When I was a child university was rather like the country mansion of some barmy lord – they were always barmy. I would get the odd glimpse, through dense woodland, whilst on, say, the fast train to Brighton, but there was no question of ever gaining access. Nor would I have wanted to. I'd heard the myths (then known as the 'god given' truth), especially the ones regarding people who tried to get 'above their station' by passing exams, and thus fooling the 'powers that be'. These stories usually ended in death or insanity.

At some point I met someone who knew someone who had been and survived, and, what's more, had a great time (though it was mooted that that was because he was a 'dropout'). Then I met someone who had been, and didn't look like a dropout (own teeth, clean fingernails, didn't wear green and blue together). Then I began to meet lots of people who either had been, were planning to go, or were actually there. One day university looked like nothing more than another option. You didn't have to be special, chosen, or odd. You merely had to be able to process information in a certain way.

I was a fairly crap undergraduate. I spent most of my three years trying to raise the veil of bewilderment high enough to see/hear/feel what was going on, in order to get some purchase on the courses. It was a bloody heavy veil, though, and I was prone to dropping it at terribly inconvenient moments (once it fell so hard it nearly took my nose off, but that's another story). Sometimes, for no apparent reason, a hole would appear in it, and, voila, I'd be able to see perfectly. During those moments of clarity much needed connections seemed to form themselves. But the veil of bewilderment demons would work quickly to fix the hole with their sharp little needles and mismatching thread. I would then have to try to remember those connections: imagine them, write them, draw them. I don't think I ever quite got their likeness down perfectly, but I guess I didn't do too badly as I did pass the courses, and get the degree.

It's a very strange thing, but the veil of bewilderment became very fine, sheer and light, for the whole of my masters degree. I never really had any problems with the work. I could see what I needed to and the whole course was pretty much a joy from start to finish. Though I constantly expected things to change, for the veil to turn from tulle to tweed (or worse), I never questioned why it didn't. Now, however, I am teaching first year undergrads, and I need some answers, badly.

I can see some of my students struggling to peer through their own veils of bewilderment, and want – no! need – to help them. To show them how to lighten their veils, lift them, peek through them, find a clean, sheer spot from which to look. I've had some limited success, but at times my own gets tangled up in theirs, and we end up tripping each other up. Sometimes I can see their veils altering in density during our discussions. Last week, though, most of the students came in clanking. Their veils had turned to iron.

Now in order to garner answers I need to formulate some questions, but where to start?

Mushrooms growing below a sycamore tree not far from the classroom. I'm not sure that they have the questions, but I like them.

Love?

2010-10-01T13:26:00.000+01:00

In a comment on my last post Jenny said: "You love everything, Eryl..." Or words to that effect. This has been working away at me. I do tend to say 'I love...' rather often: 'I love the cuff treatment here,' (on the Sartorialist, recently); 'I love cake,' (with alarming regularity), and the 'I love graffiti,' that Jenny was referring to, are a few examples.

I have fallen into the habit of nonthink-speak. Love has become my catchall word for... what?

One of my problems has always been distilling all my thoughts and feelings about something into a manageable number of words in, what feels like, the required timeframe. I'm not really a conversationalist, and am one of those people who think: 'I wish I said...' hours, sometimes days, and, truth be told on the odd occasion years after the event. Actually I don't often think that anymore, but for years I did. These days I just accept the way I am and continue the conversation in my head. This is probably where most of my fiction and poetry comes from, so I'm even beginning to embrace being this way now.

However, when time is short and verbal reactions are required I struggle. (I'm struggling now, to order my thoughts in a way that will make sense to you. I began to write this post at ten past nine (am) and it will undergo several rewrites* over the course of the day, as I come back and forth between it and all my other jobs, and bits of senselessness jump out at me. I'm unlikely to publish it until supper time, and it will still be less than half as effective as I'd like. That is, it won't say quite what I intend.) And what with all the interaction of blogs and other web based social networks, I often feel a need to say something before the opportunity is lost. I don't mean to suggest I feel under pressure, it's not quite that: I enjoy being part of the conversation, I want to continue, I want to fully engage for several reasons (I've learnt a lot, and have much more yet to learn, and, I guess, I feel I have something to add) and so I just don't want to let it slip.

But I must face it: I really ain't adding anything when I just say: 'I love that!' and move on. What am I doing? What do I hope to achieve when I do that? It seems to me that it's a rather pseudo-cheery-polite way of saying: 'Eryl wos 'ere!' done in the hope that I'm not forgotten, so that when, one sunny day, I have more time to actually add something I'll still be part of the crowd. It is possible though that this relentless loving will alienate the very people whose sphere I wish to remain in. And, I do mean something when I throw out the phrase, so it seems time to find a more effective way of communicating whatever that is.

