Ladies and gentlemen of the literary jury, I need your help. The more observant among you may have noticed that I am not a gymnast (anyone who would have mistaken me for one, I'm flattered, but you may need your eyes testing). As days and weeks of good intentions have melted into months of lazy-mindedness, I find there's just one block I can't seem to shift or clamber over - not with any elegance, anyway. My blog has lain here quiet and abandoned, and every time I attempt to scribble something of any substance, I find myself falling after the first or second hurdle, to mix in yet another sporting metaphor.
I used to think it was a myth, like the mid-life crisis my father has yet to have, or a photograph of Roy Hodgson that doesn't make him look like he should be in the Hundred Acre Wood misspelling birthday cards. Either that or it was just an excuse for people who were too easily distracted by other pursuits. Well, colour me distracted - I really don't know what to do. And this, I hope, is where you may come in.
A few weeks/months ago (let's not get into the big ball of timy-wimy stuff), at the suggestion of the hubby, I made a brief, spontaneous, and rather absurd list of possible writing topics that would require maximum humour and hopefully just enough effort to get me back into my stride. I put them to you now, in (sic.) format:
Topic One
- the tiny hamster that lives under my bed.
- his name is Melvin.
- he is ginger and white and he eats marshmallows.
Topic Two
- 3-legged centaur named Grumble.
- he is the guardian of the Christmas tree forest, protecting all the trees throughout the 'off-season'.
Topic Three
- Reasons John Prescott would make it as a professional wrestler.
- Punching and ugly women...
Topic Four
- The perils of Just For Men (and other possible indicators of the fabled mid-life crisis).
It seems I may have come full circle in my references with that last one. As you can see, the list verges more on the side of the fantastical than the socio-political commentary I should probably be going for, but then again who says the two are so very far apart, or can't mix? Of course since the penning of the list I have had half a dozen other ideas, but nothing that I can work with at the moment. I think that's the challenge of any kind of creativity - can we stick at it for long enough to get it finished before the next thing steals our attention? Please tell me I'm not alone in this specific form of ADD.
So what I'm trying to ask in a rather roundabout fashion is, what should I write about (other than my inability to write)? If you have an opinion, please voice it! I will attempt to be open-minded.
Of course if no one responds then I will have to conclude either that a) no one reads my blog and I should have invested more in marketing, b) all the above ideas are too ridiculous for words and you are laughing at me, or c) you have more important things to do than indulge me in my set of First World Problems (please don't take that phrase as too politically loaded as I am just referencing a meme), and I had better just buck up on my lonesome.
As I type this, I have a cake in the oven, fruit steeping in wine on the side, and pastry in the fridge, so if all else fails I can just become a food blogger and irritate everyone with comments about wine having a nose and other such nonsense. Your call, dear reader, your call.
Saturday 20 October 2012
Sunday 25 March 2012
The Red Velvet Debacle
On a bright February morning, facebook played host to the most innocent of suggestions: ‘Come and stay? I’ll make cake.’
I’ve issued these invitations before, and they’re usually declined – not because I’m not an awesome person to visit (I am) or because my cake isn’t good (it’s excellent, she claims modestly), but because I live in the Middle Of The Country. Those of you who share my fate will know what I mean. We’re the farthest from the sea, we’re neither glamorous urban nor idyllic getaway, and most train tickets from most places cost as much as getting to London
But this time, something wonderful happened. ‘Yes!’ came the reply. ‘How’s three weekend’s time?’
I can’t lie, I did do a little dance of joy at the prospect of spending the weekend marauding around Stratford-upon-Avon and other choice haunts with my purple-haired college buddy. And then I got to planning – starting with le food.
My friend is vegetarian, and living as I do with a man who doesn’t consider anything to be a proper meal if it doesn’t contain meat, I was a little nervous about catering appropriately for all three of us for an entire weekend. I checked a few recipe books; I sought a friend’s advice; I may have even Googled. Yes it was probably a bit OTT, but this was someone I’d not seen in ages, and I wanted to feed them well.
