Goop

To celebrate the glorious weather, I decided to colour my hair.  Yeah. That's how I roll, me.  I am fortunate to have a nice natural hair colour to begin with - dark brown with a fair bit of red in it - and I didn't want to change it very much.  What I DID want to do was disguise the increasing number of pure silver threads which are starting to appear.  Not just in ones and twos any more, either.  No, these bastards are multiplying, and having very dark hair, they are incredibly noticeable.

Well, I think they are.

Mr WithaY gets a bit tetchy when I whine and bitch about all the grey in my hair. He makes harrumphing "retired brigadier" noises at me, grumbling that "I can't see any" and "it looks fine."  Men.  He looks distinguished with a bit of grey in his hair.  I look like a witch.  Cuh.

So.

I went to visit my lovely mum last week, and decided to pop into town* before we went home in the afternoon.  Well, there's a Lush there.  Mr WithaY refuses point blank ever to go into a Lush shop "because of the awful smell."  I said they'd soon get used to it, but no, he stayed outside.

I stocked up on their lovely shampoo bars - these ones, if you're interested - and also bought a block of their finest, brownest, henna.

The next day, having Googled the instructions, as there were none provided with the product, I prepared to get a-colouring.  I have used henna before, and am well aware how revolting and messy it can be, so I decided to do it in the garden as much as possible.

The first thing you have to do is melt the henna block in hot water.  It looks like a giant bar of chocolate, and you break off as many chunks as you think you'll need.  I decided to go for two blocks, as my hair is pretty thick and fairly long, but I wasn't looking to change the colour very much.  I have no idea if those are the correct criteria for henna-block allocation.

So.  Into a GLASS bowl went the two chunks - it stinks, by the way - and then boiling water.  I stirred it for ages with an old wooden spoon, adding more water intermittently.  Several of the instructions I'd found online suggested that a bain marie was a good idea to keep it all warm while it melted, so I put the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stirred for bloody ages.

After about 20 minutes of simmering and stirring, it was ready.  I carried the pan and bowl out into the garden, where I had already stashed an old towel that I wasn't worried about staining, a box of clingfilm, some hair clips and several old tea towels.  It looked like someone was about to have a baby pioneer-style, and then smear it with hot green poo.  Outdoors.

There was an uncomfortable hiatus where I thought "How the bloody hell am I actually going to do this?"  I briefly considered ringing a friend** to come and help, but decided to crack on on my own, and see how it went.

After considering several options, I went for the "grab a handful and slap it onto your hair" approach.  Then another handful.  Then another.

And so the long afternoon wore on.

I spent 20 minutes working it into my hair, whilst trying not to fling it all over myself, and I was running very low on both patience and henna mixture by the time my hair was covered. I kept adding more hot water to the henna left in the bowl to eke it out, and sort of squidged it through my hair, hoping it would reach all the bits I'd missed.

Once you've created a stylish set of mud dreadlocks, you have to wrap your head in clingfilm.  TOP TIP: Don't do this outside.  Especially if it's a bit breezy.  I must have spent at least 10 minutes persistently untangling a long strip of clingfilm, trying to wrap it around my goopy mud-filled hair, only to have a gust blow it all into a spiral of uselessness, when I would have to start untangling again.

I gave up and went indoors to wrap up in the end.

This was the result.  CAUTION:  You may be struck with nausea and/or desire, depending on your tastes.

Note the attractive beetroot shade of my face after hours of standing over a hot stove, bending over in the blazing hot garden, and fighting with recalcitrant clingfilm.  Sexy, no?  You'll be relieved to know that I wiped off all the henna from my face before it stained me patchily brown.

Anyway.  I wrapped the revolting mess in an old towel, then left it to mature.

Three hours later, with a stiff neck and a banging headache, I started washing it out of my hair.  Readers, this took bloody ages.  AGES.  The instructions suggested using a lot of conditioner to help get all the twigs and gravel out, so I did just that.  Two big handfuls of conditioner later, the water was starting to be less brown and muddy, so I bravely moved to shampoo.  Ugh.

Several shampooings later, yet more conditioner, and finally the water was running clean, so I could assume I was about done.  I dried it, and eagerly looked at it in the mirror.

It looked almost exactly the same.

Gah.  Five hours well spent there, then.

Still, the silver hairs are now sort of pale brown/gold, which I prefer, and it is VERY shiny.

Also, please admire my domestic goddess pinny.

In other news:  We have arranged to have our garage converted into a storage room (for me) and a workshop (for Mr WithaY) for our respective business plans.  Mine will contain a fridge, a freezer, some cupboards and a lot of jam jars.  His will contain a lathe, some antlers and a giant heap of woodshavings, as far as I can make out.