So, back to my original question: 'Love has become my catchall word for... what?' Obviously it's slightly different each time.

In the case of the cuff treatment in a photo on The Sartorialist, I meant: 'I'm really not sure about the coat over all these luminous colours: I can't help thinking of a brown paper-bag stuffed with sherbet bombs. Also the coat is a little too reminiscent of removal men (and I'm thinking in particular about a comedy sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore here) to work with the rest of the look. Her hair, make-up, glasses and socks combine perfectly to reference the current 'Poetess' trend seen at several of the a/w shows last spring, and she makes me wish I was young enough not to look like a frump in tweed, but the coat seems to take the look from the library to the basement: it confuses (dulls) rather than illuminates. This is a jolly good effort though and the aspect of her look I find most impressive is the way she has folded, origami like, her sherbet coloured chiffon cuffs over those of the paper-bag brown coat, it reminds me of a Terry Frost painting.' Or something like that. It's taken me forty minutes to write that (and it's a bit too negative for my liking, I don't want to upset the poor girl) so you can understand why I don't have time to write considered comments on every blog I visit.

When I say I love cake what I actually mean is cake makes me happy. From making it to smelling, looking at, touching, and finally eating it, if it's good: fragrant from having been baked in a proper oven in a solid metal cake pan, springy, moist and either dense, like an Italian chocolate torte, or open textured with egg trapped air, it brings more than a little, if fleeting, spark of joy into my life. And this is true for many of your blog posts: from the photographs to the anecdotes to the descriptions of your own happy making events and finds. I say, 'I love this,' when something does give rise to that nice warm feeling of contentedness that love brings, if only for a while.

That's also what I meant when I said: 'I love graffiti!' Graffiti generally makes me happy, even the rubbish stuff. I have been know to spend far too long in bar loo cubicles because I was reading all about how Kit hearts Pongo and what a bitch Amy is. That anyone feels strongly enough to locate a pen, or scratching implement, and make marks on the laminate of a loo door, to me, shows they're alive. And that cheers me. As for those who risk their safety to spray paint motorway bridges with messages, regardless of the ugliness of their methods, technical skill, or artistry they always bring a smile to my face.

Here is some I came across in an alley on a recent trip to glasgow. I liked it so much I wanted to bring it home with me, so I made poor Bob hang about while I got my camera out and snapped happy:

This isn't, I know, graffiti. It's a window above I spotted as I was snapping, and something about it appeals.

So there you are: a meditation, of sorts, on my use of a cliché as a shortcut. In future I'll try to stop and think before I throw it at you and maybe throw something else instead. Thanks Jenny, for bringing me to my senses: the great contempt continues.

*Fuck it: I've now been at this for nearly four hours, and I still have: laundry to deal with, the house to clean, a pile of receipts to record on the business spreadsheet, supper to think about and make, the stuff for next week's seminar to read, and I haven't even cleaned my teeth yet. So, in order that I may visit at least a few of your sites today I'm going to publish this in its unrefined state: like crude oil I drop it on blogland's ocean floor in the hope someone else will clean it up.

Off

2010-09-28T11:21:00.001+01:00

to take my first two seminars of the semester (second two tomorrow), in my smart new skirt and old (but thankfully Prada) heels. Students no longer dress like impoverished landscape gardeners, I don't know how they manage it, but it means tutors can't either. Once this week is over I may be able to get some of my head back and actually write something, and engage once more in the land of Blog.

Meanwhile, look what I found at the family paintball site:

I love graffiti.

Order (of sorts) Regained

2010-09-17T14:02:00.000+01:00

My postman continues to delight me. After bringing me the new journal on Tuesday he excelled himself on Wednesday:

The new (first) collection of short stories from Darryl Joel Berger, aka Red Handed. I've only managed to read the first two stories so far but I can tell you they are great: beautifully constructed, utterly original, thought provoking and, perhaps most important of all, truly engaging. What I really want to do is take them on a long train ride so I can read them all as I rattle past truck depots, redundant factories, and gnarled trees.

