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Orange 2012: The pink hotel

2012-03-17T12:02:00.000Z

I loved the sound of this book, and had actually spotted its cover in Blackwells the same week that the longlist was announced, although didn't have time to pick it up, so it was high on the list of the Orange longlist titles which I wanted to read.

The story itself was much more unusual and quirky than I was anticipating. It tells the story of a girl who flies to Los Angeles after her mother, Lily, dies - her mother had left her and her father when she was only three and she has little understanding of who her mother was in recent years. Arriving at the Pink Hotel, which her mother and partner had owned, too late for the funeral but whilst the wake is happening, she goes up to her mother's apartment to have a look around. She ends up packing up a bag filled with some of her mother's clothes and letters, and then spends the next weeks travelling around, meeting the people who were important in her life, and trying to put together a picture of her.

It's an interesting novel since the reader isn't quite sure how it will proceed, what the picture built up of Lily will be, or how that will impact on her daughter. I was not sure how believable it was for a 17 year old to take such a trip on her own without any prior planning - the girl is certainly bright and thoughtful, but still somewhat naeive. I also found it difficult to identify with her behaviour at some points, for example when she nearly ends up becoming intimate with one of her mother's former conquests.

All in all, different, certainly, but perhaps not one for me. Shortlist potential? Not sure...

Orange 2012: The sealed letter (Emma Donaghue)

2012-03-16T17:49:00.000Z

I'll come straight out and say it, The sealed letter by Emma Donaghue has definitely been the book that I've enjoyed most so far on the longlist since it was announced (I'm not sure about saying longlist overall since two of the books I'd read already Gillespie and I, and There but for the, were also rather good). Good story, tick, interesting characters, tick, readable, tick, and it's also based on a real story which often adds an extra element of interest if it's something that you don't know about.

In some ways it's a bit like an early Sarah Waters book - hugely evocative of Victorian atmosphere and with twists and turns along the way. Set in 1864, it's based on the Codrington Divorce case. This is not something I knew about, but it was a famous divorce whereby Admiral Sir Henry Codrington alleged that his wife Helen had committed adultery, with other men and by being overly involved with her female friend Emily. Emily Faithful is in fact a tireless campaigner for women's rights, so there is a good strong dose of feminism in the novel, who had initially inadvertently and then reluctantly assisted Helen in having an affair with Colonel Anderson. What comes across so well in the novel is the way that Emily is trapped between her friend and desire to make her happy (is there something more to their relationship maybe?) and her morals and desire to uphold the status of women.

I loved all of the period detail such as characters reading Wilkie Collins books and the story was so readable that it had great pace.

I'm a little puzzled as to how this ended up on the longlist this year, it was first published in 2007 and predates "Room" for which Donaghue was shortlisted last year (and which was also shortlisted for the Booker). I think it was previously published in Canada, and then in the wake of the success of Room last year, her other novels have now been brought out in England. It still seems a little strange to include it on this year's list though!

It's certainly very different from Room though - this is much more of a standard historical novel, albeit one which has been well researched and carefully written, whereas Room was something quite different from anything I'd read before.

Orange 2012: Half blood blues (DNF)

2012-03-15T18:05:00.000Z

I tried really hard with this book, but am defeated by it. I'm not sure why I've struggled so much with it - I don't think it's a general "can't read anything literary" mood as, as an aside, I've just picked up the Emma Donaghue title and am loving it - just a case of "not the right book for me". My consolation is that Kindle-Sampling-Colleague feels somewhat the same about it, and indeed had discarded the book for her charity bag several months ago, only to be retrieved on the announcement of the longlist. It has been recieved with considerable acclaim from what I've read about it, and it wouldn't surprise me if it made it to the shortlist (that often seems to happen with the books that I struggle to finish).

Beginning during the Second World War in Paris, it tells the story of a group of jazz musicians who have escaped from Nazi Germany, but it seems that Paris is not much safer for the member of the band who is German. Years later, we the two African American band members, Sid and Chip reunite and find out more about what happened in these years.

It's certainly a different sort of novel, I don't think I've ever read any other novels about the jazz community (let me know if the comments if you can think of any that I shoudl read), and it's cleverly written using the sort of dialect that you might imagine coming from jazz musicians.

Maybe I'm not interested in jazz enough, maybe I prefer to read about the Second World War from the point of view of the Home Front in Britain, maybe I struggled with the language and the fact that I had to read it out in my head in order to make sense of that, or maybe I just wasn't gripped by it. It happens.

Kindle-Sampling-Colleague wonders if it might be easier to read it with a jazz CD on in the background - I hope she'll let me know how she gets on. Well, she might herself - she has started her very own blog, The TBR pile, so do pop over and say hello. It looks like she could be doing me out of a job or at least out of the guest posts that I was going to get her to write!

Orange 2012: The flying man (Roopa Farooki)

2012-03-14T17:28:00.001Z

Roopa Farooki is one of the Orange Longlisted authors most familiar to me. I very much enjoyed her debut novel, Bitter Sweets which saw her nominated for the Orange new writers prize, and I absolutely loved The way things look to me, which was Orange longlisted either last year or the year before. Farooki specialises in writing about families in multi-cultural settings - her debut was about a man who was conned into his arranged marriage believing that his wife was more educated than she was, The way things look to me is about three siblings struggling in the wake of the death of their parents. It seems that she has had two more novels which I have somehow missed Corner Shop and Half Life, so once Orange season is over, it might be a good time to explore these.

This book tells the story of Malik. Again, it's a story of people and families. We meet Malik at the end of his life, we learn that he is dying, and we learn that he seems to be somewhat of a chancer and unpredictable character. The story is fleshed out through the rest of the novel in an extended flashback, which chapter by chapter deals with different times in his life, from his birth in 1931, where he was the only one of a pair of twins to survive the birth, through his school years and establishment of his ABC literary club, his deception of his second wife into pregnancy, time in prison and so on. It's episodic so at times one would like more of the in between times to be spelled out, but it's a good way of creating a picture of Malik and his life and how he has reached the point at which we are introduced to him.

And why the title? Well, Malik is a man who spends his life making "flying escapes". He continually plays games with his wives, his family, his business associates, and inevitably seems to come out on top, although towards the end it all starts to catch up with him.

I enjoyed this novel fairly so, but if you've not read Farooki before then I would recommend that you start with Bitter Sweets or The way things look to me since I found them more attention grabbing.

Orange 2012: The submission (Amy Waldman)

2012-03-13T18:10:00.000Z

I wondered if The submission would be depressing, since it is a book about the process of memorialisation after 9/11 in New York. However, my conclusion after finishing the book was that it wasn't - it was far more about the healing process that is undergone in the aftermath.

The book centres around a competition to design some sort of memorial to the victims of the attack. A committee deliberate and eventually choose a plan for a garden memorial. Only after the choice is made do they find out that it has been designed by a Muslim, albeit a Muslim born in Virginia and with no connections to anything other than being American.

What is so well done in this novel is the large cast of characters who all seem to have different opinions and justifications for their actions. Claire was widowed by the atrocities, yet is untypical of some of the other victims in that she wants the process to be based on merit rather than religion; Paul the chairman of the committee wants the designer to step down in order to safeguard his own non-controversial reputation; a Muslim activist Malik who sees the episode as a way to further his own cause.

I was sufficiently interested in the variety of characters and in finding out what happened to keep reading. It was an interesting concept and certainly a rather timely one, but not a book I'd especially want to read again (which I think these days is probably the criteria by which I judge books, and so far I don't think that applies to any of the Orange Longlist books)

Orange 2012: On the floor (Aifric Campbell)

2012-03-12T18:31:00.000Z

I picked up On the floor with a little trepidation; whilst I was keen to read a book about a woman my age who worked at an investment bank in London, a world of which I know very little (although I have just finished reading a fascinating memoir which I half wrote a blog post about called City-Girl by Suzana S about a girl who worked her way up from internship to full trader, which gave me enough background to really pique my interest in this book), my Kindle-Sampling-Colleague had told me that she didn't really understand the industry terminology that she'd encountered in the sample chapter and that if she's to go any further she'll need me to explain it to her. Hmm...

The author, Aifric Campbell, spent 13 years working on the trading floor of Morgan Stanley (an eminent investment bank for non UK readers), and became their first female managing director, and this is her third novel. So one might anticipate this novel to open ones eyes to this world, and to some extent she does.

Set in 1991, Geri has worked as a trader for 5 years and achieved considerable success. She is now 28 and does business primarily with a hedge fund manager in Hong Kong. However, the success is wearing thin, and she is at the point of breakdown. She is unable to sleep, she drinks too much, she has been abandoned by her boyfriend, and she becomes involved in a hostile takeover that puts her career on the line. The book is about her personal struggle to work out what she is able to control and what is outside it.

The book is very fastpaced, in the way that I would imagine life in the city to be and certainly portrays the city as somewhere where it is difficult for women to be - which makes it an apt choice I think for the Orange Longlist. One bit that stands out in that respect is where Geri is in the bar with another banking friend and together they draw up a list of advice for "Wannabe Bankers" which includes the following:

"1. Don't even blink when someone says "cunt". Better still, say it yourself.
2. There is NEVER a good reason to cry in the office
3.Always remember that two women standing together on the trading floor can only be gossiping; therefore treat all female colleagues with total contempt.
4. Learn how to drink copiously. Learn the point at which you are likely to keel over or shag someone you shouldn't"

...and so on.

I think overall the problem for me with this novel was that it was written by someone with so much experience of the trading world which made it difficult for the outsider to get a grip on. I wonder if it'd been written by someone who had only researched into life as a trader, it might have been written a little bit more sympathetically with the ignorant reader in mind?

Orange 2012: The grief of others (Leah Cohen)

2012-03-11T15:22:00.002Z

I started with The grief of others from my Orange Pile mainly because my Kindle-sampling colleague was keen to read the rest of it after reading the first chapter and there isn't a copy in the Oxfordshire library system yet. I have to say that two things put me off the book before I started reading it - the title, which didn't sound especially cheery - am really not in the mood for mis-lit at the moment - and the fact that it was an "Oprah Winfrey pick" - i.e. it was chosen for an American TV book club. Maybe I'm unduly snobbish about that but often the books chosen for the UK TV book clubs (e.g. Richard and Judy in the past) seem to conform to a certain type and I imagined that this might also fulfil a certain type.

Anyway, the book is as anticipated not terribly cheerful. It tells the story of Ricky, and John and their two children Paul and Biscuit (Elizabeth) in the aftermath of the third child of the family dying 57 hours after birth from anencephaly. Ricky had known about the condition of her unborn child since her 5 month scan but had not shared the knowledge with anyone. And the book is essentially a working out of how the family come to terms with their grief, about how it affects their relationships and how their current situation is influenced by past events.

It's certainly well written, and Cohen moves clever between the present and the past to build up the picture of events and personalities in a less obvious way than a linear narrative might have done.

I have to say that ultimately, my two preconceptions of this novel were right. It was not a happy book - and I just was not in the right place to read a book that was not a happy book. And I anticipated that an Oprah book would be mainly about relationships and families working their way through difficult times and I was right.

Need to read some more before I start making more predicitons!

Orange 2012: getting started

2012-03-10T18:01:00.002Z

Well, my frenzy of ordering Orange books at the library and asking friendly publishers to send me copies to help out with my goal of reading the entire Orange Longlist 2012 has started to pay off already. Yesterday lunchtime I picked up two reservations which had arrived at the library, and when I got home from work, three titles had arrived from Anne-Marie at Profile Books. Unfortunately I was reading The roundabout man by Clare Morrall all yesterday because it had been reserved by someone else at the library and needed to go back so I didn't get a chance to get stuck in immediately. I shouldn't say unfortunately, because The roundabout man is an absolutely fantastic novel. I've long been a fan of Clare Morrall (she went to the same school as me, but not at the same time), and I've read all of her novels since a friend gave me her debut (The astonishing splashes of colour) which was longlisted for the booker. I think that this story is one of her best - it's quirky and entertaining and right until the end one is not quite sure how the story will pan out. It's a shame that this didn't make it onto the Orange list, partly because I was reading it the day after the announcement, but it is certainly among the best of women's fiction. I hope that I won't be disappointed by the Orange longlisted titles after reading this.
I'll get started on the books which have arrived in due course, but here are a few thoughts about the four books on the longlist which I had read prior to the announcement from what I can remember.

There but for the (Ali Smith)
This is an amazing story built around a premise of a dinner party where one of the guests disappears into a bedroom and refuses to come out. I don't remember very much more than this, but suffice to say that it is a fascinating book about relationships. Ali Smith's writing is as ever excellent, and it would not surprise me to see this novel shortlisted.

Gillespie and I (Jane Harris)
I won a copy of this book before Christmas and was quite excited by it as had enjoyed her previous novel The observations so much. I didn't enjoy this quite so much, perhaps because it was so very meaty at over 500 pages, but set in Victorian Glasgow it was a good book to read when the days are short and you want some mystery and intrigue.

The translation of the bones (Francesca Kay)
Like Gillespie and I, I'd enjoyed the author's previous debut An equal stillness very much and had high hopes for her follow up which somehow weren't quite fulfilled. Set around a Roman Catholic church in London, this tells the story of the devout Mary Margaret O'Reilly who sees a miracle when she is cleaning the church one day. This forms the basis for a book which tells the story of many of the other parishioners and the way that they respond to the miracle. It was an interesting story and very well written but somehow very different from An equal stillness.

The forgotten waltz (Anne Enright)
Again, I was champing at the bit to get to this book having LOVED The gathering, but again I wasn't as gripped by it as by the previous book. It tells the story of an affair that leads to the breakdown of two marriages.

I would not be at all surprised to see either Enright or Smith on the shortlist.

Anyway, enough for blogging for this evening, time to go and get on with some more reading, and hopefully there'll be a post about my first Orange title since the longlist tomorrow.

Orange 2012

2012-03-08T11:30:00.000Z

It's that time of the year again...when I manage to bring myself up to date with some of the best of the last year's women's fiction - yes, Orange Longlist time. I'm sure it can't have escaped your attention as it's all over the blogosphere, but I'm intending to do what I did in 2011 and read my way through *the entire list*. (You can see last year's posts by looking at my blog in April and March last year).

As I've said last year, and the year before, one of the reasons I like the prize so much is that it gives me the excuse and the reason to read books that I might not otherwise pick up. For me it's not about cherrypicking the ones that sound most interesting, but trying to give all of them a go, because a team of good judges have considered that they are worth reading.

This year I haven't got a very good start, as I've only read 4 of the books on the list which means that there are 16 still to go (I'll try to do a joint catch up post on what I can remember of The forgotten waltz, Gillespie and I, There but for the and The translation of the bones in the next few days). I've been wildly reserving books at the library and am hoping that a few kindly publishers may take pity on me and send me early birthday presents of other Orange longlisted books.

Meanwhile one of my colleagues, and last year's Orange prize reading partner, in possession of a kindle, has managed to download free samples of 14 of the titles, and is hopefully going to identify a winner from those. Or at least which ones she deems worth purchasing, reserving at the library or borrowing from me...

I've had a brief look at the titles on Amazon, and the ones which most appeal to me at the moment are Island of wings, The flying man (which will be my first Orange 2012 read as by chance I picked it up at the library earlier in the week), On the floor, Grief of others, Foreign Bodies.

But as I said above, it's not about books appealing on the basis of their cover/titles/synopses, it's about trying books that I wouldn't otherwise and hopefully discovering some gems!

Library Loot

2012-03-08T11:00:00.001Z

Post written on Monday, but only just got around to finishing off and adding picture!

Yesterday wasn't much of an improvement on last week as I spent all of two teabreaks and half of my lunch break on the phone to various hospitals and dentists trying to work out how I could be seen the fastest. You'd think that if you were willing to stump up the money, they would be falling over themselves to get it by offering to remove your tooth asap, but it seems that because the waiting lists for NHS extraction are so long, this is filtering through to the private sector. Anyway, after much hassle and tears on the phone to the consultant's secretary, I have an appointment to go to the hospital to get looked at next week, and a provisional date for surgery at the end of April. Since my birthday is in April, I was assuming that that would be my birthday present from my near relatives (parents, husband), but my Mum has kindly assured me that I can have a birthday present as well. Yayy!

Anyway, I digress. I decided to cheer myself up on the way home with a trip to the library, and came away with so many goodies that it was really very hard work to cycle 4.5 miles home. Memo to self - in future do not merely consider size (i.e. whether books will fit into panniers/rucksacks/carrier bags from the handle bars), but also weight. As you can see from this picture, I got some quite weighty library loot.

Joanna Trollope - Daughters in law. Having recently read her latest whilst on my holidays, I realised that I missed her previous novel, so I snapped it up and started reading it last night. It's a bit more old school Trollope than The soldier's wife without the level of interesting topic that made The soldier's wife so engrossing, but I'm quite enjoying it.

Ali Harris - Miracle on Regent Street. This came out at Christmas time and isn't actually stocked by any of the branches near me, so I've ordered it in. Who doesn't want to read a Christmassy book when it's nearly Easter?

Jacqueline Wilson - Diamond Girls - must be about the only Jacqueline Wilson book that I haven't read - should pass an evening when I am very tired!

Carole Matthews - Summer daydreams. The weather has been a bit warmer recently, and there's even been a few glimpses of the sun, but I'm still very much craving summer having been to Tenerife a couple of weeks ago. I've no idea what the book is about but I've read some of Carole Matthews books before and the title was enough to grab me.

Rebecca Shaw - Love in the country. I read my way through Shaw's Village series and Country series a couple of years ago, they're very easy reading and I thought I might like to reread it.

Marian Keyes - Watermelon - more rereading, I must have read this whilst I was still at university, I don't have much recall of the plot line at all as described on the back cover.

And some slightly more literary books...

Sebastien Barry - On Canaan's side - I've been waiting for AGES to spot this in the library. It was listed for the Booker and I really enjoyed his two previous novels so I am hoping that I will have the brain space to make a start on this soon.

Stella Gibbons - Tricky and Bachelor. I mentioned before Christmas my excitement in seeing one of the Print On Demand * Gibbons titles in a branch library, I then spotted another in a different branch, and now I've found two more in the main library. Maybe the Oxon Library service bought a set and split them around? As it's less than 4 weeks til my next holiday, I will probably hang on to at least one of these to read then. Exciting! Happy that my library doesn't just stock the latest bestsellers, although Gibbons is coming back on trend I think. Wouldn't be surprised to see a new adaption of Cold Comfort Farm fairly soon...

* I was asked last time about Print On Demand. As this article on wikipedia explains, basically it's a different model for publishers where they will only print the books once the orders are recieved, and the technology exists that even a single book can be printed. This makes it more economical to bring back out of print books into print if publishers are not sure what the demand will be.

Happy St Pirans Day!

2012-03-05T17:59:00.003Z

Yes, St Piran is the patron saint of Cornwall and of tin miners and 5th March is his day! Long time readers will be aware of my love of Cornwall so having seen a post on Dovegreyreader's blog (where you can learn a little more about St Piran), I didn't want to let it go without mention here.

Last week I wrote about the Virago reissue of one of my favourite books celebrating the county here, by perhaps one of its most famous novelists - Vanishing Cornwall by none other than Daphne Du Maurier, so do pop over to my other blog to have a glimpse of its beautiful cover. Previously reissued in hardback, it's now out in paperback so very affordable.

It's less than 4 weeks until Mr W and I will be heading off to spend my third birthday in a row in North Cornwall. I've read A LOT of fiction set in Cornwall - see these posts here for some reading that I did in the run up to a trip two years ago, but I've still managed to get a copy of something new to read - a book called The saffron eaters. Saffron is a rare expensive spice that has only ever really been able to be cultivated in Cornwall; if you visit the county today you can buy saffron loaf and saffron buns which are fruit breads flavoured with saffron and a bright yellow colour (but very tasty), so that will be a treat.

In the meantime, I'll leave you with a couple of beautiful coastal snaps.

