First Fruits

So I made the first cake from the baking subscription.

Banana and cashew loaf.

I haven't had very much of it myself, although I did sample it. I'm not a big fan of banana flavoured stuff, and the topping is very sweet; toffee sauce with added fudge chunks. But it was definitely edible. The rest of the family pronounced it scrumptious and yummy, so I think we can call it a success. 

Waiting now with interest to see what the next one is. 

Who'd have thunk it?

It appears that, despite previous years evidence to the contrary, the OH can actually recognise the occasional hint about Christmas presents. To wit, my biggest box yesterday contained this:-

It's the first instalment of a 12 month baking subscription. Every month you get a box with a recipe card, and pre-weighed dry ingredients, and any little odd bits you might need, like decorations. I had no idea such things existed until our friend K mentioned a few months ago that she had bought  one as a present for her aunt and I was so taken with the idea I started mentioning it now and again in conversation, saying what a good idea I thought it was. Quite a lot. I thought that as usual these hints had fallen on stony ground, but they hadn't. 

Not included in the subscription, but added by the OH as an optional extra - a set of all the baking tins you'll need for this years baking. Woe betide anyone who uses them for anything else. 

I was absolutely thrilled with this present. And as tomorrow is the OH's birthday I shall make the first cake then. It's a banana and cashew loaf and I thought I might need to wait a while to do it as we have no bananas, (yes, cue earworm, sadly) but on a trip out this morning in a vain search in the only shop open for miles around to get some cat litter we found some bananas that were definitely going soft, as required by the recipe. So we snatched them up. And no, we don't generally have cashews either, but they came in the box! Stand y for photos. 

Happy Christmas

It's almost here. 

Now if you'll excuse me I've got one last present to wrap and two stockings to fill. 

Wherever you are and whoever you're with I wish you a very merry Christmas. 

Bunted!

I have been silent for a while , partly because I was having my traditional pre-Christmas meltdown, partly because I was struggling with the horror that is The Glasgow Lergy and partly because I have been busy knitting up the Ultimate Festive Bunting. And lo! due to my strenuous efforts the UFB is now complete and hanging up and here are some photos of it.

early days

almost there 

done 

and done 

and hanging up. 

I am actually very pleased with how it turned out, except for the fact that the cast off edge curls over, thereby hiding the 233 s*dd*ng tiny beads I placed along the tie with a  crochet hook so small it was practically invisible to the naked eye, so rather negating the effort and intended effect. Next year I'll soak it and pin it out and hope that that will solve the problem; there really wasn't time to do that this year. 

It is perhaps the most uncharacteristic thing I have ever knitted but I'm really quite proud of it. It was fiddly and I had to learn a couple of new things for it but it was well worth it

There hasn't been much knitting on the blog recently, not because I haven't been doing any but because it was all for other people, for Christmas,  and some of them or their relations do read this occasionally. So there'll be  a bumper knitting post after Christmas.

Meanwhile, for the past couple of days I have been totally convinced it was Christmas Eve, and even now it's still two days away. As my cards are all done and my local presents delivered and the OH has twice in the last three days braved the horror that is Tescos in the run up to Christmas to get the food, I think I can now relax. I am told this will give the lergy time to run riot, and its course, thereby ensuring that I am fighting fit for Christmas. I remain to be convinced but it's worth a try. 

Glasgow - The Other Bits

Well as it happens there weren't many other bits, apart for the Scottish Opera stuff.

Managed to go with Son No 2 to meet BH, the one time Scottish Opera Costume Trainee who we met about this time last year. Her time with SO having come to an end she managed to get a job with Scottish Ballet and is looking forward to touring with them to South Korea and China next year. Meanwhile she just managed to squeeze in a quick drink with us literally before catching the train to Edinburgh where SB are doing Nutcracker for three weeks. She was loving her new job which was good to hear. 

