Thursday August 30th

Well it's a miracle that I'm typing this! I've been in no-computer hell for about the last - well since last Thursday at least. Basically for the past two weeks, my cable has been playing up, and then as I say, last Thursday it packed up altogether. So if anyone's reading this, thinking that they might find out what's happened to me - there you go. No-computer hell!

Mind you, even if I had had it, I wouldn't have been around much. It was Mum's birthday on Sunday, and I was over there from what, Saturday - frankly, even though this was only last weekend, already it feels like weeks ago. The cake came out wonderfully, although I scotched the butterflies - simply too much trouble. Check it out!

The party went very well. We were blessed with really really good weather - we've been joking at work that this summer's consisted of a week in April and a weekend at the end of August, with autumn in between. But wasn't last weekend wonderful? People had to sit in shade, and come in out of the sun! Best of all though, Mum herself was on form. When someone's suffering from dementia, being on good form, or having a good day is particularly important - I can remember when Dad was in what was still the reasonably early stage of Alzheimer's, he and Mum went to visit my Aunt living in Birmingham, and they got half way there and he became convinced that Mum was kidnapping him! Writing this, it may seem like something of a joke, but believe me it wasn't any kind of joke at the time. Anyway she was in a very good mood and a good time was had by all.

So of course when I got home I was all excited that the people were coming to fix the cable - and indeed they did. Unfortunately they had to leave very soon after they arrived, as they didn't appear to have foreseen that in order to put the cable right they would need to get the other end of it out of the hole in the pavement. Frankly I would have thought this was pretty obvious to start with, but clearly not, and away they went again. If I hadn't have started shouting down the phone like a mad thing, frankly I think I'd still be here waiting, but I have a loud voice and I can make it work for me. So the web is once more mine!

Some of the books I ordered with my birthday Amazon vouchers have turned up! It's always thrilling to get parcels in the post isn't it? Anyhow, so far I've received 'The Popinjays', which is the account of the Woodville family. This frankly was a bit of a disappointment, rather than the rollicking read I was expecting. I can't really put my finger on why, it certainly should be a lively book given what the Woodvilles got up to.

Then, my second parcel arrived, with Christopher Brookmyre's Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks. Now this is an oddity, it's the first of his books I've ever read, and I bought it because I'd seen some good reviews. I'm not saying it's a bad book, but it's oddly disjointed, which is probably his stock in trade. I'd guessed the solution by about the third chapter, which was rather disappointing, but - well, what the hell, it wasn't that bad. Not sure I'll be buying any more of his books though.

The third book was a biography of Edward III. I'm still plugging my way through this, but a problem I hadn't anticipated was that in order to make the paperback small enough not to put people off, they've made the print so tiny that I have to go back and re-read half of what I've read! So it's very slow going. But it is interesting, and I do like Edward III. I've already learnt stuff that I didn't know, which is always a good thing in a history book, particularly when you're reasonably familiar with the background. So one up on that I say!

But ultimately, this shows the problem with buying from Amazon. You're dependent on reviews for a guide to whether you're going to like something or not, and in a lot of these cases, the only reviews that are there are the buyer one's. You can end up spending a lot of money without really knowing what you're buying. Still I've got another two books I think to come, so maybe it'll turn out to be 50/50 good/bad. Here's hoping folks!

Weds 22nd August!

I've just been watching the football - what a depressing experience that was! Oh well, I shan't comment, probably it's a case of the least said, it started ok, but oh boy, did it end poorly.

Anyhow, I've been a busy bee. Lots of work recently - hit that patch in the rota where it's been nothing but 8 - 4's. Ah, I hear you all say, lots of time to be working in the evening then. No, lots of time to be sleeping in the evening is what I say. I did get a bit done, but frankly, an 8 - 4 leaves me pretty much wanting dinner and a bit of mindless telly followed by a chapter or so of something entertaining bookwise, before sleep. What energy I did have went on icing...

Yep, the cake. What can I say? I have an entire potfull of butterfly wings and various letters that will eventually make a 'Happy Birthday' and walls sort of splattered with remnants of pink and white icing! (Actually I exaggerate this part, if the landlords reading!)  Seriously though, using an electric whisk to make royal icing is not a particularly good idea!