A rainy Sunday

2012-03-04T14:30:00.003Z

It's been a bit of a pants week somehow, obviously coming back from a holiday to work is always hard, but it's worse when you come from somewhere warm to somewhere cold and grey, you get ANOTHER cold (making the 2nd in 3 weeks), and although you knew that the wisdom tooth infection you'd had while you were away wasn't going to end happily, you thought it would probably be done at the surgery in the next couple of weeks. Oh no. Firstly, the dentist said that he'd have to do it privately as anticipated another difficult extraction which would take too long to do in the NHS half hour slot, or I could go to the hospital. Then after he saw the x-rays he said that I'd definitely HAVE to go to the hospital. On Friday we found out that this meant a THIRTEEN WEEK wait. Cue a distraught Verity at the thought of having to put up with a painful tooth for that long as well as the realisation that this would be right in the middle of the open water swimming season :( Further investigations by Mr W and kind offers from parents mean that going privately may be an option, so fingers crossed that this week will go somewhat better and that I'll be without a cold, accustomed once more to the weather and that we'll make some progress in finding out when I can get my tooth out - before I take a sledgehammer to the side of my face (cheaper and swifter).

I guess you won't be surprised that Lent hasn't gone very well this week. Mr W was sent out for emergency chocolate on Thursday night and 2 200g jars of Nutella have been consumed since. It seems that since I have also had to cut out yeast from my diet as well as gluten, it is nigh on impossible to get enough carbohydrate and energy to fuel my swimming without eating a modicum of cake. I am making Mr W stick to the no-cake rule though :)

So that was a bit of a ranty ramble. Here are some good things:
1. Mr W was supposed to be away this weekend but is now not going away until tomorrow.
2. We planted asparagus in a grow bag on the patio yesterday and some courgettes in little tubs to be transplanted in due course.
3. My Mum took me to see Stomp in Northampton yesterday - this was a strange music/dance spectacular set in a rubbish dump where 8 people dance and make lots of noise with things like brooms and kitchen sinks. Not quite sure what I think about it.
4. I have been bad and ordered two new books by two of my favourite authors which were out last week to read on my next holiday, and in the meantime I am rereading some of their back catalogues. Currently on "We are all made of glue" by Marina Lewycka.
5. Mr W has been redecorating the 3rd bedroom in our house "my room", and we are going to choose some carpet for it this afternoon.
6. My cold was better enough to swim my way through a 5.5k swim set this morning, albeit not flat out, and I am seeing the effects of the swim camp on my stroke and speed. More about swimming another day.

Some of the books that I read whilst on holiday

2012-02-28T18:09:00.003Z

In reply to my last post, as to what to blog about, Campfire suggested writing about books read recently. This did start out as a bookish blog, but when one has been reading at the rate that I have over the last few years (although things have dropped off since mid 2011), it was just eating too much into my reading time to write about them all.

But anyway, here's a round up of some of the books that I read whilst on holiday.

I treated myself to the Greyladies Publication of Summer Pudding by Susan Scarlett, aka Noel Streatfeild. Greyladies have been republishing the Susan Scarlett novels and I always buy them. They're much lighter than the adult novels that she wrote under her own name, and to my mind they feel a little bit like her childrens books only for grownups. This one, penned in 1943, tells the story of a girl bombed out of her London office who goes to join her mother and sister evacuated to the countryside and how they all become involved in village life. Immensely readable.

At the airport, I bought the new Joanna Trollope, The soldier's wife, which was an extremely topical novel from the eminent novelist. This kept me occupied (with breaks for naps) for all of the 4 hour flight to Tenerife so was quite a good investment. I'm interested to know more about the research that Trollope did as this struck me as something which was probably quite true to the experiences of women married to men in the armed forces - one of my friends was for a time married to a Royal Marine, so that is the understanding that I have had. As usual, there is a good strong plot with various sub plots that make it engrossing to read along with the sense, not always present in her novels, of learning about something new.

I reread Enid Blyton's The secret Room - it's ages since I'd read one of the Five find outer books. The last Enid Blyton I reread left me cold as I remembered the plot line far too easily but this was excellent - it's the one where they discover disguises and much amusement is had by the unpolitically correct Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets, not to mention Buster the dog, and of course they manage to solve a mystery and outwit Mr Goon by the end of the book too.

I also enjoyed reading Lorna Hill's The secret which is the last in her Wells series. I'm still trying to track down a copy of Vicki in Venice (ideally in the Girls Gone By edition), but had had this on my shelves for over two years and just couldn't wait to get hold of the predecessing book before reading this. I didn't think it was quite as enjoyable as the early books - I like the way that some of the characters crop up again, but really I'd love to hear more about Veronica and Sebastien and the people from the early books!

Anyway, the husband is now home, and as he's got a quick turnaround before he goes out to band practice tonight I should probably go and feed him. A food related post later in the week I think.*

* Yes, I am struggling without cake and ate 2 sports flapjacks last night to compensate.

2012-02-26T14:53:00.003Z

So it's back from Tenerife to normality, and I have to confess to being pretty irritable today. I'm tired after a week of swimming, it's cold (well, cold compared to Tenerife even if it's much milder than when I left), there are mountains of washing to do (Mr W was away working for most of the week), and I tried and failed dismally to complete the 5k swim that I wanted to earlier (owing to tiredness). And it's back to work tomorrow.

Cake might make things better, but Mr W and I are trying to give up cake and chocolate and pudding for lent. I had an exemption for chocolate over the last week due to the excessive amount of swimming, but the lack of refined carbs (which is basically what I live on) is making me feel grumpy.*

On the plus side, I have been very lucky to have had such an amazing holiday, and I really benefitted from the sun and all of that swimming. Now that I'm back, the days definitely seem to be a bit longer (although it was a little difficult to tell last night as I insisted on keeping my sunnies on for the drive home), and I can see some spring plants appearing.

I definitely need to keep working hard at my swimming over the next few weeks as I have a lot of swim races lined up from the end of May - almost one every 2-3 weeks - so that is the plan, besides work for now.

*I'm trying to work out what I'll do with the extra time free from baking cakes, and concluded that more blogging would be a good option, but since I won't be baking, what will I have to blog about??

PS: The camp organiser has put up photos on his facebook page - you don't have to be a member to view them, so do have a look if you're especially bored here. I'm the one wearing the red hat.

Tenerife Part 4

2012-02-24T13:22:00.002Z

It's the last day in Tenerife, and whilst I'm a bit sad to be leaving the sun and the awesome outdoor swimming pool, and going back from having super coaching twice a day to swimming on my own, I have to say that it WILL be nice to get back to my own comfortable bed and Mr W on Saturday.

I hit a low spot on Wednesday afternoon, was absolutely shattered and got very cold on the swim. This lasted through to Thursday morning's swim and I felt quite miserable. In retrospect, although I'd been eating a huge amount, it probably wasn't quite enough to keep up with all of the extra exercise - things seem to have balanced out again now.

Thursday lunchtime saw a bit of a crisis when after skyping Mr W for half an hour, I logged on to check that all was well with my bank account - something I do every other day in the UK but hadn't since Saturday. all was NOT well, as there was a payment of £1100 to Admiral insurance, and a suspicious payment to O2. My car insurance is certainly not that expensive, is with Sheila's wheels, and is due in quite a different month. An anxious call to my bank, The Co-Operative, revealed that not only had these transacations taken place but there had been a lot of declined transactions from places that I'd not heard of. I should have realised that something was suspicious when I attempted to top up my phone with my debit card on Saturday and it was declined. The nice lady went through every transaction of the last month and then said that they would be able to refund the money, including that of the charges for being overdrawn quite so much, within 24 hours, and I'm happy to see that today the money is back. Very grateful that they were so helpful. Of course, I am also happy to prove Mr W wrong about taking cash abroad - if I didn't have some euro notes with my knickers in my suitcase, I would be a little bit stuffed now without my debit card (which has had to be cancelled).

After that I was quite worked up, which helped me overcome my lethargy of the last 24 hours and I was ready for a good swim in the 50m pool. After a warm up, the coach announced that we were going to do a "broken" version of our race distance - for me that is the 3.8km "ironman" swim. So, we wouild swim 4x400m (with 30 seconds rest between each one), 4x300m (20 seconds rest between), 4x200m (10 seconds rest), 4 x 50m (5 seconds rest). It was pretty intense, and I was pleased with myself for keeping up with another guy who is a seasoned ironman triathlete - in the event, I beat him by 7 seconds, and came in first out of the three of us doing that distance in 62 minutes 40 seconds (after the 4 mins 15 seconds of resting taken off). Am very pleased to achieve that at this point in the season - I still have a way to go to get round a 3.8k in under an hour but I'm making good progress.

This morning we had our last open water swim and we must have covered about 2km of swimming in the sea whilst the sun rose before a well deserved breakfast. I'm now back at the pool for our final swim in the 25m pool. Sadly, the bright blue skies of earlier have disappeared behind a cloud but I must make the most of the last session outside, won't be doing another one of those for a few months yet in the UK, although I understand that it's been quite warm the last few days?

Fly back at lunchtime tomorrow, so hope to be home in time for a late dinner with Mr W before I tackle the mountains of washing.

Tenerife Part 3

2012-02-21T12:53:00.002Z

Here's a couple of pictures! There are palm trees here - and that's the 25m pool, and above that, the view from the cafe in the training facility.

back in the 25m pool this morning, after some good drills I could really feel an improvement in my stroke. Really excited about seeing the filming of my stroke tonight as I think I've come on a lot. Let's hope I can remember how to do it when we get back into the 50m pool tonight.

Now the sunglasses are on, there's not a cloud in sight, although there's a nice breeze keeping me cool in the shade. It's time for a banana milkshake and a flapjack - it's a hard life really! Rereading My cousin Rachel - seems weird to be reading a gothic novel in such brilliant sunshine. Not sure I'll be able to read it tonight - might be a bit scary since I'm on my own.

Tenerife Part 2

2012-02-20T12:15:00.002Z

So, the wifi in the hotel isn't too good, which has thus far prevented me from skyping Mr W, so today I'm trying with the wifi up at the swimming pool which is all good so far, except that I forgot my camera cable so can't put any pictures up, which is a shame as I tried my new Fastskin Goggles today and I have some pictures of me looking really really cool!

Tenerife so far is even more wonderful than I could have expected apart from the blasted wisdom tooth (really hoping to avoid a trip to the doctor or dentists for the antibx that I think I need). The food is AMAZING - wonderful buffets full of Verity-friendly-food - I've never seen anything like it. The swimming is fantastic - we are using a 50m pool and a 25m pool. Yesterday we swam in both, including a 90 minute endurance session which was quite tough.

This morning we got up whilst it was still dark and walked to the beach during sunrise to then do some open water swimming in a lagoon in our wetsuits! We had the place to ourselves until a 50 year old woman came in for a skinny dip - we tried to avert our eyes.

After a large breakfast (seriously, could not believe how much the guys were eating!) (well, even I had a large breakfast compared to my usual standards of nothing), we came back up to the swimming facility (about 15 mins walk away) to use the hydrodynamic swim flume, which is a little pool where you swim against a wall of water and they film you from all angles. Would have been quite cool apart from my huge phobia of drains in swimming pools, so it was an achievement for me even to get in.

We've now got a couple of hours before we hit the 50m pool for another hour and a half's swim. I'm hoping the sun will stay out as it's a little cloudy which makes it chilly when we stop swimming for some coaching. Then we'll have a session of swim analysis looking at the videos that the coach has taken, before heading back to the hotel for food. Last night we were booked for dinner at 7.30 but all practically mutinied at the thought of waiting so long, not least because we've all been in bed by 9.30, so it will be an early dinner and another early night I expect.

Hope all's well in England - it's difficult for me to keep up with Google Reader, so do put links to any interesting posts on your blog in the comments so I can have a look when I get back.

Tenerife Part 1

2012-02-18T13:58:00.003Z

So, Mr W, Bernard and I got up this morning at 4am, and Mr W drove us all to the airport. After a bit of waiting around (and yes, a book purchase, which had to be zipped into my jacket owing to Ryanair's strict cabin baggage rules and my cabin bag already being stuffed to the brim) at the airport, and then a 4 hour flight, I was suddenly in Tenerife! Flew in over the sea (never done that before!) and greeted with sunshine, and a warm breeze. The weather here is about 19/20C today, quite windy, and some cloud, but it's a great improvement on the UK... I was met by another camp participant and we had a transfer to our hotel about half an hour away, which gave me a chance to see a little bit of the island, and now I've got three hours to unpack (why did I bring so much stuff?), try to get online (success) so that hopefully I can skype Mr W tonight, and to purchase some essential supplies (which necessitated an anxious conversation via text message with Mr W where I tried to establish the Spanish for "rice" (Verity friendly) and "wheat" (not Verity friendly). There is a view of the sea from my room window (how strange to see black rather than white/yellow sand) and the hotel itself has a lovely pool if I can muster any energy for any extra swimming. Or maybe I'll be able to collapse on one of those sun loungers...

PS: Wisdom tooth on the other side from the one that caused all the trouble in the Autumn is being tricky - please cross everything that I can get through the week ok!

PPS: Having waited 20 minutes to try to upload my photos and failed, I'm giving up for now which is a shame - I managed to get some on facebook so if you want to look me up there then do :)

A hectic weekend

2012-02-12T17:31:00.000Z

It's been a hectic weekend, but I have done lots of lovely things! Well, I say lovely, but I'm not sure the first one was.

On Friday night Mr W picked me up from work and we went straight to the cinema to see The woman in black. I've been looking forward to this for ages - the book scared me enough to give me nightmares for several days, fortunately I was a bit less scared by the stage version. However, the film should come with a health warning - it was at least ten times more scary than the book, and I can't believe it had a 12A certificate. I'm glad to have seen it, and although I am less than convinced by Daniel Radcliffe, the settings and the atmosphere were top notch. Plenty of moments when the film made you jump as well as be absolutely chilled by it. Even Mr W admitted to being scared. Came home and we had to put all of the lights on, and sleep with all of the lights on too.

On Saturday, I went to a workshop organised by Free Cakes for Kids Oxford - a lady from the Sugarcraft Guild had volunteered to come over to spend the afternoon with us to show us various sorts of ways of writing on cakes. I learned to make a piping bag out of greaseproof paper (no more expensive ones from Lakeland for me!), and to use it to pipe royal icing with. I also learnt two different ways of making roses - bit more practice there I think! Nice to meet the rest of the volunteers.

Finally, on Sunday, Mr W and I had a masterclass with a man called David Thornton. Unless you are into brass bands, this name will mean nothing to you, but he is a virtuosi euphonium player who plays with the Black Dyke Band (my favourite band and arguably the best in the country). We are helping out another band with a competition called The Areas in mid-March (Mr W on trombone, myself on the timps), and he had been invited along to put the band through their paces. As a euphonium player myself, I couldn't decide whether I was relieved or disappointed to be playing the timps. Very useful workshop for the band and at the end he played a virtuosi solo "Grandfather's clock" which was great!

(Oh, and talking of Free Cakes for Kids, my butterfly cake that I posted a few weeks ago is their "cake of the month" and you can see their blog post with a mini interview with me here.)

Apologies if this week is quiet on the blogging front, a family member has to go to hospital for an overnight stay and I'll be on taxi and visiting duty. I also have a crazy amount of things in my work calendar to get done before I have a week off, and somehow I need to pack and leave lots of surprises for Mr W around the house.

An evening with the Hummingbird Cake Days book

2012-02-09T17:56:00.001Z

Apologies for lack of posting this week - snow, much else to occupy my brain this week, and getting ready to go away in 8 days time seem to have disrupted things. Still, at least I haven't be disrupted on the baking front and on Wednesday I spent a delightful hour and a half in the kitchen baking. I admit that I was sniffy about the first Hummingbird Cookbook (mistakes, oddities, and the requirment to own an inordinate number of different sorts of tins), but I have to say that the second one is excellent. Perhaps this is because they got the more mainstream recipes out of the way in the first book, leaving the second one opened to more interesting things! I did put my own spin on the three recipes that I tried, partly to de-gluten them but also to just do things my way!

Mr W had some good job feedback on Wednesday, and to celebrate I decided to make him a special cake. As he's out on Tuesday (Valentine's Day), I decided to combine the two. I made the black and white chocolate cheesecake slices. As you see, I didn't quite make slices as I used my heart shaped tin, and rather than putting the topping on at random, I wrote a secret message in it :) Although I made this gluten free, I haven't got around to trying it yet, and Mr W is adament that I wouldn't like it!

I then made the apple and oatmeal cookies - I modified these as I didn't have the patience to grate my apple, so I just put apple chunks in instead. Very tasty, although quite crumbly, but I suspect that that was due to my substitution of gluten free flour. Most have gone already and the remainder are earmarked for Mr W's packed lunches.

Finally, I had a craving for a really tasty and refreshing cake, so I decided on the orange almond and yoghurt loaf. I didn't have any yoghurt so made it without and it still tastes absolutely wonderful! Will definitely be making this one again!

Weekend in the life...

2012-02-04T15:55:00.004Z

After a busy week at work, it's time for cake making. I had two birthday cakes to make today and also made some biscuits - Mr W's family have a bubble of birthdays in early February and we're having a bit of a party tomorrow afternoon.

Michael was 16 on Tuesday, and as a total surprise for him, I've made him a cake to resemble the electric guitar he was given. (I had been planning to do one like his old guitar and had to hurridly change my plans when he had this exciting present). I know the neck is a little short, but it wouldn't fit on the tray, so we decided to cut it short! The rest is a replica of this guitar.

Emma is 11 on Monday and had asked her Mum for a cake with "drama masks" on; she is a budding actress. I found some moulds online, but neither sugarpaste, royal icing nor marzipan worked well enough with them, but thank goodness chocolate did. The cake is a sponge cake filled with white chocolate buttercream and raspberry jam and dark chocolate masks.

It would be impolite to reveal Mr W's mother's age, but it was her birthday on Thursday. I was told not to make her a cake, so have made her shortbread biscuits with her initial on

Happy birthday everyone!

Library Day in the Life Round 8: Friday

2012-02-03T17:16:00.000Z

It's the final day of the week, and goodness me it's been a busy one. Usual wake up etc, although the extreme cold meant that I needed two pairs of leggings on to cycle to the pool, and that the pool was pretty empty.

This morning I was rota'd to work at the Main Enquiry Desk, so after dumping my wet swimming things and changing my shoes, I headed over to the Old Bodleian, the next building. The Main Enquiry Desk is the first port of call for readers with enquiries or difficult problems which we recieve by phone, email or in person - it's also where new readers can attend for some help. It's a pretty quiet morning there reader-wise, I only help a couple of readers wanting to top up their photocopying/printing accounts, and there aren't too many emails either - I order a book for a reader coming on Thursday and pass on an enquiry about interlibraryloans to the document supply department.

In the meantime I get on with some of my own work. This includes looking at next week's rota and allocating shelving responsibilities to my team members (we all take turns to help with the shelving in the new large open access stack area called The Gladstone Link), and then looking at it to arrange training for a new member of staff and two meetings, and sending emails to organise these. I then finish the workflow for periodical parts that I've mentioned on the last two days and email it to my manager for approval. I have a discussion by email with some other members of staff about counting the number of empty desks at set points each day next week. I help one of my team sort out an enquiry that he hasn't been able to deal with by reminding him who it needs to be referred to. And I discover that it is SCONUL counting week next week which is where we have to count the number of readers in the library at set points during the week - could be a lot of counting next week!

Halfway through the morning, I am taken out for coffee by the Head of the Department which is a nice diversion.

At 1pm, it's lunchtime and I go to buy some more black icing for one of the birthday cakes that I'm making this weekend, along with lots of chocolate. It's that sort of day. Very cold.

After lunch I have a meeting with the colleague in charge of the Gladstone Link project planning - it was supposed to be handed over to me last October, but the advent of another project has put paid to this for now. We have various things to discuss, including the book moves planned (and need to update the maps) and the progress with the project to scan each book as it is reshelved to generate data to find out which books are being used most and which not at all (this will be over a 12 month period).