On another note completely: have you noticed that in some of my posts, lately, clicking on the photographs doesn't make them bigger? This is because I've recently changed browsers from Firefox to Google Chrome. I like Chrome so much better for its smooth speed, but for some reason making a post in Chrome is much more complicated. I always compose in 'Compose' mode rather than html but when I hit publish in Chrome I have to go through a 'your html cannot be accepted' malarkey. I just delete the offending code and the post seems to happen as I intended, but none of the photos can be enlarged with a click, even though the hand appears over them. Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong? For this post I've returned to Firefox.

My multiple personalities are disordered

2010-09-14T19:27:00.000+01:00

I've become one of those people who feel so busy they can't get anything done for tearing at their hair and wailing: 'I'm so busy!' That sort has always irritated me: 'Stop wailing and get on then.' But now I know how they feel. It's like being in a wind tunnel filled with debris, battered by semi-identifiable flying objects. There is a way to stop these objects from continuing to thump me: I must identify them and put them in the correct boxes. As each object is placed in its box the wind will slow a little and the rest will be more easily seen, and contained. There aren't actually that many of them, it just feels like a lot. But I can't think, I can't see, I can only feel this constant bombardment of wind and objects. And I want to stamp on the next thing that hits me. I know, however, this will only make it even bigger and more terrifying.

I have put some things away, but only today do I feel the wind has died down enough to enable me to think. Today a big, hurty-thumpy, object has been put in its box.

With the unexpected rise of corporate-me, writer-me is feeling under threat. (I think it's she who turned up the wind (I know, this metaphor is beginning to hurt).) Especially as tutor-me is in the process of being resurrected for the new academic term. One of the things writer-me relies on is her journal, as long as she has a journal she knows she exists. Writer-me is the bit of me that holds the rest together.

I use my journal to jot down ideas, the beginnings of stories and poems, images, eavesdroppings, inspirational quotations, and all sorts of other stuff that I feel may help me actually write something again, one day. I stick in pictures from magazines and of my own taking, bits of packaging, old tickets, and postcards. Sometimes I even draw in it. I realise that a real writer could use any old pad of paper for the purpose, but I need a particular sort. For a while I used Papuro journals. They are incredibly beautiful with their glossy leather covers and smooth cream paper. And they have hundreds of pages so last a good year, but they are too expensive for me now. For Christmas one year Stevie bought me a recycled leather journal with thick card pages. Because of the pinkness of its cover it sat around unused for a year or two, but in May I ran out of space in my old one. Unable to afford a new Papuro I pulled, what I then called, the hideous pink thing from the stack of papers it was buried under. When I opened it I noticed that, not only did the colour cease to be a problem, it lay completely flat. This makes it much more comfortable to use: the need to hold down unruly pages eliminated I can sit in an armchair rather than at a table, arms and fingers don't ache, and ink doesn't smudge if I let go too soon. The thickness of the pages is a boon too, they don't buckle and crumple when I glue stuff in. In no time at all I was unable to imagine going back to a different sort. There is a downside, of course: with the pages being so thick there aren't that many of them, and a week or so ago I realised I was going to need a new one very soon. I knew he got it from Paperchase, so last week I went to Glasgow. Paperchase in Glasgow used to be in Borders. But Borders UK went bust. I knew that, but somehow failed to make the connection that with Borders gone, Paperchase probably would be too. I came home without a new journal.

I decided to try and buy it online: Paperchase must have a website. They do, but it's under reconstruction and wouldn't be in operation for another two weeks.

There is a big, luscious Paperchase in Edinburgh. But Edinburgh is less easy to get to and negotiate. They're installing a tram system at the moment, parking is difficult and expensive, busses and trains are infrequent, and I am so busy!

Yesterday I had only one page left, this made me feel nauseous, I was seriously tempted to jump in the car, but decided to search the web first. I spent hours trying different permutations of leather journal in the search engine: leather-bound journal/notebook/sketchbook/pad; leather covered... Recycled leather... I nearly relented and ordered a different sort, but one last try and I hit on the right phrase and found, joy of joys, iapetus gallery. They had what looked like the right thing. After examining it as closely as I could I ordered one at about 4pm.

Last night I filled the last page of Pink. This felt rather reckless but I had to get down Elizabeth Bishop's 'The Man-Moth.' This morning I braced myself for either a panic-trip to Edinburgh or a day or two of writing things on index cards, but before I'd finished a cup of tea Stevie came into my room and said: 'this seems to be for you.'

And it's perfect! The exact thing I was hoping for: thick card pages, sturdy recycled (dark brown) leather cover. It is made by a company called Art Box Designs who reform (rather like Spam, it strikes me) offcuts from the leather industry into a variety of very hardwearing, eco-friendly products. Both writer-me and I must stop fucking up the planet!-me are happy.

