Chrimble - and the latter part of 2014!

Well once again it seems that time has positively zoomed by leaving me looking a little like a cack writer of blogs! K  I am somewhat ashamed that I haven't got round to posting since August, and I'm afraid I don't even have any kind of decent excuse.  So - enough of the self-flagellation.  What has been afoot?
I did some temping in the local city council offices, in the planning department.  I printed stuff out, I scanned stuff in.  Rather more scanning than printing and it had to be said - it was pretty dull.  It paid however, and that was the main thing.  Much nicer environment to work in than my last place too, which was nice. J Sadly it was just a 3 month contract so I'm now looking for something else after New Year.

Myself and a friend discovered a new cute micropub called the Pig & Pickle Taphouse, that opened this year in Exeter in an old post office.  This is the third pub owned by the proprietor of the original Fat Pig and Rusty Bike.  They have a microbrewery in the cellar of the Fat Pig (in the 2014 CAMRA Good Beer Guide no less) and you can now get their ales in any of their three pubs.  The Pig & Pickle is delightfully quirky, small and very friendly.  They also offer a whole plethora of different pickles, as the name suggests, that you can pick from to make up a platter to have with your pint.
The Doctor chap I was seeing is no more.  Wasn't for me as a long term thing so best to call it a day sooner rather than later.
I've also been cooking, baking, making some chrimbo bits and trying to sort out the vast amount of stuff I seem to own that is taking over the house!  I may have said it before but 2015 really needs to be the year of the life laundry I think.
For the Christmas period I've been back in Dorset with family, and visiting a few familiar haunts.
Studland beach, owned by the National Trust, is somewhere we've been going since I was tiny.  A beautiful long golden beach with protected heathland behind, it's great for a boxing day walk as well as a summer laze.  At the Knoll beach end where we start our walk you can see Old Harry's Rocks in the distance to the west.  Rather tiny in the background of this photo.  J (I know the horizon is wonky - frozen fingers!)

On the way back from Studland we stopped in the small village of Stoborough, just outside Wareham, and had a well deserved pint in The King Arms.  I had a chilli pickled egg too - very nice and suitably warming after our walk.  :-)

Well, this is a quick post just to reassure that I'm still alive out here!  I'm intending to get back to much more regular blogging in the new year, as soon as I get the damn internet in my house sorted out!

I hope you've all had a joyous and peaceful festive season.  All the best for 2015 from me and Zeke cat.  J

A summer off

Greetings and salutations!  I must admit that it has been rather a long time since my last post despite my best intentions.  So; what have we all been up to this summer?

I have been enjoying the fact that we’re actually having a summer this year.  I.E. – sunshine.  I've taken the opportunity of not working to busy myself hacking back the garden.  I knew there was a shed in there somewhere but since it seems that this year is the year that finally the bramble and the honeysuckle have declared all out war on each other, and are both intent on full domination of the garden, said shed took some unearthing!

I have been navigating the perils of ‘signing on’ for the first time.  That’s fun!  There is a distinct paucity of information readily available about what you can get, how you’re eligible for what and how long anything takes.  The entire system seems a bit of a mare but better minds than I have waxed lyrical on this subject many times so I won’t bang on about it.  It has meant I've had to go up into the city centre rather more often than I usually do with the side effect that I happened to go through the Exeter farmer’s market on a Thursday and take a look at what I spied:

 Razor clams! I have wanted to try these for a very long time.  Ever since I saw HFW extolling their virtues several years ago.  After that I came to realise they were one of things that people used to forage for and eat rather a lot more in decades past than currently.  That seems to be changing now though with the rise in popularity of foraging, and awareness of what local delicacies we have available without having to ship our food for miles.  I didn't purchase any yet; being out of employment they seemed a little unnecessary, but I spoke with the stall holder (from local fishmongers Gibson's Plaice) and he told me they have them most weeks bar the winter.  I shall save them for a treat.  J  In fact all of their produce looked very tempting, and beautifully fresh.