I come back to the Lower Camera and sit down to update the Gladstone Link maps for the third time this year, and ask for new colour ones to be printed and circulate the black and white version to the rest of the department. The workflow has been approved so I send that around too. We've got to measure some of the collections in the reading room so while teabreaks are happening and one of my team is busy measuring, I hand out quite a lot of books to readers.

Today has been busy so I'm glad to go home even if I have to spend most of the next 24 hours making birthday cake...

Library Day in the Life Round 8: Thursday

2012-02-02T17:03:00.001Z

I think Thursday is my favourite day of the week. My schedule enables me to mix time for myself with time of the household and time at work. On Thursdays I don't start at work until 12pm, and although I usually then work until 7pm (which means I snag a lift home from Mr W), because I worked until 7 on Monday, that's over for this week.

On Thursday mornings, my alarm goes off ten minutes later, an extra 10 minutes of sleep for the pair of us. Defrosting my car rather than my bicycle, I drive to the pool where I get to swim for over an hour and a half, completing 200 lengths in the process. The reason I've taken the car rather than my bike is because afterwards I head to Sainsburys to get the big grocery shop of the week. Four bags of shopping comes to nearly £60 which is scary - the costs of groceries have really been racheting up recently. MUST eat more from the stock piles in the cupboards. Then home to made soup (carrot and swede) and some biscuits for the epic weekend of cake (more about that tomorrow). Then a big clean of the kitchen, hoover of the house and tidy, before a shower for me, and a 5 minute sit down with a bowl of soup and a book at 11.20 - I'm quite hungry! Then on with the warm weather gear as it's cold outside, just a rucksack today and no panniers as my swim is completed, and then half hour bike ride to work.

Arrive at 12pm and have a quick chat with my colleagues in the Lower Camera to see if anything exciting has happened. Unusually, nothing has, and everyone is merely envious of the colleague going to the Galapagos Islands tomorrow. I'm not scheduled to be on a desk until 2pm so I go upstairs to my "off-desk" in the Upper Camera and catch up with the mornings emails. My fellow Reading Room Supervisor has reviewed the workflows and made one change, so then I spend quite a while adding arrows and boxes to make them into a proper workflow before reading them over again and then emailing them to my manager. There are six in total, although two have two halves.

I cover the Upper Camera while a colleague goes to the Newsletter meeting; when he gets back, I'm finding the quiet conducive to finishing the workflows (Thursday is always bizarrely the most quiet day in the Upper Camera, I think it's because most history students have their tutorials that day!) I suggest that we swap places for the remainder of the afternoon.

I wait on tenterhooks for teatime as Yvann (aka Ms Reading With Tea) is in Oxford today and is working in the Rad Cam so we will take a break together. Finally it comes! Peppermint tea (strangely for me rather than Ms Tea) and hot chocolate is taken in the Bodleian Tea Room and we have a nice chat.

Back to work and I need to create some instructions (with screen shots) for the thing that I worked out how to do yesterday so it can be shared with the rest of the department. I help a student with printing, pass out the hole punch/stapler a couple of times and hand out a couple of books that are held behind the counter.

Suddenly it is 5pm - feels lovely as I'm normally here til 7pm. Cycle home to finish the things I didn't finish this morning and await the arrival home of Mr W. We may go out to eat tonight to celebrate our 6 month wedding anniversary!

Because....

2012-02-02T09:54:00.000Z

Mr W and I have been married for six months today!

Library Day in the Life Round 8: Wednesday

2012-02-01T17:11:00.000Z

So - you know the routine by now - alarm 6.05, husband's packed lunch, defrost bicycle seat, cycle 3 miles, swim 1.5 miles, arrive at work.

Today I'm based in the Lower Camera all day. There are several of us to sort the room out first thing so it doesn't take long - I switch things on and refill the copiers. We do the turnout which takes a while as it always does in term time and there is a very brief respite before 10 boxes of books are delivered. Coffee times come and go and then it is onto the excitement of the day - it is my first session on the online help desk. This was set up last summer and is manned by people in the various different Bodleian libraries across Oxford - our department has just had four people trained, including me, and it's my first go (we will be doing an hour a week on average). I don't actually have high hopes of anything happening at all as the last two hours have not had any enquiries, but after watching the screen for 40 minutes I finally get a question from someone having problems with electronic journal access. After experimenting, I have the same problems and it's not something I can sort out so I take the reader's email address and get in touch with the E Resources team. Unfortunately the reading room and phone gets quite busy while I'm doing this (should have gone to my "off-desk computer") and For the rest of the hour, I answer some emails and forward something about a course that I need to attend to my manager.

Helping a reader on the live help should be the highlight of the day, but it's not quite. Immediately afterwards I have my lunchbreak and go to Specsavers to get some new prescription sunglasses for my holiday in a fortnight's time. While I'm there, I ask the assistant to fix my drooping glasses as they have been annoying me. A ten second fix not only stops them drooping but brings the world back into focus! I had been worrying that my eye sight was deteriorating after only having a new prescription 2 months ago, so now I feel five years younger!

I get back to work and carry on sorting out the problem from yesterday as I have had advice from the systems support. This involves doing some shelf checking (actually one of my team goes and does this), following instructions on the system to make them look like they are in the right place again. Still two mystery items which I can't find, but they were last seen out to another member of the department so I have asked her to look!

Another large delivery of books takes us to tea time - when I get my break I carry on reading Jeanette Winterson's memoir which I'm REALLY enjoying. (If you enjoyed Oranges are not the only fruit, then you should definitely read this as it puts it into context)

My team member has reviewed the workflows and made several helpful suggestions which I incorporate and then I ring my fellow Reading Room Supervisor and ask her to look at them tomorrow when she has some off-desk time. This will give me time to review them when I come in tomorrow lunchtime and then get them to my manager by Friday morning, hopefully earlier than she was expecting!

I am supposed to go for tea at 3.30 but I got distracted by trying to sort out Crockfords Clerical Dictionary. We have a 2006 edition on the shelves in the Lower Camera, and the latest edition is at the Main Enquiry Desk, but now due to come to us. Unfortunately, the system thinks that the whole run is in the stack, and since we changed library systems in July I have no idea what to do. I ring my manager but she's busy and isn't 100% sure either but a brief hint that she gives me enables me to work it out. I manage to create a "temporary location" for this volume (since we'll get next years in due course and send this one to the store) and in the excitement I forget to go to tea. I tell my manager with glee (putting it down to my adjusted specs) and she asks me to write up a procedure that everyone can use. Luckily one of my colleagues agrees to man the fort on his own while the rest of us go for tea at 4.

5pm and I'm off home, still feeling jolly about my eyesight. Decide to make macaroni cheese for my husband and a gluten free chocolate cake for me, hopefully my husband who has cycled to work today will be home faster than when he cycled on Monday - 7.45 pm, if not I shall watch some iplayer. I do have a difficult email to send which is that I was supposed to be running the Brighton Marathon for Mind in April, but a combination of ankle injury over Christmas and iron deficiency anaemia has made it difficult, almost impossible for me to train more than the short runs I've been managing. The anaemia should be treatable and I'm taking iron supplements and should be sorted in three months so I'm confident that I'll be able to give it a go in 2013; it is one of the things on my list of things to do before I'm 30.

Library Day in the Life Round 8: Tuesday

2012-01-31T19:00:00.000Z

So, today, it’s Tuesday, and it starts pretty much the same as Monday, only with the addition of some moaning about how tired I am, and with me putting a packed tea as well as a packed lunch in my husband’s bag as he is out tonight. I defrost my bicycle seat and cycle to the pool where despite feeling tired, I manage my 100 lengths and get to work at 8.25.

This morning, although I will be based in the Lower Camera, I start my day with half an hour in the Upper Camera, getting it ready for the readers, as the colleague who will be based there this morning doesn’t start til 9. This involves switching computers and copiers on and sorting out about 50 books, most of which need to go back on the shelves in the reading room and some of which need to be returned to other locations on site. I’m tight for time to do this amount of books on my own, so I sort the books fast and practically fling them into their places on the shelves. The good thing about a fairly static collection where the books have actual homes is that there is generally an obvious gap to put them into!

At 9am, I go back downstairs and we begin “The turnout”. When readers order books from our remote store in Swindon, they are held in the reading room or “reserve” that they have been ordered to for a week; each morning we get a automatically generated list of the books which have been in the room for a week, we retrieve them from the reserve shelves, scan them out of the reading room on the system (“Aleph”), and put them in boxes to be returned. Some of the books have been reserved by readers at other libraries so we have to send them on separately.

At 10am, just as we’ve got rid of the old books, the new orders arrive (and the filled returns boxes are collected – well most of them, we’re sending back so much this morning that there isn’t space on the van). 10 boxes of books! We unpack them onto the four staff desks, scan them in on the Aleph, put them back onto the table sorted into alphabetical piles, and then put them away in the reserve.

At the same time, we’re passing out requested books to readers, helping people with the photocopiers, and pointing out where the toilets are.

Teabreaks also start at 10, there are four of us to go, and we also need to cover the break in the Upper Camera, so this is always tricky logistically!

At 12pm we get another delivery – it’s usually smaller but this time a couple of boxes of books were held over from the morning delivery so we need to put those away too.

At 1pm it’s time for my lunch. I head to the public library to pick up a couple of books, buy gluten free crumpets in Marks and Spencers, ring my husband, and eat some butternut squash soup.

At 2pm, I was supposed to have a meeting for an update on a project, but it’s been postponed, so it’s straight back to the Lower Camera. Immediately I have a couple of enquiries from other members of staff to deal with – one involves me hunting for (and finding!) a book, another involves a system oddity that I will need to talk to my manager about as it’s not something I’ve seen before. Probably needs the systems people to sort it out.

At 3pm, the teabreaks round starts, and the afternoon delivery arrives. It’s another big delivery but the readers don’t really bother us while we’re processing it so it goes away fairly quickly.

At 4.15 I go for my break – it’s a late one as I’m working til 7pm tonight. I normally work til 7pm on a Thursday night but someone needed to swap so here I am. Come back at 4.45 and shortly afterwards send the others home whilst awaiting the arrival of the other person on 5-7 duty. He arrives promptly and after a quick chat he goes off to do some shelving. We don’t shelve during the day as we’re busy and it’s disruptive to the readers, but it’s a priority during evening duty. Whilst he’s busy doing that there are a constant stream of people wanting books from the reserve, it feels like each time I sit down I have to get up again, and it’s almost a relief to have someone ask for help with the photocopiers!

My manager rings me back with an explanation about the system oddity, but I will still need the systems people to sort it out. She also suggests asking for a report to see if there are any other books which think they are somewhere that they’re not!

Finally it’s time to go home – 10.5 hours is a long day when usually I start at 12pm on a 7pm finish. Luckily, even though Mr W is going out tonight, he agreed to come and take me home first so I don’t have to tackle a 30 minute cycle ride in the cold when I’m quite so tired! Definitely a ready meal on the agenda for tonight!

Library Day in the Life Round 8: Monday

2012-01-30T17:41:00.001Z

Last January I participated in the Library Day in a Life project which is a project where librarians share their daily work to enlighten people who don't know very much about what working in a library (or different sorts of information services involves). It seemed to be very popular with the people who read my blog, so I thought that I would do it again. So for five days this week, I intend to tell you about my daily activities. If you have any particular questions, fire away and I'll address them in the following day's post!

Since I participated last time, a number of things have changed both personally and professionally.
1. I am now married and need to remember to write Verity W when signing my name on leave forms and giving out my email address.
2. We now live 4.5 miles away from work as opposed to 1.5 miles, and although I cycle still, it means I lose an hour a day to my commute as opposed to only 20.
3. Although I retain the title of "Reading Room Supervisor", I now supervise a different set of reading rooms, the advantage to this being that I am now based solely in one building. Although there are still many stairs, there are not quite as many as when I looked after two rooms on the top level of two different buildings. This means that I get to see my team members more consistently and am on hand more when there are issues. I am responsible for overseeing the collections in two reading rooms, the book service to one of the rooms and managing four members of staff, as well as continuing to be involved in the wider reader services department.

Last year my day started at 6.35, these days it starts at 6.05 when my alarm goes off. I allow myself 15 minutes reading blog posts/facebook/twitter on my phone before I struggle out, throw some clothes on, put my husband's packed lunch into his bag, kiss him goodbye and get on my bike for the 20 minute cycle ride to the pool. I no longer have time to go back home between the pool and work so I have to be quite organised. I swim 100 lengths (pretty slowly - I am tired but also thinking of a number of work and home things that I need to do today), have a shower and put on my work clothes, and cycle the remaining 10 minutes to work, arriving at 8.25.

Normally, at the start of the day I am involved with getting the reading rooms ready - shelving any books which have been left on desks when the library closed on Sunday, turning computers and copiers on, but I have a rare "off-desk" session to start the week with. This is my time to get on with jobs uninterrupted by the readers.

So, after greeting everyone, I have time to quickly switch on my own computer before meeting with a colleague from a different library (Oxford University has many, many libraries, and although they tend to function separately, some of the services are provided in common, and we share knowledge etc). She is hoping to start a visual new books display, using the web service Librarything, which I have been using in conjunction with my colleagues from the History Faculty for about 8 months (you can see our visual books display here), and I talk her through some of the problems we've encountered.

At 9.30, I have a catch-up meeting with my manager. We should have these every 4 weeks (interspersed with fortnightly meetings together with the other Reading Room Supervisor) but one way and another we haven't had one since mid-December. Luckily, we communicate a lot by email/phone so there isn't too much to discuss, so it doesn't take too long before I come away with a list of jobs.

For the rest of the morning, I try to use the time to catch up with my to-do list as well as the regular Monday morning tasks of entering statistics from the previous week onto spreadsheets, sending emails to address the tasks from the meeting, and arranging time for a new evening library assistant to come in to be trained.

12pm and it's time for lunch. Normally I go at 1pm, but today I need to be back to cover the reading room from 1pm. I spend my lunch break drinking coffee and writing my grocery shopping list for later in the week and a list of what I need to pack for my holiday in Tenerife in less than three weeks time, and also pick up some theatre tickets for later in the year.

1pm and I'm back in the Upper Camera reading room. We no longer have a book service to this reading room, so the room is only invigilated by one member of staff. It's usually pretty quiet, apart from handing out books kept behind the desk to readers, and pointing out where the stairs to the gallery (behind the pillars), photocopiers (behind the pillars) and toilets (downstairs) are. Would love to have a t-shirt with all of this information on.

Because it's quiet, I'm able to get on with a bigger project that my manager gave me this morning which she wants done by the end of the week - creating workflows for a number of different processes carried out in the reading rooms. We have two large projects happening this summer which this information will be fed into so it's important that I get it done.

Interspersed with this, I hand out books from the reserve, and point to the stairs ad infinitum.

My teabreak is covered by colleagues from downstairs, but I have to wait a while as they are very busy dealing with the bookservice (more about this tomorrow), so I only take a short break as there are still several of them to go.

Back for a final hour and the first draft of the workflows is nearly done. I ask one of my colleagues to review them when he is in the Upper Camera tomorrow afternoon as he carries out the activities more frequently than me.

At 5pm, the evening shift arrive (it's actually Simon from Stuck in a book ), and it's time to put my coat and cycle 4.5 miles home. Am really looking forward to the evenings drawing out again as I really don't like cycling in the dark. Tonight I'll be doing some washing, a spot of cooking/packed lunch making and hoping that it's third time lucky making some edible drama masks for my niece's birthday cake this weekend. Sugarpaste and royal icing have both failed to work in the moulds that I found, fingers crossed that chocolate does!

Productive week

2012-01-28T15:00:00.000Z

It's been a productive week in fact, rolling on from Monday evening, certainly in terms of all of the things that I seem to measure productivity by. 20km has been swum, banana pancakes were made and eaten before any photos could be taken, a fish pie (ditto) and some particularly special cupcakes (post to follow separately) were also made, along with a mini victoria sponge for my father and a larger heart shaped version for Mr W. We've booked both our summer and Christmas holidays, Mr W has completed his tax return, and some good books have been read (nothing terribly literary but enjoyable can = good too can't it?).

I was asked to share what I had been cross stitching, nothing terribly fancy just some little kits that I bought back in the Autumn. I have two larger projects which I've rather given up on as it's so hard to hold a big piece of fabric and stitch. Maybe I'm just impatient. Anyway I still haven't quite finished the surfing bear (top) but I've managed to find cards for all of the ones I've done over recent months.

(Of course productive week = seriously shattered Saturday - after climbing out of bed at an unearhtly hour for a Dr's appointment, coming back and making cake, and cleaning the kitchen, and having a bit of a sort out, I was dispatched back to bed by Mr W and stayed there for 3 hours dozing and reading. No swimming or sport for me today!)

A productive evening

2012-01-23T19:24:00.002Z

After a week which felt unproductive by the usual things which I measure productivity by (usually number of books read, cakes baked, kilometres swum) due to being away from Friday to Sunday, I am happy to have had an extremely productive evening. Arrived home at 5.30 on the dot, unpacked groceries, made amazing spicy lentil soup (above), made pasta sauce for base for pasta bake tomorrow, ran for 35 minutes whilst singing and dancing to Steps: the ultimate collection (oh yes!) and repacked my bags for tomorrow before having a long shower. It's still only 7.30!

How to make it a bit more productive? Cross stitch in front of Birdsong on iplayer (feels more productive to watch a literary adaption than something like Don't Tell the Bride) and finishing the book I was reading at work while Mr W does some OU study. Looking forward to an unproductive evening watching trashy tv while Mr W is out tomorrow night...

Hitting things

2012-01-16T20:15:00.000Z

Not Mr W of course, but more specifically a bass drum, timpani and a suspended cymbal.

I mentioned the other day that one of the reasons that last week was so busy was because I'd been to two music practices. Predating this blog is my involvement in brass bands which dates back to 1998 when I took up the euphonium (an odd choice, but a welcome change to play something unusual rather than the ubiquitous flute which I played for four years before that). Following an early retirement when I went to university, I joined another band in 2006, and at the start of 2007 changed bands and took up the baritone (a smaller, slightly more portable version of the euphonium - see the below picture).

It was in this brass band that I met Mr W, he played trombone and sat behind me. Brass bands worth their salt enter competitions - the major one each year is "The areas", run in a football league table style with promotions and relegations based on the annual competition as well as a national finals for the top bands. But there are other competitions in the year as well, and one of the most fun is the Butlins Mineworkers Brass Band Contest held in Skegness every January. In 2007 I went along (for the first time) with my friend Liz, and Mr W had made arrangements to go with Liz's boyfriend and another friend and it was there that Mr W and I got to know each other properly. In 2008 and 2009 Mr W and I went back and shared a chalet but have not been since then. Since a number of friends who we haven't seen for a while will be going and since we didn't go away this Christmas, we booked a chalet and a day off (it takes so long to get to Skegness...) and are looking forward to a weekend of brass bands and beer (well, except that I don't drink beer because it contains gluten and Mr W doesn't drink Butlins beer cos it's mainly lager) and Being Braced.

Yes, I have pictures of Mr W paddling in bare feet from 2008 but I don't somehow think I'll be having a swim in the north sea!

Despite the fact that "Butlins" is essentially a contest, I have never, until now, actually competed there, always just going along for the social aspect. This year, the local band were short of a second (and third) percussionist, and knowing that I was going along, and that I had played percussion in competitions before (ten years ago...), I have been asked to help them out. hence the rehearsals. I have to say that I don't seem to have the nerves of steel that I had when I was 17 and have had to be demoted from playing the triangle as my hand shakes too much at the start of the piece when I am nervous. But I have learnt to play the timps which isn't somehting that I've done before. There's just two more rehearsals for me to go now - I still need to learn to be a bit more aggressive with the bass drum, but hey, I'm a librarian.

So things may be a bit quiet for the next week or so as I practice my part at home using a saucepan lid, the two coffee tables and the bean bag, and whilst Mr W and I travel to Skeggy and back, but I'll let you know how I get on, if you're interested...