A Quick Hello

2010-08-30T19:36:00.000+01:00

I travelled by train to my sister's, so much better than driving: faster, calmer, and less tiring. The best thing about it, though, is that London is involved. More about this later in the week, once I've reinserted myself into my own routine, for now here are some trip snaps.

Racing away from the cool grays of the north

to the warm blues of the south

I miss brick (we have cooked liver coloured stone here).

The luxury of delivery.

Angela said: 'I can see some poor woman rushing round
the streets trying to find a replacement before the baby
wakes up,' when I pointed this out to her. She is a woman
who knows.

The prettiest cup of coffee.

In a London loo.

The river Medway.

Industry.

The 18.32 from Euston.

Plop

2010-08-20T12:03:00.000+01:00

Today in my garden.

I'm off to visit my sister in Kent. She is expert at unpacking, discarding, and repacking. I'll come back like a pristine cupboard: no stale spices, festering yeasts, or sticky rings from last year's jam.

The Moth in Me

2010-08-10T15:53:00.001+01:00

Philip just did a great series of posts on things that are guaranteed to make him smile. Seven in total, spanning the course of a few weeks. He's now asked me (amongst others) to do something similar. I embrace the challenge in the hope of gaining some focus to help me disentangle my woolly thoughts. So here begins a short series:

Seven Things that Act as a Flame to My Inner Moth: One: Kitchens.

As with everything on my radar kitchens are all about the story. I've spent my entire adult life trying to recreate a sense of three kitchens from my childhood: my aunt Eileen's, that of my aunts Marge and Elsa (they were sisters widowed too young), and my mother's.

Aunt Eileen's kitchen was enormous, at least four times the size of ours, light filled with a glossy black and white checked linoleum floor, and a large central island on which stood a toaster the size of a television set. It smelt of freshly buttered thick white toast, and gardens. The French doors were always open and we used to run out, past bustling aunts and paper reading uncles, to the garden to play, often circling toaster island a few times on the way. We were never told off for running in that kitchen, there was space for everyone. It was Ella Fitzgerald.

Aunts Marge and Elsa's kitchen was smaller, so there was no space for running, but it had a table and a breakfast bar, French windows onto a balcony that overlooked busy Earl's Court Road, and smelt of coffee. It was infused with the cool blue light of London skies and had the most desirable crockery I've ever seen: sky blue bowls and mugs with various pastel coloured interiors. I loved the mug with the butter yellow interior so much aunt Elsa saved it for me to have my breakfast milk in. The coffee smelt so good I remember begging my father to let me have a sip: 'just a taste, please, please!' But I was considered too young. I would sit at the table with my milk and watch my mother. As she took her first morning sip with all of London as her backdrop (I swear she was haloed by St. Pauls and London Bridge with a red bus on it!) she seemed briefly to transform into a film star. To this day coffee represents the height of sophistication to me. Very occasionally I manage to make a cup of coffee that tastes exactly how that kitchen smelt, and rejoice.

My mother's, our, kitchen was small with no room for a table, it was all about the food. Specifically the cake. My mother loved baking so the rewards were two fold: the cake itself with all its fragrance, flavour and texture, and a relaxed, happy mummy. Baking and decorating cakes was my mother's only opportunity for creativity and she made the most of it: when she died we found hundreds of photographs documenting her trajectory: birthday cakes iced to look like baskets of flowers, ballerinas, sports cars. As well as umpteen wedding and anniversary cakes she made for friends and friends of friends.

Kitchens, then, are warm, fragrant, happy places for me. So I tend to gravitate towards them. I love the hustle and bustle of bubbling pans; of chopping, adding, tasting and serving. The languor of rubbing butter into flour with cool fingers, peeling apples for a pie, creaming sugar and butter. I love mixing bowls, rolling pins with fragments from a historical paint-chart still visible on the handles, scrubbed table tops and chopping boards and thick cotton aprons. Every element of kitchen life acts like a moon.

My own kitchen with its scuffed floor and over-stuffed cupboards is the place I escape to when I need to relax. Like my mother before me I bake for therapy. Often as I try to work out how to get a character into a room I'll find myself craving Parkin or shortbread, and will end up in my green apron spooning cream of tartar into flour. When I get back to my desk with a slice of something still warm from the oven I'll just know how to write the piece.