I'm quite excited about it, as it will allow me to get Plan B underway, since our farm shop idea bit the dust.

In other, other news, we went to a barbecue with some neighbours on Saturday night.  I decided to take my little travel guitar along, as it was that sort of a day.  Well, every day is that sort of a day, to be honest, but you know, sunshine, barbecue, wine, yadda yadda yadda.   On the way there, walking through the village we ran into a friend***, so we stopped for a chat.

"Are you off to the barbecue?" she asked us.

We said yes, we were.

"Oh, is that your guitar?" she asked me.

"Yes," I said proudly.  I'm still absurdly proud of my travel guitar.

"Did they ASK you to bring it?"

"Um.  No."

Her peals of laughter followed us along the road for quite some time.







*Hello Chichester!
**Jo, it would have been you.  Sorry.
***Hello Sarah!

Rocks

I went to the seaside the other day.

Kimmeridge, in Dorset, to be exact.  Mr WithaY needed to go and forage for edible stuff for one of his bushcraft assignments, so he picked the best day of the week weather-wise and we headed out early.

Kimmeridge is famous for being part of Dorset's Jurassic Coastline.  This does NOT mean that there are dinosaurs roaming the earth just outside Corfe, or that you will see volcanoes erupting in Weymouth.

Shame, because that would be excellent.

No.  It's all about the Jurassic geology.  And there's plenty of it to see.  Creationist readers, probably best if you stop reading and go and make a cup of tea while I finish this.  WARNING:  There will be fossils.

So.  A fairly long drive, a fiver to park in a big almost-empty field at the top of the cliff, a walk down the slopey slippy path, over a trip-trappy bridge, a nasty wade through the giant heaps of festering seaweed, and there is is!  The sea!

The sun was out, the sky was blue and it was about as perfect a day as you could wish for.

We got there just as the tide was starting to go out, so we walked along the beach as far as possible - the red flags were out so the Army were firing on the range, and we couldn't go all the way around the headland as a result - but we were able to go most of the way.  Then we turned around and walked back, peeking into the rock pools that were exposed by the receding tide.

The walk was enlivened by the occasional gentle patter of eroding cliff, showers of shale falling onto the beach.  Also machine gun fire, I assume from the Army range.  If not, it was all kicking off in Corfe big time.

I love the way you can see the different layers of rock in the cliffs, and watch how the tiny shale rockfalls gradually loosen up the bigger pieces of rock to cause a major cliff fall.  Fascinating.  Just make sure you stand several hundred yards away.

Closer to the water, the rock surface is eroded into geometric lines so that it looks like the skin of some giant sea-monster.   I decided that if I ever film a low budget sci-fi movie, I will use Kimmeridge for the location, as it looks like the canals on Mars.

In my head.

We discovered these markings on a rock. I have no idea what they are, I assume they are man made but they might be natural.  Whatever they are, they are funky and tribal looking, and I like them very much.

And of course there are fossils.  Pretty much everywhere you look you can see them, and as more of the cliffs break apart, more are exposed.

There's a causeway that is exposed at low tide, and we were able to walk along it.  A chap was there with a small dog, which was whimpering and straining at a tennis ball floating in the water, too far away to be reached.  We discussed it with the chap.  He was confident that the dog would jump in and fetch the ball.  Any minute now.  Aaaany minute.

As we watched, the dog screwed up its courage and leapt into the sea. At exactly that moment the tennis ball, waterlogged and heavy, sank like a stone to the bottom.

The dog owner sighed deeply, rolled up his trousers and waded into the water with a resigned look on his face.

I got the feeling that little scenario had played out more than once that day already.

Once we had walked along the beach, wading in the shallow water in our wellies, and staggering through the mounds of rotting seaweed, we went up the path to the little marine life museum/exhibition there.  They had a small display of native wildlife that could be found in the area, and there were several volunteers outside cleaning a huge World War 2 mine that had pride of place in the flowerbed.

We passed a pretty waterfall cascading onto the beach.

Awwwh.

Then we walked back along the cliff-top path to the car park, admiring the view from the hill.

Wellies off and back into the car to Swanage, where we walked from the car park at the edge of town through the park, and then to the excellent fish and chip shop.

If there's a nicer lunch than freshly-fried fish and chips eaten from a paper bag, sitting on a bench outside in the sunshine watching yachts on the sea, I don't know what it is.  Mr WithaY went mad and bought his own mini bottle of ketchup, which left his lunch bag looking like an axe murder scene.

Lunch finished, ketchup wiped up and leftover chips thrown in the bin, we waddled back up the hill and headed home.

At one point as we walked on the beach, the breeze blowing and the sun shining, we agreed that it was much nicer than working.