A weekend of sharing things

2012-01-15T15:46:00.003Z

Sitting down with a cup of tea as the weekend draws to a close. I've swum 5k today (taking me to a total of 21k for the week), cycled to the pool and back (taking me to about 51 miles cycled this week), made a beetroot risotto to have with smoked trout tonight, and started packing for a trip away next weekend.

Aside from the usual activities of cooking, cleaning, and swimming, this weekend has mainly been about community. Yesterday I met a lady who wishes to be mentored through the chartership process (a qualification which will enable her to become a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of the Library and Information Professionals) and over the next year I'll be spending some time helping her along the way. I benefitted from the mentoring process so it's good to be trained up as a mentor and able to give something back.

This afternoon I have been decorating a birthday cake for a little girl who will have her fifth birthday on Tuesday for a request via Free Cakes for Kids Oxford (which I've talked about before). I was happy to be told that she is very girlie and likes butterflies as that is exactly the sort of cake that I like to make! I cut the butterfly shape out of sponge, covered it in buttercream and then used lots of sprinkles and sparkly candles to finish it off.

But community isn't just about giving. As I type, one of our friends is helping Mr W find the garden by removing brambles and digging up dead trees. It's the sort of thing that I hate doing (and it's a very long task as the garden was neglected when we acquired the property, and we have neglected it further over the last nine months) so I am grateful that she is enjoying being outside in the cold whilst I do jobs and chores inside.

Somehow things seem to have balanced out rather well this weekend.

Rubbish blogger!

2012-01-08T16:04:00.003Z

Feel like a bit of a rubbish blogger at the moment to be honest.
1. I haven't baked anything interesting to share.
2. I didn't manage to keep up with taking a photo a day, mainly because I didn't want to cart my camera around all of the time and my phone isn't good enough for taking photos to put onto my blog. May or may not attempt to have another go this week.
3. Although I've been good with books for my Virago blog (and read the amazing Odd Women by Gissing) I haven't read anything terribly worthy of talking about here.

On the plus side, this week I have:
1. Swum 20km.
2. Cycled 37.5 miles.
3. Spent an hour on the cross-trainer at the gym.
4. Bought carrot, courgette and parsley seeds at the garden centre and potting compost.
5. I have reread some Antonia Forest which was lovely and I have read a biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, which was fascinating although quite hagiographic.
6. I'm about to go and make us a proper Sunday dinner with side of salmon, jacket potatoes, crushed swede and carrot, asparagus and spinach and mincemeat and apple crumble (all helping me to my target of eating more fruit and vegetaibles).

At the end of the first day back

2012-01-03T18:43:00.002Z

The first day back after Christmas hasn't been too bad, despite a very interrupted night with dreams of oversleeping, and many hours awake whilst Mr W coughed and sniffled (the final straw was the wake up light going on eight minutes before it should have done). I went around the sales at lunchtime, and the only thing I bought was this handsome diary in the shop at work:
I loved using the Persephone Diary to record my reading last year, and since the notebook I was using before that is pretty much full, I thought I'd go with the diary idea again this year. Obviously I was drawn by the picture of swimmers on the cover, but the diary features selections from the John Johnson collection of ephemera (absolutely fascinating - do read more about it here) which I am sure will be entertaining as I fill in the books that I have read throughout 2012.

I have made biscuits (banana, peanut butter and choc chip) from this recipe - it would have been rude not too when I had an almost black banana. However, in the interests of healthy eating, I baked 6 and froze the rest of the dough.

Now it is time to sit by our tree which we still have up and read whilst Mr W finishes the ironing, and then we have "breakfast for dinner" which I am rather excited about.

Happy New Year

2012-01-02T16:39:00.002Z

So a very Happy New Year to you all! Mr W and I went to bed at the usual time on NYE where I was then kept awake by his dreadful cold but we set off early in the morning for Brighton to spend New Year's Day. Awful rain yesterday but we saw the Pavilion which is pretty fantastic, had interesting experiences at both the hotel (first room had no natural light, second had only hot water out of the taps) and the restaurant we went to for dinner (gluten free pasta was made with ordinary pasta the first time and then the second time it arrived it was crunchy (third time was very tasty and we got our drinks for free). Woke up to a beautiful morning so I went in the sea - I would have gone in properly but the pebbles were very sore on my feet and I was a bit scared by the enormous waves! We then went on the pier and rode on a lovely carousel and went on a fantastic ghost train before having some Brighton Rock!

Now I'm back at home and thinking about work tomorrow, the bag is packed, and I'm really hoping I can shake off my tiredness and cope with the 6am start! The car journey to Brighton gave me a lot of time to think about new year goals - I was also prompted by a facebook status from a friend asking what one would want to have achieved in a year's time and this is what I have come up with.

Professionally
Things are potentially a little uncertain at work, but I still have some professional goals. It will be three years in April since I achieved my Chartered Membership of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals and I will be eligible to revalidate it - I've diligently done my yearly progress reports but now I need to think about compiling another portfolio, so this is a big goal.
Secondly, it is 5 years since I completed the research for my Library Masters Dissertation which was then published in an academic journal. The research lends itself rather well to being repeated and compared, so I am investigating whether the journal I was published in before would be interested in another article, and will then consider carrying out the research. I very much enjoyed the research that I did and would welcome the intellectual challenge of doing some more. I looked up my article on Google Scholar this afternoon and it has been cited in 6 other pieces of research which is exciting!

Sporting
My big goal for the year is to swim 3.8km (ironman distance) in an openwater race in under 1 hour or to swim 10k in an openwater race in under 3 hours. I hope that my swim camp in Tenerife in February will help me to achieve this goal!
I have entered my first triathlon at Blenheim in June - I'm just doing it for a bit of fun rather than competitively. I will be swimming 750m, cycling 20km and then running 5km as it is a sprint distance triathlon.
I am also hoping to run the Brighton Marathon in April, however I have had a lot of problems with my ankles in the last few weeks so I am going to need to rest them and then see how much time I have for training left before I absolutely commit. I would love to achieve a marathon but it may not be this year - 26.2 miles is a lot further than the 3 miles of my tri!

Reading
No specific reading goals, I find it difficult to participate in challenges as I like to have the freedom. I do want to read and blog about a Virago Modern Classic a week for my Virago Venture blog - I have been bad at that recently and it is not helping me to complete that challenge! I have stacks of VMCs waiting for me to read them and I just need to grit my teeth and get on with them.
I am impressed by Simon's challenge to read a book from each year of the 20th century; I am planning to see how my reading goes and record it in a similar way, although I am not actually setting out to do this!

Photo a day
Again, inspired by Simon (who did this challenge on facebook) I want to take a photo a day for 2012 to record the year. I'm going to upload these once a week in a blog post. That fits in with my desire for slightly more low key blogging this year - I still want to keep in touch with my bloggy friends but I don't have so much inclination to blog as I used to. If I plan to do that post each week, then I can see what else happens!

Baking
I'm intending to do a little less baking this year; Mr W is getting a little cuddly and I am a little above my fighting weight now particularly if I want to fulfil my sporting goals so we are going to try to mainly eat cake at the weekends and less in the week. We still have mountains of biscuits and chocolate left from Christmas!
However, I hope to maximise opportunities to make other cakes, my sister in law has asked me to make a cake for her son's birthday at the start of February, and I'm trying to work out quite how to do an electric guitar cake.

Other
It sounds silly, but I don't want to take any hour that I have to spend with Mr W for granted. I will be very happy at the end of 2012 if I have achieved that.

That awkward bit between Christmas and New Year and End of year meme

2011-12-31T15:29:00.003Z

So the difficult bit between Christmas and New Year is now over. It feels like it's been more difficult than usual as I was so tired after all of the celebrations. Mr W was back at work and because we had so many leftovers I didn't even get to do any of the cooking that I would usually do on the holidays. I've done a fair amount of reading although nothing terribly brilliant and some swimming and tried not to feel too bored! Which is silly because as soon as I'm back at work I'll be wanting to be on holiday again. Mr W and I are going to the seaside tomorrow for the night so I'm looking forward to that excursion.

Anyway, I'd like to wish all of you a very happy New Year, and here's an end of year meme for you.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?
Got married. Swam 10k. Ran 10k. Had mumps. Had a wisdom tooth extracted. Bought a house. Cycled 4.5 miles to work and back. Made a three tier wedding cake.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I can't remember what I resolved last year. This year is certainly to do better with fruit and vegetables, and try to balance out my life better.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
No.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Yes.

5. What countries did you visit?
Austria and Germany.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?
Better health and a bit more zen.

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
2nd August - wedding!

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Swimming 10k and raising more money for Mind.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Failing to complete the OU course that I started owing to house move stress.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
I started the year with swine flu, spent some of June off work with stress, had several irritable bowel episodes, had mumps in September, a wisdom tooth out in November and a nasty virus in December.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
A house!

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Keri-Anne Payne winning the openwater swimming world championships and being the first British person to qualify for the Olympics.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Rioters.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage and wedding.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
My wedding.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?
Howard Goodall's arrangement of Love divine, all loves excelling. Beautiful, until I heard it on the radio in June, I hadn't heard it since we sung it at school. Played it on repeat a lot!

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
a) happier or sadder?
about the same

b) thinner or fatter?
Much fatter. Some of it muscle mass I hope!

c) richer or poorer?
Poorer, thanks to house purchase.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Being sociable.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Worrying.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
With my husband, and then with our respective families.

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?
Carried on being in love.

22. How many one-night stands?
Absolutely none.

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Don't tell the bride.

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
Nope.

25. What was the best book you read?
It hasn't been a vintage year for reading one way and another - I've still read a fair amount but not as copiously as in previous years and I'm struggling to think of anything that has really stuck if I'm honest.

26. What was your greatest musical discovery?
Trans Siberian Orchestra.

27. What did you want and get?
A husband.

28. What did you want and not get?
Some jewellery for Christmas (sore point, husband bought me some lego instead...)

29. What was your favourite film of this year?
Haven't seen many - the most recent one I enjoyed was Arthur Christmas.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I was 27 and we were in Cornwall, and I went swimming in the sea! I also slept a lot.

31.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Retirement.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?
My husband is supposed to do my ironing but has just been too busy.

33. What kept you sane?
Remembering to breathe. Swimming. And later in the year running. And trying to do some mindfulness.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

Libraries, and potential closure.

35. Whom did you miss?
As ever, I missed the wonderful Emily, especially at my wedding. I missed my husband's stepfather, again also at our wedding.

36. Who was the best new person you met?
The lovely Fiona who also did the 10k swim with me and is now my online swimming buddy; also my new bloggy friend Yvann.

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011:
Not quite sure what I learned really; I suppose a reminder again about making sure I take space when I need too.

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
"I'm getting married in the morning"...technically, that only sums up August 1st, but it was the feeling behind most of the early part of the year.

39. So in as few words as possible, how would you sum up your year?
Mrs W!

Post Christmas catch-up

2011-12-28T10:22:00.002Z

It's been a busy few days here, and I never got around to wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas. I hope that you all had a lovely time. The bank holidays are now over (well, for a few days), and Mr W is back to work (albeit working from the dining room, although the 10 second commute seemed quite long this morning when we woke up with just a few minutes to spare). I have had a long morning in bed reading and catching up with blogs before a lunchtime swim - I feel in need of a bit of a boot camp after the excesses of the last few days. Here's what I've been up to...

On the first day of Christmas
Mr W and I woke up surprisingly early - must have been the excitement about opening stockings and presents. I fitted in a Christmas Day 5 mile run before brunch and heading over to visit Mr W's family in Wokingham. To Mr W's delight we arrived in time for the Christmas pudding. The Christmas cake I made was very much appreciated by everyone and we took a large chunk home with us for a Christmas night supper.

[Reading - Greenbanks by Dorothy Whipple - my Persephone secret santa gift - which starts on Christmas day]

On the second day of Christmas
I was back in the kitchen, ahead of a visit from Mr W's immediate family (yes 11 people) plus my immediate family (2 people) (which with Mr W and I makes 15 people - i.e. a rather large amount of cooking). I fitted in another run of about 5 miles, ruining my ankles in the process which means no more running for a few days :( Mr W recieved a flight simulator for Christmas from his mother and spent most of the afternoon playing that, whilst I was reading. We then ate far too much Christmas cake and felt quite sick.

[Reading - Christmas Pudding by Nancy Mitford - a present from my mother in law (at my request); Cherry Ames - Senior Nurse - another in the wonderful Cherry Ames series that I came across last year - I bought several of these in a job lot on ebay which I have been saving for reading over the festive period].

On the third day of Christmas
The swimming pool was open again so I went and did 200 lengths (5 km) and chatted with another early morning regular (even though we were there about 11am) who had also overindulged. I then spent a bit more time cooking before everyone arrived. I wish I had taken pictures of the food as it seemed to be a big hit, despite the fact that we didn't have quite enough cutlery... There was mountains of washing up, and I was quite glad that the 4 year old has an early bedtime as it meant that we had the house to ourselves again by the early evening.

[Reading Forgive and forget by Patricia Scanlan - slightly mindless chick lit]

From little to large

2011-12-22T18:21:00.000Z

From my mini Christmas cakes to the big one... Mr W's mother has asked me to take a Christmas cake on Christmas day and this is what I have produced. The cake is an 8" fruit cake which has been maturing nicely (I hope!) for a couple of months, and inspired by this wonderful cake made by the Caked Crusader (one of my favourite baking blogs). It's quite minimalist and you sadly can't see the beautiful holly ribbon that goes round the egde but I'm hoping that the cute little reindeers on the top will appeal to the nieces.

I hope to be back again to wish you a happy Christmas and share some more festive bakes before the big day (still waiting to be baked..) but I hope you're all feeling organised and excited. (I am sort of but will be relieved when I have done the big Sainsburys shop - 15 people coming on the 27th - tomorrow)

Library loot

2011-12-21T18:19:00.000Z

A trip to the local branch library on my way back from work tonight and I was really impressed with the "loot" that I found....not least the print on demand Stella Gibbons, White sand and grey sand, that leapt out at me from the shelves. I had mentioned on this blog only a few weeks ago how much I would like to read some more Gibbons books, and I am very impressed that the library has bought a POD book.

The Nora Roberts book, Savour the moment, is actually the third in a trilogy but it seems to be nice, light, wedding themed reading about a cake maker/decorator - sounded right up my street!

India Knight's The thrift book, is obviously the credit crunch answer to her previous book which was all about shopping. I try to be thrifty but I'll be interested to see if she has any tips I can take on board in the New Year. I felt suitably chastened after watching a programme about having an economical Christmas the other night and am quite determined to waste no food at all over Christmas and from the New Year (we are generally very good, it is just that sometimes jars are forgotten in the fridge and go mouldy).

Today's special is a "little black dress" book which seems to be a bit like a modern day Mills and Boon. Chick lit at the very light end of the specturm. However, after wrestling with the housework I might not be up to anything else. I read loads of these last winter so it was nice to spot one I hadn't had out before.

Rabbit stew and a memory or two is a memoir of a gypsy woman's life on the road. Its publisher, Abacus, has published many interesting memoirs recently, so I picked this up immediately.

Mini Christmas cakes

2011-12-19T19:01:00.000Z

This is what I've made for my (and Ken's) immediate colleagues this year - mini Christmas cakes. I am so pleased with how they turned out.

I made up a batch of wedding cake mixture (for the middle sized tier) - yes, this involved getting the mixing bucket out - and then used mini 4" pork pie tins (such an essential part of every vegetarian's kitchen) to bake the cakes. I used 4" cutters to cut out rounds of marzipan and icing which I stuck on top using apricot glaze (I decided not to level the cakes as didn't want to make them teeny tiny). I did a variety of decorations with what was on hand - the solitary reindeer was made from a tiny bit of leftover marzipan and was the dummy run for what I hope to do with my Christmas cake... The snowflakes look pretty but were so hard to cut out! The holly leaves were made with leftovers from the green fairy wedding cake I made...

Persephone Secret Santa participants

2011-12-16T19:42:00.005Z

Here is the full list of Persephone secret santa participants - do visit their blogs to see what was exchanged this year!

http://aliteraryodyssey.blogspot.com/
http://cardigangirlverity.blogspot.com/
www.paperback-reader.co.uk
http://agirlwalksintoabookstore.blogspot.com/
http://thingshelenlikes.wordpress.com/
http://seriouslyreading.blogspot.com
www.colreads.blogspot.com
http://www.dolcebellezza.net/
http://karensbooksandchocolate.blogspot.com/
http://www.danitorres.typepad.com
http://regularrumination.wordpress.com
http://rosesyear.blogspot.com/
http://samstillreading.wordpress.com
http://bkclubcare.wordpress.com
www.newcenturyreading.com
http://flowersandstripes.blogspot.com
http://emmagrange.wordpress.com/
www.anarmchairbythesea.blogspot.com
www.bostonbibliophile.com
http://karolinescorner.blogspot.com
http://irisonbooks.wordpress.com
http://www.spoonizzle.blogspot.com/
http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com
http://luxehours.wordpress.com
www.nonsuchbook.typepad.com
http://gudrunstights.wordpress.com
http://homeofaimala.blogspot.com
http://agoodstoppingpoint.wordpress.com

We had a couple of non-blogging participants - here is a message from one of them!

Chris doesn't have a blog but has still participated over the last couple of swaps - here's a message from her to her Secret Santa!

My package arrived yesterday: perfect timing! I haven't included any pictures, unfortunately, since Egyptian customs officials don't have very much Christmas spirit: they unwrapped both of my gifts! I was still able to appreciate the wrapping paper, though, since they included it in the box when they resealed it. :o)

One of the reasons that I was so excited to participate in this exchange (aside from the fact that I adore Persephone Books, of course!) is because I live in Egypt, which often means that it's difficult to find interesting and excellent books (As I'm sure you can imagine, this gets old after a year and a half.). So I was delighted to discover that my secret santa, Amy of www.flyover-land.com, sent me not one but two books (Kitchen Essays, which is a Persephone, and Main Street, which isn't)! I'm planning to spend Christmas on the beach, and I'm very excited about my new reading material and about having the time to enjoy it (I'm especially excited about Kitchen Essays: I'm moving into a place with a gorgeous kitchen in a month and a half and this is just the inspiration I need!). Thank you, thank you, thank you to my secret santa, and thank you to you and Claire for organizing this! :o)

Merry Christmas!

Persephone secret santa

2011-12-16T08:07:00.001Z

About ten days ago, my Persephone secret santa arrived. I was so spoilt!

So many parcels!

And....

Along with a copy of Greenbanks which I absolutely can't wait to reread over Christmas, I had a little bookish bag, some wonderful chocolates, some lotion and a black pashmina.

The biggest of thanks to my secret santa, Emily from Seriously Reading, a blog that I hadn't discovered before.

30 of us took part in this year's Persephone Secret Santa, thanks to all of you who joined Claire and I in the fun and festivities. Hopefully we can produce a roundup of everyone's posts in due course :)

Dan Lepard's carrot cake

2011-12-10T19:31:00.000Z

One of the baking books from my haul earlier in the Autumn was Dan Lepard's Short and Sweet. I'm familiar with his recipes from the Guardian newspaper's weekend magazine which always seem slightly innovative without being ridiculously complicated. I was particularly interested to see this book partly as I wanted to see more of his recipes but also as I understood from what I'd heard about it that there were a number of gluten free alternatives which is obviously particularly interesting to me. What I liked most about the book in the end, even more than the recipes which are pretty darn tempting, was its instructional nature. Lepard uses a bit amount of science to explain how to do things (e.g. when making cream cheese icing, you shouldn't add all of the cream cheese at once; the first half added to the butter and sugar will emulsify the mixture, but then the second half will be held in suspension creating a much lighter icing). I've actually made a number of things from the book now, although not got round to blogging about them - the banana chocolate cookies were wonderful, as were the ginger and spelt cookies. But this weekend, feeling uninspired to bake, I asked Mr W what sort of cake he'd like next. He said carrot cake. I was a bit surprised and not quite convinced, but when I opened up Short and sweet to peruse for other options, the first cake recipe I saw was a carrot cake, so I decided to make it. It came out beautifully light with some pecans to add a bit of texture to the sponge. And the cream cheese icing was just delicious!