Last Saturday, as I was struggling with haiku, lemon drizzle cake (thanks Nick!) kept imposing itself on my thoughts. Eventually I relented and donned my apron. I had never made lemon drizzle cake before and couldn't find a recipe. After trying to tempt myself with chocolate loaf cake, and failing, I decided to make it up by augmenting Nigella Lawson's 'Buttermilk Birthday Cake' recipe. The result may not have been a traditional lemon drizzle cake but it was divine:

The fun begins with choosing a bowl.

Organising the elements.

Creaming on an aproned lap.

Alchemical egg.

Raw (I love the colour and texture of cake mix).

While the cake is in the oven there is syrup to make.

Baked.

Drizzled.

Reward ≠ 1: the first taste.

Back at my desk and reward ≠ 2: by the time I'd finished with it the lining paper was picked clean and,

reward ≠ 3: haiku made more sense.

Blip

2010-08-06T15:52:00.000+01:00

I've had one of those mucus rich bugs this week. It laid me out completely for about thirty six hours beginning late Monday. I still feel rather foggy but that could have more to do with the wet, dark, cold weather than anything lurking within.

Thanks to being unable to sit at my desk, or move, or think, I finished reading Sylvia Plath's Journals (which I've been dipping in and out of for months), reread Ginsberg's 'Howl' which I finally (in my howling state) properly felt, and began a series of haiku exercises that, I'm told, will have me learn more about haiku in just one week than it's possible for anyone to teach me. Whether this is true or not I could't say, but I feel I am making quite some progress. There is something to be said for loss of critical faculties. I also seem to have lost four pounds. As I've been feeling a bit lumpen lately I'm glad of that. So although I didn't get anything I planned done this week (not one thing!), it has actually been quite a useful blip.

Now I just need to get my brain functioning again. Meanwhile, here are some photos from last week's 'Women's Group':

In full swing: the ladies try their hand at decorating cupcakes, and making flower pins and gift-boxes.

My table, which only got four visitors, though we had a lot of fun and everyone went home with a poem of their own making.

I didn't get a go at pins and boxes but stole a chance to decorate a cup-cake before everyone arrived.

Dasein

2010-07-29T15:11:00.000+01:00

I have been thrown into the world of work, and I have noticed that Being in this world is no different to Being in the world of home. In fact the world of work has rather imposed itself on my home. Maybe I've invited it.

Change is afoot at the Family Paintball Site: husband originally started it with a friend. They set up a limited company, became directors, and set about directing things. A change of circumstance for friend meant he needed to ease himself away from the business a little so he sold ten percent of his shares to another friend who works as a marshal for us. Now a further change for him has seen him take the decision to resign as a director and sell another twenty per to us. This will be a good thing for us if the place ever makes any money. Currently husband is the only director but we have the paperwork for second friend and me to be added to the list.

What this means for me is: I will take charge of the 'books' (sadly they don't have rhythmic syntax or obvious narrative), and do a lot of this:

The paint in paintballs is oily and gets on everything, so we use microfibre cloths to wipe down guns and masks during and after play. Someone has to launder them,

and these snoods, which have padding to protect your head from flying paintballs and their content.

And the armoured gloves which protect hands.

We give customers overalls to wear to protect their own clothing. Our washing machine can't cope with them so they go to a laundry. However, they tend to get torn, guess who fixes.

We also have padded tabards: more protection for customers, more sewing for me.

Another thing I do is check all written material for readability. The confirmation of booking form has just been subjected to my will, the website will be my next victim.

My job seems to be to keep things clean and tidy, and to keep playing customers safe by ensuring they don't remove their masks whilst guns are 'live.' Thirty years of housewifery hasn't been for nothing. Husband is director of managing, Ben is going to be director of operations and fun, I wanted to be director of interesting things but it looks like, whatever I call myself, I'm going to be director of mothering.

Job number two (or is that three, or four?): I've been getting ready for tonight's women's group:

We need tablecloths for the café area so have each been asked to bring one along, of course I didn't have a clean one.

This job has given me lots of fun things to do and think about. I have: photocopied some short stories and typed up some poems to take along as examples for the ladies to look at; gathered a pile of colourful postcards, some artifacts and my writing journals to give them some examples of how I generate inspiration in myself (it's unfortunate, but not having access to the minds of other writers I can't show how they do it); written stuff on index cards; worked out a plan for a short semi-formal workshop and, what I think could be the piéce de resistance:

Alesa suggested magnetic poetry and I just happened to have some gathering dust on a shelf along with a magnetic blackboard lurking in the attic.