In the end it was a completely different food requirement that gave me all the trouble. By the time the weekend in question arrived, my one guest had turned into three and we were on course for a proper reunion. Which was great – until I asked an ill-advised question.
Lesson one – never let your food-snob friend (sorry Tonny but it’s true) decide what type of cake you’re going to make for their weekend visit. What started as a quick mercy run for eggs and sugar will become an eighteen-item hunting expedition, which will on at least one occasion result in blank stares from uncomprehending store assistants who have never heard of buttermilk.
I had of course heard of the celebrated Hummingbird Bakery and its brightly coloured flagship-cake – what foodie hasn’t? But when I downloaded the recipe, I was disconcerted to find that my kitchen lacked a significant number of the required ingredients – including white wine vinegar. Who puts vinegar in a cake? Apparently, I was about to; that and enough red food colouring to keep an entire primary school hyper for a week. What was going into these cakes filled almost my entire kitchen table, so that I barely had enough space to measure and mix, and was constantly worried that I might have done something in the wrong order and upset the delicate balance of my culinary experiment. Was it meant to have the texture of meringue, and be the colour of primary-school-party strawberry jelly?
Eventually, I was ready to entrust the results to my oven - probably the most dangerous part, as it has a reputation for changing temperature and has a fondness for burning the outside and undercooking the inside of baked goods. I decided that after all my shopping and mixing efforts, I couldn't afford not to sit sentinel, and spent a rather anxious twenty minutes peering periodically into the oven before returning to my icing-making.
It was silly-o-clock by the time they were all cooked and cooled, so I decided to resume my efforts in the morning. 7am found me making butterfly wings (the cake kind), and smearing icing everywhere to create my rather-more-pink-than-red masterpieces:
I was pretty proud of myself, but I have to be honest - they really didn't seem to taste any different to most other cupcakes I've made! The chocolate element was barely noticeable, the texture wasn't exactly velvet, and the overall effect, while pretty, dried out too quickly. So much for posh cupcakes; clearly I still have some way to go!
However, the joke was on my cake-fussy friend a few weeks later, as he decided to undertake the red velvet challenge himself. I was inundated with slightly befuddled and entertaining text messages: "What is buttermilk?" - "So I churn the milk?" - "When the cake is cooked is it supposed to wobble?" - "Is it safe to put foil in the oven?" - and so forth.
Next time I'm going with plain vanilla, and I don't care what anyone says. Some things are just not worth the hassle!
Saturday 3 March 2012
The Colour Green
In my green kitchen, beneath a window framed in green voile, sits a green pot plant - my cyclamen. Its leaves are full, and stretching toward the sunshine in the tiny courtyard beyond the glass. Draped extravagantly over the whitewashed courtyard walls is yet more green - laurel, ivy, unidentified climbing plants, courtesy of neighbours' overgrown gardens.
This is my favourite time of day to take in the contrast of those bright walls and abundant shrubbery, when the mid-morning sun comes through the leaves and makes their green all yellow-bright. My white walls are creamy, striped with the shadows of dangling branches, and lately a few pink flowers have appeared in one corner, a teasing splash of lurid colour. My cyclamen presses itself against the kitchen window, as if reaching toward its outdoor cousins. Stripes of sunlight respond, passing through glass and slanting along my walls and countertops, kissing the cyclamen leaves as they go.
Green is the operative colour of the season, exploding in every corner of every garden, in the treetops, from the cracks in pavements. We are through the barren time, and life can no longer be contained but weaves freely around and back into its old familiar haunts. I know no other colour with so many shades, and so much power to evoke the most simple and sincere joy. Brand new green, deep rich green, ever-green, the green of watered lawns, of brookside rushes, of poplar avenues... it's almost too much to take in, this lifeblood colour pulsing through the veins of earth.