[too bad that Mr W ate it all before I got a picture....]

PS: Should be clear that Short and Sweet isn't just cakes and biscuits, but also bread, various sorts of sweets, pastry, pies etc!

In which I share some recommendations of Christmas listening

2011-12-09T17:49:00.000Z

I've been having LOTS of chats with various people on twitter over the last week or so about Good Christmas Music. I've been fortunate enough to get some new Christmas music on my ipod in the last couple of weeks and wanted to share what. I'd love to hear what other people are listening to this Christmas.

First up are the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Mr W and I came across them last Christmas when we saw this amazing Christmas lights video on YouTube [do click through and watch it - it's amazing!!] . We promptly bought the album it was on called Lost Christmas Eve, but owing to the snow, we didn't get it until nearly February so it's only now that we've got it out. Great if you want some prog rock with lots and lots of Christmassy bits. Good one for doing the pre-Christmas house-work I'd say.

After doing your pre-Christmas house-work, you're bound to be sitting down for drinks. In which case, I'd recommend the new John Rutter "Colours of Christmas". John Rutter is one of my favourite modern choral arrangers and here he takes lots of popular pieces and gives them lovely arrangements. Singalongable to but also great for background music.

One of my favourite bands is St Etienne, and last year they released a limited edition CD called A glimpse of stocking. I didn't get my hands on one, but the good news it is available on i-tunes. This is trendy (well as far as I manage to be trendy) listening to on the bus/train type music, mostly their own songs but one or two covers.

Finally for some real chill out music, I've downloaded Medieval Baebes, Misteltoe and Wine, medieval choral music. Love their arrangement of Gaudete.

PS: Favourites from previous years? Tori Amos, Midwinter Carols, (a recommendation from Paperback Reader Claire), any arrangement of Ceremony of Carols by Benjamin Brittain (always sends shivers down my spine), and usually some brass band music is good too.

In which I start some Christmas reading

2011-12-08T19:15:00.000Z

The advent tea-party is over, I am enjoying having the Christmas tree lit up in the corner of our sitting room every night, I have a huge selection of Christmas music on my ipod (new for this year are the Medieval Baebes - much recommended for something gentle) - Christmas is well and truly on its way. Christmas reading is always good and besides old favourites there are some new books for this year. I'm hoping that my mother in law may give me the new edition of Nancy Mitford's Christmas pudding, but I have succombed and started reading Christmas at Cold Comfort Farm.

I was intending to save it to read a little bit closer to the 25th, but my copy arrived on Monday, and then I saw Hayley's review later that night, and then being halfway through an autobiography I thought that short stories would be great to have on the go at the same time. You see - like Hayley I was never terribly convinced by Cold Comfort Farm but I loved Westwood and Starlight, both of which have been reprinted by Vintage this year. So, the fact that I've liked all of the other Gibbons books that I've read along with the Christmassy theme has enticed me to pick it up.

I'm still not a short stories fan but I quite enjoyed these. Not so much the Cold Comfort Christmas, but I did like The little christmas tree which was the sort of heartwarming short story that one especially enjoys at Christmas. Sisters was also a good tale.

I think there are still some Stella Gibbons books which aren't back in print; I hope the success of these stories, and the other Vintage reprints plus Virago's reprint of Nightingale Wood and will see them back in print. Edit - I see that they are available in print on demand from Vintage - see here. No pretty covers but worth it if the writing is good :)

In which Mr W and I enjoy the same book (More than you can say)

2011-12-06T20:04:00.000Z

Mr W is away working in the Netherlands this week; over the preceding weekend I read More than you can say by Paul Torday and it occurred to me that Mr W would also enjoy it so I dispatched him with it on Monday morning (4am start...) and by Monday evening (lots of delays on the plane) he reported that he'd finished it and enjoyed it a lot. It's been soooooo long since I actually wrote about a book on this blog that I thought I should make an exception for this as I think it's the first fiction book that he's read all year.

You might be familiar with Paul Torday for his book Salmon Fishing in the Yemen which I think was a Richard and Judy choice a couple of years ago; I think I read that at the time but it certainly didn't stay with me in the way that this book did. The plot could be considered ridiculous but somehow it becomes more plausible as the story continues:

It tells the story of Richard, an ex soldier who has left hte army after fighting in Afghanistan. He's struggled to settle down into normal life, tried to run a restaurant, tried to resume his relationship and failed. Although we know this at the start it is only as the book develops that we find out the details and this story. He turns to gambling and this is pretty much where the book opens. Gambling one night in London he takes a bet to be in Oxford by 1pm the following day, travelling only on foot. As an ex-soldier, a 52 mile route march isn't too daunting so he takes it up, unsure if his shoes will make it. But on the way he is kidnapped. It's difficult to say too much more without giving the plot away but it is a story of many twists and turns that I really couldn't put down.

A reviewer on Amazon says "if you want gripping storylines then buy his books" so I am actually tempted to seek out more of his books at the library. This one was not by any means great literature but it was hugely enjoyable and an absolute page-turner and I've not seen it mentioned on any of the blogs that I follow.

Advent tea party

2011-12-04T13:28:00.002Z

Having had a dress rehearsal yesterday for today's Advent tea (I'll spare embarassment here but check out Yvann's post...) (great fun, much tea consumed and lovely to spend a couple of hours with Ms Reading with Tea), we are all set for the real thing today! Here is the table laid out above...and here is what I've made:

Chocolate and raisin snowman cake (first outing of the sauverin tin I've had for three years now!)

Christmas pudding cupcakes as made earlier this year here.
Gingerbread house biscuits (we live at number 65)
Cranberry and orange mini buns (gluten free)
A nativity in gingerbread
Traditional shortbread biscuits

The mulled wine is on...now we just need the rest of the guests to arrive. PS: Those of you waiting to see Mr W's gingerbread house will have to wait for tomorrow's post!

Happy wedding day to Jo and Wayne

2011-12-01T10:01:00.000Z

Do you remember the cake that I posted about, but without the top of it? Here is the finished cake! I was asked to do a cake with a mad hatter and a green fairy on it. The cake is vegan AND gluten free. Happy Wedding Day to Jo and Wayne.

Advent tree

2011-11-30T19:04:00.000Z

We have a new Advent tradition this year - an Advent Tree! We bought this on our wedding trip in Berchtesgaden Germany, despite Mr W claiming that there wasn't any room in our suitcase. I'd never seen one of these before and thought it was quite a novel idea. The tree has 24 little hooks on it, and there are 24 little Christmassy ornaments on it, one to be hung up each day of the advent period. We shall endeavour to remember to do this each evening as we light the advent candle.

10k run run!

2011-11-28T18:42:00.000Z

I'm very proud to share that, having been upping my runs since the completion of Couch to 5k, which I began in September, I took part in my first ever running race yesterday. Not just a 5k, I actually ran in a proper 10k event, the Eynsham 10k. (Eynsham being a large village about 20 minutes run from me). I managed not to get put off by the vast number of runners overtaking me at the start, got into a steady pace and slowly started overtaking the odd runner here and there. It was a little disconcerting when as I approached the end of the first of the two laps, I heard panting and then was overtaken by six or seven very speedy runners, but I managed to put on my own sprint for the last 500m (the marshalls were quite surprised to see someone who was finishing so late putting on such a spurt) and went under the clock at 1 h 4 minutes. When I looked up my timing chip time in the afternoon I found that I'd done it in 1h 3m 50 seconds, no mean feat on less than 3 months of running.

Less impressive was the resulting sugar-low which rendered me incapable of finding where I had left my car. Husband, in Leicester for the day, was completely unable to help, and it took half an hour of wandering around in tears before I found the car park. But small details...

Time to find a half marathon I think!

Advent

2011-11-27T15:56:00.002Z

As I write, I'm sitting listening to the Advent Carol service on Radio 4 - this is one of my signs that Christmas is getting close. I love advent carols almost as much as Christmas carols, especially O Come O Come Emmanual and Lo he comes with clouds descending. I shall be lighting our advent candle tonight - it's always handy when advent starts before the beginning of December because you can get through that extra bit of candle before the numbers start.

I am excited about Christmas this year. It's been so long since Mr W and I had more than 2 days together (our honeymoon in fact), and it's the first time that we've been in our own house! We've worked so hard to get it to a presentable stage that it will be a pleasure to put the decorations up and have people around. I don't feel terribly Christmassy yet - well, there are 4 weeks to go - I think it is to do with the the still unseasonably warm weather. Just hoping that we don't have snow this December - the 8 hours in the car to take our nieces to the ballet in London last year was something that I'd rather not repeat with this year's excursion!

I'm not sure I'll have time to participate, but several of my very favourite bloggers are organising it, so here's a quick mention for Austen in Advent - do go over and check it out!

Beautiful books and carpet

2011-11-26T16:32:00.000Z

The highlight of the past week has been finally getting new carpet in our dining room and hall.

Unfortunately, not having had a dining room before, and only having a small table (the kitchen table from my childhood) we are somewhat lacking in things to put in the dining room.

Well, that's not strictly true. As you can see...

(Apologies for the dreadful light in the picture...)

My non Virago fiction was currently residing upstairs in the third bedroom, but I didn't really like having the books in there. The room is somewhat grotty (and will be our next redecoration project, hopefully over the Christmas break), and as it's the smallest bedroom it was absolutely crammed solid. The plan is to move them back once it's decorated, but y'know, I quite like them there... (Poor Mr W's books are still in the garage)

This weekend

2011-11-20T16:17:00.002Z

This weekend has been all about preparing for Christmas. I know it's not even advent yet, but I know how busy the weeks before Christmas get and I want to be able to enjoy events and be able to be spontaneous rather than worry about the things that I haven't done.

So this weekend has seen:
1. Wrapping of Christmas presents (extraordinarily exhausting, and still one more for Mother-in-law, yet to arrive to go).
2. Parcelling up Christmas presents to be posted
3. Ripping Christmas cds to itunes to create a Christmas playlist for advent tea party
4. Devising of cake menu for advent tea party
5. Reading of Christmas issue of Good Housekeeping magazine for inspiration
6. Purchase of poinsettia when Mr W offered to buy me flowers
7. Sampling of Waitrose Brandy Ice Cream (delicious)
8. Sampling of mini Christmas cake (oh how can I resist eating the big one?)
9. Attempted purchase of Christmas tree (foiled as the garden centre only had a paltry selection this early).

In other news, very tired and busy with work so things may be quiet on the blogging front but will be popping in and out over the next few weeks. Only 24 more working days until the Christmas holidays! Can't wait!!

An ABC of me...

2011-11-16T18:44:00.000Z

...or "too much information". Reading with Tea did this meme yesterday and as I'm tired and uninspired, here are my answers!

Age: 27.5

Book Size: Something portable and in paperback.

Chore that you hate: Taking out the garbage/doing the hand washing-up.

Dogs: As long as it’s nowhere near me, you can keep yours (I stole this answer from Yvann, but how true for me too!)

Essential start to your day: A swim. Immersion in water wakes me up and makes me feel I've done something useful before getting dressed.

Favorite colour: Pink. If there's a choice of colour, I want it in pink.

Gold or Silver: Silver generally, but I wear white gold wedding and engagement rings - but that's silver coloured rather than gold surely?!

.Height: 5' 6"

Instruments you play: Euphonium, baritone, trombone, piano - I used to play the flute too. I also play the triangle with considerable skill.

Job Title: Reading Room Supervisor (Radcliffe Camera and Gladstone Link)

Kids: are best when you only borrow them and can give them back..

Live: Oxford, UK.

Milk: semi-skimmed (1.5%-2%) or soya if on my cereal. Soya doesn't work in coffee or I'd have it all the time.

Nicknames: V, Veri, and at work I seem to get called "pet" a lot by my new team.

Oldest living relative: My Gran - 83 I think.

Pet Peeves: Husband watching fail videos on You Tube, it raining when I have to cycle home.

Quote from a movie: "It's a bloody euphonium" (Brassed off)

Right or Left handed: Left!

Siblings: Nope, but now I have a sister AND brother in law! Yayy!

Time you wake up: Just before 6.05 due to the fact that the wake-up-daylight-lamp is set a tad earlier than my phone alarm. I don't actually wake up properly until mid morning, sometimes not even til after lunch.

Underwear: Yes. Except when I forget to pack it...

Vegetable you hate: Where to start? Brussel sprouts, turnips, swedes, parsnips, beetroot. And do not even mention cabbage to me…

What makes you run late: Struggling to get out of bed, having an extra cuddle with my husband.

X-Rays you’ve had: Teeth. But the latest one did not show up the fact that my roots on my wisdom teeth were growing at a funny angle and that I should really probably have gone to the hospital for its extraction. Also had a chest xray aged 10 for a heart murmur.

Yummy food that you make: Cake, in all sorts of forms.

Zoo animal: Penguins!

Phew! Are you still reading?!

Christmas cake baking

2011-11-15T18:43:00.000Z

Have made a Christmas cake, using the wedding cake recipe (but using gluten free flour) - I hope it will be tasty. Since the recipe gave quantities for a square tin, I used the mix left over to make a mini 4" cake, which I decorated with leftovers from the wedding cake I made the other weekend... Isn't it cute?

This weekend

2011-11-13T18:43:00.000Z

This weekend has been only a half weekend as I was back at work today; I hope this will be my last Sunday for a while. But not all is lost; I spent my teabreak rereading the Persephone Books A place in the country by Jocelyn Playfair - had forgotten what a wonderful tale it is.

I had a productive day yesterday, and now all of our Christmas cards are written - just awaiting Mr W to sign them, seal and stamp them. The Christmas cake spent four hours in the oven and smelt wonderful. And all of this followed on from a race around the shops on Friday lunchtime which leaves me just 3 presents away from completing my Christmas shopping. Two of these will be books, I just need to decide quite what my mother in law and Mr W's sister in law would like to read... Always tricky!

One of the reasons that it's been difficult for me to blog so much is that I've upped my sports a bit and am now running twice a week after work and on Saturdays. I've mentioned the Couch 2 5k programme several times now, and on Wednesday I proudly completed the penultimate week, running for 28 minutes. On Saturday I absolutely smashed that on a run with Mr W; we went out over 4 miles and were running for a grand total of 41 minutes. I'm really proud of the progress that I've made from not being able to run at all, to injuring myself on the second session, through to this and have reward myself with some running leggings with pink go faster stripes on. Am sure they helped on Saturday! I find it really good to be outside for half an hour or so after a day indoors even if it's dark and it really provides a way to clear my head from some very busy times at work.

Cross Stitch Christmas cards

2011-11-10T10:05:00.000Z

I've finally managed to get around to finishing off the cross stitches that I did whilst I had mumps and in the weeks thereafter and turn them into Christmas cards. I'm really pleased with them.

Now I need to make some cards in bulk for the rest of the Christmas card list!

More Autumn treats

2011-11-08T18:59:00.000Z

Another firework inspired cake using my bundt tin - have had it for two years and never used it but the occasion seemed right just now. It's just a simple orange flavoured sponge - and at least it came out of the tin!

Also made some parsnip, blue cheese and pumpkin seed muffins - recipe from the Sainsburys magazine. Very Autumnal and beautifully cheesy even if you can't really taste the parsnip.

One book, two book, three book, four and five (again)

2011-11-07T19:14:00.000Z

I'm late to the party, but I still wanted to join in with Simon's wonderful meme, that I did back in May and which is doing the rounds again. Almost all of the bloggers I know seem to have done this recently, and finally I've got around to it. Afraid that out of tiredness and laziness I'm showing all my books in one picture.

1. The book I'm currently reading
This is The reading promise by Alice Ozma, a memoir about a girl who sets out to read with her father for 1000 nights in a row. In fact, with her school librarian father they make it to 3218 nights together. I liked the premise which inspired me to pick it up but I can't say that it's grabbing me so far.

2. The last book I finished.
That is The best of everything by Rona Jaffe. Wow! What an amazing book. Set in New York in the 1950s it follows three career girls and their attempts to have careers and find love. If you enjoyed The group by Mary McCarthy then I'm sure you'll love this. It first came to my attention with a review on Jo's blog here...

3. The next book I want to read.
Outside of the TBR which isn't terribly appealing, I was reminded today that I really want to read the latest Greyladies Book Portrait of Saskia by DE Stevenson. DE Stevenson is one of those authors enjoying somewhat of a revival - she wrote my favourite Persephone Miss Buncle's book - and this book includes a previously unpublished manuscript as well as several short stories. I have to say that I am less excited about the content than about the fact that one of my favourite blog commenters Geraldine has written the introduction!

4. The last book I bought.
The grass in Piccadilly by Noel Streatfeild - I've started collecting her adult novels and have a number of alerts on ebay so that I can find out when any of them become available. They're not always easy to get hold of but they haven't yet reached insane prices which is why I'm collecting them while I can.

5. The last book I was given.
I had a parcel waiting for me when I got into work today from the lovely Claire at Paperback Reader. She had got me these lovely Ladybird postcards, which complement the recent Postcards from Penguin and Postcards from Puffin, and she'd arranged for Penguin to send me the fantastic Lego Ideas Book pictured above. Obviously, I shall be getting my lego out so that I can review it properly in due course :)
I should give honourable mentions to two other books that I have recieved recently which are Autumn Crush by Milly Johnson which I won in a competition over at Dot Scribbles which I look forward to reading as I've enjoyed a number of Milly Johnson books from the library; and The company she keeps by Mary McCarthy which is one of the latest Virago Modern Classics which I have recieved to review on my other blog.

Sunday

2011-11-06T15:53:00.002Z

This is what I have been doing today....

It's a wedding cake for a friend - vegan fruitcake - but as she won't see it for a bit - the wedding is on 1st December, I can't yet post the design...watch this space! It's quite quirky - anyone like to guess what is on the top?!

Firework night

2011-11-05T16:28:00.000Z

The last couple of years Mr W and I have been very lazy about going to the Oxford fireworks - they were a bit of a trek from us and no parking, and also very expensive, but, living in a flat in one of the rather posher parts of town we were treated to fantastic displays from all of the people in the neighbourhood who owned big houses with correspondingly large gardens.

This year, we decided to do things differently. Our new "village" (far too big to be a village in my opinion) has its own firework display, musical fireworks no less, so we decided to go up there on Friday night. It was the first excursion without my wisdom tooth and I was feeling quite wobby (and not able to say "ooooh" and "ahhhhhhhhhhh" as much as I would have liked) but they were probably the best fireworks I've ever seen and absolutely worth every penny of the £5 each we paid.

My Mum used to make something similar for the firework supper that we used to have when I was little. Sausages, jacket potatoes, soup and firework cake. Until I was quite big, we used to do our own fireworks in the garden at home. The garden wasn't terribly big - although twice the size of ours now - so they used to be quite small, fountains and roman candles etc. Now that we have our own garden, I thought we should reinstate the tradition, although we are not going to let off anything as large as a roman candle owing to the fact that we have not yet got around to sorting out the garden and there is an awful lot of overgrowth which could potentially set on fire. We will have sparklers of course so that we can write our names in the air. My Mum used to make a firework supper when I was little - sausages, jacket potatoes, soup...and firework cake. We won't bother with the sausages since I'm now veggie but I did decide to make a firework cake.... It just looks like a regular ring cake from the outside*

covered with chocolate frosting, but when you cut it open:

(Actually there are swirls of four different colours - purple, green, blue and pink - but only two seem to have made it into this slice!)

Happy Bonfire Night everybody!

*It was actually intended to be a regular round cake but owing to sinking (really not quite sure why), I cut the centre out to save the day and preserve my integrity as a baker.

Lovely Snowman things

2011-11-04T17:45:00.000Z

Thank you all for your kind comments re the tooth. Still very painful, still clutching at my ice packs and have spent all day in pajamas which is most unlike me.