Should have been meeting up with my Ravelry friend A at The Yarn Cake on Tuesday but she cancelled on me because she wasn't well. This turned out to be a lucky thing because I wasn't feeling too clever myself by Tuesday and by Wednesday I was totally knocked out by some horrid bug. This meant cancelling a meeting with two friends in Stirling, which, given the weather, again wasn't a wholly bad thing, but disappointing. 

The OH,having finished all his admin stuff early actually came back a day earlier than planned, but being ill I have no idea of what he did with the extra day. I know we did the Emerging Artist thing on Friday, and also squeezed in a trip to Pandora and John Lewis as well. Saturday was earmarked for IKEA , M&S and Hotel Chocolat, but IKEA sadly fell by the wayside. We were in M & S mainly to refresh parts of Son No 2's wardrobe which had passed under the bleary eye of his sick mother and been found wanting in several departments earlier in the week, but I also binge bought some stuff for myself which is a habit when I go south. Having commented in a less than positive fashion about the number of black t-shirts owned by son no 2 , I perhaps shouldn't have bought five things which were all either black, white or a mixture of the two. What can I say, I was shopping for basics! 

And for anyone who might be wondering - this is how the bunting is coming along ...

although I am a bit further along than that might suggest as I have started knitting them into the tie. And yes, that  would be the tie the instructions for which begin Cast on 521 stitches!

Bedside Books Number 3

I first encountered Clive James as the TV critic of The Observer, back in the early 1970s. I loved the fact that he wrote so wittily and well about television, and took it as  seriously as other people took books and films. Somewhere in the house (for which read probably stashed away in the loft) we have copies of the three volumes of his collected columns from 1972-82. You would think that collections of TV criticism would date and I suppose in a way they did, but for me and others of my generation that didn't matter because they were a warm reminder of some of the amazing, and amazingly awful, TV that we watched.  

James eventually left The Observer and went on to other things; writing poetry, making TV documentaries and becoming a general cultural critic, but he obviously never lost his love for TV as this book attests. It concerns the phenomenon of the Box Set; the binge watching of which he freely admits to during his current illness, and he has plenty of things to say about it, both as a form in general and  why there is an audience for it, and about the things such series tell us about the society we live in, or the one that  we gaze upon from across the pond.  All the big blockbusters are here from The Sopranos to Game of Thrones, taking in on the way Breaking Bad, The West Wing,  The Wire and many others. Some I have watched, some I haven't, but I have enjoyed reading James' comments on them all. 

He's still witty and he's still perceptive. No-one else for me has summed up so precisely the basis on which the world of Game of Thrones works, but it is,  as James says 'a world in which the law has not yet formed'. A brilliant précis. 

The book is full of such pithy insights and is a totally entertaining read. It may be that this will be James' last book, and if so how fitting that his fial work should take him back to praise and critique the medium he has, all his life, done so much to champion. 

I might add that one of his throw away lines in a review decades ago about how eastern European contestants were preparing themselves to enter for Miss World now that they were able to do so, became a precept which I try to abide by, -  not always successfully, but I make the effort. 'People are not to be despised' said James,'simply because their dreams are cheap'. Just so.  

Music Maestro Please!

So I just had rather a odd week in Glasgow while the OH went off to Devon, but it was nicely book-ended with a couple of Scottish Opera events. We always think we'll never get to winter SO events, and I am personally convinced that we never leave the islands between 1st December and 31st March but the  Facebook memories app tells me I'm quite wrong about that! In fact we seem to be away for the second weekend in December more often that not!

Anyway, we went down a day earlier than needed for the OH's trip to Devon so that we could go to the SO concert performance of Prokofiev's The Fiery Angel. This almost always has the epithet 'rarely performed' attached to it and I always think that when things are rarely performed it's for a pretty good reason, and the reason is usually that it's not very good and no-one wants to see it. Not necessarily the case with The Fiery Angel though, possibly it just takes too much resource to get into production.