The local fields at dawn look like every untouched morning since the world began, their damp grass breathing pale mist. When you stand in them time slows, and all the history they've witnessed comes alive, old as the tree-buds are new.
Welcome, March!
Welcome, sun-blushed sky and pink-tipped hedgerows.
Welcome, baby blue cloud-scudded sky.
Welcome, clear brook, mirror of trees.
I'm so happy I'm here to see you...
I'm out of words, so here's Rossetti, and March's speech from 'The Months: A Pageant'.
***
I blow an arouse
Thro' the world's wide house
To quicken the torpid earth:
Grappling I fling
Each feeble thing,
But bring strong life to the birth.
I wrestle and frown,
And topple down;
I wrench, I rend, I uproot;
Yet the violet
Is born where I set
The sole of my flying foot,
And in my wake
Frail windflowers quake,
And the catkins promise fruit.
I drive ocean ashore
With rush and roar,
And he cannot say me nay:
My harpstrings all
Are the forests tall
Making music when I play.
And as others perforce,
So I on my course
Run and needs must run,
With sap on the mount
And buds past count
And rivers and clouds and sun,
With seasons and breath
And time and death
And all that has yet begun.
* * *
This is my favourite time of day to take in the contrast of those bright walls and abundant shrubbery, when the mid-morning sun comes through the leaves and makes their green all yellow-bright. My white walls are creamy, striped with the shadows of dangling branches, and lately a few pink flowers have appeared in one corner, a teasing splash of lurid colour. My cyclamen presses itself against the kitchen window, as if reaching toward its outdoor cousins. Stripes of sunlight respond, passing through glass and slanting along my walls and countertops, kissing the cyclamen leaves as they go.
Green is the operative colour of the season, exploding in every corner of every garden, in the treetops, from the cracks in pavements. We are through the barren time, and life can no longer be contained but weaves freely around and back into its old familiar haunts. I know no other colour with so many shades, and so much power to evoke the most simple and sincere joy. Brand new green, deep rich green, ever-green, the green of watered lawns, of brookside rushes, of poplar avenues... it's almost too much to take in, this lifeblood colour pulsing through the veins of earth.
The local fields at dawn look like every untouched morning since the world began, their damp grass breathing pale mist. When you stand in them time slows, and all the history they've witnessed comes alive, old as the tree-buds are new.
Welcome, March!
Welcome, sun-blushed sky and pink-tipped hedgerows.
Welcome, baby blue cloud-scudded sky.
Welcome, clear brook, mirror of trees.
I'm so happy I'm here to see you...
I'm out of words, so here's Rossetti, and March's speech from 'The Months: A Pageant'.
***
I blow an arouse
Thro' the world's wide house
To quicken the torpid earth:
Grappling I fling
Each feeble thing,
But bring strong life to the birth.
I wrestle and frown,
And topple down;
I wrench, I rend, I uproot;
Yet the violet
Is born where I set
The sole of my flying foot,
And in my wake
Frail windflowers quake,
And the catkins promise fruit.
I drive ocean ashore
With rush and roar,
And he cannot say me nay:
My harpstrings all
Are the forests tall
Making music when I play.
And as others perforce,
So I on my course
Run and needs must run,
With sap on the mount
And buds past count
And rivers and clouds and sun,
With seasons and breath
And time and death
And all that has yet begun.
* * *
Saturday 18 February 2012
In Pursuit of Domesticity - Part Two
Or, what I did with my Saturday
It's mid-February, and on Leamington Spa Parade, a man is struggling with a large box balanced on his shoulders, well-heeled forty-somethings are toting House of Fraser bags, and gaggles of One Direction lookalikes are taking their matching caramel-coloured chinos and blue sweatshirts out for a spin. The skinny jean-clad, long-haired girls are never far behind.