In other news: I've got some forms to fill in from the council which will (hopefully) pave the way for a new business plan.  Fingers crossed.

Sparks

I went out last night.  Yes!  Out of the house, right out of the village, even.  Ooh, get me.

Mr WithaY got home from his week living in the woods on Sunday night, had a swift shower and change of clothes to try and mitigate the smell of mud/wood-smoke/squirrels, and then we scooted over to Salisbury City Hall to watch Rich Hall perform.

He was hilarious.

My favourite joke (also one of the few I can remember) came while he was talking about visiting Graceland, and being asked to leave for laughing at something he was looking at whilst the tour commentary was talking about the death of Elvis.  He said "Anyway, if he was The King, why was he buried out in the back yard like a hamster?"

The young woman sitting next to me had the loudest laugh I have ever heard, almost to the point of pain, and she found pretty much everything he said hilarious.  Well, most of it was.  I scooched away from her as much as possible, ending up leaning on Mr WithaY cosily, if a bit uncomfortably.

It made me consider the etiquette of such a situation.  What do you do?  What would YOU have done?

(A) Say "Can you please stop laughing so much?"  It was a comedy show, after all, and I was laughing too. I'd have sounded like a miserable old bag, for sure.

(B)  Say "Can you please try to laugh more quietly?" Again, she was having the time of her life, and there was no reason for me to try to make her feel self-conscious.  Also, miserable old bag-ness.

(C)  Say "Can I have some of that white wine you're necking please?"  I think that may have contributed to the non-stop screams of hilarity she was emitting.  Greedy, but less miserable old bag, potentially.

I should have gone for option C.

To be fair, her boyfriend/partner was nudging her when she was in danger of shattering the light fittings, but he was laughing his head off too.  Well, everyone was.  It was lovely.

We drove home in a fine mood, admired the glorious stars for a bit in the front garden and then came in to a ridiculously late supper of lemon chicken, pasta and grape salad.  Nom nom nom.

Today the electrician has been here, replacing the light in my study.  I had a funky lampshade made of millions of bits of metal, like tiny mirrors on springs, which I liked a lot, but it had a single low-energy light bulb in it.  Fine when I am sitting at my computer, right by the window.  I can work in comfort, enjoying an abundance of natural light and the many car accidents and near misses I get to see out of the window.

However, when I am sewing, my sewing table is at the other side of the room, far away* from the window, and the lighting is appalling even in daylight. I realised I had to do something about it when it took me almost 5 minutes to thread the needle in my sewing machine because I just couldn't see the bloody thing properly.

So. Now I have a smart little 3-halogen spotlight, providing me with task lighting for my desk AND my sewing table.  It also lights up my guitars beautifully.  The Rickenbacker is on a stand now, next to the Les Paul, both looking rather gorgeous.  If only I could play them with anything approaching real skill.  Hey ho.

I have put the funky million mirror lightshade in the spare bedroom, so I can still admire it when I want to.

The electrician had also been asked to look at one of the lights in the kitchen.  We have v posh downlighters under the cabinets on the walls, and one of them packed up a few months ago.  We replaced the bulb, we replaced the replacement bulb, we tried the non-working bulb in other light fittings where it worked perfectly, and we eventually concluded that the actual light unit was broken.

The electrician listened to this tale of woe and said "Ah, it's probably the transformer."

I had visions of Optimus Prime putting together light fitting ineptly, thus causing the problem, but no, he meant the little box of electric magic that sits up on top of the cabinet, out of sight.

He got up on his stepladder and waggled the cables about till the transformer came into view.  He inspected it and said "Hmm, looks ok."

Then he turned the lights on, and hey presto, bastard corner light worked.

Mr WithaY almost had kittens.

So.  A loose connection. Probably.  If it stops working again, we may have to get a new transformer.  But we may just need to get the electrician to come and waggle it about a bit.  Much cheaper.

Today I have applied for a couple more part time jobs, but with no great expectations of being fortunate.  I think I am too old and/or too over-qualified for a lot of the jobs I see advertised.  I am also picky.  I want something part time - not more than 25 hours a week, ideally - within 15 miles of home.  That limits me considerably.  And I don't want to do anything dull.

I read this article with interest the other day.

This quote in particular struck a chord:


Ministers are determined to change the culture of the civil service in which “lazy” staff are allowed to get away with poor performance because their managers are unwilling to have “difficult conversations”.


They also say:

Another minister, with a background in business, said there were “real problems” with the quality of the civil service. “It is far too big.  They are lazy. There is no leadership. You can’t get rid of people,” the minister said.

Sacking 90% of staff and paying the remaining 10% high salaries would revolutionise the way some departments work, the minister suggested.