This will, I hope, act as a variation on the index card theme: I'll remove my paltry effort and provide a starter line then invite everyone to add another line. Hopefully by the end of the evening we'll have a 'women's group' poem.

Thanks for all your suggestions and tips, those I don't get a chance to use tonight will get aired at a later date, hopefully.

Old Parts

2010-07-26T13:09:00.001+01:00

I took this weekend off from the paintball site to meet three Australian cousins: two firsts and a second. They are here because second (daughter of one of the firsts) is doing a PhD in astro-physics at Oxford, so her mother and aunt have come over to see her and meet us. They have been staying with another cousin near Oxford; he held a huge meet the whole family party earlier in the month but I didn't go because I had no money for the petrol. Luckily they wanted to see the Lake District, and we have another cousin who lives in Manchester, so we met up there on Saturday.

My sister, who lives even further north than me, and her husband came too. They got the train to a station from which I could pick them up, and off we drove. Thank goodness they were with me, when we got lost she was able to phone for directions.

It was lovely to be back in cousin J's house again, it had been her parent's before so I had spent many a sunny summer week there as a child. Her husband is an antique dealer who likes to paint things green, and bring home interesting things.

The shed door-stop.

Elements of other past lives merge with ours.

On Saturday evening Oxford cousin took Aussie cousins to a hotel on Lake Windermere, we stayed with Manchester cousin but arranged to meet for Sunday lunch in Bowness on our way back up to Scotland. Blimey it was busy!

It's changed since I was last there, too. I remember it being pretty but full of shops that sold stuff I wouldn't be seen dead with, and rancid fat cafés. Like any tourist spot it still has those but it also has shops that sell things like this:

(it's made out of a old boat and if I'd had two hundred and seventy nine quid and space in my car I'd have bought it for the garden, minus the shells),

Detail.

and we were able to find somewhere non-rancid for lunch:

This morning I was distracted by a link on another blog to a wordle site, and spent far too long choosing colour and shape. Maybe I could justify the time spent by finding a way to use it at Thursday's workshop. I tried to put it on my sidebar but couldn't see how, so had to put it here. I couldn't work out how to save it to my computer either. Any tips would be gratefully received.

Update: I managed it all by myself, see sidebar.

The Interview

2010-07-22T15:28:00.000+01:00

Mid last week I was in the garden potting up lemon-grass when Stevie came out clutching the phone:

"It's Beulah O'Donahue from community learning for you."

"Beulah O'Donahue from community learning?"

"Yes, Beulah O'Donahue from community learning."

"But..."

"Do you think I'm making it up?"

My mind raced: what had I done to community learning?

"Hello...?"

Turned out that a survey of this town disclosed a desire for creative writing classes amongst the population, and my name had been mooted as a possible tutor: "Would you be interested in facilitating classes?"

"Sure!"

So yesterday I met with Beulah and her boss, Anne (I've changed their names so as not to upset anyone), and had the most fun I've had in the company of complete strangers ever.

So much fun I didn't actually get anything concrete. I have no idea when they want the classes to start, or for how long a term, or possible numbers of students. I don't know where they might be held, how often, or for how long each one might last. I do know that getting paid is tricky but it will happen. I may have to go on a course, two days, to become a council approved tutor. The other option is I could invoice them for my services but they would have to get quotes from others like me in the area.

The other thing I know is that they run a monthly women's group in which they "have a variety of free, hands-on, creative workshops for [women] to enjoy" (I got this from the poster). Judging by the poster there will be a potter and a jewelery maker, and I know there will be someone who makes gorgeous bags because it is she who passed on my name. The next one is next week and I have now been invited to set up a workshop myself. This doesn't pay, but any expenses will be covered which is fine by me. Tonight there is a meeting in which we will discuss what we plan to do. Hurrah!

At the last women's group they did have a creative writing stand, a last minute conception, on which they put a huge roll of paper for people to write something on. I have that roll on my table now, it's brilliant.

There isn't much on it but what there is is funny and rather sad. I reckon my best option is to expand on that idea. So I was thinking of buying a pack of blank postcards some of which I'd leave blank, but on others write the first line of a novel, short story or poem and invite attendees to write something of their own. They could choose which sort, or even both. What do you think?

I also thought I'd take some visual stimuli: art postcards spring to mind, and my journals which are packed full of newspaper and magazine clippings, quotes, photographs, random thoughts and sketches. All writing related, nothing personal.

And, of course, some actual poems and short stories for them to read. They did this last time too and I have those here. They are all related to the home, but I thought I'd extend that theme a bit this time.