Some lovely things arrived at the start of the week for Christmas and as the Snowman audio book is one of the things that I have been listening to today, I thought I would share them. Some of you may remember my beautiful The snowman cakestand that I had last year; I have been coveting more things to go with it for ages. I suddenly struck lucky when Portmeirion, the expensive china company that makes the range, had 50% off ALL of the Snowman things a couple of weeks ago.

I really wanted Mr W to give me either the pastry forks or the spoons for Christmas; with 50% off he could give me both.
And I'd been eyeing up these cute little bowls for a while:
When I'd popped them in the basket, I realised that I was only a little bit away from the minimum for free postage (well, a bit away but postage was £5), so I popped these into my basket as well.

I absolutely can't wait to get them out for the first Christmas in our new home. The annual advent tea party will be happening as usual, assuming that all goes to plan with the next two weeks worth of decorating. It's so nice to start building up our own Christmas traditions as a couple.

Where have I been?

2011-11-03T15:48:00.000Z

What's been going on? It's been a while since I've posted - sorry. My head is so busy with work and with training (up to Week 6 of Couch to 5k now and ran for 25 minutes the other day!) that I haven't had much time to think about the blog. Add into the mix a trip to the dentist last week which found that one of my wisdom teeth needed to come out, huge anxiety about it which resulted in alarming palpitations which found me at the GP the night before having an ECG, and then a horrific two hours in the dentists today where the dentist struggled to remove the tooth due to the fact that the roots had grown in at 90 degrees, taking four times as long as the booked appointment. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that it was even worse than I was dreading. So that's where I've been. I'm currently typing one-handed as my other hand is holding an icepack to my face - it looks like I've got the mumps all over again. On the plus side, wisdom teeth have to be worth a lot for the tooth fairy and Mr W has promised to let me take the credit card to Hobbycraft as soon as I have recovered.

I have things that I want to post about, especially as I start to prepare for Christmas and exciting things are arriving in the Mr and Mrs W residence, but that will have to wait for now. It's also firework night this weekend - hurrah! In the meantime, here's a quick snap of some amazing peanut butter cookies that I uploaded a week ago and never got around to writing about. Recipe was from Baking Magic.

(I could show you a picture of the amazing 90 degree root but I think that would be too gross)

Saturday

2011-10-29T18:11:00.002+01:00

Here's what I've been up to today (amongst other things such as running and shopping for things to decorate a wedding cake with):

Felt decorated cards using a kit from Papercraft Inspirations magazine:

Coconut and raspberry sponge:

Not one but three bakes

2011-10-24T18:40:00.001+01:00

I've definitely been in need of sugar to get me through the last few days and so todays Tuesday post, traditionally a baking one, has three bakes to share.

Nanaimo bars
When I asked Mr W what he wanted me to bake next he said "those stripey chocolate things". We had seen a recipe for Nanaimo bars in the Boy that bakes cookbook which he liked the look of. In fact, I had a slightly plainer (no double cream!) recipe from a Woman's Weekly magazine which I had been meaning to bake for a while, so I was happy to oblige. The Nanaimo bar originated in the town of Nanaimo in Canada. It has a cocoa and coconut flavoured biscuit base, a layer of custard flavoured buttercream and then a layer of chocolate icing. By coincidence, it was a Canadian colleague's birthday at the weekend and she brought some of these in for us to try - she used a slightly different recipe from here. It was similar to mine, except that the custard buttercream and chocolate layers were thicker. Frustratingly this all got eaten before the camera came out.

Chocolate orange cookies
I had a craving for something chocolately and orangey so consulted my recipe books. I chose a recipe for cookies from my Baking magic book which I haven't had out for a while. The cookie is flavoured with cocoa and orange zest, the chocolate chunks are Terry's chocolate orange. I made them with gluten free flour.

Lemon curd cakes
My friend Geraldine mentioned making lemon curd cakes the other day and I asked for the recipe as I had half a jar of lemon curd lurking in the fridge that wasn't nice enough for spreading but was perfectly good for baking. Geraldine's husband has coeliac disease so she is used to doing gluten free baking and so I was able to enjoy these too. Yummy!

I took the second two bakes into work this Sunday and they were much appreciated.

Persephone Secret Santa

2011-10-23T19:00:00.001+01:00

I am very excited to be hosting this year's Persephone Secret Santa with the lovely Claire from Paperback Reader. We've co-hosted a number of Persephone events before, but this is the first time that I have been involved with the running of the Secret Santa, although it is the third time it has happenend! Claire will be co-ordinating the responses and I will be matching up the santas with their santees. I will also be hanging up my stocking and hoping that Santa brings me one of the three new Persephone books which I haven't yet been able to buy...

So without further ado, here are the instructions from Claire:

1. Email Claire at claire.boyle@gmail.com on or before November 6th (two weeks today) with your name, address (all personal information will be destroyed after completion of gift exchange), a list of Persephone titles you have read and/or own/wish for and specify whether or not you are willing to ship your gift internationally.

2. In the following week, names will be randomly drawn and participants will be notified as to who they are playing Santa to (do please look out for this email from Verity - it may possibly go to your junk mail).

3. Using the list of Persephone titles provided by your recipient, go back through your assigned blogger’s posts looking for favored authors or subject matter and choose a title you know the blogger will enjoy.

4. At this point, it is up to you as Santa how creative you wish to be in the workshop. You can order the book, have it gift wrapped and sent straight on to the recipient…or you can have the book sent to you first and go a step further by including a small gift that is homemade, bookish in nature or related to how you celebrate Christmas, then wrap it all up and send it on its way. Either way make sure you include a card revealing your identity. (Please indicate in your email if you will be including an additional gift.)

5. With the increase of packages being sent during the holidays, please aim to have your package delivered before or during the first week of December. Take into account the extra time needed if shipping internationally or if you are going on holiday/to see family over the holidays.

6. On December 16th, have a festive get together by revealing your Secret Santa is in a blog post and sharing what he (or she) brought you.

7. Spread the word … the more the merrier! Please feel free to use the image above and post about the event on your own blogs.

If after signing up, something comes up to where you cannot participate, let me know as soon as possible so that I can make other arrangements. Please consider all costs involved before participating (for the book, for any shipping, the additional gift, etc.). This is meant to be fun, not stressful, and I wouldn’t want anyone to feel overwhelmed by the commitment. Do please note that Persephone Books have recently raised their prices.

If you have any questions, you can leave a comment or email Claire.

Thank you Claire for writing the instructions and I hope lots of people will participate this year!

This week #3

2011-10-22T16:09:00.000+01:00

This week has in some ways been even harder than the previous one. I felt more energised but spent much of the week feeling stressed, and the working week ended with some extremely sad news about a much loved colleague which started to put the feeling stressed into perspective. I'm glad that it is now the weekend and I have some time to reflect and to get caught up with myself.

This week in reading

I haven't done as much reading as I would have liked one way and another, but I still read some books which I enjoyed.

Scarlet Feather by Maeve Binchy - another reread, but I think one of my favourite of her books. Lovely story.

Drowning Rose by Marikka Cobbold was an extremely engrossing novel. it took me a little while to get into it, mainly because the narrative was split between several periods and narrators. But I didn't have a clue how it would work out. Because it needs more writing about it than I can manage right now - look at Fleur Fisher's post about it which was what inspired me to pick it up.

Stealing Stacey by Lynne Reid Banks was a riveting story of a girl who is effectively kidnapped by her grandmother to outback Australia after her family situation in England breaks down. It was an unpredicatable plot that nearly had me back to work late from lunch as I was desperate to finish it.

The Yorkshire pudding club by Milly Johnson was an entertaining chick lit read about three women with very different circumstances as they go through pregnancy together. Nothing terribly memorable but enjoyable nonetheless if one is in the mood for something light.

A dancers world by Deborah Bull featured in the books that I had recently acquired What a lovely book! Written by a former principal with the Royal Ballet it gives a fascinating insight into a life spent dancing both by relating Bull's career path and also by describing a dancer's day and how it all works. Highly recommended to anyone with an interest in the ballet; it's quite simply written so I shall be passing it on to Mr W's eldest niece who is ten or eleven.

I am looking forward to reading some more things over the weekend as I have picked up a lot more books this library including two Libby Purves novels that I haven't read, another Marian Keyes novel and a Richmal Crompton.

This week in cooking

Along with the earl grey cupcakes that I made for Emily, I made some date and walnut biscuits for Mr W's lunchboxes which turned out to have the shape and consistency of bullets. I'm not sure why as I have made them before and they were absolutely fine. But he said that they tasted nice. I have made another new bake which I will share on my weekly baking post next Tuesday, several batches of soup, a batch of hippy spag bol (lentils instead of meat) and am going to attempt to make vegan burgers for supper!

This week in the house

The big event of this week has been The Turning On Of The Heating. I feel that we should have had a special ceremony like when the Christmas lights are turned on. I tried very very hard to hold out for the arrival of our sitting room curtains which we ordered at John Lewis at the weekend but when I got home from my evening duty at 7.30pm on Thursday night and the thermostat read 13.5C I thought it was probably time to give in. I had spent much of the previous evening shivering under 3 jumpers and a blanket. Unfortunately we had omitted to clean the radiators at any point so there is a dreadful smell of hot dust. We will have to try to clean the radiators out as soon as possible...

This week in training

I felt a bit more energised this week which has helped. I did 3 Couch to 5k runs, although I repeated Week 5: run 2 (walk for 5 minutes, run for 8, walk for 5, run for 8) as I wasn't sure I could face Week 5: run 3 (walk for 5, run for 20, walk for 5). My knees are starting to hurt so I might take a break before I attempt that - can you tell I'm a little nervous? I did another Tenerife Training session on Sunday as well as a fast 5km swim on Thursday am which with my other weekday am sessions meant that I covered 18.2km this week - not as far as in the summer when I was training for the 10k but I am doing other sport now too! I cycled 46 miles this week as Mr W kindly picked me up again after my evening duty and I didn't swim last Saturday.

No especial plans for this weekend - it's only a short one as I am back to work tomorrow. Oh how I wish that I had a copy of the new Persephone books to console me... I have read Greenbanks before but I am looking forward to rereading it in due course.

Boy who bakes cookbook

2011-10-18T19:03:00.000+01:00

This is a mini post today, as I’ve been very busy. I have things that I want to write about on the blog – whole books even – but my days are hectic and brain consuming at the moment and I feel a bit more like sitting quietly doing some cross stitch (I must share soon the little Christmassy designs and the very unChristmassy design that I’ve been working on since the mumps) or possibly reading a little. Last night I went out for a run even though I was very tired and when I came back I was so tired that Mr W had to make me dinner or I would have just eaten cheesy wotsits and M and S gluten free chocolate cake for dinner.

But I do have a bake to share from one of my new cookery books and it is a surprisingly super easy bake that I am likely to make again very soon. The cookbook is The boy who bakes by the winner of last year’s Great British Bake Off Ed Kimber, and the bake is PB and J bars aka shortbread base with a layer of peanut butter with a layer of raspberry jam and topped off with shortbread crumble. I made it with gluten free flour and it was literally melt in the mouth – the saltiness of the PB married up beautifully with the jammy sweetness and I just love crumble toppings. Beautiful (obviously the taste rather than this rubbish picture which was taken at night and doesn’t even get a sense of the layers in it!)

I often find the more baking books I have, the fewer things there are I want to bake from them. It can get a little repetitive. The nice thing is about this book is that it has a good assortment of slightly off centre bakes, and what is particularly good is that there aren’t too many cupcake recipes and those that are included are nice and innovative – chai tea and milk chocolate or tiramisu. It’s nice that this is a book written by a man; I have a number of male friends who bake, and plenty more who should be encouraged to, and I think that having a book of cake recipes by a man is more likely to inspire them than some of the more obviously girly books on the market.

I’m going to have a play around with that recipe, as I think it would be a nice way to use up some of my mincemeat. Not with the peanut butter – I’m not convinced that that would be a winning combination, but the idea of a shortbread base, filling and crumbly topping.

Emily

2011-10-16T17:13:00.001+01:00

I've written about my friend Emily who died in 2006 on this blog twice previously, last year, and the year before, as well as mentioned her in passing on other posts such as this one about the Casson Family books. Regular readers will know that she is my motivation for raising money for Mind (and I'm waiting to see whether or not I will get a place to do a non-swimming challenge in 2012!)

The 16th October is always a sad day for me as I grieve for my friend who only had 23 years of life, although I can also feel glad that she has now found some peace from the torment of depression, and I try to remember the many very happy times we spent together and her wonderful support when I was very poorly in 2002-2003. This week has been extremely hard as we have approached the fifth anniversary of her death; I met Mr W six weeks after she died and wish very much that they had been able to meet each other.

As I've said before, Emily was a great reader and a great baker, and traditionally I try to bake something in her memory. I have many memories of her drinking earl grey tea in our favourite coffee shop in Exeter, and us sharing muffins. I have made a couple of earl grey bakes in the last couple of years, so as soon as I spotted the Earl Grey Cupcakes in Fiona Cairn's The birthday cake book, I knew that this was a recipe that I would save for this weekend.

Too bad I couldn't find my piping bag - still the appearance of the icing gave me the excuse I needed for a good cry.

Also this week I found this book of muffins which Emily gave me along with a giant muffin tin after her stay in hospital. I've not made that many things from it, but decided to make the salmon and sour cream scones to go with soup.
It's nice to do something else as well if I can. Last year I went to a John Rutter singing day. This year I was feeling uninspired until I had a text from Emily's Mum on Friday who was on holiday in the Trossachs. She'd had a pedicure and now had "Outrageous Pink Toes" in honour of Emily. I remembered how Mr W and I painted our toes pink for our first Great Swim raising money for Mind and decided to book a mini pedicure at the spa that I visited before our wedding.

Think we will light some candles tonight...

This week #2

2011-10-15T10:42:00.001+01:00

I enjoyed writing a This week post last week, so here I am again. It means I finally get to write down the books that I am reading, albeit in a minimal form. Maybe someday soon I'll get back to writing posts about individual books ;)

This week has been tiring; the two days of the weekend were not quite enough for me to recover from the ravages of the week before. Mr W and I enjoyed a trip on Sunday to see Strictly Gershwin, a theatrical spectacular with full orchestra and the English National Ballet, although we remain unconvinced by whether or not ballet to Gershwin works (the tapdancing did though!). I was intending to go to London today to meet the lovely Claire from Paperback Reader again and sell/buy books in the Notting Hill Books and Comics Exchange and see the Once upon a wartime exhibition at the IWM which I missed earlier in the year. But I decided that I needed to stay at home and be quiet so that I don't end up battling this tiredness all through the term.

This week in reading.

I read another Maeve Binchy, The copper beech, not one of her better ones, or maybe I was just a bit too tired to enjoy another saga, and this one is more short stories than novel, although the same characters recur.

I read The understudy by David Nicholls of One Day and Starter for Ten fame. I found it rather tedious and certainly not as gripping as either of his other two. I wouldn't suggest that anyone seeks it out, even on the basis of having enjoyed the other two.

I was initially disappointed by Gervase Phinn's Little Village School. I guess I was hoping for Miss Read or Rebecca Shaw, which it wasn't, quite. But I did get into it after a bit and ended up enjoying the tale and the characters, although I didn't think it was as good as his more autobiographical books.

I was hooked by Sinead Moriarty's Me and my sisters. Light reading at its best - characters which I cared about, a plot which kept me reading, and believable.

I also enjoyed Bethan Darwin's Back Home. More than just a story about a modern woman and her relationships, it interweaves a beautiful story of a Welsh war bride and her families. I would really really recommend this to anyone who likes both "chick lit" and second world war stories; chick lit isn't a great way to describe it as it is so much more than this, but I guess I wanted to emphasise that it is an easy and enjoyable read with plenty of depth.

Finally, I have reread Sleeping Beauty by Elizabeth Taylor, a Virago Modern Classic which I shall blog on my other blog soon, it's being reissued at the start of next month and has a beautiful pink cover!

This week in the house

Mr W has been revising hard for his Open University exam on Monday, but he did start to paint the hall walls. And he finally bought and fitted a light into the bathroom so we no longer have a bulb dangling from the ceiling. We've also been grown up and bought two smoke detectors and a carbon monoxide detector, but we haven't been grown up enough to install them yet. A job for the weekend.

This week in cooking

Unfortunately we ate most of the things that I'd got in the freezer last week. I did make a fish pie over the weekend which did for two nights, and a large couscous salad for several weekday meals, as well as a large veggie chilli for the freezer. I've done some baking too from a new cookbook and with my mincemeat and I'll be sharing those recipes in due course.

This week in training

I definitely overdid things a bit last week, so a much gentler week this week. I cycled a total of 52 miles this week, a little less than last week as Mr W picked me up from my late shift at work on Thursday. I've only managed 19km in the pool (over 8 sessions) due to being tired, but also due to starting the pre-Tenerife training. This involves some interval training rather than plodding up and down, and I think it is actually harder work even though I don't swim as far as the aim is to do different exercises and then do short bursts of swimming as fast as you can. I've done the other two Week 4 Couch to 5 k runs and today went out on a longer run. I wanted to try a new route which I can only do at the weekend as it's not very well lit, and I started with the first Week 5 session, but then continued running/walking until I got back. It was over 3.5 miles so quite pleased with that!

Time for a rest....

Homemade chutney with home produce!

2011-10-13T10:41:00.000+01:00

I know I was excited about making my Christmas chutney, but how much more excited did I get about making chutney With Things That I Grew Myself?! (actually, I didn't grow the pears, they just "appeared" on our tree that is in our garden, but I picked them and Mr W will prune the tree next year, or whenever it is that you prune them). I've made pear chutney and green tomato chutney! (The green tomato chutney is a Nigel Slater and actually includes some red ones too as Mr Slater advises that this makes the mixture taste better)

I'm not quite convinced by the Nigel Slater green tomato chutney - I think it was my fault for leaving the lid on the saucepan (in an attempt to try to make the house less vinegary), but, it meant that none of the liquid evaporated off. I drained some of it off but the chutney is quite runny. I would have another go, but the astonishingly unseasonal sunshine the other weekend brought all of my tomatoes on!

Library loot

2011-10-12T19:03:00.000+01:00

This library loot post is for the benefit of my colleague who looked longingly at my bagful of library books at lunchtime on Monday. I was gulping down soup and crunching on rice cakes so I had to disappoint her by not getting them out, but my readers here can benefit too from my laziness earlier in the week! I seem to have been doing well at the library recently, and what with the cross stitching that I have on the go and my frazzled brain I think I am probably taking them home faster than I can read them...

Here's what I got!

Little village school (Gervase Phinn). I've loved his books about being a school inspector so I couldn't resist picking up this copy of what is his first novel even though it was a hardback.

Suddenly (Bonnie Burnard) is a book I think I read about on the Virago website; it's been on my library wishlist for a while and was finally in. I think it will be quite a challenging book as it's all about death, so one to read when I am in a suitable frame of mind.

Back home (Bethan Darwin). I picked this novel up simply because it is published by Honno Press who do for Welsh women's literature what Virago do for women's literature in general.

Uncoupling (Meg Wolitzer). I read a review of this a while ago and have been waiting for it o appear in the library; I greatly enjoyed her last novel, The position, which I think was on the Orange prize list.

Stealing Stacey (Lynne Reid Banks). This is actually a teen novel, but I have loved her adult novels, especially The L Shaped Room trilogy, and I couldn't resist picking it up when I spotted it. She seems to write a lot of childrens books these days which is a shame as I have read all of her adult novels.

Me and my sisters (Sinead Moriarty) and The very picture of you (Isabel Wolff) - chicklit by authors who I have previously read.

The Vintage Tea Party Book

2011-10-11T18:26:00.000+01:00

I picked up The vintage tea party book by Angel Adoree when I spotted it in the library, partly because I can't resist a baking book, but also because I knew that a couple of friends had raved about it.