Pluses first. The music was wonderful We had expected some long dissonant modern score but it was hugely accessible and even melodic most of the time. The concert came as a joint production between SO, the Scottish Conservatoire plus a few soloists brought in especially. The soloists were generally very good indeed. The Inquisitor was below par, but happily it's a short role. The soprano who sang the lead role of Renata, the deeply troubled girl who sees visions of a fiery angel , was superb. I'm not qualified to comment on orchestral playing but it sounded fine to me - occasionally  a bit too loud for the singers but that possibly had something to do with the venue. 

Having said pluses first, that rather implies that there are minuses, but they're nitpicks really. A staged performance is just that but there's usually a bit of a nod to character in the way of costume. To this end I could see the thought behind putting the Doctor in turquoise scrubs but it was just a modern colourful touch too far, The girl who was singing the role of the medieval German Innkeeper was wearing 6 inch stilettos and a black frock that clung closely everywhere it touched - which was everywhere, except for the flame hem. It was a beautiful dress, and would that I had the figure for it; but as a nod to the dress habits of C15 women running a pub  by the Rhine it left a bit to be desired. Then there's  the 'plot', if it can be termed such. The libretto, also by Prokofiev, is based on an obscure book by an obscure Russian author; it is apparently a parody of Russian symbolism. Like the poetry of modernism, I suspect that Russian symbolism is easy to parody badly and very difficult to parody well. This does not strike me a particularly good parody, it's farcical. But, powerful and moving as well, in operatic form. 

On my second to last day, when the OH was safely returned from Devon, we had the pleasure of attending a recital given by the new cohort of  Scottish Opera's Emerging Artists. This was a very  enjoyable event with some splendid singing and much to my surprise I finally heard a song by Poulenc that I enjoyed. I have learned, over the years, and by dint of putting in a lot of effort,  a certain  appreciation of the 'art song' although those by French composers are generally still a closed book to me. After the recital, as supporters of the program, we were invited to lunch at the Theatre Royal to meet the young singers which was, as always, a pleasure and a privilege. They do anther recital in January and we're planning to go again, although in deference to the prospect of bad weather we'll probably fly down for that one. Looking forward to it anyway. 

The Snowman

Yes, we've been to the cinema again! that's three times in three weeks and probably more than we've been in the last three years. Although having picked up the program for December it seems that normal service will be resumed very shortly, because apart from the filmcasts from the Royal Ballet and West End Theatre, for which we will be away, there's nothing there that I want to see, although Son No 2 and the OH will doubtless go and see the new Star Wars (yawn) movie sometime over the Christmas break. 

So what can I say about The Snowman? Better than Bladerunner 2049, not nearly  as enjoyable as Thor Ragnarok. Before we went, Son No 1 told us darkly that it was a film he 'had heard nothing but bad things about', but there again he thinks that BR29049 is going to be his pick for best film of 2018, so what does he know? 

It's a workmanlike film, Snowman,  well told, although there's a bit of mumbling and everyone seems to suffer Scandinavian Disease, which is basically an inability to go into a space you believe to be dangerous and be unable to locate and/or use a light switch. Judging from The Killing, The Bridge, Those Who Kill, and a host of other Nordic crime dramas, almost everyone involved in law enforcement in he Nordic countries has an incurable case of this. Additionally in the real world no-one goes out in mid-winter in Oslo without a hat, and wearing a skirt that skims only the mid-thigh, do they? unless they want frostbite or to die of exposure? 

This is carping though, and while I'm busy carping can I just say that I thought Michael Fassbender was miscast as Harry Hole. I've read almost all the HH novels by J Nesbo and he just wasn't Harry. And it's not as though there isn't a  whole host of Nordic actors with excellent English who would have made a better job of it. 

Carping aside though, would I recommend it? well, perhaps not to pay and go and see. But, if you enjoy competent crime drama with beautiful scenery, worth a look when it pops up on the telly. 

Recommended Reading November - We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

I'm starting off, not with a friends recommendation, because I didn't get myself organised in time to get one for November, but one I took from the wireless, specifically Harriet Gilbert's A Good Read program on Radio 4. 