To be honest, it's not the electric beater, so much as the exploding icing bags. I don't know what they're doing to icing bags these days, but they don't seem to hold together the way that they did.  I bought a new one a couple of days ago and it actually had a gap in the seam before I'd even filled it!  Next one's I buy, I'm going to buy the good one, yep the professional bag, because you can at least rely on it holding together, and possibly lasting more than one icing session.  It's like tights, it's not a good thing to try and save money on.

 

Well fingers crossed anyhow, tomorrow I make the cake. I have the recipe, the ingredients - the pan is out of the cupboard and waiting for it's lining to be fitted - buttered and parchmented ladies, I'm old fashioned. I did use one of these super-doopery silicon jobs, but to be honest, I can't cut it well enough to actually fit the bottom of the pan, so it's best to stick with what you know.  Especially now Lakeland make that wonderful three inch roll that just fit's the sides so wonderfully.

My recipe is a buttermilk pound cake sponge. It needs to be a keeper, so using one of the buttermilk recipes will make for a moister sponge.  I aim to be cooking by first thing tomorrow, and icing by tomorrow night, probably fitting the final touches over at Winsley. I don't think it's worth the risk of trying to move the thing with butterflies in place - it's easier to put the base icing on and take a pot of buttercream with me (and the piping bag!) to do the bodies of the butterflies and stick the wings in over at Winsley. At least that's the plan right now... who knows what it will be by tomorrow??

Tuesday 14th August

I should wash my hands before I start this - I've been doing some Sculpey blanks for new pendant work, and my hands are still a bit 'clay-ey' - is there such a thing as 'clay-ey'? I very much doubt it. But Sculpey air drying clay is quite harmless stuff - it seems to dry and brush off pretty much everything. The pendants I've been making at textured blanks - small, round, with a little hook in the top to hang them.  Did you read my post below on the leaves? Well at the same time that I collected the leaves, I collected a few seed pods, and rather interestingly, one of them's dried, and as it dries, it's opened. As it's this huge oval shaped thing (I've no idea what it's a seed pod of) it's opened particularly irregularly. Rubbing it over the top of the soft clay has left the most marvelous impression. Well, I rolled rather than rubbed, but regardless, I'm very pleased with it. I'll take a few photo's after I've painted them, and put them up. I'm going to coat them with a base colour, and then rub colours over the top, including possibly an old bit of gold wax I've somewhere around the place. It should look good.

Sadly alas, the leaves were a dismal failure. The icing doesn't dry quickly enough for the leaf not to decay underneath, and it would contaminate the icing which I definitely don't want. So they are all now in the bin! I've been piping out a few flowers - just a blob surrounded by other blobs really. They're not so bad. Tomorrow I'll get started on the template for the 'happy birthday' bit - I've been practising my swirls etc, and I also need a new piping bag. My old one doesn't fit all of my nozzles which is a pain as for the writing I need to use the finest one!

Lord I've got a documentary on Bergman on the box. It'll have to be - well, I don't know, turned down at the least, Scenes from a marriage is loud - at least the bits they've chosen to broadcast are. Bergman's not my favourite of filmmakers, I quite enjoy some of them, but oh dear very depressing. If I start paying attention to it, I shall need a good few chapters of something light and frothy before bed - do you find that? Sometimes, you need to be cheered up before you go to sleep. I find Wodehouse good for this, and I rather suspect that's at the heart of my enjoyment of Harry Potter. Light, Frothy and totally inconsequential. Together with a nice cup of ginger tea, it's everything you could want before falling asleep. So on that note, I'm off to bed!