My attempt at 'what I call' a well-deserved lie-in was short-lived this morning, when an enthusiastic husband loomed singingly over me, proferring his pre-warmed Jedi dressing gown. It was difficult to accept this gift and then to ignore the dance he so enthusiastically performed for me. Presumably, much like the peacock, the human male feels the need to make the most of female attention once he has gained it, and will never pass up the opportunity to have his mate staring befuddledly up at him from beneath the bedsheets. And if dancing fails to enthrall her, you can always make her feel needed by demanding sustenance. Nicely.
Thus it was that at 9.23am I reluctantly hauled myself out of bed (and into Star Wars apparel), with sandwich-making added to my ever-expanding list of weekend activities. The list at that stage ran as follows:
> make cookies
> wash up
> do laundry
> change bedding
> make sandwiches (to be couriered to OH's place of work)
> shoes
I'm sure that any sensible domestic-goddess-in-the-making would have told me to do the most time-consuming task first, and arrange the others into convenient slots based on location and duration. Unfortunately, I didn't ask for any advice. Instead, I spent half an hour trying on six different outfits, before coming to the conclusion that the first one was the most flattering and that all the other clothes should be thrown away*.
Two hours later, anyone walking past my house could have observed through the front window yours truly, mixing bowl in hand, watching an incredibly bad Cameron Diaz movie on the laptop while blending cookie mix. The Christmas tree in the corner? Yep, that should have come down six weeks ago. The pile of paperwork on the coffee table? Untouched - I'm too scared I'll put it all in a 'safe place' and forget where it is. The animatronic Westie and tinsel-clad pink pig on the hearth? Don't ask...
At least the laundry and washing up were done. Slowly but surely, with the help of The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack blaring in the background and probably scaring upstairs' new puppy, I was getting something done. I was even beginning to feel slightly smug, as I dropped more chocolate chunks into the cookie mix and fantasised about greeting my returning husband in a 1950s pinny with a plateful of baked goods... until - wait - husband? Sandwiches!
Never has a sandwich been made in such haste. I thanked my mother's rigorous picnic drills as I literally threw the things together, cheese slices as thick as my fingers and an over-generous helping of chocolate biscuits in the lunchbox to compensate for the not-at-its-best bread. Sometimes I wonder how I ever ended up married at all when the food is this bad. Thank God it comes down to more than sandwiches.
My wifely duty complete (tupperware delivered, in the rain), I decided to ditch the remainder of the housework and go out in pursuit of something much closer to my heart - shoes. Now before you begin picturing me as a terrible spendthrift with no domestic skills who ought to be lampooned in an episode of Desperate Housewives, I would like to point out that my entire object was the restoration of existing shoes and not the purchase of new ones. My footwear record this year is remarkably sparse, by my standards - one pair, and no more, has entered into the hallowed realms of New Shoedom since the ball dropped in NYC. I believe in discipline and restraint, where called for. I'm applying it first to my shoe collection and then to my diet, so admittedly my priorities aren't entirely straight, but I'm getting there!
Kenilworth, for all its charms (many of which are hidden), has no Timpson's, so I had no choice but to venture into Leamington. Well, technically I had a choice, but I have to be honest, Coventry at the weekend is far from appealing. Leamington, on the other hand, with its cream-coloured terraces and hide-away stores filled with blown-glass vases and handmade jewellery, makes for a pleasant whiling away of the afternoon.
Which is why 4pm finds me ensconced at the tiniest table in the tiniest alcove of the busiest coffee shop, trying to keep my elbows to myself as people pass with their espressos/lattes/mochas (delete as applicable). My shoes should be no more than half an hour and I'm quite enjoying the people-watching. Small children have been taking it in turns to perch precariously on the edge of the leather sofa by the window, feet dangling several inches from the floor. Expectant mothers have manoeuvred pushchairs over the tiles and between chairs, looking like they might burst whether they get their coffee quickly or not. Several older gentlemen in stylish boots have balanced coffee, cheesecake and newspaper on the way to a solitary table. There are still teenage girls outside wearing shorts despite the cold - perhaps they're afraid that the boys have forgotten what female legs look like over the winter.