This was one of Gilbert's own choices. I've heard the program where she chose it twice and was sufficiently intrigued to remember the tite, not something that can always be said,  and as I hadn't previously read it I went in search of it on Amazon. 

And then I got even more intrigued when I saw the author's name. Decades ago my school was affiliated to a book selling program; you got a leaflet every ?quarter and you could order books from it. Presumably the school got some sort of commission. Anyway I was allowed to choose a book each time and on one occasion I ordered something called Raising Demons by Shirley Jackson. It was a light hearted account of raising a family in the north east of the US and although much of it went over my head, since five decades ago we knew very little about daily life in America, I enjoyed it and it has stayed in my memory all these years. But it was so different to the impression I had received of the 'Castle' book that I thought it must be a different Shirley Jackson. 

Turns out it wasn't. They are one and the same. Raising Demons grew from a series of articles SJ wrote for various magazines of her day to make money. Her husband was a critic and academic who was better at spending money that earning it, and also apparently better at philandering than fidelity, which casts a retrospective shadow over my memories of the happy if somewhat inchoate family life depicted in Raising Demons. It appears that particular  book was very atypical of her output in general., since mostly she dealt with the macabre, the odd and the disturbed. 

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is both bleakly funny and very disturbing, with a strangely sad,  haunting and yet oddly satisfactory end. Although I wouldn't necessarily describe it as Gothic I wouldn't recommend it for those who don't do that particular genre. For others, pass into the peculiar and precarious world of sisters Constance and  MerryCat, and the invalid Uncle Julian, only survivors of a mass family poisoning .... ; 

Thor Ragnarok

Yes, we did. We went to see Thor Ragnarok. I have to say it was a much more successful cinema visit than last week's trip to see Blade Runner 2049. Yes, it was rubbish, it's a crash bang wallop movie full of cartoon violence and non-credible action sequences. 

But here's the thing. It's a knowing crash bang wallop movie with its tongue stuck firmly in its cheek. The makers are perfectly aware that what they're doing is entertaining people. They have no pretensions; they're not there to debate the state of the world, or warn about a dystopian future  or kick off discussions about when a replica human might be so good that it becomes a real human or whether people have souls. Its just sheer unadulterated entertainment. And it worked. 

It helped hugely that, unlike BR2049 it had a more or less coherent plotline that didn't make you stop and ask 'how did he know he needed to go there?' or 'how did he get there' or 'how has he managed to live there undetected for decades, what does he do for food' etc  every five minutes. 

Fun fact: the bad gal, rather than guy, in this movie was played by Cate Blanchett. The OH is her biggest fan. Really. He is. And yet he didn't recognise her in this, even though she was on screen for a good 45% of the film. 

Next week Jo Nesbo's The Snowman, of which Son No 1 rather discouragingly said 'I have heard only bad things'. Oops! 

Just Too Tempting

I am, as we all know, attempting to reduce my wool stash, and in this respect if in no other, suspending my Ph D studies is a good thing. To a certain extent it's working, because I keep knitting and if I'm at home in Orkney there's no real pull to go and buy wool anywhere. Of course when I'm not in Orkney it's a different thing because I can visit lovely wool shops that stock all sorts of nice things I can't  get here or have never previously heard of, and sometimes these things are difficult to resist. Which would account for the skein of WYS Croft Shetland Tweed which has magically added itself to the pile. But come on - it's a gorgeous yarn, it couldn't be left on the shelf,  and anyway how long can it take to knit up one solitary skein of aran weight? 

And then there are the totally unexpected things. Like an e-mail offer on a kit to knit 'the ultimate festive bunting'. I couldn't resist, although to be honest I'm still a bit bemused about that. Why did I buy it? 

It's partly because it was on offer. 

Its partly because it's very Scandinavian in overall effect.

It's partly to prove I can do it.

And it's partly to protect me from buying a cushion or blanket kit from the same designer , which are very tempting indeed but which I know with a deep down rock solid certainty that  I would never finish and which would therefore be a complete waste of money. 