Sunday 12th August

Well, I'm writing this very late at night, waiting to see if a customised listing works on Ebay - it's all very complex!
I've recovered from the gastro, thank god. It's a nasty experience.. I finally made it over back home too - we had a really nice time.
But.. the big news on the home front is that we've decided to have a party for Mum's 84th birthday in a couple of weeks. This is a big deal for us - and I'm making the birthday cake. This has to be just super nice, she doesn't get to have this sort of thing very often, and I want a really nice cake to be the centre piece of the spread. I've been looking at cakes, and cake recipes - consulting on Flickr for ideas, design wise, and various recipe sites for recipes - although I have to admit, basically I think it's going to be a genoise. It makes a good base for whatever sort of fillings you want to put into it - and I haven't made up my mind as to what sort of filling to put in it yet. It's summer, and I think summer fruits would be nice, but I want this to be a sort of ultra glam cake, which fruit doesn't lend itself to. I've been experimenting today, with making leaves. I have this sort of image in my head, of a floral top piece, with leaves and petals cascading down - so I've gathered some real leaves, given them a good wash and made up a royal icing in a green. I then 'painted' the leaves with the icing, and I'm waiting for them to dry out, so I can try peeling the leaves off the back. I've done this with chocolate a good many times in the past, and it works really well with them, but I have no idea if it works with royal icing. I strongly suspect at the moment that it won't, but nothing's dry enough to really find out yet!

If this doesn't work (and as I said, I suspect it won't) then it's back to the old standby that I used when I made a wedding cake for my sister. With this, you need a template - a template of pretty much anything, but for sake of argument, let's say a leaf. You need to fix this to a smooth movable surface, and tape down a sheet of greaseproof paper over the top. You then ice directly on to the greaseproof, and leave that to dry. You can then peel away the paper from the back of your iced motif, and they store really well in a sealed container. For Jo's old wedding cake I also made some iced net butterfly's - you tape a piece of fine net over the top of the greaseproof, and ice onto the net - it makes a fine net wing, but you have to be careful as you cut around the wing edges with scissors. I may go for butterfly's with this cake as well, because they make such a pretty display. And whilst Jo's were all in white, for this one I could add little dots and patterns in colours. But then I'm very taken with the wonderful designs I've seen where people are making motif's out of chocolate, and applying them to a white cake. They look very beautiful.

But then I've also got this idea that a lovely big sponge cake with cream and say strawberries would be lovely. Not a Strawberry shortcake - I have done that in the past, but it's not exactly a birthday cake is it? It's more desert. Some of these recipe sites have fantastic recipe's on them though - I'm very tempted by what the Americans seem to call Yellow Cake. This appears to be a very egg yolk rich cake, which maybe isn't the greatest idea, as this cake will have to keep for a day or so. Which rules out things like Angel Food Cake.

You may wonder why I'm thinking so American in this. Mum's had a very interesting life, and spent a good deal of her childhood living in South America and Canada. So an American cake may actually trigger memories for her of her childhood. I do appreciate that South America isn't exactly the home of say, Angel Food Cake, or even 'Yellow' Cake, but I feel it's somehow more in that direction than say a Victoria Sponge! Actually writing this is making me think I should consult my aunt - my mother's sister, who would probably know a great deal more about what sort of cakes they had as kids than I do. Mum made some wonderful cakes for us as kids.

At least I remember huge construction jobs going on in the kitchen - I know Martin, my younger brother, had a fantastic chocolate train cake at one point! Whether Jo and I had such things I don't know, I rather suspect maybe not! We did have a remarkable birthday - I can't remember if it was Xmas, or a birthday, or which of us actually had the birthday if it was that, but I have very clear memories of what followed. Mum had tied up our/my/her presents with string, and hidden them all over the house. We had to follow this incredible maze all over the place to discover parcels hidden under cushions on the sofa, behind plant pots etc - if I remember rightly, we'd woken up terribly early, found the string and literally almost demolished the house before Mum & Dad had even woken up. It was the most exciting thing you can imagine, all that following the trail, and ripping open of packages - I highly recommend it to anyone with a child. But if I were you, I'd confine it to one room!!! And perhaps downstairs, so that you can prevent any early morning wakings, and the downfall of your careful plan by waking to discover a house full of discarded string attached to torn open wrapping paper!