I have been making some crafty things.  Remember my purse I made that gets re-invented every time the cover is falling apart too much?  A friend had mentioned that she cannot find a card sized purse anywhere and as it was her birthday coming up I decided to make her one. 

I used some scraps in her favourite colours and stitched it up on a visit home to Ma (and her sewing machine) and she loved it.

I've also been doing waaay more baking than I ever normally have the time for - tried cheese and courgette scones - thoroughly lovely.  Useful to use up any excess courgettes from the garden or allotment.  Which brings me to the news that I am helping a friend with her allotment as she has virtually no experience at growing things.  In return I get to adopt the shed on the right  and get part of the plot to myself and we share the rest.  I've been loving getting back into the digging - it made me realise how much I missed the old plot.  Lots of plans going round my head for next season.

All of these things have made me rather wish I could make a living crafting things, and doing gardens, and baking, with perhaps some social media marketing and invoicing / IT thrown in for good measure.  I wonder if that’s possible...  Sadly something tells me I'm going to have to get a ‘real’ job.  It has been lovely having a several weeks to myself though, for which I am grateful, and it has given me time to re-evaluate quite drastically what I want from a job.  I have come to the conclusion that as long as I can pay the rent and bills and have enough for Zeke and I to live on then it is far more important to me now, to find something I am happy doing / can believe in.  It may take me some time to find this so in the time being I have been applying for casual type stuff/temping whilst I search.  Wish me luck in my quest!

This throw-away life

It never fails to astound me how wasteful people are, whilst seemingly remaining completely oblivious of this fact.  

No more are the majority of the public prepared to ‘make do and mend’, or even it seems, bother cleaning items when you can just buy new! 

These 3 deep glass (soufflé?) dishes were spied abandoned by the side of a glass bottle bank one night when I was out with the Doctor and some friends.  After discussion in the pub we all agreed it was worth a closer look- were they actually cracked, broken and knackered or just in need of a damn good clean?  Well as you can see – there’s nothing wrong with them!  They were caked in baked on oil, as you get when using glass or ceramic for roasting, but all they needed was a good going at with the scouring pad and hey presto – approx £25-30 worth of glassware for nuppence bar some elbow grease.  What is wrong with these people??!

Just yesterday I spied this big ‘bag for life’ dumped half way round the local Aldi.  'Oh no (heavy sarcasm)

the handle’s coming off!'  So I picked it up and will put a bunch of strong stitching through and bag (ha ha) myself a good as new, strong, big shopping bag.  These must cost at least a couple of pounds, doesn't that make them worth the handful of minutes it would take to put some stitches in?  Or do people have money to burn (I wouldn't have thought so in the current economic climate) and I'm just more sensitive to it now I am sans job?

On another note can we afford to be so cavalier with our resources that it’s ok to throw such items away?  And can we assume that there’s an infinite amount of space in landfill for them all?  Worth a thought, surely?

Ezekiel was just as non-plussed as me - at me using 'his' garden for taking photographs in!

"What's this??"

#100HAPPYDAYS Set 3: 32 - 45

Time for the next installment of my #100HAPPYDAYS photos.  If anyone missed it first time round or wants a refresher the premise is summed up on their website.

"We live in times when super-busy schedules have become something to boast about. While the speed of life increases, there is less and less time to enjoy the moment that you are in. The ability to appreciate the moment, the environment and yourself in it, is the base for the bridge towards long term happiness of any human being."

You take the time to notice something that makes you happy each day; no matter how big or small.  This in turn should start help to train your brain to notice the things each day which make you happy.  So helping us to stop focusing on the negatives so much. Huff Post have a good explanatory article here.

Day 32: The Dr has brought me free range eggs. Good eh? 

Day 33: I finally got round to acquiring (ahem), a cutting of the most gorgeous and fragrant rambling rose that I've been walking past on my way to and from work for the last 7 years. Yay! 