These are all excellent motives for buying it (particularly number four) and obviously outweighed for me, in some moment of temporary madness the excellent reasons for not buying it which are 

I am not a bunting person.

I might never finish it

It might be too complicated for me to knit 

I am not a bunting person, and indeed in the past have been quite scathing on the particular subject of knitted bunting

I probably don't  have time to do it, given that I still have a jumper to complete for grandson number one, in time for it to reach Canada for Christmas ( the one for grandson number 2 has been done for ages and indeed went off to Canada today) 

And I am not a bunting person. I know I mentioned that before, but really I cannot stress it enough. 

Still have a look at it ( in deconstructed form ) 

The only possible responses are 'How could I resist?' and  It's gonna be great!

Bedside Books Number Two

This is a very thin book but it has taken me a while to read because it's poetry and as any fule kno you do not read poetry books straight through at a sitting from the first page to the last. I have been rationing myself to three poems a day so that I could give due consideration to ( most of ) the poems. 

I bought this at the Gaskell Society Conference this year, which I never got around to blogging about because life was very busy in the summer, but I did enjoy it very much and here's a good tip for you; Never order a glass of wine to go with a meal at a Best Western Hotel, unless you want to be charged for two glasses,  and then patronised and ignored when you subsequently ask them to acknowledge and apologise for their mistake. In fact, it might be an idea to avoid Best Western Hotels altogether, I know that's what I'm going to do ...

But I digress. Why, you are wondering, or even how, did I come to buy a book of C20 poetry at a conference about a C19 novelist, and it's a good question. The Society always arranges for a local book dealer to have a stall at the conference and obviously they largely bring along C19 stuff. I tend not to buy any of this because I have all the good lit crit stuff on Elizabeth Gaskell, and indeed some of the bad stuff too. I also have more than enough books about the Brontes, and will buy no more  until someone writes something that asserts that the Bronte novel most worth reading is Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. I am not holding my breath in this respect but I have certainly read more than enough about the loathsome Charlotte and the exasperating Emily to last me a lifetime and then some. That said, I always have a browse of the stall and occasionally buy something, and this year it was the Gunn and Hughes poetry book. I think I paid all of a fiver and as I have nothing of Hughes' and Gunn was really just a name it seemed worth a punt. 

I have, as they say, issues with Ted Hughes, to do with his treatment of women, not that that should affect by one iota a judgement of his poetry. Previous acquaintance with his work had been limited to reading 'Thrushes' at school; a poem which is in this collection and rather better than I remembered it. That says much much more about me than the poem. What I found interesting was that even days after reading his poems if I picked the book up and read the title or first line I could remember what the rest of the poem was about. Some of them were funny, some were nasty, the occasional one was lyrical; they were all clever. Will I now invest in Ted Hughes' Collected Poems? No. Will I revisit some of these in time to come. Absolutely yes. 

Gunn is a complex poet, almost metaphysical in his approach to form and metaphor, and therefore some of the poems were difficult to follow or understand. But I bought the book on the strength of the poem that the book fell open at when I first looked at it; Tamer and Hawk    which totally captivated me. I won't be investing in Gunn's Collected Poems either, but I'll be looking out for a biography and some criticism in due course. 

Next bedside book is a lot less highbrow, but also not yet finished ....

Gadabouts

The OH is not very busy at work just now and as we all know I am learning to live a life without the ever present Ph D studies, so we were uncharacteristically busy last week. 

Well not on Monday as we were both catching up with sleep; him because he was tired from all the driving, and me because,  although I don't sleep terribly well at the best of times, I sleep even less well when I'm on my own.