Yes.  Yes it would.  For example, I suggest that a lot of Departments would simply grind to a shuddering halt, with the remaining staff squawking in terror as the sheer volume of work overwhelms them because no fucker has had the forethought to cancel projects, or cut out entire workstreams which no longer have the resources to complete them.

Be nice, too, if they remove the multiple layers of externally-imposed measurement and reporting schemes which took up about a quarter of my time in some jobs.  All "important" and "urgent" and "mandatory" so you had to spend fucking hours filling in Dashboard Reports and Progress Plans and Transition Staircase Reviews rather than actually delivering anything.

....aaaaand breathe.....

In the almost 23 years I was employed by the Civil Service, I only knew of one person who got fired, and that was for breaching the rules about publishing information on the Interwebs, the fuckwit.  I did, however, encounter a number of people who were lazy, dishonest, cunning, under-performing and sometimes downright mental, all of whom kept their jobs because they were able to play the system and make sure that they got transferred to be someone else's problem before they were put on formal disciplinary measures.

I worked with a chap once who was suspended for looking at porn on his laptop in the office.  Whilst several colleagues were in the same room, me included.  Yes, that's right.  ON HIS WORK LAPTOP.  IN THE OFFICE.  DURING WORKING HOURS.

He continued to do so after several of his colleagues asked him not to.  Eventually - after a couple of polite requests were ignored - he was reported to his boss, and then to the head of the team.

He got put on "gardening leave" for fucking months and months, there was an enquiry, he was reprimanded, he dropped a grade in pay, and then came back to work in the same office, tanned, fit and gloating about how nice his garden was looking after having all that time off to look after it.

Not very impressive.

I've also worked with people who had social skills presumably learned from bonobo chimps.

Scratching.  Hands waaaay too deep and too active in pockets whilst talking to female colleagues.  Inappropriate "adjusting" of parts whilst in meetings.  Nose picking.  Farting.  Belching.  Taking off shoes to share the stench of old socks with the rest of the office.

Yes, it was pretty much all there bar the shit flinging, and given the right combination of canteen food and boredom, I expect that could have happened.

I might not be earning much money these days, but by Swansea I am far, far less stressed and unhappy and frustrated than I was for the last 5 years of my corporate career.  






*About 8 feet.  It's a small room.

Feastival Time

May?  Already?  Gosh, is it really?  I've been so busy with, um, stuff, that I didn't notice.

Ah, I can't lie to you.  It's not true.  I haven't been particularly busy, at least not with anything interesting, or semi-interesting, or even mildly amusing.  My life has evolved into a slow, steady pattern of daily domesticity and occasional semi-inspired creativity in the sewing arena.

Actually, the Sewing Arena sounds like the world's crappiest full-contact game show idea.  Like Gladiators, but with thimbles and rouleau loop hooks.  And an ironing board.  Maybe I'll pitch that idea to Channel 5.

So. What have I been doing to fill my time, other than making frilly flouncy stuff out of fabric?

Well, I have been making a lot of chutney.  That's not a euphemism.  I went to the farmers market again last week, and bought another huge box of tomatoes for a fiver, went halves on a huge box of gorgeous red peppers for another fiver, picked up a dozen brilliantly red chilli peppers for three quid, and bore the whole lot home in a state of high excitement.

I made two more batches of terrifyingly spicy tomato chutney.  Apparently you aren't supposed to eat it for two months after you make it.  We're shovelling it down before it's cold in the jar.  Mr WithaY took some away with him to his bushcraft course last week, and the people there were asking if they could buy it.  Excellent.  He said that things turned ugly and there were almost blows exchanged for the last spoonful in the jar.  He may have been exaggerating, but even so.  Yay me.

I also made Hugh Fearnley-Whatever's recipe for sweet chilli jelly.  Unfortunately, I didn't have proper jam sugar, so it hasn't set into a jelly.  I swore a bit, considered the issue, regrouped, and decanted it into the empty vinegar bottles (washed, of course.)  Hey presto!  Sweet chilli dipping sauce!  And, dear readers, it is delicious.

Yesterday I went to the Shaftesbury Feastival.  Yes, there's a FEAST right there in the name.

I drove out with a mate* to an industrial estate on the edge of Shaftesbury, from whence we took the teeny park and ride bus.  We went via every single municipal car park in North Dorset before finally being disgorged into the marketplace, where this glorious scene greeted us.  Imagine it with a blue sky, and less of a biting wind.  That's not how it was, but it might make you feel more spring-like.

There was an impressive balloon arch, courtesy of the local dairy, who had also provided a life size model cow with real squirting teats that children were being encouraged to milk.  They didn't seem keen, and frankly I can't blame them.

