A post without a picture

I made scrambled egg for my dinner today. I hadn't made scrambled egg for years, and in any case it had never turned out well when I did. So why today? Well, mainly because I have this addiction to 1920s/30s-set crime novels, whether written then or set then, and it seems that your 1920s/30s murderers, victims, jewel thieves and amateur detectives all like to tuck into scrambled egg for breakfast (never cooked by themselves naturally).

It has to be admitted that I am very suggestible when it comes to food in books - I discovered my favourite recipe (lemon and oregano chicken traybake - can't remember how to link from my tablet) when I was reading an Ann Cleeves book in which a character was cooking a mediterranean lemon chicken dish, the very thought of which made me peckish, which led me to Google recipes.

So tonight, scrambled egg. Partly I wanted to make it because it had never been a success before, and I don't know what I did right tonight but it was perfect.  Don't listen to people who say it needs to be made with full-fat milk or (bleurgh) cream - I used skimmed milk because that's the milk we use, and it worked perfectly well. I think the trick is to stir the egg constantly. Damn, now I'm hungry again!

Y'know what February needs?

A bit of colour! Or quite a lot of colour. Why do things by halves?

My natural inclination in knitting is for fairly muted colours - natural colours quite often, but now and then a bit of zing is a good thing. I finally got round to blocking the mad stripey thing - the pattern is Lone Arnsted's Lifelines, though when I started it she hadn't written the pattern out fully, just included notes on what she'd done on her Ravelry project page.

It's essentially an elongated stripey Baktus-type scarf. I finished it ages ago and although it's stocking stitch and didn't need much in the way of blocking, I'd managed to create a few uneven bits when I was knitting it (gripping the needles to tightly when watching Scandinavian dramas perhaps?) so it was worth blocking a bit. It's meant to curl in on itself  quite a bit (more insulating!) so I wasn't trying to flatten it, just even it out.

I can't get a decent picture of me wearing it though. Modelling's not my forte.. Neither is taking selfies!  However I have been wearing it a lot - it's warm and the very essence of cheerfulness.

I've got to show you a picture of my kitchen windowsill too - hyacinths, carnations and daffodils and a bit of sunshine make it a happy scene.

  
I finally got round to trying something new - I'd admired Andamento's Christmas window stars and fancied some window suns to cheer up the dining-room window. I got hold of some kite paper and found that I'm not completely clueless when it comes to following paper-folding diagrams, which is nice. Though I'll admit to a little head-scratching at times, it was very straightforward really.

Note how well this one matches my cheery new tablecloth! The kids weren't keen when I replaced the old red spotty tablecloth (which was ripped and sad-looking) with the yellow spotty one but they seem to have to come round. It's undeniably and relentlessly cheery. It's probably worth mentioning that I haven't had a hangover this millennium (after Mikey Chung's party, Dundee, 1996, was the last one in fact). Possibly if I were to suffer a hangover this tablecloth might be just a Bit Much.

And there's my star/sun hanging up:

I thought the paler yellow looked a bit like a daffodil so I tried a yellow and white star too, which I think looks distinctly daffodilish.

Compare and contrast? We had a bit of snow yesterday and today so I'm pleased I've got bright things hanging in the window.

To finish the yellow theme, I tried a new lemony recipe tonight. Bizarrely enough it was reading an Ann Cleeves (crime novelist) book that got me looking for recipes. One of her characters was making a Mediterranean lemon chicken dish and I was so distracted by the thought that I lost track of the mystery for a bit. I had a look on the BBC Good Food website which is always a fun place to browse recipes and found a Lemon and Oregano Chicken traybake which looked lovely, so I had a go this evening (no pictures because food photography is not one of my strengths). I used chicken breasts rather than thighs and omitted the bacon, but added a bit of garlic, mostly because My Beloved likes it. It was really delicious - winter one-pot comfort food combined with summery citrus. I'll probably use chicken thighs next time as it was very slightly too dry. Oh, and I got back to the mystery!

Chicks and chocolate and eggs, oh my

I didn't knit these - I could of course, but I'd never get round to it... There's apparently a knitting group at our local library and they knitted a whole load of these little chicks with creme eggs inside, and the library sold them on their behalf, proceeds going to a cancer charity.  The kids were delighted with them!  They are very cute.

I'm going to admit something here - I used to read on parenting fora and the like about uber-mummies doing Easter Egg hunts for their kids, and thought 'Aye right' (useful Scottish expression suggesting extreme disbelief). Today though I sat down and wrote clues (in rhyme) and hid eggs and clues around the house. And the kids had a wonderful time racing each other round the house, bickering about who got to read the clues and so on. And eating the chocolate. And I got an uber-mummyish glow. It was a sublime moment. However it kept them occupied for maybe five minutes tops. I think you can work out how long it took me to find suitable hiding places and compose the clues!