Tuesday we went back to the Training Restaurant at the college. It's a new year of students and they're just starting out so things aren't perfect, but I'm looking forward to watching them grow, and there's nothing really wrong with their food. This week's lasagne was very nice - we both had that and then we had different  desserts so that we could swap half way through. I was confirmed in my opinion  that banoffee has no business being a thing. The almond sponge on the bakewell tart was delicious, but sadly the pastry required the aid of a chisel to cut through it. Never mind, Im not that much of a pastry fan really. The OH, who was recently diagnosed with diabetes, has no business going near desserts at all, but he seems to manage it very well, and the occasional sweet thing doesn't seem to affect his blood sugar levels so I don't nag. 

Wednesday we went to the latest exhibition at the local craft cooperative workshop; we missed the opening due to the OH being away. It was by a very talented textile artist; luckily the only thing of hers we could afford had already been sold but I did succumb and buy myself a pendant she'd done, which I haven't as yet got around to photographing. We followed that up with a visit to a relatively new eating place down in St Margeret's Hope, which I have been to before and he hasn't. They have really really nice cappuccino, and I discovered this week that their scnes aren't bad either. 

On Thursday evening we trailed all the way over to Douby for a Christmas Craft Fair, which was basically a sale of work and many opportunities to pay what a friend calls the 'Orkney Tax', which is buying raffle tickets. I think I have mentioned before that whenever three Orcadians get together they feel obiged to have a raffle. It wasn't at all what we were expecting, since we thought it was more Craft than craft if you get my drift, and it was also heaving with people, many of whom apparently were unaware of the existence of deodorants. The queues for the tea and coffee were horribly long too, so we didn't stay long. Since it's 30 miles away we were a bit cross, butt there gain, no-one held a pistol to our heads to make us go, and we just wont go again. I had hoped to look at some of the jewellery from Alison Moore because I am a big fan of her stacking rings, but, despite the fact that her name was associated with the event all over the advertising she wasn't there. I suspect she was in  her own studio which is somewhere in Dounby but it was too cold and dark to go looking for it so we came home.

Friday we went 'to the pictures'. This is an extremely rare event for us,partly because we tend not to like the same sort of films, the OH having, as I'm sure many will recall, an aversion to 'sad ends'. Goodness the unfair stick I got when I borrowed City of Angels to watch; it's not like I knew she died half way through. Sheesh! Anyway on tis occasion we went to see Blade Runner 2049; the OH being a huge fan of all the various permutations of the original, if anyone can decide quite what constitutes the original of a film the director has re-cut more often that he has had hot dinners. I wasn't expecting much, which was a good thing as not much was what I got. The OH on the other hand did have expectations so was disappointed, poor lamb. I think that on the evidence of the film I can safely say that the future, contrary to a  popular advertisement, is neither bright nor orange.

After a busy week I wanted to settle down and do a lot of knitting yesterday. Alibi duly presented me with 10 hours worth of Miss Marple, and I learned that I am actually not capable of sitting and watching 10 hours of cosy detective drama which is a good thing, but during the time I did watch I had the unexpected  opportunity to swoon over Christopher Villiers, who is a but of a pretty boy, but I like to watch him.

We will draw a veil over visit of Oldest Cat to vet for check up on Saturday as he has to go back for an intestinal scan on Thursday which bodes no good for health of either cat or wallet, but as he seems well 'in himself' we are Not Going to Worry, or at leas not until the scan has been done.

Who's up for a cod cheek omelette?

It is autumn, the clock has gone back and this can mean only one thing - Masterchef the Professionals is back. 

(Actually the clocks going back means several things, not least that I start to feel normal again instead of out of tune with nature and my body clock which is what happens when we put them forward and 'enjoy' BST Bit you know, for effect ....)

Of all the programs in the Masterchef stable this is the one I enjoy most.This is partly because quite often we are relieved of the presence of Greg Wallace, the bullet headed greengrocer, although to my mind not quite often enough. But there' is something good about watching people do things that they are good at in front of you, especially when you couldn't aspire to doing them yourself, and there's also a lot to be said for the pleasure of watching people improve week by week, which is also something that happens here. 