Look children!  It's leaking water into that bucket!  Go and grab it by the rubber udder and have a good old squeeze!

Nuh-uh.

There was a Maypole, complete with white-frocked little girls with flowers in their hair.  It was charming.  They stood there in the Siberian gale, fierce concentration on their faces, clutching the ribbons grimly.  A bloke with a mandolin played folk music, and they skipped around in complex patterns, weaving a pole-long plait.  And then they did it in reverse and un-weaved it, which I found even more impressive.

The thing that appealed to me most was the fact that Shaftesbury has a special Maypole Slot in the street, usually covered with a manhole cover.  Fantastic.  How many other towns have year-round Maypole access when required, eh?

For those of you who are unfamiliar with Shaftesbury, there is a gorgeous walkway along the edge of the Abbey walls, with a view across half of Dorset, and that's where the majority of the food stands were sited.

This is the start of the Parade O' Food, and this is the view across the valley in between the stalls.

There was bread, from several local bakeries, but I liked the look of this stall best.  The owner was being very cheeky, offering us his "small soft Italian." I told him I prefer mine larger and firmer, and he said "I get told that every week..."

There was a giant paella...

A whole roast pig....

 Chillies, olives, peppers, capers, garlic and all manner of savoury nibbles......

We saw posters for the upcoming Dorset Knob Throwing contest, which made us laugh immoderately.

In the craft stall area, along the main road, there was this rather excellent hearse, full of vintage handbags.

The local junior schools were selling teas and snacks in the town hall, and as we were walking back through the town to head home, several small children had obviously decided to increase their marketing area, and were standing in the middle of the thoroughfare with trays of food, holding up the crowds, asking people "Wanna buy a sandwich?" which I thought was very entrepreneurial.

So.  A grand day out.  I shall definitely be going along next year.

Other news:  It's been raining almost endlessly for what seems like a month.  My garden is battered flat, but there are strawberries starting to grow in my newly-planted tubs.

I have also applied for a part time job locally, as I am starting to go a bit mental from not being busy enough.  Fingers crossed, eh.





*Hello Jo!

Playing Chicken

I went to my first ever village planning meeting the other week.  Well, I say planning.  It wasn't really.

It was a consultation exercise, chaired (I use the term very guardedly) by the Parish Council, to discuss the planning impact of a proposed new agricultural development a mile or two down the road.  There's a disused chicken  farm, which has been disused for at least four or five years, maybe more; the owners now want to redevelop the land to put a new all-singing, all-dancing chicken farm there.

When I say "all-singing, all-dancing" I don't think that'll be the chickens themselves.  I may be wrong, of course.

Anyway.  The plans said that there would be a large number of lorries travelling through the village (narrow roads, few pavements, already awkward to get through when there are large vehicles coming the other way) which was hotly contested by the increasingly furious village people at the meeting.  There were also concerns around the removal/disposal of "foul waste" - chicken shit, I guess - and presumably dead chickens that failed the assault course and swimwear sections of the final rounds of their training.

The meeting was loud, poorly-managed and grumpy.  Things were not improved by the arrival of the local pretend police at the start of the meeting, sauntering in casually in their stab vests.  Nice touch.  Nothing like some not-really-police-officers arriving in uniform to reassure the disgruntled attendees that things will all be lovely.

So. The upshot of all the ill-tempered arguing was that the people who own the current chicken farm are pretty much adamant that they will be developing their property, and it will be a huge battery "broiler chicken" farm before much longer.

At one point the chap representing the developer said "Well, it's all very well to protest about it, but you all like this sort of chicken!" to which there was a loud, sustained roar of "No we don't!" from the audience.  It was like the world's most middle-class pantomime ever.

I'm not vegetarian, or anything like a vegetarian, but I do buy eggs and meat that are British, free range and locally-reared, preferably from one of the independent butchers we have in town.  I am aware that I am fortunate in being able to make choices based on my personal ethical preferences, rather than price.  It was, however, very amusing to see the look of dismay on the chicken farm owner bloke's face when he realised that most of the people glaring at him were not his target market for two-for-a-fiver chickens.

In other news, I went to the market this morning.  No lemons this time, sadly, but there were bargain tomatoes.  A huge boxful for a fiver, which have been transformed into nine large bags of chopped tomatoes (stashed in the freezer) and four jars of extremely spicy chutney.  I followed a recipe which was called "Spicy Tomato Chutney", but would more accurately be called "Suicidally Hot Tomato Sauce, Eat In Very Small Doses, It Would Help If You Like Mexican Food."

They were lovely, and not one was blemished.  This is about a third of the box.