What a lovely book it is! Divided into three main sections to cover brunch tea parties, afternoon tea parties, and evening tea parties with appropriate recipes (e.g. tea related cocktails for the evening), there were a wealth of recipes that I wanted to make immediately. But it is more than a recipe book - there is advice on hunting for vintage china, instructions on how to make decorations and vintage style aprons to wear whilst serving, illustrated descriptions of vintage hair styles such as the victory roll and make-up suggestions. The book is beautifully presented, and somehow both modern and retro.

I've already made two things from it:

Here are the spinach and parmesan muffins which I served for lunch with soup:

I also made the chocolate and coconut granola. I've made granola several times before and Mr W really likes it for breakfast, far more than muesli, but I've never made a chocolate version before.

I am planning to make two more recipes from the book in the next week or so, so I'll show those in due course.

New acquisitions - part 1

2011-10-10T18:09:00.001+01:00

I have a number of recent acquisitions to share, some inspired by other bloggers.

Two VMCs:

Simon at Stuck in a Book recommended Red Pottage on his blog a couple of weeks ago.

Jane at Fleur Fisher recommended Woman in the wall on her blog last week. It's good to have recommendations for the VMCs that I haven't yet read as it helps me through my challenge.

Campfire, a commenter on my blog, recommended the Madeleine books and found a cheap copy of the first one, The little Madeleine on ebay for me.

Finally, a dance biography, The everyday dancer by Deborah Bull. We are approaching ballet going season - in fact, Mr W and I went to see Strictly Gershwin yesterday, and we have tickets for Nutcracker (traditional), Nutcracker (Matthew Bourne), and Sleeping Beauty over the next 6 months - so this will make a nice accompaniment.

There are also an embarassing number of cookbooks that I've purchased in the last few weeks (I blame the mumps and having too much time to peruse Amazon).

I've already blogged about the Great British Bakeoff book, and I'll be blogging about the other ones as I bake things from them (I still have 3 of them to even open!). With the possible exception of the Beas at Bloomsbury book which I found really disappointing - I wasn't enticed to make anything when I read it!

Mincemeat

2011-10-09T09:58:00.001+01:00

Having had a large bag of apples from a colleague in exchange for a bag of our pears, I decided to make mincemeat again - it's always good to get ahead for Christmas, even though I still have a jar left from last year! I used Nigella's no suet recipe, and as I could only buy a 500ml bottle of cider (and the recipe calls for 250ml), I decided to make a double quantity. It only just fitted into my Mum's pressure cooker (I don't use the pressure bit - I wouldn't know how - but it is the most cauldron like receptacle that I have). I've somehow ended up with 13 jars of the stuff! As I ran out of jam jars, I had to use an old Nutella jar and an old coffee jar which obviously don't seal properly - I'm keeping them in the fridge for now. But this is where my readers come in - please share with me your favourite things to do with mincemeat apart from mince pies as I'm going to have to try to use it up in the next couple of weeks. I'm thinking about an apple and mincemeat sponge pudding or maybe crumble, but does anyone have any other ideas?

This week

2011-10-08T15:23:00.002+01:00

This week has been tough. It's what Oxford University calls "0th week" (the weeks of term are numbered 1 - 8, so the week before term starts is obviously week 0...), and in Michaelmas (Autumn) term, this is when all of the new students arrive. I spent a day and a half delivering library induction presentations to new historians (a total of 7 times, more than any of the other history library staff!); only 2 students fell asleep, and I managed to stay awake. Combine this with starting a slightly different role and trying to bond with the two members of staff new to my team, some shortlisting, and firefighting a number of other issues, I was absolutely shattered! Consequently I haven't done as much of anything other than work as I would have liked this week really, and I even missed a card making evening that I'd been really looking forward to as I needed to go to bed! Today, Saturday, I am feeling quite frayed around the edges, and although I managed to go for a run/walk, I had to give up on my swim after 1km.

This week in reading
Last weekend I enjoyed reading The Easter Party by Vita Sackville-West, one of her novels that hadn't made it into the Virago Modern Classics series and which I had been inspired to seek out after my visit to Knole at the August Bank Holiday weekend.
I also reread my favourite Famous Five Book - Five go on a hike together - which bore rereading. I love that book!
I reread Circle of Friends by Maeve Binchy as part of my rereading her oevre - I think this is one of her best ones.
I read a memoir of a man who moved to Tenerife to run a bar (having been unable to find a book about Tenerife to read ahead of my trip there in February), called More ketchup than salsa, which was really quite tedious and told me next to nothing about Tenerife.
I read A sense of an ending by Julian Barnes which Claire had lent me when I was poorly with mumps. I find Julian Barnes work very variable - I loved Metroland, lent to me by Mr W's predecessor, and Talking it over, and also Nothing to be frightened of, but most of the rest of his work has left me cold. I liked the story in this but found it quite pretentious.
I also read The vintage tea party book by Angel Adoree which I will post about separately in the coming week.

This week in training
Since getting my running shoes, I have been back on the Couch to 5k programme and been out 3 times. I am now up to running for 16 minutes during the half hour session.
I have cycled 57 miles (2 x 6 mile round trip to the pool, 5 x 9 mile round trip to work) and am astonished to find that my legs are 50% less flabby than they were a week ago. Seriously! I'm still trying to learn to love my bike, it's helped that the weather has been ok, but I find it hard going cycling back with my panniers.
I have swum about 21km, and even made it to a Tri Club swim session (hadn't been for over 2 months). I'm being given access to special training sessions to do on my own ahead of my swim camp in Tenerife, so have got to do the first one tomorrow!

This week in cooking
I've made my Christmas mincemeat (post to follow), and a couple of recipes from the Vintage Tea Party book (also post to follow!), but otherwise I have been defrosting things from the freezer to feed Mr W and I in the evenings.

This week in the house
We are now fully double glazed following new windows in the bathroom, hall and kitchen. Annoyingly they are far nicer than the already double glazed windows in the rest of the house which we see more often. We opted not to have frosted glass in the kitchen like the window it replaced, and it has made the kitchen so much lighter.
As I type Mr W is putting a light fitting into the bathroom light, so no more light bulb dangling from the ceiling, and if he has any time left this afternoon he's going to get on with painting the walls in the hall.

New PINK laptop!

2011-10-05T20:05:00.000+01:00

Look at Cardigan Girl's new toy! I've had it since the start of the week but today is the first day I've been able to wrestle it from Mr W...I thought the pink would act as a deterrent but evidently not. It was only the arrival of his new bike that meant I got my hands on it.

I hope it'll make my blogging easier - it's better all round as it has an English keyboard (our PC has a Russian one), and I can use it when Mr W is using his. But mainly we got it so I can stay connected when I go to Tenerife in Feb - given the HUUGE bill I had for using my phone in Austria when I had Mr W's company, a laptop seems like a bargain as long as I can find somewhere with some wifi. It's got a webcam too so I might even be able to show off my suntan to Mr W.

Library loot

2011-10-05T18:58:00.000+01:00

I thought I'd do a quick library loot post since I popped to the library at lunchtime. I have to say that I am heavily aware of every library book that I borrow now that they have to be added to my panniers (which are already laden with swimming kit and change of clothes) for me to take them home.

More ketchup than salsa: confessions of a tenerife barman (Joe Cawley)

What I really wanted was a book about Tenerife; I have booked the swimming camp that I mentioned the other day and since I've never been anywhere like Tenerife I thought it would be prudent to get a book about it. I know that it is a volcanic island and that the beaches won't be white beaches of my imagination, but rather black sand, but I know very little else. Sadly, all that was in at the library was this book by an expat barman. Still - it was better than nothing so I've taken it.

Scarlett Feather/Copper Beech (Maeve Binchy)

My brain has been fried again this week so it's been back to Maeve again. They're chunky books and I've read them before but they're lovely to sink into at the end of the day.

The brightest star in the sky (Marian Keyes)

Like Maeve is Marian Keyes. I'm not too sure if I've read this one or not, but it looks like a good "end of the day" book for me.

Vintage tea party book (Angel Adoree)

You can never have too many baking/tea books. Actually, you can (umm yes, there might be a bit of a confession coming up in a few days time...), and that is why, despite hearing good reports about it, I haven't actually bought this. So I was delighted to see it in the library. Lots of lovely picturs. Again, that makes a nice "end of the day" book for me when I am too tired to actually read.

What have you been borrowing from the library recently? What do you like to read for a good "end of the day" book.

Cake makes everything better

2011-10-04T18:40:00.002+01:00

Yesterday was a hard day; I was absolutely flat out at work and by the time I eventually got home there was no way that I was going out to make Christmas cards :( I had dinner of a mars bar and some peanut M and Ms and went to bed at 9.15. I got up in the middle of the night to have cake as I was hungry and there wasn't anything else that didn't require cooking. This is the cake:

It's an apple, pecan, gingerbread cake, and I spotted the recipe here.
I have a strong belief in the healing properties of cake. Today has been far better, I managed coffee and tea breaks, had lunch with a friend (and bought her flowers to cheer her up), I've eaten healthily and got in my 5 a day (although I know I really should have had 10), and I fleetingly met Yvann from Reading Fuelled By Tea. It's also the final of the Great British Bake Off tonight - I have sent Mr W out to his cycling training session so that I can concentrate on it properly. It is a busy week though, so please bear with me on the posting front!

October

2011-10-02T16:25:00.000+01:00

Well, September wasn't the best month was it?! I learned that I am bored at home on my own, I got plantar fasciitis and had to abandon a 9 week running programme after only two sessions, and THEN I got mumps. I didn't manage a chore free evening...

But I am determined that October will be better! I bought some running shoes yesterday and today I made it out for a 30 min run/walk. I then cycled down to the swimming pool (3 miles) and swam 3km before cycling back again. (Isn't it funny that I cycle and run in miles and swim in km?). I hope my legs will be ok tomorrow - the swim stretched them out - and although I was worried that my foot would start hurting again, it didn't seem to. I hope to go out running again on Wednesday evening.

Tomorrow will be a chore free evening! I am going round to make Christmas cards with my wedding lunch photographer. If I'm honest, the hot weather has made me lose some interest in Christmas - I'm cross stitching a mini beach hut at the moment.

Otherwise in October I'm looking forward to a trip to the theatre, a trip to London and a singalonga Faure Requiem!

With regard to reading, I have no especial plans. I would love to get back on track with the Virago Modern Classics books but it is a bit of a struggle to be honest. I am hoping to write a post once a week mentioning all of the books that I have read each week - I think it would be nice to share what I am reading a bit more, even though I lack time and brain function to write "reviews" this time.

Finished cross stitches

2011-10-01T15:39:00.003+01:00

I managed to procure the thread to finish off my Boofle cross stitch earlier in the week, and I have to say that gentle stitching in the rest of the feet and fact was a very relaxing activity at the end of some mega busy days this week.

I also finished this Christmas bauble from the set of designs that I found in the cross stitch magazine. I rather like it as it is so colourful.

What next? I have to confess to having bought another Boofle design when I bought the thread; it's not Christmassy though and perhaps I should stick to more mini card designs. I did enjoy the bauble, so maybe another one of those...

Phew!

2011-09-30T17:11:00.000+01:00

What a busy 48 hours. I have been playing catch-up at work as a result of the 4 days missed with the mumps, and due to the fact that term starts next week, my job changes slightly, and one of the reading rooms that I manage is about to reopen after being closed for recarpeting. The last two days have involved more running about that I care to remember (thank goodness my plantar fascitis is better!)

Anyway, it is now the weekend, and since getting home a little early, I have thrown myself into some domestic things. A colleague shared with me this marvellous butternut squash and apple soup recipe which I have made for us to eat over the weekend, along with some bread, and a cake, along with a risotto simmering on the hob for dinner! Maybe shouldn't have had the oven on on such a hot and sunny day... A bit of cleaning and tidying to make the house look nice too.

Here are coconut and cherry cookies (on the tray), banana and granola cookies in the box, and the soup - the soup still needs liquidising but Mr W has hidden the stick blender...

The cake and the bread are still in the oven! I shall write a separate post about the cake next week.

Tomorrow I plan to make some chutney with some of our languishing produce, as well as biscuits to take away the vinegary smell. I do also need to make mincemeat, but that may need to wait for a week or so. Might wait until it's chillier outside rather than stewing over a cauldron of dried fruit and alcohol... Mr W has an OU tutorial in the morning, but has promised to take me to get fitted for running shoes in the afternoon. Once this heatwave dies down, I shall see if I can restart my Couch to 5 k programme!

In the meantime, it's time to have a sit down - book or cross stitch - ho hum!

The tent, the bucket and me (Kennedy)...and thinking about holidays

2011-09-28T18:28:00.000+01:00

I struggled to read much whilst I had mumps, and, having missed my library-book-changing-day, I had very little at home that was new to read. So it was back to the shelves to read things which I had read many times and which were comforting, and to read other things which I'd only read once since buying. Nothing terribly literary, the emphasis was enjoyable.

The tent, the bucket and me, was one that I pulled off the shelves. It's a jolly title and an entertaining book about the writer's family's "disastrous attempts to go camping in the 1970s". The first couple of times they don't even make it to their destination in Wales! A trip to France where they are food poisoned by mussels, falling down camping toilets, dodgy cars and endless endless rain.

I'm writing about this today, because it is approaching the end of September which is the time that we get our leave cards - these show us how many days of holiday we have, as well as which library closed days we get and which bank holidays we have to work. Our holiday year runs October - September and as soon as the cards come out we can start to book for 2012. Because our department relies heavily on frontline staff it's always important to get in early if you don't want to end up with a random assortment of time off! Mr W finds this difficult to understand as he doesn't like to plan ahead for holidays (he reminds me of the time when he arranged to go skiing with The other Mr W, his brother and each thought that the other was booking it; they only discovered 24 hours beforehand but still managed to get away), and also because he works in a different sort of environment where you can ask for time off the week before and generally get it!

But for me it is the planning and the looking forward that is part of the fun. We booked our wedding trip nearly a year in advance and very few days would go by without me looking at the website of the resort or of the hotel and thinking about it. We have already booked 6 days in my beloved Cornwall for my birthday in April, returning to the place we stayed at last year, since staying 20 metres from the beach is probably the only reason that I made it into the sea so early in the year (sans wetsuit). Mr W would like to go on a boys ski trip with the other Mr W, and has also got to attend a week's Open University school. As he gets only 4 weeks hols to my 6, and as I spent quite a lot of my remaining days off this year at home doing the washing, I am wondering if I might be brave enough to go away on my own. Specifically, I am wondering about a swim camp in Tenerife. It would involve 4 hours on a plane (terrifying!), but would mean sunshine in February, lots of coaching from a coach with great credentials, nice food, and swimming in outdoor pools and the sea....ho hum...I shall continue to secretly think about it. That would leave 1 more week for Mr W and I to go away somewhere at the end of the summer - probably self-catering...but where? Cornwall again? Back to the lake district? Where else is good for walks/swimming/national trust properties?

Great British Bake Off

2011-09-27T19:47:00.000+01:00

Tuesday night television is at the moment completely devoted to watching The Great British Bake Off on BBC 2 at 8pm. For the uninitiated, we have been watching 12 bakers be whittled down to now 4 (tonight is the semi final) through a series of challenges, hosted by the wonderful Sue Perkins and judged by the baking gurus Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. Each week has a similar format - there is a theme (e.g. biscuits/cakes/pies) - and the bakers first have to make a signature bake on the theme (e.g. a cake or biscuit with their personal twist on flavours/presentation), then do a tough technical challenge where they are presented with a simplified version of a recipe by Mary or Paul (e.g. brandy snaps or pork pies) and have to work out exactly how to execute it, and finally produce a showstopper bake - last weeks was a croque-em-bouche (tower of profiteroles!). Apart from resenting the fact that I sent in an application form and didn't even get a telephone interview (well, to be honest, how would I have fitted it around baking my own wedding cake this year?!), I am absolutely gripped. I find myself learning a lot as well as being absolutely fascinated by the ideas being executed.

I have to confess to having bought the accompanying book.; I bought last years book too and was curious to see what this looked like. Last years book featured two recipes from each of the contestants as well as a plethora of baking history which was absolutely fascinating introducing each chapter, and was also a good all-rounder book with recipes In some ways it's quite disappointing - there are some recipes from the contestants from the series, but it doesn't say which recipes are whose, and I would have liked to have seen more of these as there have been some pretty impressive things baked on the show. The one thing that is absolutely excellent is that each of the "technical" challenges are featured, with a step by step photo guide, and tips or hints from Paul and Mary. Maybe I will brave making a lemon tart finally. It's definitely an all-rounder book - chapter on biscuits, chapter on cakes, chapter on pastry, chapter on pies etc. Always, however, the test of the recipe book is how many things one wants to make from it - that's what gives a recipe book value for money in my opinion! I was disappointed by the biscuits chapter, where the biscuits were mainly boring (made lots of times before), or inordinately complicated (e.g. macarons) - biscuits for me = things to put in Mr W's lunchbox. The cake chapter came up trumps with 3 recipes that I wanted to try - cherry bakewell cupcakes, banana fudge layer cake, and this - I call it Paddington Bear Cake, but the book calls it Marmalade Cake. It's essentially a basic sponge with 3 table spoons of marmalade inside it, and another 3 melted over the top when it comes out of the oven, and topped with water icing. Next time I'd leave the icing off as it was very sweet, but it's very quick and was a perfect thing to make after my first day back at work post-mumps. (yes, I should have probably gone straight to bed, but I needed cake...)

Mumps - hopefully the final part

2011-09-26T18:05:00.001+01:00

Another day off work, considerably less mumpy around the face, starting to feel a bit more cheerful and although I woke up with a tremendous headache and nausea, I have been feeling better throughout the day. Fingers crossed I can make it back to work! I've started to read again (nothing too exciting - Enid Blyton, that sort of thing!), and carried on with endless endless cross stitching. As you can see, I've done two little snowflakes and a Christmas pudding design which I'll make up into little cards soon, and today I've been working on a bauble design.

The highlight of the last two days, apart from having Mr W at home to "look after" me (inverted commas as we differ slightly on what being looked after means), was being alerted to this fascinating programme on Radio 4 which is still available on listen again (certainly to UK readers anyway). It's the author Val McDermid talking about the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent Dyer. This series is a definite Cardigan Girl Favourite, but here Val McDermid puts it into context and explains how affirming the series is for young women because it shows them that they can have careers, go onto university, and balance having family with work and friendships. She credits it with her discovery that it was possible to earn a living by writing. In the programme, she gives The chalet school in exile to 3 ten year olds to read, and it is fascinating to hear how whilst they found it dated in some ways, they did very much enjoy reading it. The best part is the master mind style quizzing of those being interviewed - some of the questions were quite hard, but I only missed two! Anyway, do go and hear it here, and for those of you who can't access iplayer, then do read this review (and the comments) on the Guardian website here.

Finally, again, big thanks to those of you who have sent me well wishes, especially those of you who had never commented before. It gave me a big buzz to realise that perhaps there were a lot more people reading the blog than I thought!

PS: One final game that you can all participate in. I have been playing #replacebooktitleswithmumps on twitter with the lovely Yvann today (which followed on from me singing mumpy Christmas carols (e.g. Ding Dong Mumpily On High and Mump the Herald Angels Sing). How about The lion, the witch and the mumps? The remains of the mumps? Mumps and prejudice? The mumps of one's own? Please put your favourite mumpy book title in the comments!

Mumps part 4

2011-09-24T12:00:00.004+01:00

I did feel dreadful yesterday, but at 9pm at night, I noticed that my cheeks were starting to resemble normal verity shape again. Despite the headache and the fact that I still had golf balls

attached to my neck for a couple of minutes I felt almost better. Too bad the headache set in overnight and it has taken me 4 hours since Mr W to get up to make it downstairs. Poor Mr W isn't finding me a terribly patient patient so has gone off to look at bikes in a shop in Reading.

Still, I have had some nice post today. After getting stuck back into cross stitch, I ordered 8 mini cross stitch kits from Mouseloft (who do a huge array of little cross stitch sets which are perfect for making into cards - I never really know what to do with cross stitches once completed so it's nice to have some which have a purpose!