Day 34: After a friend alerted me by text (thank you!) I managed to snag these couple of bargains at the local Co-op. Smoked salmon is my favourite!!!  

Day 35: Running around with my favourite small person and her pink bunny. (Confusingly called Little Kitty.) She is an absolute joy. 

Day 36: Unexpected catch up with good friends whilst trying out a different pub. 

Day 37: Day 1 of Exeter Festival of South West Food & Drink; with my ma. A favourite cheese of mine but I did make the comment (based on it's looks) 'That's a cheese you wouldn't want to meet down a dark alley' - luckily the owner chap found it pretty funny. 

Any TP fans will know what I mean when I say I think it looks like Horace might. Awesome tasting ewe's milk cheese though - get some from the good folks at Wootton Dairy. 

Day 38: The most gorgeous cider ever tasted by mere mortals. The limited edition Maverick from The Orchard Pig at the food festy. Cider with ginger and a subtle hint of chilli. HOW frigging good is it? And I have 4 pints all my own stashed at home. 

Day 39 (Sunday): Food fest haul. 6 lovely cheeses, mushroom and stilton pie, yummy olives, brilliant The Potted Fish Company bits. (YUM!!) Best cider, Elderflower cordial (try it in your G&T) and my yearly stock up on Cornish Sea Salt. More potted fish loveliness - all those on the top left were free at the end of the fest. Result! 

Day 40: My lovely friend donated me this for my spatzle frolics. Diolch yn fawr iawn i chi cariad. 

Day 41: Getting home from a trying day at work to find food delivery accompanied by this note. 

Day 42: The smell of spring, and hope, and new beginnings.  

Day 43: The beauty of the sky never fails to inspire and awe me. Truly I live in a wonderful place. 

Day 44: Making new friends. Bigger jug than me!!  

Day 45: Sleepy kitty. Being very caring and loving... and hardly biting my hand much at all...

I have a full post about the food festy to get up sometime soon.  If you're ever in the area at this time of year it's well worth a visit.
I'm hoping for another happy picture later today - Chiefs have their last home game of the season today vs Harlequins.  Could be a hard game...

#100HAPPYDAYS - the first 2 weeks.

Well I did only say I'd post the pics on here weekly-ish, right?  I'm keeping up with the challenge of finding a happy moment to post each day so far.  Mostly these are small things but I think that's part of the ethos behind the challenge; recognising the happiness to be found in everyday moments as well a 'big' events.  More info on the 100 happy days site.
So without further ado, here're my moments so far...

Day 1: Can’t remember the last time I used this when it wasn't absolutely necessary.  My trousers are falling off me. 

Day 2 - Happy Friday! Good night with good friends and fine ales.  

Day 3: I fit back in my fave jeans - whoop!!!! This has made me a happy bunny indeed. 

Day 4: Very early! Bar dancing with my new bar 'family'.

Day 5: This beautiful magnolia stellata is on my route to and from work. I love seeing it each spring. Cheered up my walk home in the cold and rain tonight.

Day 6: Lovely bag full of Ramsons for wild garlic pesto later. Nomalicious!!!

Day 7: Happy guinness at a friend's birthday.

Day 8, which also happens to be my lucky number. Getting home to my furry faced love after what feels like a veeerrrrryyyy loooooonnnnggg couple of days. (PS - like most cats he takes a shit pic though.  )

Day 9: That patch of blue which prisoners call the sky... The sun coming out on a Friday afternoon at work when it seems like the rest of the week it's rained every afternoon / evening.

Day 10: Spending all day in bed because you can and not feeling even a tiny bit guilty about it.

Day 11 - Watching the rather spiffing Aunt Fanny's Handbag laying down some chillaxed Sunday arvo vibes. Oh, and the greatest old couple ever, dancing their hearts out to it - she was being chucked up in the air and everything! 