So, do you think that's a plan? I've never done anything like this before, I've taught creative writing to school kids, but I've never been an attraction at a fair.

Any ideas you might like to share with me, please do, and if anyone can provide any first lines for the postcards, or suggest short stories or poems to show, that would be great.

A Bucket of Puke

2010-07-20T00:27:00.000+01:00

Like a Roman at a banquet, I binge: art, ideas, chit-chat, libraries, lit mags, graffiti, windows. Delicious things keep finding their way to my plate and I can't help biting. I've over indulged, again, it's too late for an aperitif, I must stick my fingers down my throat and then go and lie down somewhere dark and quiet.

Watch out for the diced carrot:

Currently trying to learn spread-sheet (an odd language), and I have an interview on Wednesday, must prepare, oh god...

Journey

2010-07-10T10:45:00.000+01:00

I am generally pretty organised, I like to know the exact location of everything I might need during the course of the day, week, year even, so that I don't have to waste time searching. When cooking I can stick my hand in the spice cupboard and without looking pick out the cayenne pepper, cumin seeds, or whatever, because I know exactly, by feel, where it is.

Same with books: they are shelved alphabetically by author and I can go to the exact shelf on which all the Cs are without opening my eyes and grab Angela Carter's book of Fairytales should I need to. So imagine my horror when, having left it as late as I dare, I went to the S shelf on Thursday night to grab Muriel Spark's The Ballad of Peckham Rye, to reread it for the lecture I am to do on Tuesday, and found it not there.

Thus ensued the exact thing I try always to avoid: every bag was searched, couches were upended, papers scattered: no book. I remembered the difficulty of obtaining a copy last year, none of the bookshops had it and I had to buy it from a secondhand dealer on Amazon. I don't have time for Amazon now!

Yesterday it struck me that I might have lent it to Rhona (best friend, lives the other side of Glasgow) so phoned her. She was trying to get the kids, as they squealed in the background, organised for a trip to deep sea world, but, yes, she found it. She would post it immediately, special delivery.

So it has arrived. And I have learnt not to leave such things to the last minute ever again.

On another note: Lulu has inspired me, with her wonderful diagrams, to try one of my own. A new way to document the days and brighten the pages of my diary. Here is my first effort:

Certified

2010-07-08T13:12:00.000+01:00

Graduations are always rather like weddings: everyone is cheery and pleased to be there, the dress code is archaic, and there is a set format that hasn't really altered for hundreds of years. To add to this feeling the ceremony at my university campus takes place at the Crichton Memorial Church which, according to the chap who sat next to me, was modelled on Hereford Cathedral.

The day goes thus: everyone congregates at the university's main building

before processing to the church

where we get called up one by one to be doffed on the head by the Principal,

have hoods whose colours symbolize our qualification placed over our shoulders,

and given one of these.

After the ceremony we are led back to the university by a piper (Stevie was lagging so didn't get a photo!) and arranged for a group photograph (current rector of the University of Glasgow is Charles Kennedy, seen here looking considerably less grumpy than he did during the ceremony),

after which we can resume normal activity.

∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂∂

Now I must read up on symbolism in the novel as I have to give a lecture on it (and ambiguity, which I'm more comfortable with) to access course students next week. Any of you got any brilliant examples, definitions or simple explanations that would enable me to keep some of my hair?

Hello, Can Anyone Hear Me?!

2010-07-06T11:51:00.002+01:00

When I got up this morning I was startled to find I hadn't already replied to the last lot of comments left on my last post. I was a bit tired when I got home last evening though, so it wasn't beyond the bounds of possibility that I became distracted and forgot to do so. No harm done. As I sipped my hot water (don't ask) I made my replies before dotting off to visit those new posts on my sidebar. When I got back a little later the reply comment I had left was not there. Odd, I thought, perhaps I did something wrong. I left another comment saying my last one had disappeared then noticed Scarlet had posted that her comments were vanishing, so I followed her link to the forum where she has started a thread about this problem. When I came back here that last comment I made had also gone. I went over to Titus where I had left a comment this morning and found it was now not there either. Who else have I visited this morning? I will have to check, and will have to remember to tick the email comments box in every blog I visit.

Has Blogger's Spam Bot come over all Hal?

On another note: it's my graduation tomorrow so I've been getting haircuts, filing my nails, and laundering all my black clothes: the dress code is either black or white – or a combination of the two – and I thought a white summer dress, of which there are many in the sales, would be a bit too Mary Pickford. I'm torn between my elegant French widow's pleat front skirt and my flippy 1920s (ish) one with bugle beads along the hem. Do you think bugle beads are a bit sparkly for day?