I know it's pointless, and possibly to some minds a little weird, but I can't help speculation about the lives of the people I notice. Is this their weekly custom, their 'pet' cafe, their haven on a busy afternoon? Are they enjoying time with friends, or trying to ease the tension of an unexpected visit? Do they feel comfortable with who they are, what they do, what they stand for - and would they know what to do if they weren't?
For all my rambling about shoes and my failure to domesticate to Nigella standards, I do have some other, more serious thoughts in my head. Thoughts like, what measurable progress have I made in my life since I last sat here? Quite by accident, I've ended up in the first cafe I came to several years ago, before my husband was my husband, when my life felt full of great promise and great distress. Time to reflect is a help to me, but it's also a mixed blessing. I recognise elements of myself which are not as improved as I would like them to be, and ambitions which have been sidelined in favour of a more practical approach to life. However, I do know myself a little better now than I did then, and I've had time to form my ambitions into something that will hopefully prove to be more concrete and less accolade-hungry. I also have the love of a good man, and that's a gift I can't quantify by any measure I know. I might be heading toward 24 without a clear career path (or even much of a clue how to find one), but I do it in the knowledge that I'm surrounded by people - family, friends - who'll give me a hand when I trip up. Plus, there'll be extra friend points for the ones with enough self-control not to blame any literal trips on my (fabulous) shoes.
Speaking of which, time to collect the ones that have just been through surgery. I leave my coffee haven to return another afternoon... Radio Three angels, sing me to my not-quite-goddess-like rest!
*Don't worry, nothing actually went in the bin. If anyone's interested in taking on half my wardrobe, however, please do get in touch.
It's mid-February, and on Leamington Spa Parade, a man is struggling with a large box balanced on his shoulders, well-heeled forty-somethings are toting House of Fraser bags, and gaggles of One Direction lookalikes are taking their matching caramel-coloured chinos and blue sweatshirts out for a spin. The skinny jean-clad, long-haired girls are never far behind.
My attempt at 'what I call' a well-deserved lie-in was short-lived this morning, when an enthusiastic husband loomed singingly over me, proferring his pre-warmed Jedi dressing gown. It was difficult to accept this gift and then to ignore the dance he so enthusiastically performed for me. Presumably, much like the peacock, the human male feels the need to make the most of female attention once he has gained it, and will never pass up the opportunity to have his mate staring befuddledly up at him from beneath the bedsheets. And if dancing fails to enthrall her, you can always make her feel needed by demanding sustenance. Nicely.
Thus it was that at 9.23am I reluctantly hauled myself out of bed (and into Star Wars apparel), with sandwich-making added to my ever-expanding list of weekend activities. The list at that stage ran as follows:
> make cookies
> wash up
> do laundry
> change bedding
> make sandwiches (to be couriered to OH's place of work)
> shoes
I'm sure that any sensible domestic-goddess-in-the-making would have told me to do the most time-consuming task first, and arrange the others into convenient slots based on location and duration. Unfortunately, I didn't ask for any advice. Instead, I spent half an hour trying on six different outfits, before coming to the conclusion that the first one was the most flattering and that all the other clothes should be thrown away*.
Two hours later, anyone walking past my house could have observed through the front window yours truly, mixing bowl in hand, watching an incredibly bad Cameron Diaz movie on the laptop while blending cookie mix. The Christmas tree in the corner? Yep, that should have come down six weeks ago. The pile of paperwork on the coffee table? Untouched - I'm too scared I'll put it all in a 'safe place' and forget where it is. The animatronic Westie and tinsel-clad pink pig on the hearth? Don't ask...
At least the laundry and washing up were done. Slowly but surely, with the help of The Phantom of the Opera soundtrack blaring in the background and probably scaring upstairs' new puppy, I was getting something done. I was even beginning to feel slightly smug, as I dropped more chocolate chunks into the cookie mix and fantasised about greeting my returning husband in a 1950s pinny with a plateful of baked goods... until - wait - husband? Sandwiches!