Day 12 - Playing all the top old tunes you'd forgotten about on an unplanned jukebox marathon. They even had a couple of Ned's tracks!!!! Then I had to educate as to who Ned's were of course...

Day 13: I won free chocolate! Nuff said, right?  Small pleasures.

Day 14

Day 15 - Finding I can fit back in some trousers I haven't worn for 2 years, that are a size smaller than all my current clothes, and evidently I can fit into them without bothering to undo the zip. I believe 'Woot' is the appropriate word at this juncture. 

Day 16 - Leaving the office on a Friday in the SUN to be greeted by this display of beauty by nature. *breathe*

Day 17: You lot. Yes YOU. Realising I have some truly wonderful friends both new and old who care and seem to know just the right things to say when I need it. I thank you, you wonderful people you.

So that's as far as I am, tune in next week(ish) for the next thrilling installment...

The vexedness of the feline species

Well I had intended to write a short post advocating the joys of pet ownership; how when you're down they know and give comfort, how they entertain us, how they keep you warm snuggling up on the sofa together, and how my Zeke cheers me up in the long dark hours insomnia brings on you.  (Woke up at 4am today- proper 'bing - full awake' styley too.  Pah.)

However, my little furry friend decided that instead of offering comfort and succour to a soul much in need of rest, he would lose the plot; tearing up and down the stairs repeatedly, attacking the kitchen door - no idea what it had done to him but it was a full on claws wide 'Banzai!' moment I can tell you.  Then finally have a go at me by jumping at me from the stairs when I came out of the kitchen door at the bottom - a favourite trick of his when he's in 'wide-eyes-mental' mode.  I now have a bleeding scratch on my knuckle which will be itchy as hell in a few minutes as technically I'm apparently allergic to cats.  Only when they break the skin though luckily.  Or not so luckily right this moment but I can at least breathe in the same room as them, which being a life long cat person is the lucky bit.

Just to remind us what a very sweet little thing he once was; here he is at a minuscule week and a half old.

Now here he is over 2 years later and a master at ruining photos of himself.  Tsk!

As the cat was not obliging on the 'comfort in the wee small hours' front I went to the default position of a hot chocolate.  Although I'm far more of a savoury girl there are only some things that seem right when it's 4am and hot chocolate with a biccie is one of them.  I did have a minor biscuit dunking disaster though.  I guess my motor functions were still waking up...

Baking for Insomniacs - Easy honey buns

Having woken up just past the 3am mark on Monday morning and having very quickly recognised it as one of those times that the possibility of getting back to sleep was most definitely negligible (and this on a bank holiday.  Truly I must have done something awful in a previous life!) , my thoughts turned to baking.  As they do at 3am eh?!  I had been meaning to make a batch of buns / muffins whatever for some time for one of the Chaps work colleagues in return for a box of unopened store cupboard type things he gifted us when he moved including a full sealed bottle of EVOO, various herbs, a similarly full and sealed jar of curry sauce, some tins of chopped tomatoes, some cake cases and a sealed bottle of white wine vinegar accompanied by the immortal words - "You have it - I won't drink it"!!!  Part of the deal was that I filled the cake cases and returned them to him.  Not being someone who does an awful lot of baking I do have to be in the right mood for it.  As it seemed I was this morning I finally hauled my weary self out of bed around the 4am mark to embark on a spot of 'Baking for Insomniacs'.  (I think we need a catchy little tune there - if possible played on one of those tiny electronic keyboards you used to be able to get in various pastel shades back in the mid-late 80's.)
So - firstly a quick trawl of the recipe books as I really wanted a simple recipe without lots of faffing about.  Well - I say firstly - actually firstly was more like- trot downstairs and casually flick on the light switch without thinking about it then spend the next 30 seconds clutching your tear stained face whimpering 'my eyes, my eyes' quietly so as not to wake the Chap up.  Durrr!
Having recovered sufficiently from that to read the sodding recipe books I pulled 'Easy Cooking - Baking' off the shelf and had a quick leaf through the cake section.  Although I tend to make small individual buns/cakes rather than 1 big one there's nothing to stop you using a big cake recipe for little buns - just remember they will take less time to cook.  I adapted their recipe for honey cake; their's was topped with almonds which I didn't have plus I tweaked the spice amount; and I used this to make small buns on the basis that the recipe sounded like it would be nice plus it was an easy one to do and therefore should be fairly quick as well.