I also bought a large lump of fresh root ginger and four huge aubergines (for another fiver) which I plan to turn into (respectively) apple and ginger jelly, and a moussaka.

Maybe two moussaka.

Moussaki?

Moussakas?

The weather continues to be shit, with torrential rain and hail at regular intervals.  Today it's windy as well, just for some exciting variety.

Last week, while Mr WithaY was away, I went through a bit of a miserable episode, mostly my own fault for not going out and doing stuff.  I was busy with some sewing work - proper for-someone-else sewing - and thus ended up not leaving the house (or garden) for about three days, and by the time I realised why I was miserable, I was really miserable.  I self-medicated with chocolate and Futurama, and made a full recovery, you'll be glad to hear.

I also made a determined effort to get on with some of the boring housekeeping jobs which I have been putting off for ages.  I have a voice in my head which says "You might as well do the ironing, you're already grumpy," and I tend to listen to it.

So, with a zesty spring in my step, and my sleeves rolled up purposefully, I took the arm caps off the big sofa and handwashed them.  This was by way of a test, as they have labels saying "Dry Clean Only", but I wanted to find out if they would fall apart, bleed colour or shrink to buggery if they were immersed in water.

You'll be relieved to know that they didn't collapse into threads, lose all their colour or turn into jaunty egg cosies, so I stepped things up and put the actual sofa covers into the washing machine, with a devil-may-care attitude.

That's how I roll.  Like a 1930s housewife, with a bad-ass attitude and a Dyson.

Wrestling the covers back onto the cushions took longer than it should have, and would probably have been a prizewinning video clip on You've Been Framed, had I had the foresight to film myself doing it.

Which reminds me.  The other week, before the weather went all shitty, I was out in the back garden, pegging out some washing.  In a bizarre Norman-Wisdom-esque sequence of events, I managed to get my glasses caught on the rotary washing line as I was turning it round, half dragging me along, before flicking my specs into the currant bushes.

You couldn't make it up.

Well preserved

There's been a ridiculous influx of lemons into the WithaY house.  I take full responsibility.  It was all my own doing, and I accept that.  I went to the farmers market the other week, where they have varied and marvellous bargains.

I bought a giant box of red peppers at Christmas, which was fantastic.  I could have also bought an enormous jar of pickled eggs, a whole cartwheel sized Brie, the fixtures and fittings of a defunct pub restaurant, and a herd of calves.

It's an excellent market.

But honestly, a whole box of lemons for a fiver?  Who could say no to that sort of bargain?  And they were really nice big juicy ones* too.

Unfortunately, when smitten with Bargain Blindness, I fail to maintain my usual sense of proportion and perspective, and even some common sense.  So, I handed over my fiver, carried my box o' lemons to the car and drove home in high spirits, completely not thinking about what I was actually going to do with them all.

I counted them when I got home.  There were 50 lemons in the box.  Some of them were wrapped in paper, like little surprises.

"Ooh, what can this be?  It's another lemon!  Well, I wasn't expecting that."

This shook me, rather, and I got out the recipe books to see what recipes I have for 50 lemons.  Turns out that most recipes only need "the zest and juice of one (or maybe two) lemons."  Nowhere is there a recipe calling for "35 lemons, washed and zested," unfortunately.

Several hours of slicing, chopping, squeezing and weighing yielded me:

• A dozen bags of lemon wedges and slices which are in the freezer;  
• A lemon drizzle cake;
• A large jar of lemon curd;
• A delicious lemon souffle pudding which I would recommend to anyone

But most of all, MARMALADE.

A shedload.  Here's the makings for the second batch I did, using (I think) 10 lemons a time.  It took bloody ages.

I got bored by the last few jars and added dried chilli flakes to them.  It will be interesting to see what that tastes like. It sounds like it should be nice.  If you were in a posh restaurant and the menu included something called "hand cut lemon chilli marmalade" you'd think "ooh, that sounds interesting."

Well, I would.

 As you may see from that picture, I was running low on jars, and had to scour the cupboard for old Chinese food containers to put cooked marmalade in.    It was a useful learning experience though.  For example:  it seems that the very-similar-to-Chinese-food containers that deli olives come in do not stand up well to being filled with a boiling sugar product, and buckle dramatically after a very short time.

Yeah, that was a fun five minutes.

Anyhoo, the lemons are all used up with no waste, hurrah for me and my frugal ways, and I have a box full of jars of marmalade.  And, though I say so myself, it's delicious.  We've been having it for breakfast this week, on home-made** bread.  Om nom nom.

Also this week, I have been making a Medieval jacket for Mr WithaY.  He was supposed to be taking part in a re-enactment event this weekend but due to circumstances beyond his control, the plan fell through this morning.  However, the jacket was made on a bit of a deadline, as we assumed he would need it today.