Update: I've asked Blogger for help here.

No Artificial Flavourings

2010-07-03T07:36:00.000+01:00

I must point you in the direction of Bob's (fruit of my womb) latest blog post. Watch the video, it's only three minutes you'll wish it were longer: the music!

Dashing off to work, we have a small birthday party at the family paintball site today. Yesterday we had the sixth form from Dumfries High School: what a lovely bunch of kids, honestly they were a joy.

A Space Odyssey?

2010-07-01T11:10:00.000+01:00

Do you remember that I posted a little while ago about a blogger who had had her blog removed without being informed this was to happen? Well, she got it back but all the comments she ever left on her own and other blogs have still not been restored, and worse, all the comments she leaves are removed within 24 hours!

Blogging is a dialogue, it's often the comments section that makes blogs so compelling. Without the conversation what will blogging be?

I hope this is a technical problem but questions on the help forum have garnered no answers from the Blogger team, the longer they are silent the more sinister this appears. And, actually, a glitch in the system that homes in on individuals randomly and silences them is far too dystopian to ignore. So a new campaign has been launched by Eroswings to try at least to provoke an answer from someone at Blogger/Google, and hopefully restore the comments of not just MJ but also another blogger, Leni, who is suffering the same fate.

Please pop over to Eros Den and follow his simple prompts to ask Blogger what on earth is going on. The more people who do this the more likely is the problem to be solved.

I requote his quotation:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out --
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me -- and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller (1892-1984)

This may seem, when there are such problems in the world as the Gulf oil fandango, like a very small thing. But without a voice a person is rendered impotent to deal with large or small. Today two voices have been silenced, how many will it be tomorrow?

It's time to make like the mushroom:

Mushrooms (Sylvia Plath)

Overnight, very
Whitely, discreetly,
Very quietly

Our toes, our noses
Take hold on the loam,
Acquire the air.

Nobody sees us,
Stops us, betrays us;
The small grains make room.

Soft fists insist on
Heaving the needles,
The leafy bedding,

Even the paving.
Our hammers, our rams,
Earless and eyeless,

Perfectly voiceless,
Widen the crannies,
Shoulder through holes. We

Diet on water,
On crumbs of shadow,
Bland-mannered, asking

Little or nothing.
So many of us!
So many of us!

We are shelves, we are
Tables, we are meek,
We are edible,

Nudgers and shovers
In spite of ourselves.
Our kind multiplies:

We shall by morning
Inherit the earth.
Our foot's in the door.

Thanks to: http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/sylviaplath/1415 for the poem

Adeus

2010-06-28T14:22:00.001+01:00

When Bob left for Hawaii I didn't expect to see him again anytime soon. So that he came home to help celebrate his father's birthday, and stayed for just over a week, fills me with gratitude, joy and pride (I'm not sure I'd have done the same at his age). Now he's on his way to Portugal with plans to travel round Europe and into Asia, we took him to the rail station on Friday.

Packed and ready to go

Ticket please

Last hug

Last glimpse

Luckily I'm not the sort who needs to have the people I love close by, I just need to know they're happy.

No Drunken Punchup Ensued

2010-06-22T12:30:00.001+01:00

We had lots of visitors at the family paintball site this weekend. I spent most of Saturday and Sunday standing behind a chipboard counter saying: 'fifty-pee' or 'a pound, please,' as thirsty hungry men came in for sustenance. We were hosts to a company that puts on 'big games', this one was called Wedding Day.

Don't you just love people who engage?

I guess these chaps had their own narrative to play to.

While everyone was in the woods blasting I was able to wander around and take some photos:

The Bride (once her bachelors have done?)

Nice to know.

Lots of people camped but this was the über tent

Aftermath

Aftermath II (site transport became the victim of a technical hiccup)

If one must go out to work it might as well be in a place that looks like this:

Looking out across the car park to the Solway
on Monday morning.*

Yesterday (Monday) we had normal customers: a family birthday party. So I spent the day out in the woods ensuring safety, unjamming guns, and getting very shot.

*All pictures go large with a click, extra large with another.

Birthday Post

2010-06-17T12:01:00.001+01:00

I knew, in theory, that the 24 year old I married would alter. I never quite understood, though, that one day I would be married to a 50 year old! Happy birthday to him anyway.

Bob has come home, on his way from Hawaii to Portugal where he is going to work on a horse ranch(!), so it feels like my birthday too.