Easy honey buns
2oz butter
1oz sugar

4oz honey - they specify clear - I tend to use the S'bury basics runny stuff for baking which does happen to be clear but I can't imagine it matters that much.  Incidentally I found the easiest way to measure this out was to put the small pan I'd use to melt it in on the scales, zero them then weigh it straight in.  Just don't go too fast so you don't get too much in.  As you can see mine was somewhat crystallised but don't worry - the melting will fix that.
6oz plain flour
0.5tsp Bicarbonate of Soda (I upped this as I realised on getting the bicarb out of the cupboard that it was in fact out of date and I know this impairs it's efficacy.  I also know that too much can give a nasty taste so I added another scant 0.5tsp and it was fine.)
1tsp+ mixed spice
1 egg (They said medium, I had large)
2tbsp milk

Preheat oven to 150c.
Melt butter, sugar and honey together.  You don't need to get the sugar totally melted but the butter should be so it all mixes together well.
Sift the dry ingredients together.
Crack the egg into a cup or similar and add the milk and beat together to mix well.
Make a 'well' (if you're new to baking pretend you're making a volcano shape complete with crater) in the flour in the bowl and pour the butter mix in.
Gradually stir in the flour pulling it in from the edges.  As with many other recipes this one specified using a wooden spoon for this.  Now - having done a minimal amount of googling on the matter I see that there are circumstances where a wooden spoon would be necessary as opposed to a metal one.  (Hot sauces, acidic ingredients &c.  More info here amongst many other places.)  I can however see no need for it here other than the somewhat hazy notion that the rounded edges are gentler on the ingredients than a metal spoon's edges would be.  Whatever the pseudo science / old wives tale behind it I did make use of a wooden spoon and mixed the stuff together.

Next beat in the egg mix so it's all well mixed together.  You end up with a fairly liquid mixture which I then glopped into individual bun cases; fill each one about 2/3 and check at the end they're all more or less equal.  This recipe makes 12 regular size buns.  IE not the massively oversized muffin style cases that seem to have taken over these shores in recent years.  When I was a kid it was a fairy cake or for special a butterfly/angel cake where you took a circle off the top of the cooked bun and cut it in half and stuck it back in on opposed sides like wings with the aid of a little butter icing.  That was for special occasions only though.  We didn't have a head sized wodge of undercooked chocolatey sugar rush available at the drop of a hat then.  I'd imagine as a country we were also rather lower on the world index of obesity as well.  Make of that what you will.  [Clambers down off high horse.]
Bang them in the oven and sit back for 12-15 mins.  Test with a skewer once they're a nice golden colour and leave in the bun sheet to cool for a few mins before removing and popping them on a wire rack to cool fully.

Verdict - well I had to try one didn't I.  I liked these as a simple little light bun.  The honey wan't the most obvious taste - perhaps as I'd upped the spices but I didn't feel they were too overpowering either.  Just a nicely deep taste to them from the combination of honey and spices.  They were also nice and quick to make without the creaming step that's in a lot of recipes so if you're in a rush these are suitably time-frugal.
Verdict from the recipient was received via text: "Thank you for my cakes.  They're well yummy!"  I'd say that's a win.  :-D
Oh - and this is what you get when trying to photograph the finished product so therefore not paying nearly enough attention to your resident furry Zeke.  Think he's checking out the cool retro *plate too?

* These are bona fide old plates we used to use as a family.  I rescued the last 2 of them from the parents garage a year or so back where they were retired and had been relegated to plaster mixing and plant drainage duties.