I drafted the pattern, cut it out, and got most of the machine sewing done on Wednesday,  then hand finished it yesterday.  I think it took me about 5 hours to do the drafting, fitting, cutting, machining and pressing, then another 5 or 6 for all the hand sewing.  There are a lot of laceholes which had to be hand stitched, and you can't do it fast.

Well, I can't anyway.

So.  Here's the pattern I made, finally fitted properly, with the outer fabric cut out.  It's made of a madder (reddish) wool, lined with a slightly darker red linen.

This is the front view, laces have since been added to the eyelets all down the front edges.  20 of them,  hand sewn.  Did I mention that already?  My fingers are still bloody sore.

This is the back view, please note the V-shaped collar insert which was an absolute bastard to get right.

It didn't help that I haven't made Medieval clothing before, so the shape of it seemed all wrong.  I spent years making Seventeenth Century re-enactment kit, so I have a good feel for how it should look when it's complete, but this was all new.

I kept thinking "It's too wide...the sleeves are too full...that collar is all wrong" until Mr WithaY put it on.  Then he looked like an extra from Cadfael, and I was relieved.

In other news: I went to the shopping village at Street, Somerset this week.  I'd never been there before and a friend*** suggested we take a look, so we had a Big Day Out shopping.

Mmmmm shopping.  I'd like to point out that not all of those bags are mine.

My advanced age and general lack of cool can be summed up by the fact that I bought myself (among other things) two new aprons, a butter dish and some soap, and was utterly delighted with the day.

The shopping village is on the site of the Clark's shoe factory, and there are some interesting bits and pieces relating to the history there.

The old factory chimney is impressive, and there are some fab London Plane trees in one of the courtyards.

It's not somewhere I'd visit regularly, but once or twice a year I think is fine.  You can always stockpile aprons, after all.

Oh - almost forgot - I made some peanut butter fudge with my bastard home-made peanut butter.  I found a Sophie Dahl recipe online and tried it.  I ate one piece of fudge when it had cooled down and thought I was about to die, my heart was racing so hard.  It's all  boxed up in the freezer now.  I'm too scared to eat it.

*Apologies, smut seekers
**In a bread machine we were given.  It's not Little House on the Prairie.
***Hello Jo!

Contains nuts

We're in the middle of a spell of glorious Spring weather here, sunshine, clear blue skies, chilly evenings which make the warm day feel even better.  Marvellous.  It's lovely to sit in the garden with a cup of tea, watching the bees and butterflies doing their thing in among the flowers.

hello tree. hello sky. hello clouds.  all are full of joy in the springtime.

This is my little herb garden where I sit in the afternoons and drink tea.  It's very pretty, in a "things in pots" kind of way, I think.  The sad squished looking things in the smallest pot are oriental poppies which I am trying to grow from seeds which I saved from the one that flowers in the garden already.  They don't seem very happy.

This weekend we planted more stuff - I know, I know - including some sage plants, half a dozen sweet pea plants, a new climbing rose bush and a dozen little lavender plants.  I have decided that I will try to do more rose and lavender flower-drying this summer, weather permitting.

Also at the weekend, it was the grand Cake and Craft and All Kinds of Other Stuff Event in the village hall.  There were a few of us there with stalls, ready to sell our various wares to the clamouring public. There was a HUGE cake sale, with dozens of different cakes available, as well as cakes you could buy just a slice of to have with a cup of tea and a chat with your neighbours.  I'd like to point out that my coffee and walnut sponge cake went very quickly.  Yes, it was THAT popular.

Unlike my Clementine and almond cupcakes which paled into insignificance next to the gorgeously glittery decorated cupcake offerings of the village yummy mummies.

The event was very successful.  Dozens and dozens of people came along, everyone seemed to be either eating cake or carrying round cakes to eat later, and we raised a good chunk of money for Sport Relief, which was the aim of the exercise after all.

The village hall looked very cheerful and festive with all the bunting.  I took this before the start, hence the lack of people.

And, best of all (for me, anyway) I sold a few things from my little craft stall.  I chatted to people, I saw neighbours I haven't seen in ages, and I picked up one or two commissions for later on in the Spring, so a good afternoon all round.

Mr WithaY and I celebrated that evening by buying a Chinese takeaway with my profits.  We'll never be rich, but we will be full of Chinese food.

Oh, and I won the raffle.  Twice!  I have been taken to task* for accepting two raffle prizes, but my reasoning is that if I have bought 25 tickets, statistically I am likely to win more than once.  I therefore feel justified in accepting two prizes.

