Having thoroughly enjoyed one of Anita Shreve's other books I was delighted to find a copy of Body Surfing in a charity shop last week, especially since it seems to be one of her most recent books into paperback. This book tells the story of Sydney, once divorced and once widowed, all by the age of twenty-nine. She has the job of tutoring the eighteen year old daughter of a couple whilst living with them in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage. Over time Sydney finds herself caught up in the lives of this family in a way that runs much deeper than anything you initially think. Love and trust ... read more
Archives for July 2008
Fresh bread for breakfast
One of the first joint household purchases that Mr C and I ever made was a bread maker. As I recall it cost about £40 from the Woolworths down the road from our first flat. It doesn't get as much use as I would like it to, but both of us are rather fond of home made bread rather than buying a loaf from the supermarket. We're also not very adventurous yet and despite all my best intentions we only ever seem to follow one recipe: the one for wholewheat bread from Marjie Lambert's The New Bread Machine Book. The recipe is incredibly simple, but uses honey instead of any sugar and I find that I ... read more
Birklands Meadow
At last week's Earthworks Summer Fair Mr C and I found out about a place called Birklands Meadow on the outskirts of St Albans. We'd not heard of the place before, so when we decided to go out for a walk on Sunday afternoon we thought we should go and explore. We set off on foot and decided to call in at the WWA en route. Here we were lucky enough to see one of the remaining ducklings taking a trip on the water with mum. Sadly, I think the rest have all been taken by the heron that seems to have set up residence on the water's edge. We then carried on on foot to Birklands Meadow which is just ... read more
Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer
I was quite excited last week when Amazon.co.uk delivered my copy of Jane Brocket's Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer. I've been reading Jane's yarnstorm blog for a few years now and have also thoroughly enjoyed her first book, The Gentle Art of Domesticity. Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer follows such an amazingly simple idea for a book that in a way I'm amazed that no one has thought of it before! Whilst on a family holiday Jane and one of her daughters, Phoebe, started talking about all the different foodstuffs in various children's books and soon came along the idea of a cookbook based on all these ... read more
The Heart of the Dales – Gervase Phinn
I got some very strange looks on the train to work this morning and it's all Gervase Phinn's fault! Mr C picked up a copy of his latest book for me last weekend when he found it in a 3 for 2 offer and it is quite simply one of the most fantastic things I've ever read! I'm still reading The Heart of the Dales but I just couldn't wait to share it's hilarious brilliance with others. Gervase Phinn is a Yorkshire Dales school inspector, and despite what some may consider as a dreary sounding job, he has so many fantastic tales to tell. This is the fifth of his books about life as a school inspector ... read more
First steps towards self-sufficiency
It's now over a year since I started to put much more thought into my life and how it wasn't at all green at the time. I also started to be somewhat concerned about the lack of skills that I had when it came to doing the things that so many of my grandparents generation, living through the war years, would have taken for granted to aid their survival and help the war effort. At the time I was quite a useless cook, only really did cross-stitch as any form of sewing and was generally quite useless at many practical things. I therefore started to teach myself (with the aid of many, many books ... read more
Friendship and childhood memories
After work tonight I met up with three friends at a bar next to the Thames. This was three women that I used to work with at former employer. I see two of them quite regularly, the third only every so often. This was the first time in three years that all four of us had managed to get together. It was fantastic! Catching up with and making time for people is so important. No one is going to write on our gravestone about how many hours we spent at work, or our dedication to our job, yet sometimes taking time out from work to do things like this can be more difficult than it should. One thing ... read more
10 Minute Tortellini
I planned something quick and easy for dinner tonight as I knew I would be late home after Knitting Group and Mr C was at a work function in central London. 10 minute tortellini is a very quick recipe from another of the BBC Good Food books, 101 Meals for Two. The ingredients list is incredibly simple: a pack of spinach and ricotta tortellini, cherry tomatoes, parmesan cheese and parsley. The simple addition of the tomatoes to the basic pasta makes such a difference and they are incredibly intense explosions of flavour in the dish. The fact the that whole recipe takes only 10 minutes from ... read more
Knitting in the Royal Festival Hall
After work this evening I went along to my knitting group, which tonight was holding its gathering in the cafe / bar area at the Royal Festival Hall, in London's Southbank Centre. There's something about knitting with others every so often that I quite enjoy. Having people to talk to about your, and their, latest projects is always nice. It's also a good opportunity to share some knitting gossip about where's got sales on, and which good courses people have done recently. Having people to help people like me who are relatively new to the hobby is of course always useful! Whilst I enjoy the ... read more
Debs at war
I've mentioned a few time my interest in how Britain was through the Second World War, especially in terms of the women who remained here and kept the country running while the majority of men were serving in the forces overseas. After reading Nella Last's War someone suggested that I also try reading this book. Debs at War by Anne de Courcy tells the story of the women who were destined to become debutantes before the war but whose lives took very different paths after war was declared. The book is based on a series of interviews with women who were greatly affected by the war in the fact ... read more