There are a couple of  downsides. One is that I sometimes have to watch people preparing food that normally I would not even raise my eyes to were I to be passing a shop that sold it in the street. This applies to several types of bird, anything that comes  with a head still attached, and all fish. This made one of this weeks skill tests practically unwatchable for me as six chefs were each presented with a huge cod's head and asked to concoct something using the meat from it; most went for the cheeks although one got the feeling Monica would have given extra marks for using the tongue or throat. Some had no idea what they were doing and  I had to watch their antics through interlaced fingers. Honestly, some of them were wrestling with it. One of them was so flummoxed he really did serve up a cods cheek omelette. None of the judges were prepared to taste it, which I thought was rather bad form on their part. They are paid squillions for fronting this thing; the least they could do would be to taste what's put in front of them. (Although to be fair, they generally do, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted to try it, but then I'm not a Michelin starred chef hosting a cheffing comp. 

And here comes the other downside. These are professional chefs, right? The sort of person who is holding sway in the kitchen when you go out for a meal. Until a few years ago I sort of assumed that  all these people were competent, Knew what they were doing. Could at least cover the basics. 

Alas, if there is one thing that Masterchef the Professionals teaches you, it is that you should assume no such thing. Many of these people, and remember they have put themselves forward for one of the most prestigious cheffing competitions in the country, cannot perform the simplest and most basic of tasks presented to them by judges Monica Galetti and Marcus Wareing. How can you mess up cooking pasta and prawns for goodness sake? I don't even eat prawns, but after years of being subjected to a variety of cooking programs on TV I could have made  a better fist of it than some of those guys. I do at least know to start by taking out the intestinal tract. As for kitchen hygiene -for many years I have felt slightly ill while watching them taste stuff off spoons and then put the spoon straight back into the cooking pot. Ahem! Eugghh! This year, there are far too many of them trying to prepare vegetables on a board they have just used to prep raw meat or fish on, without wiping it first. All my old Domestic Science teachers are spinning in their graves. 

I also think that the standard this year is generally seriously underwhelming. Marcus is turning back into the humourless cooking Nazi he always used to be as he watches a series of hapless chefs fail to complete the most basic of tasks, and Monica's faces are getting weirder by the day. I suspect that a lot of this general 'not-having-a-clue-ness' is down to a lack of formal training; it seems every pot and bottle washer in a kitchen can work up to  being a sous chef in six months these day, without necessarily ever being told that you don't peel parsnips on a board you just jointed a chicken on. 

I'll still watch till the biter end though. 

Dolls Houses

I love dolls houses. I had a lovely one when I was small made by my grandfather for a Christmas present; he made  not just the house but most of the furniture inside it too. It was wonderful, even after my so called friend Judith Smith put her finger through all the cellophane window panes in a fir of pique because she didn't have anything like it herself. It was a spiteful thing to do, even if we were just seven at the time. I wonder what happened to that house? My mother probably gave it away when we moved to Gloucestershire in 1968, I certainly don't remember seeing it after that. 

For many years I have lusted after those fabulous Victorian dolls houses that you can get these days. For years we didn't; have the money and now that we have I am loth to  let myself have one because I think that once you have the house you spend a fortune on the décor and the furniture and the people, and really there are more constructive and useful things to do with that sort of money, like feed third world schoolchildren, or protect donkeys or help refugees. 

But this year I got a substitute from my sister for my birthday. It was made of some sort of foam cum plastic stuff, and it came in a box in the form of press out sheets that you put together to build and furnish a Victorian home.  I did it over a few days and it was amazingly therapeutic and enjoyable. And despite the fact that I'm a bit cackhanded it did go together well and stood up all on its own. And is still standing. 

I took a few photos along the way  

here's the basic frame

the back going on 

building the front 

and the front goes on - and fits! 

close up of the nursery and attic, complete with rocking horse that really rocks , two small Victorian children and a pet dog. There was a cat as well but I put that in the kitchen.

I seem not to have taken any pictures of the whole thing when I finished it, but I daresay I'll get around to it in due course. It was a fun thing to do, I'm so happy I chose it.