Had I won a third time, I would have been gracious and said "No, no, no, please...put my ticket in the bin and let someone else have a turn."  But two prizes? All mine.

Mwahahahahahaaaaaa.

Anyway, one of the prizes was a big box of chocolates.  Like I'd have abandoned that.

Is there a formal laid-down raffle prize etiquette anywhere?

One of the other raffle prizes was this:

A Gruffalo cake!  Brilliant.

In other news, at the garden centre where I bought my new climbing rose and the lavender plants, they had some slightly mental moss rabbits for sale.

Look at the eyes of the one on the right!  He's clearly crazed and dangerous.  He'd be carving his way out of the garden with a trowel before you knew what had hit you, I reckon.  Brrr.

I do like the garden centre.  You can get pretty much anything you want, as long as what you want is deranged.

A giant metal cockerel, standing 6 feet high?  Check.

Paving slabs with artistic interpretations of fish embedded within them? Check.

A statue of Atlas, supporting the world on his mighty stone shoulders?  Check.

Frantic whirling plastic solar-driven butterflies, to strike terror into the heart of any pet? Check.

A solemn Aslan-type stone lion, looking mournfully at you from across the yard?  Check.

Dozens of ornaments made from cutlery?  Check.

Plus they have an aquatic centre where you can buy tropical fish, or marine fish, or snakes, or this...a rain forest in a box.

There's a tiny pond at the base with fish swimming, and then above that there's steamy, foggy mini-jungle with little frogs in.  Brilliant.

In other, other news, I had a go at making peanut butter last week. Why, dear readers, did I decide to do that?  Fucked if I know.

For some reason it seemed like a good idea, and we all know how those ideas generally work out, don't we?  I bought several pounds of shelled (but not skinned, crucially) peanuts and searched out some recipes on the Internet, which, as we also know, never lies.

I roasted the peanuts, and then realised with a cold horror that I had to get all the red skin off them.  Fuck.  That took three hours, and left me with blisters on my thumbs.  Then it was time to put the shelled and skinned peanuts into the food processor.  Well, in fact, as I discovered when I re-checked the recipe, you are supposed to put them into the blender.  I, however, failed to clarify this small but telling detail, and spent 45 minutes watching a pale yellow concrete-like substance forming with painful slowness.

I added peanut oil, as some of the recipes suggested, which didn't seem to help.  I re-checked the original recipe I had used and realised I ought to be using the blender.

Coaxing the thick, gritty, warm peanut-crete out of the food processor and into the blender with a flexible spatula is a memory which will stay with me a while.

Once I started it blending, however, the texture changed quickly to something almost peanut-buttery, and I was greatly cheered.  I tested it, added a dash of salt and a spoonful of honey, an then whizzed it for a bit longer.  It was clumping together around the blades at the bottom of the goblet, so I poked it with my spatula and then turned the blender all the way up to eleven.

Readers, it did its best.  It tried.  It really did.

There was a sudden strong smell of burning, then smoke poured out of the motor.  I turned it off at the wall socket and removed the blender goblet.  Mr WithaY (who had been popping into the kitchen at hourly intervals to ask "how's it going?" before laughing uproariously at my crap peanut butter-making) manfully carried it out into the garden in case it went up in flames.

We left it out there for an hour to think about what it had done.

I decanted the peanut butter into jars.  It's paler than the shop-bought stuff but actually tastes rather good.

I won't be making it again, I think, though.







*Hello Laurie!

Sacked

It's been a busy day here.  In preparation for the Grand Cake Etcetera Sale tomorrow I have been baking.  I made a shitload of clementine and chocolate cupcakes (yes, that is the correct unit of measurement, ask a baker) and a coffee and walnut sandwich sponge which looks rather good.

I have also been finishing off the bits and pieces I will be offering for sale to a discerning public.

Look:

They are (pics from top to bottom)
1) Small, medium and large hearts filled with dried rose petals that I harvested from the garden and dried last summer.
2) Cushions. 2 matching, one individual.
3) Bunting.  Bloody yards of it.
4) More fabric hearts, these ones stuffed with, well, stuffing.

I have also made some pretty mini memo boards, along the lines of the ones I made earlier, but much smaller, designed to stand on a mantelpiece or shelf.

Oh, and some bookmarks, which I really like.

In other news, I looked out of the window into the back garden this afternoon and this is the sight that greeted me:

Our apple tree, festooned in hessian sacks.

I looked at it for a while, my jaw sagging open unappealing, then went to find Mr WithaY.

The scene:  A domestic garage, lit by bright afternoon sunshine.

Me:  Just.....why?

Mr WithaY: (without even looking up from his manly garage-sorting task) To dry them out.

Fin.