Anyhow, my big present this year is that I'm going to be having a new chair for the computer. Since my present one is this rather awful Argos thing, and the new chair is going to be just like the one Martin has, I know it'll be ultra comfortable and come on wheels. Jo bought me some really fab soaps in lovely tins, and I got some really cool Amazon vouchers - enough to be waiting for some fantastic books to be arriving at some point over the next week or so. Don't you just hate Amazon's 'this book is available for immediate delivery' and then you get through to the payment page, and they tell you they won't be delivering your stuff for at least three weeks? It's a real swizz if you ask me. I was talking to Jane, a friend at work, about it, and she was saying she always orders from the used section because of this, and normally I would too, but these are medieval history books, and they don't always have used one's available. I think they get delayed because they have to print them off. Medieval history books often don't have a large print run to start off, they advertise them and wait to see how many orders they get for 'em. Alas but it's the way of the world, and at least it does give you the opportunity to buy some medieval books you otherwise wouldn't get. Anyhow, I've bought a history of the Neville family, a history of the Woodvilles, a biography of Anne Neville, a biography of Elizabeth Woodville, and a crime book. It's the Attack of the Unsinkable Rubber Ducks, but I can't remember who's written it, but it might be good. It's had good reviews.

One should try something new every now and again - I would never have found and enjoyed the Jasper Fforde books if you don't just every now and again go with a new writer. And I bought the first Laurie R King book after reading a good review, and I love those. There will be those of you who will draw in a sharp intake of breath when I tell you that these are books about a crime solving heroine who is the wife of Sherlock Holmes - yes I know, it should be ghastly, but trust me on this, they are very well written, and excellently plotted crime books set around the turn of the 19/20th centuries - lord, I was going to write the turn of the last century there, but heaven's that's only seven years ago now. Anyway, if you look past the Sherlock Holmes thing (if you're a dedicated Holmesian) (Holmeist?? Whatever.) They're very enjoyable.

I've also read HP and the Deathly Hallows. It's an excellent book. No doubt I'll write about it in detail at some point, but I'll leave it for a while, because a) it's good that these things simmer in the brain for a little while, and b) I don't want to bust anybody's bubble, so we'll give it a while longer. I know it's all over the net etc, but what the hell - this is turning into the post from Marathon anyway. If I kick in on the Deathly Hallows now, I'll be here for the rest of the night.
Speaking of which I should be heading for bed! It's 1:58, and I'd like some sleep tonight...!!!

Sunday 5th August, 01.09 am!

Yeah, I know it's late and I should be on my way to bed - I was watching what I'm afraid was a truly terrible film (Lake Placid, I would have been so way better off with Gregory's Girl) and then I started - or I went to switch off the computer, and of course before I knew where I was, I was browsing Flickr.

The good news in my life is that I'm on my way to recovery from the gastro-enteritis - the worst is definitely over,  and I'll be back at work soon. Unfortunately I'm not really ok to go home this weekend, so my plans there have changed - going to visit on Wednesday now.

 

So, being ill and all, I've been watching some truly awful television. There's something about being ill that makes dreadful tv about the only thing you can do.  What have I been watching? Oh God, I shudder to tell you. Midsomer Murder - who dreamt that one up?   But it is actually topped by something that for some unknown reason, ITV seem to have taken to showing instead of the kids' tv programmes - what's happened to kids tv by the way?  It appears to have totally gone from ITV, on the beeb has any kind of kids stuff on it.  Anyway instead of it, ITV have been showing something called Rosemary and Thyme. This extremely odd programme is centred around two women who seem to be some sort of gardeners, of which on every single job they take, someone is murdered. Even judging by the episodes I've seen, you'd think word would have got round among their customers by now. Don't hire those two, you'll be up to your eyes in incompetent police officers at any moment. Because not only do their clients get bumped off, the victims have the misfortune of having their demise investigated by the worlds biggest collection of incompetent coppers.

