A NEW EXPERIENCE

A different day today ...
this is what I was doing...

My choir recorded 5 songs... I was not really looking forward to it as I thought I would get found out as a really awful singer... but I managed to escape yet again and we all sounded great. The first song, Feeling Good, took ages but we got better and better and we managed to do a couple with almost one take with a few little "drop ins", (see I have even picked up the jargon). Can't wait till we hear the whole thing! Karen , our leader is a professional singer and sounded sooo great.

Otherwise a pretty quiet weekend, Becca is home for a few days, she is here for an interview for a 3 month trip in the Autumn to work with a charity. Everyone will be back soon, Sam finishes early June, Becca leaves uni for good and then just waiting for Charlie to come home in late July.

This is Charlies uni blanket, it look great and i am especially pleased with my scalloped edging!!

ITS OVER.......

Just finished a weeks worth of study days, we have to do mandatory training every year. That means sitting in a classroom from 9-5 for 4 days, its a bit of an ordeal. We have rather boring lectures on fire procedures, manual handling, mentorship up dates and then some more interesting things like adult and neonatal resus and skills and drills of obstetric emergencies. The latter involves scenarios of very scary events which you maybe see just  a few times in your career but you NEVER forget them when you do. For example catastrophic haemorrhage , shoulders getting stuck, umbilical cord falling out before the baby, I could go on, all very scary. There are some real characters who have been in that hospital for years and have seen and dealt with everything, thats the person you want looking after your daughter when they have a baby!!  Although its a long week, it is quite a laugh being with a bunch of midwives, there is a real sisterhood between us!!

Managed to get to the movies last night to see "Mud", we gave it 7.5 /10, enjoyed the packet of Revels very much too...!!!


Becca has now officially finished her degree as she handed in her last essay on tuesday and is now home for a few days, mainly for an interview for a 3 month charity experience in India starting in Oct!! Exciting!!!

Charlie seems to be having a really great time in NZ, seems to have been skydiving with a massive hangover...... Also had another tattoo. Off to Thailand later in the week for the FULL MOON  party... just want to know when that is all over!!

IF THIS IS THE CASE.........

....... then how comes this happens...???

SOURDOUGH      

this is my latest attempt and it seems to be getting better, it tastes soooo good but I can't get a great shape, I need one of those rising baskets.

have a good weekend, summer has gone here and back to grey and wind. Ian up to Scotland ofr the weekend, probably 900mile round trip..... madness..... for a cycle ride, the caledonian tape, a mere 81mls, !! the wives aren't happy but we have organised a spray tan , food and a DVD on Saturday night!!!!


Have a good weekend

SUN'S OUT

A busy few days and best of all, SPRING IS HERE. the suns out and its warm... after such a long winter its hard to believe its here.

Highlight of the week was a surprise visit to see Becca on her 23rd birthday. Her flatmates had a cunning plan to keep her home and I snuck in!! it was lovely to see her and she looked happy too!!

Also managed to do quite well with present choices.... Jo Malone perfume, what's not to like there?? a wall hanging thingy,,,(!!??) and then these

This is the beginning of a patchwork granny square blanket, its looking rather colourful. Much quicker to make than the knitted one I did for Sam


It has been wonderful to wake up to the sun coming in and even the dog walks have been wonderful

I even heard a cuckoo which was a real treat, I don't think I have heard one since I lived at home so I was quite surprised to hear one in London.

A QUICKIE....

There has been new life  created in our house.......

My sourdough loaf has been born.... No yeast, just my very own starter.... I feel very proud

Its even got holes in it and it tastes good too.

Just between you and me ..... I am winning the competition as Joseph had a go with his starter the other day and it did nothing and had to be chucked, somehow that was my fault, but his starter is still looking lively and frothy so we will try a new technique at the weekend!!

LAZY SATURDAY AFTERNOON

What a lovely day we are having!
Have just made a batch of ginger biscuits and ate a fair few......

Spent an hour or so sleeping in the sun before a huge hail storm and now listening to Ian and Joseph fiddling about with bike stuff in the kitchen.. all rather blissful really.

Weekend started quite badly last night with dinner out with friends at a newly refurbished pub up the road. Looks lovely but had one of the worse meals ever there. Appalling service, cold food , undercooked chips, we sent it back but really should have not paid at all. On top of that i was driving and so was stone cold sober.... Came home to find that one of Josephs friends who was sleeping over was poorly and vomitting and spent a good while cleaning up sick and trying to sort him out!!

Then woken early in the morning by the lodgers alarm and unanswered phone ringing!! Hence the sleep in the sun...

The sourdough competition continues.... Joseph is making a loaf as we speak, but its not rising well, I am not confident, though both our starters look lively enough, in fact Josephs was escaping earlier in the week .

SOURDOUGH COMPETITION

I am trying AGAIN to make a sourdough starter that really takes off and makes bread rise without adding commercial yeast. I think this is the 4th or 5th time I have tried and I just cant get it to work. have been watching Paul Hollywoods "Bread" show and Have become inspired again, it all looks SOOOOO easy , a mixture of flour and water and thats it, then a few days later and stinky bubbling goo of yeasts. Well, I think they cheat on the telly and add yeast to it as it doesn't work that well for me. And there is no way on Gods earth that the reason I cant grow yeast is because my kitchen is too clean...!!!???

Joseph is a keen breadmaker and we are currently in competition to see who can grow the best starter. We started together with one starter on the go, looked hopeful at first but the died pretty soon after I fed it!! Of course that was all my fault so we now have seperate starters on the go so I cannot be blamed for any fatalities. Incidentally ... we revived the original starter with a few grains of yeast left over at the bottom of an empty sachet. That is now blossoming !!

So here are the starters

 this one is mine

and this is Josephs

I'd say at the moment its close.......


This is some bread I have just made from the starter that had some yeast added to it

it has turned it out more like a cake. When I proved it for the 2nd time it turned into chewing gum and stuck to everything  so I was not hopeful as to the consistency but it looks ok and has some holes in it

and more importantly tastes REALLY good!!. Sadly I am on a fast day today so can't tuck into it in the way that I really want to, so just had a very small crusty bit.

Haven't been blogging much as have become obsessed with granny squares , they are so quick and very satisfying to make. Here is my stash so far, I can feel another blanket coming along!!!