As you can see here, I've got as far with this "Boofle" the dog Christmas cross stitch as I can until I can go and get the right thread for his head and feet from the shop. Although I've got the new mini cross stitches, I think I'm going to have a go at some of the mini designs from the magazine that Mr W bought me the threads for.

I've also had a new book arrive in the post - its tagline "The modern girls' guide to knitting, sewing, quilting, baking, preserving and kitchen gardening" sounds just perfect for me.
Sigh...so...back to the sofa. I am so frustrated about these mumps. It's a busy time at work AND I missed out on meeting Darlene who was over from Canada this week :(

Mumps part 3

2011-09-23T15:13:00.003+01:00

I feel truly dreadful today. I hope that means it can only start to get better?!

However, I have been spoilt by flowers from my Mum which arrived in the post today which are sitting alongside the flowers that Mr W brought home last night. We only have one vase, but doesn't Mr W's beer glass (part of a set I bought for his birthday last week) make a good vase?

I also had a book care package from the lovely Paperback Reader Claire. She lent me a rare and precious copy of one of her favourites, plus the new Julian Barnes that I wanted to read. I hope the postman hasn't caught mumps as I had to sign for it....

Plus I have been spoilt by lots of comments on my blog posts wishing me better (and it's lovely to see some lurkers popping up too), and kind people on twitter keeping me company and trying to cheer me up.

In the meantime, I'm doing cross stitch, although beyond cross with myself for missing one of the colours that I needed Mr W to get for me. This means I can't finish it as it is the colour needed for the rest of the face and the feet. Oh well, I can get it when I'm back at work next week and it will be easy to finish off if I have got to that stage.

Mumps part 2

2011-09-22T10:27:00.003+01:00

Thank you everyone for your kind comments on the last mumps post - it seems very unfortunate that I should have succombed as an adult since anyone who has had it seems to have had it as a child! I was glad to know that other people remembered the illustration of Nancy Blackett (which sadly I can't find anywhere online :( )

I don't feel well enough to read, which is good, since I have very little to read, but I have been promised a book parcel from a bloggy friend which is lovely! I am also expecting an Amazon package, but it should have been here yesterday :(

In the afternoon, I did get out the cross stitch magazine that I purchased at the weekend; I shall never feel guilty about random purchases of magazines again, after all who knows when you might get mumps?! It didn't come with a kit, but lots of patterns and when I looked at one of them, I realised that I had quite a lot of the colours needed. There are also a lot of mini patterns for Christmas motifs which I could make into Christmas cards. I realised shortly after this, that Mr W, working in Trowbridge yesterday, would have to come home past the Hobbycraft at Swindon, and made a list of the colours that I wanted. And this is what he brought me home - it's not quite flowers, but it's still pretty good*

And this was what I was working on:

Yesterday I felt like a fraud, but today I definitely feel ill enough to be off work. Hence not even attempting to talk about anything meaningful in this blog post. Time to go and lie on the sofa and maybe look at the pictures in one of my favourite books: Jane Brocket's The gentle art of domesticity.

* Hopes for flowers tonight maybe?!

Mumps

2011-09-21T14:50:00.002+01:00

I seem to have come down with mumps. My face is swollen and puffy; other than that I feel a bit ill, but am obviously not *too* ill as I am already bored and grumpy. You see, mumps is highly infectious, and I am confined to the house now for FIVE DAYS. FIVE DAYS. Can I tell you what makes it worse? I was going to change my library books at lunchtime so I don't have very much to read. I guess it's time for some cross stitch or something, but as always with being ill, I don't feel like doing very much apart from moan.

Apart from feeling sore and chipmunk like, I do feel like a character out of a children's book. With the exception of my Mum who managed to get it when I was 8, I don't know anyone else apart from Enid Blyton school girls who have had it. It seems that although there is a vaccination programme, you need to be vaccinated several times and I only got done once by a quirk of my age. It also puts me in mind of Nancy in Arthur Ransome's Winter Holiday; does anyone else rememmber the fantastic illustration of Nancy looking out of her bedroom window with a circle where her face should be, with words along the lines of "it would be too cruel to draw Nancy's face". If my Dad had had mumps, I would get him to bring his copy of the book around to me!

Apologies for tetchiness on the blog - I shall try to find some gentle, restful activities to occupy myself; Mr W is working out on site this week and won't be home until late each night, so comments and chat much appreciated!

(I won't post a picture of my face for similar reasons to Arthur Ransome...)

Wedding lunch photos!

2011-09-20T19:53:00.000+01:00

I have been far too busy looking at our wonderful wedding lunch photos tonight to think about blogging properly (which is a shame as I was going to blog about the cheering properties of cake - it's not groundbreaking, but important still!) - I don't want to share the ones with people in (although they are wonderful and I can't stop looking at them), but here's some of the "details" from the day....

Bernard's new friend

2011-09-19T18:53:00.002+01:00

Bear has been sent to us for his retirement, and here he is on his first meeting with the young whippersnapper Bernard. The two seem to be getting along fairly well, even if Bear's wonky eyes mean that he struggles to make eye contact.

One of my favourite photos of Mr W is an old one of him aged 4 or 5, carrying a teddy bear by its leg. We often wondered what had happened to the bear.... Well, Mr W's mother arrived at our wedding lunch with a large squishy package, and Bear was inside. He enjoyed sitting at our wedding lunch with our other presents:

An afternoon of card making

2011-09-18T16:22:00.002+01:00

My afternoon of card making didn't get off to a very good start as I discovered that I had no glue. Fortunately we live 5 minutes from Sainsburys where I was able to get supplies (oh, and a cross stitching magazine...), and as able to continue with my plans.

Here are some of the cards that I made from my Forever Friends decoupage sets.

I also made up three cross stitches, one done on Friday, one done the week before, and one about 8 months ago, into cards. I've just ordered some more mini cross stitch kits because I think they make fantastic cards, and as they only take a couple of hours of stitching feel very manageable when I don't have

I can't share the cards made from the magazine that I bought on Thursday yet as the set came supplied with a rubber stamp. I don't have an ink pad, so will need to pick up one in town before I can complete them. Still, you probably didn't really want to look at Christmas cards on 18th September did you!?

Time to curl up with a book before an early dinner.

End of the week off in which I had no especial plans

2011-09-18T11:49:00.003+01:00

In 18 hours time my alarm will be going off, and it will be time to get up to cycle to the pool and go to work. I hate getting back into a routine after time off, and the knowledge that there are 14 weeks until Christmas and I haven't got any holiday until then. At least I will only be working 5 day, as opposed to 6 day, weeks this term.

Today has been designated a day of no-jobs as I spent rather a lot of my week off doing household things. Mr W has done the washing, the washing up, and is now trying to clean the hall in preparation for decorating it in the next couple of weeks. It feels strange not doing anything, but we have leftovers for lunch AND dinner. What a treat it is!

Actually, the time off this week has given me some space for thought, and I am planning to add to my September resolutions. The hour of craft is going well so far, even if the reading 2 VMCs a week isn't (can I read 4 next week to make up for last week perhaps?!). I am determined to have one night a week where I don't do any job, a washingless Wednesday, a no-tidy Tuesday, or a mop-free Monday perhaps? Since we moved out of town I've been less good at meeting friends after work for a drink or going to the cinema, so if I plan a day without chores then I might feel more in the mood for it! I am also wondering about having a night each week without the television, wouldn't that be good?

Still, 14 weeks til Christmas, and I've started to make some progress with my preparations! I made Christmas chutney, and a Christmas cross stitch, and maybe this afternoon I will start making some cards from the magazine kit that I bought on Thursday....

Oh yes, and the cross stitch kit that I bought? Here it is - I managed to do it in about 2 hours on Friday!

Happy birthday Mr W!

2011-09-16T14:39:00.002+01:00

And here it is - birthday cake! It's a peanut flavoured sponge with a layer of peanut butter and a layer of dulche du leche (caramel) in the middle topped with chocolate ganache. His name is written in Reese's pieces.

A week off work in which I have no especial plans: part 6

2011-09-16T09:26:00.002+01:00

Up bright and early to sing Mr W happy birthday and cook scrambled eggs to go with the brioche I made yesterday - it didn't rise much but he said that it tasted good! Birthday presents and cards opened before work, and then on with the birthday cake. This year out of my suggestions, he chose this peanut butter cake from the BBC Good Food site. Pictures later once it is assembled.

I also put another batch of chocolate and ginger biscuits in, as he liked them very much, and the last double batch will be mainly shared with his colleagues. And a loaf of bread.

Yesterday's visit to Northampton was good. I stopped off at Hobbycraft on the way and bought one mini cross stitch of rather appropriate design (can anyone guess?!) and a papercraft/card making magazine. I had one of these before, and chose this because it came with some materials to make forever friends cards, and most of you know how much I like forever friends things (Mr W had a forever friend's card for his birthday, not homemade though). So I may spend some time this afternoon making cards.

I am going to pop over and see Mr W at lunchtime, and then on the way back visit a running shop for some advice about my plantar fasciitis. I would not be understating to say that it is excruciating at times, especially when I have been standing on it/walking for about 20 minutes - this does worry me slightly as I spend most of my working days on my feet/walking around.

Now it is on with washing, and cleaning. Mr W's mother is coming around tomorrow, and she has not seen the house since it was quite a wreck, with no carpet, and no kitchen, and half of the wall between the loo and the bathroom removed. So, I guess that cleaning isn't too necessary as it is definitely going to be an improvement, BUT, I always find myself doing things like cleaning the oven before she comes (although, would she really look inside?!). (Mr W's mother is lovely by the way, I just have in-law nerves).

(Apologies for lack of pictures in this post, I don't seem to have taken any since I last posted!)

A week off work in which I have no especial plans: part 5

2011-09-15T09:54:00.003+01:00

A quick post this morning - I am heading over to Northampton for the afternoon to go to the theatre with my Mum. I'm not exactly sure what it is that I am going to see - I just agreed when she offered to take me! Northampton is very lucky to have an absolutely fantastic theatre (in fact two theatres) - I think it won an award for the best regional theatre recently. My Mum often goes and sometimes invites me too - you can generally see plays for about £10, which considering that the cinema is £8 these days is pretty good value. In Oxford, the theatre is generally far more expensive so we don't often go. In February we saw an amazing Daphne Du Maurier play called The Years Between. I'll fill you in on it tomorrow! I intend to head there via Hobbycraft to pick up some more mini cross stitches...

Before I go, I have ironing to do, and hoovering, and I'm also trying to make brioche for a birthday breakfast for Mr W. I've only ever made it in a bread machine before (and only then with limited success) - I no longer have a bread machine (as I didn't use it since getting a mixer, I passed it onto a friend), so fingers crossed.

The fish pie yesterday was absolutely wonderful. It was a super easy recipe with no white sauce (mind you mashing potatoes is always a bit of a faff), and came out in wonderful layers. I grated cheese at the bottom, then grated carrots and celery on top, fish pie mix from the supermarket next (salmon, cod, smoked haddock), followed by a layer of spinach, topped with the potato. Absolutely wonderful! Sorry the pictures aren't better but it's always hard to take photos at night.

I managed to get out of my slump also yesterday afternoon by reading the wonderful Gillespie and I by Jane Harris. I'd very much enjoyed reading her debut, The observations, when it came out, and this was equally good. It's a mystery story in many ways, set in Victorian England, and was distinctly reminisicent of some of Sarah Waters earlier books (minus the lesbianism). Definitely a great autumnal read, so I'd recommend it to anyone who would like a modern equivalent of Wilkie Collins perhaps.

A week off work in which I have no especial plans: part 4

2011-09-14T15:50:00.003+01:00

I have to say, I'm actually finding this week a bit tedious. Which is interesting, as I often fantasise about the opportunity to be a housewife. To be fair, if I was doing this full time then I'd build in some other things, such as volunteering, and maybe rejoining a brass band, but there isn't the time in just one week. But I miss having human interaction during the day (twitter people are great, but it's just not the same), and a sense of purpose. And, although I hate to say it, there is only so much cooking one can do!

Still, I've done some cooking today. I have the makings of a no-faff Jamie Oliver fish pie ready to go (picture tomorrow I hope!), I made the most amazing soup which I had to resist eating as it is for the mother-in-law's visit on Saturday (pumpkin chowder - yum!), and I've made ginger and chocolate biscuits and some slightly over glittered mars bar rice crispie fridge cake pieces for Mr W to take into work on Friday (his birthday).

I did wonder about going to the cinema, as I'd quite like to see Jane Eyre, but at the point when I had to make a decision, the sun was still shining (it's now disappeared and is cold and grey), and I was tired, having cycled to the outdoor pool (6 miles away) and back. And my foot still hurts. According to the doctor I have Plantar Fasciitis, and he claimed there was little to be done apart from rest and do some stretches (and certainly not run), however, a couple of friends have given me some more meaningful advice.

So instead I've finished my cross stitch, and am wondering whether I have the courage to return to one of my big works in progress or whether to start a mini Christmas pudding cross stitch. It's September, it's definitely not too early to be thinking about Christmas! I'm wondering about getting a book out until Mr W returns; I very much enjoyed reading Sissinghurst, an unfinished history yesterday, which really put my visit last month into context. I don't have anything that really grabs me today except for some lighter material, and I feel a bit guilty reading chick lit or Maeve Binchy on a holiday! Ho hum.

A week off work in which I have no especial plans: part 3

2011-09-13T14:56:00.000+01:00

Today I was supposed to start by sanding the woodwork in the hall; we need to get the hall decorated as a priority so that we can replace the disintegrating carpet (which despite being a very funky swirly pattern also smells). However, I made Mr W's sandwiches, some jam tarts, a frangipane nectarine tart, and a gluten free nectarine crumble before I started. Don't they look tasty?

The sanding was hard, dusty and horrible work, and then I had to hoover up afterwards :( and then just as it was time to cycle to the pool for lunchtime lengths, it started tipping down with rain. The silver lining to that cloud was that the wind broke the washing line yesterday, so today's load of washing (mainly cleaning cloths from yesterday!) was at least inside. The 3km swim was hard as my arms were tired from sanding, but the sun came out as I cycled home and I had jam tarts for lunch (the jam was homemade from PYO strawberries so that must count as one of my five a day?!).

It's now nearly 3pm so I need to find a book, particularly as I have to go to the Dr's in a couple of hours - I seem to have mangled my ankle after starting Couch to 5k and want to get it checked out. I hope it can be mended easily as I was only 2 runs in and it feels a little pathetic to give up now. Choice between Adam Nicholson's Sissinghurst: an unfinished history (following my visit the other week) or Gillespie and I (Jane Harris)(which I won in a giveaway a little while ago and have been hoarding...). I might pop into the library on the way to the Dr as I have amassed a pile of returns.

Tonight is the next episode of the Great British Bake Off, so I'm hoping that Mr W and I will watch that. I hope to do some more cross stitch - as you can see I've made quite a bit of progress since yesterday!

A week off work in which I have no especial plans: part 2

2011-09-12T16:59:00.000+01:00

So...my Monday morning was filled with household things, and whilst not quite as inspiringly domesticated as last Monday morning's bakeathon, it has been more pleasing than simply cleaning the bathroom!

I started off by preparing some Christmas chutney. I made it last year, and although Nigella said 6 weeks was enough to mature, it could have done with a bit longer, so I'm making it now. Unfortunately, it was impossible to get hold of frozen cranberries, luckily I had some in the freezer from last year, but only enough to make half a batch. It still made 6 jars though!

I also roasted some peppers to go with fish and potatoes tonight...
...and baked a loaf of bread to try to get rid of the vinegary smell that was permeating the house.

Then it was time to sort out the new bookshelves - they do make the living room feel a lot more homely. Of course it will be better once the dining room/study has been decorated and we can move the PC out... On the lefthand side are my Virago Modern Classics - it's nice to have them all together.

The rest of the morning's jobs were mundane - cleaning windows, cleaning oven, sorting out washing, and ironing, definitely not worth taking photos of. But despite the heavy winds I managed to cycle to the pool, swim 3km, and then cycle home again. Definitely a relaxing afternoon was deserved (although, a caveat, by the time all of the above was completed it was twenty to four...)

I did manage to spend some time doing some cross stitch - I vowed at the beginning of September to devote at least an hour a week to doing something crafty and I'm on my second little cross stitch since that (actually this one is bigger than the first one I completed). Turns out I wasn't doing cross stitch since the two projects I was working on were enormous and intimidating. Much better to do something less complicated and actually complete it!
And I have been reading an obscure Elizabeth von Arnim novel called Father. It's not anywhere as good as her novels which have been republished as Virago Modern Classics (let me recommend to you Christopher and Columbus or The Caravaners, as well as the obvious Enchanted April or Elizabeth and her German Garden). But it's most amusing and a delightful way to spend the afternoon - it tells the story of Jen, a 33 year old spinster who is charged with looking after her father when her mother dies. Until he comes home with a 20 year old new wife. Jen swiftly realises that this is not an ideal situation, and seizes the chance to find somewhere to live with a garden - having lived in London's Gower Street with only her mother's windowboxes to tend she dreams of digging! Finding a cottage through a clerical magazine proves easy, but as one might expect from a von Arnim novel, life is not so straightforward -the vicar who let it to her is rather taken with her, her father's new wife leaves him...

Now I'm looking forward to Mr W getting home - despite some wonderful twitter chat today I'm ready for some human company.

A week off work in which I have no especial plans: part 1

2011-09-12T10:26:00.004+01:00

I have a week off work this week; Mr W is at work having used up all of his holidays. As we have used up all of our money and motivation for doing things I am spending the week at home. It's sadly not going to be a "holiday from home", aka WW2 style where one goes out on picnics (it's certainly not picnic weather here today - gale force winds!), but I thought I'd share some of what I am getting up to.

Let's start with the weekend. I had a bit of a flu bug which left me feeling a bit rubbish, but meant that Mr W was prepared to indulge me by letting me watch the first episode of the new series of Don't tell the bride AND Outnumbered on the same evening (both programmes he secretly enjoys but only pretends to tolerate). We planned to go to the cinema on Saturday but the feeling that my head was about to explode led us to postpone it for Sunday. The film was Beautiful Lies, which we saw because it featured Audrey Tatou and was billed as being something akin to Amelie which is one of Mr W's favourite films. It wasn't really like Amelie, not nearly as good, but it was quirky and held our attention, and it was so nice to go out together.

Mr W did an awful lot of DIY, putting up SHELVES in the front room - yes, that was what the weird art installation is. As part of my Monday's task is to fill them up, I shall show you them properly in my next post.

I did some cooking - nectarine and banana crumbles, pear and chocolate pudding, and the highlight for Mr W - scotch pancakes for breakfast. Sadly I forgot to photograph any of them :( Sad as I used beautiful new Le Creuset dishes which were a wedding present from my friend Claire for the crumbles. Oh well, I'll have to make them again.

I also did some reading. It's been a while since I've read a book that reduced me to tears, but The making of us, by Lisa Jewell did just that. Mr W said that he could tell from the back of the book that it wasn't going to have a happy ending, but I'd picked it up on the basis that it was a Lisa Jewell book, I'd enjoyed her other books, and I hadn't read this one. It's a story about sperm donation, and about 3 adults who were conceived by sperm donation who find each other, and also a story about the man who donated their sperm, who is now dying in a hospice. Of course, this is very cleverly built up, we meet the four individuals first, Robyn who is training to be a Dr, Lydia who has amassed a fortune through inventing a special paint compound, and Dean who has just lost his girlfriend when she gave birth to their baby. I found the hospice scenes very hard to take; it is almost exactly a year since Mr W's stepfather went into a hospice to die. Mr W's mother handled the situation with amazing dignity; as Mr W is older than me and convinced that he will die first, I often wonder if I would manage to handle the situation with the same courage. How hard must it be to deal with something so hard when the very person you want there to support you isn't able to? Needless to say I sobbed and sobbed when I got to the end of this book.

Anyway, enough of being sad - I have plenty of things to get on with today so it is time to resume action after my little sit down.

A weird art installation?

2011-09-10T17:35:00.000+01:00

This is work in progress this weekend - answers on a postcard...