Now I thought Midsummer Murder was about the worst that British tv could get in the line of crime drama. Dear old John Nettles pottering about a disparate collection of picturesque villages with  a higher murder rate than that of the darkest inner city, forget New York, we're talking the Favellas here, followed doggedly by his semi-literate sergeant, as he sets about solving a case that you can be pretty sure was either a) the wife, b) the husband, c) the girlfriend or d) the vicar.  Or some combination therein.  But this is as nothing to this Rosemary and Thyme.  Extraordinarily, these two are played by two actors who really should have known better - and one can only assume that the paycheques for this must have been quite as incredible as the plots.  In the past week, I've seen them  - turn up at a cathedral to re-lay a medieval herbal garden (I think this was the dean being knocked off by the chapter, or was it the daughter that did it? At any rate there was a body in a well, which was momentarily diverting.)  Then there was one set in some species of municipal park. What that council was doing wasting its council tax hiring gardeners is beyond me, when surely they must have a parks department?  This one involved a foreign nanny, being blackmailed into stealing her employer's jewellery at the behest of someone purporting to be a university lecturer. Or at least, that was the best sense I could make of it.  Its by far the most ludicrous piece of trash I've seen in I don't know how long, and at least if I'm confronted by it again, I shall reach for a dvd. Even the most watched, scratched, ancient piece of stuff on the shelves is better watching than this drivel!

 

So that's my blast for the day. Catch you later!

And the P.S.

Yep, it publishes well. Mind you, I've got open pages all over the place, so I should just go and tidy those up... hmm, not too sure about exiting out of things before having actually finished.  Yep, it does seem to work well this thing.  And it's quite a user friendly application. 

 

I see my poll has closed. 2 votes, ha, hardly a lot there, but thank you very much!  It'll be interesting to see how I get on with the dashboard now I've put this thing on,  because I'll update the poll. I think the polls widget thing is cool.

Ah well, more anon...

1st August 2007

I'm at home, not too well at the moment, but getting better. I daren't go too far from the bathroom lets say... gross or what! 

I was playing with the computer and I've just uploaded this new blogging thing. Frankly I have no idea how it works, and I'm sort of trying to figure it out - the idea is that it shows you what the blog looks like before you publish it. Instead of writing the blog in the desktop box, I have this new box that has the actual background of my blog on it. So I can type in what I'm writing and it looks like how it should on the blog - so far as far as I can figue it out, it's going to save me the thirty seconds or so when you hit the 'view blog now' bit and you get to see what it looks like. The other thing that seems to be missing is the colour button, so no more rainbow posts peeps. Oh no, I've just found it. It's a nicer colour layout than the blogger one! Much bigger and good for my old eyes.

 

Anyhow it's fun to play with new things don't you think? Just every now and again. I'll see how it goes before I decide whether or not to keep it.  It's a microsoft thing, it's called writer.  One thing does look quite interesting is it keeps drafts. Now that I can see being useful.

 

I don't have a lot more to blog about to be honest, because as I say I've been/am being sick.  It's just a bug, but not a food poisoning type bug apparently, and there's nothing that can be done - just the old 'drink plenty of water' type instructions. It bugs me that you go to the doctor, and they pat you on the hand (metaphorically speaking, my doctors are far too respectable to do anything so inappropriate!) but they can't actually do anything.  And I'm seriously unhappy about this - a) its very unpleasant and uncomfortable, and b) it's interfered considerably with my plans for this week.  There was a training session at work that I was looking forward to - I mean really looking forward to, rather than just oh, it's training.   And then there's the weekend. I'm supposed to be going over to the family this weekend, but I can't take an infectious body over to the house of my elderly  mother can I?  Not with something like this, it could make her seriously ill.  Which is frankly, rather depressing. I shall have to talk to Jo about it, as a nurse, she will know best what to do. My brother in law's not been too well this week either, I don't think he'd thank me for infecting him.

And then there's the general work thing. It's a pain in the butt to be sick and off work because it puts more strain on everyone else. And I can't really get on with my beadwork in the way I'd like to - you've no idea what it's like to have a tray of small beads on your lap when you suddenly have to shove the whole lot to one side to make a sudden and unexpected dash to the bathroom.  But, the doctor gave me a big "do not take any Immodium style drugs". Apparently the quickest way to get rid of this is to let it, well, flow. Sorry, I'll change the subject here!!!!

Ooh yes, the colour button on this thing works well! It's great to be able to see the colour on the blog background before I finalise everything! It's much easier! Maybe this will help me to avoid the disappearing text bit - I chose a dark background so that the colours will stand out nicely, but I like reds and orange spectrum colours best, and sometimes they don't stand out too well. The green section above didn't anyhow, and I've changed it to the green because it's much easier to read. Mind you of course the big test is going to be publishing it. Let's give it a go and see what happens.