Never has a sandwich been made in such haste. I thanked my mother's rigorous picnic drills as I literally threw the things together, cheese slices as thick as my fingers and an over-generous helping of chocolate biscuits in the lunchbox to compensate for the not-at-its-best bread. Sometimes I wonder how I ever ended up married at all when the food is this bad. Thank God it comes down to more than sandwiches.
My wifely duty complete (tupperware delivered, in the rain), I decided to ditch the remainder of the housework and go out in pursuit of something much closer to my heart - shoes. Now before you begin picturing me as a terrible spendthrift with no domestic skills who ought to be lampooned in an episode of Desperate Housewives, I would like to point out that my entire object was the restoration of existing shoes and not the purchase of new ones. My footwear record this year is remarkably sparse, by my standards - one pair, and no more, has entered into the hallowed realms of New Shoedom since the ball dropped in NYC. I believe in discipline and restraint, where called for. I'm applying it first to my shoe collection and then to my diet, so admittedly my priorities aren't entirely straight, but I'm getting there!
Kenilworth, for all its charms (many of which are hidden), has no Timpson's, so I had no choice but to venture into Leamington. Well, technically I had a choice, but I have to be honest, Coventry at the weekend is far from appealing. Leamington, on the other hand, with its cream-coloured terraces and hide-away stores filled with blown-glass vases and handmade jewellery, makes for a pleasant whiling away of the afternoon.
Which is why 4pm finds me ensconced at the tiniest table in the tiniest alcove of the busiest coffee shop, trying to keep my elbows to myself as people pass with their espressos/lattes/mochas (delete as applicable). My shoes should be no more than half an hour and I'm quite enjoying the people-watching. Small children have been taking it in turns to perch precariously on the edge of the leather sofa by the window, feet dangling several inches from the floor. Expectant mothers have manoeuvred pushchairs over the tiles and between chairs, looking like they might burst whether they get their coffee quickly or not. Several older gentlemen in stylish boots have balanced coffee, cheesecake and newspaper on the way to a solitary table. There are still teenage girls outside wearing shorts despite the cold - perhaps they're afraid that the boys have forgotten what female legs look like over the winter.
I know it's pointless, and possibly to some minds a little weird, but I can't help speculation about the lives of the people I notice. Is this their weekly custom, their 'pet' cafe, their haven on a busy afternoon? Are they enjoying time with friends, or trying to ease the tension of an unexpected visit? Do they feel comfortable with who they are, what they do, what they stand for - and would they know what to do if they weren't?
For all my rambling about shoes and my failure to domesticate to Nigella standards, I do have some other, more serious thoughts in my head. Thoughts like, what measurable progress have I made in my life since I last sat here? Quite by accident, I've ended up in the first cafe I came to several years ago, before my husband was my husband, when my life felt full of great promise and great distress. Time to reflect is a help to me, but it's also a mixed blessing. I recognise elements of myself which are not as improved as I would like them to be, and ambitions which have been sidelined in favour of a more practical approach to life. However, I do know myself a little better now than I did then, and I've had time to form my ambitions into something that will hopefully prove to be more concrete and less accolade-hungry. I also have the love of a good man, and that's a gift I can't quantify by any measure I know. I might be heading toward 24 without a clear career path (or even much of a clue how to find one), but I do it in the knowledge that I'm surrounded by people - family, friends - who'll give me a hand when I trip up. Plus, there'll be extra friend points for the ones with enough self-control not to blame any literal trips on my (fabulous) shoes.
Speaking of which, time to collect the ones that have just been through surgery. I leave my coffee haven to return another afternoon... Radio Three angels, sing me to my not-quite-goddess-like rest!
*Don't worry, nothing actually went in the bin. If anyone's interested in taking on half my wardrobe, however, please do get in touch.
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