Baking Subscription March

This is a sour cream and chocolate cake. I think in general the chocolate cake recipes the club send are very nice and this was no exception. It tastes very good, very chocolate-y.  There is sour cream in the cake mixture, in the ganache through the middle, and in the buttercream on the top. Certainly the ganache has a sharpish tang to it as a result,  which is lovely - takes away some of the sweetness. . If I made it again, and I'm not ruling that out I think I'd put some cherries or not very sweet cherry jam through the middle, which would make it a bit 'black forest gateau', but why not?  I am getting a bit sick of having to melt stuff in a bowl over a pan of hot water though; we seem to have done that a lot lately. 

Anyway, that was March, wonder what April will bring? 

I bought some wool .....

...and I knitted myself a jumper.

the colour is brighter than it looks in the photo, and it's a tweedy  yarn,  which is also possibly not very obvious from the picture. I was a good girl and checked my tension before I started, went down a needle size and the jumper fits, which only goes to show that checking is worthwhile even when you think it's too much of a faff. 

The goal this year is not to buy any wool unless for specific projects to be made immediatey and I didn't buy any in January and this was the only wool I bought in February and  I knitted it up straight away. So - Big Tick. And I do need new jumpers. 

In other news, there is no other news. I am still spending most of every day working away on the text of the Ph D, although I am at least currently revising the final chapter (hooray!) That doesn't mean it will all be over when I finish that, as there will still be fiddly bits to do, but it will mark a real step forward. 

I have not troubled the blog or my friends with details of the two latest annoying frustrating and generally quite unbelievable things that have been thrown at me in these final weeks, because really, having to suffer them is bad enough without going over them elsewhere. Any goodwill I ever felt towards my institution or my supervisors is well and truly lost and I am just longing for it all to be over. I truly wish I had never started the process and if I had known when I started what it would be like I would have walked away. However that's not where we are and we must just keep on truckin', until we reach the end of the road. 

There is a bright light ahead; weather permitting we are off to Glasgow on Monday for a few days, which will give me a rest from writing and act as a reward if, as I fully intend, the final chapter is revised and sent off to my supervisors by then. Sadly we are having to hire a car because our own is poorly sick, as in it does not have functioning windscreen wipers and the parts are taking forever and a day to get here. That said, the car has been showing signs of chronic invalidism for some time and the prospect of a replacement looms large in the OH's mind, and slightly less large ( seeing as it is full of Ph D related stuff) in mine. Watch this space .... 

Just Catching a Moment - and meet Hoops!

This is Hoops. No idea where the name came from, it just occurred to me,  but he was my Valentine's present from the OH. Not that we do Valentine's Day, generally, although some years we exchange cards. And some years we don't. Anyway this came up apparently on one of his trips to the Lego site, and it appealed so he bought it for me. Wasn't that nice? 

It wasn't too much trouble to make, although there was an unfeasibly large number of bits to put together many of which cannot be seen in the finished article. I could quite get into this Lego thing, after the you-know-what.

A propos of which, it's  a continuing struggle but I made good progress today, unlike yesterday, and I sincerely hope I ill make even better progress tomorrow. Today the strain was showing for my poet in North Africa. Tomorrow he reaches Italy where he writes a lot of very good poetry very quickly, sees some horrible stuff and sends a postcard to a mate from Rome. Riveting stuff. 

In other news we have continuing car woes, and I'm getting very worried about whether we will be able to take the car to Glasgow at the end of the month. We have no option about taking ourselves, but it's so much easier in the car than depending on ay of the alternatives. 

Didn't think that was supposed to happen ....

This is our poinsettia from Christmas 2017. It was so healthy and lossy that we couldn't bring ourselves to throw it out after that Christmas, so it stayed on the hall window sill and got fed and watered regularly by the  OH and knocked over regularly by the cat Markko .

And a couple of months ago we started to get red brachts coming out. I've always understood that this was not possible due to blah blah blah, not quite sure what, because I generally tuned out of GT when they started explaining why you cloud never get them to go red again and you might as well dispose of them. 

I can take no  credit for this myself. If it weren't for the OH I would live in a totally plant free zone except for the occasional bunch of flowers, but I am thrilled it's happened. Poinsettias are gorgeous and I've always felt a but guilty about throwing them away afer the festivities. 

A Spring Stroll

I have been once more down in the depths of the rabbit hole that is writing up, and I have to say that although it has gone quite smoothly for the most part, for the last two days I have been struggling. Whether it's cabin fever from sitting for so long in my study, gazing at the screen, or something to do with the work itself  I'm  not quite sure but it certainly doesn't help that I constantly remind myself that the clock is ticking - so much to do, so little time to do it. Although I tend to remind myself that I do have enough time - if I use it wisely. 

Anyway late last week we dragged ourselves out for a  stroll on the beach, and we had lots of fresh ar, and did a bit of beach combing and listened to the sound of the sea, which is calming and I took some pictures of how spring is springing hereabouts. 

On the left side of the bay the cliff has a few nesting fulmars every year. It doesn't do to get too close; like camels, they spit. 

I don't t know where Credence and Revival were, but there was certainly plenty of Clearwater. I looked for litter/plastic to pick up and dispose of responsibly, and I'm very happy to report that the one and only thing I found was a solitary plastic bottle cap. Which I duly picked up and put into the beach litter bin which the council provides. 

Our rockery was bursting into life - I love these miniature daffodils. 

I love irises, miniature and full size, even more. This was as close as I could get to the iris without endangering life and limb - well, limb anyway. 

I try to be selective about what I pick up in the way of shells and interesting bits of stone or, living where we do,  the place would be overrun. This was he latest haul Unlike my children when they were small I  do not collect bits of dead crab although there are usually a few of those to be seen too. 

In addition to the thesis there are several long running stressful things in life just now, and none of them seem to be getting wholly resolved, just partially so, and then its a case of two steps forward one step back. I am not good at living ith unresolved things causing me stress, so it would be good if the universe could see fit to get some of them sorted properly. 

Meanwhile the cat Markko is at the vet's having some dental work done; they rang to say he was very stressed which hasn't affected my ability to concentrate on work this morning. Oh no. Not at all. I shall be pleased when we get him back safely this afternoon.