A "quick" trip to the garden centre for some grass seed resulted in a few other purchases. I'm sure I'll follow up with another post about the things we bought to actually go in the garden, but this is one of the things that has ended up inside the house - chilli medusa.From what I've learnt from the internet and the label it apparently is both ornamental and for cooking (surely if it can be used for cooking then it's no longer ornamental by definition is it?) I'm pretty sure Mr C and I will try cooking with it at some point soon - we both like chillies and it ... read more
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This privacy policy sets out how Being Mrs C uses and protects any information you give me when you use this website. Any information you via this blog will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy. Information I collect This blog may collect the following information: Your Name Your Contact information, such as an email address, Twitter ID This information will be used for internal record keeping, and to allow Being Mrs C to send you promotional emails about content on the site you might find interesting, or to contact competition winners. This information will never be shared ... read more
Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
When I look back I'm sometimes amazed at how few of the "classics" I actually read whilst I was at school. I'm certainly trying to make up for that now though and make an effort to pick up such books when ever I see them going cheap in charity shops. They're not all the easiest reads, but I do feel a sense of achievement when finishing them and also feel that my reading repertoire is expanding and maturing.One book that I am somewhat amazed that slipped through the net is George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. When you think about how many things from this book have ... read more
Making a change
I'm not at all afraid of hard work, I just wish I was working directly for myself in a slightly nicer working environment. Possibly one that looks like the above, which is very conveniently located at home. How to make that a reality, whilst still paying the mortgage is what makes it a little more tricky.Unless someone wants to pay me to stay at home and bake, read, knit and blog! Any offers or ideas considered... These lovely cupcakes provided some late night snacks at our housewarming party over the weekend. A very simple sponge and then topped with lovely icing made by taking a hint ... read more
Delia’s Plum & Cinnamon Oat Slices
My Mother in Law brought round a bag of plums from her neighbour's garden the other day which was lovely - but left me with the question of what the heck to do with them! I have to admit that I've never cooked or baked with plums before, but it's always good to try something new. A quick check through all my cook books found a couple of recipes, but in the end I went for plum and cinnamon oat slides from The Delia Collection: Baking. It's quite a simple recipe where you end up baking a flapjack like thing with a layer of plums between two layers of oat mixture. The plums ... read more
Make do and mend
I caught this story on the BBC news website yesterday about how John Lewis have updated the old Government make do and mend booklet to help people survive the credit crunch. I've always been a firm believer in thinking that there is so much we can learn from the generations that lived through the wars, but it almost seems a little late this update. I think that people are already starting to learn how to be frugal; how to stretch ingredients to make more than one meal, how to update those things at the back of the wardrobe rather than replacing them with ... read more
The Subterranean Railway – Christian Wolmar
With everything else that's been going on recently reading (like blogging) has been taking a bit of a back seat. I'm starting to catch up a bit now on the reading front though - so book reviews will shortly return! Working in London the underground forms quite a major part of my life without me really realising it. Without the tube I'd struggle to get to the office everyday, or to get home at the end of the working day. I'd also not be able to quickly whizz underneath the city to go and meet friends of an evening, or to get to work meetings in other parts of the capital. Apart ... read more
UK carbon production
Interested in knowing just how much carbon the UK is producing right now? Interested in understanding how this changes throughout the day based on how much everyone is using and how electricity is being produced at that moment in time?I've been pointed towards a couple of websites recently that help answer these questions and are absolutely fascinating.The first one tells you the carbon content of the UK grid right now (sampled at 5 minute intervals) and also tells you the source split at the time between fossil fuels, nuclear and renewables. The second provides a trend ... read more
Garden fruits
As I wrote a while back I've been making very small steps towards being self sufficient for a while. Now that I've got a garden it should be somewhat easier. One thing that I was keen to do was try my hand at growing some sort of fruit, but having taken a look at the contents of our new garden it seems I may already be a step ahead of where I thought I was. The apple tree outside the log cabin was obvious (even to us!) but the others gave us a bit more to research. (Cooking apples we think based on the look on Mr C's face when he took an exploratory bite!) ... read more
Plant or weed?
Apologies for the blogging break. Returning to work has sucked me into the corporate world (not a nice place) for this last week or so and finding time to do anything else has been a tad difficult.Following the comments back on my question about identifying things in the garden I've decided to follow Mrs Nesbitt's suggestion and see if anyone reading this can help.So, question number one. All around the edge of the decking and the steps up to the decking is this. A few people seem to think that it may be related to a strawberry plant, but no one is totally sure. I realise ... read more