In another supreme parenting moment, yesterday I made chocolate nests with the kids, though mostly the Boy actually.

 And oooooh, they're good. Mmmmm..

That's one sitting on my keyboard this evening, half devoured. It didn't last much longer.  Miss Mouse won't touch them because they contain corn flakes, which she likes as cereal but apparently is disgusted by in combination with chocolate. Does that sentence make sense? Ah, you get the gist. Nor does she like mini-eggs, weird child. So all the more for the rest of us, eh :-D.

Enough chocolate (never!) - here's a small cat watching us play a game:

I've just realised I've already used this picture on my 365 blog. Hmm, never mind. That was the scene yesterday, and actually this was the scene today, as we set up for a second go:

Yesterday was Table Top Day, a day invented by the Geek & Sundry Youtube channel people (so Wil Wheaton and chums) to get people playing games together and tweeting about it.

Now I'm not a gamer. Computer games very rarely grab me and I hate most board games (Monopoly - spit spit..). My Beloved is, naturally, a gamer's gamer  - he has been a games programmer, he plays computer games, he has a past involving role-playing games, war-gaming and once even LARPing.  He gets all the gaming jokes in Big Bang Theory. I fear I am a constant disappointment to him. All that I have going for me, in a gaming sense, is that in the early days of our relationship we played Day of the Tentacle and the various Monkey Island games together, collaboratively - he was the mouse-clicker, I said 'No, try clicking the  flag/pirate ship/whatever' and we both tried to figure out how you win a pirate spitting-contest. So I have no real history of gaming but in the interests of family something-or-other I bought Forbidden Island which has (phew) no board so is not technically a board game. Instead it has cards which form the game board. And there are no dice of any size or shape. And best of all it's collaborative - the players are not competing against each other, they're working as a team to achieve their goal which is to, er, nick the treasure before the island sinks. The treasures that were hidden on the booby-trapped sinking island to prevent their catastrophic misuse by thieving imperialists. Yeah, shouldn't have read the back-story, should I? Yesterday we won, but today we failed, which made me feel a whole lot better!

So that was fun. No, really! We haven't yet managed to persuade the Boy to join in which is a shame because I suspect he'd figure it out a lot quicker than me, but Miss Mouse is quite happy to join in. Three out of four (plus interested cats) ain't bad.

Mixed Challenge

It's hard to believe that last Friday we were out sledging. Since then we've returned to classic wet and windy, though with icy rain as an added wintry touch.

Talking of classic wet and windy, Tuesday was Up Helly Aa and as new tradition dictates I went over to my brother's to watch the webcast of the procession. It was a little laggy but nonetheless enjoyable. It was clearly a pretty wild night weatherwise (and in every other sense come to think of it) in Lerwick so as next-best-thing options go watching the webcast from Glasgow was a pretty good next best thing.

But never mind the weather, I'm indoors now and talking about the Mixed Challenge. The Mixed Challenge is a thing on a Ravelry forum that I peruse and the idea was that in the month of January we'd do try to meet four challenges:

• Finish a WIP (work-in-progess) - anything lingering that is crafty
• Photograph an outside flower
• Write a letter
• Cook something from a new to you recipe

Just small challenges but to quote the originator of this month's challenge 'The idea is to get you to try something you might not think of doing, but nothing too extreme.' Which seems a very good idea to me! Especially in January when as I've mentioned before I tend to feel a bit Januaryish and in need of things to motivate me.

So finishing a work-in-progress first. I liked that this wasn't necessarily a knitting thing, though obviously I always have things on the needles that need to be finished at some point.  I managed several with this challenge. I finished the circle socks that were hanging over from December.

I started and finished the Fair Isle hat for C's baby - so not a work-in-progress as such but I'm pleased with having had quick project that didn't languish on the needles. And I also started and finished a jam jar cosy, if that's the right name for such an object:

I'd bought a cheap bunch of daffodils the other day and all my vases (all my vases, I sound like Mr Collins - 'I should say all her vases, for she has several!') were either too tall or too narrow-necked. So I used a jam-jar and thought I'd knit a sleeve for it to pretty it up a bit. I've seen this done in crochet but my crochet is not up to it, so garter stitch stripes it was.



I also finished sewing some little felt hearts I'd been making last winter, and now they're hanging up on my calendar looking colourful.

'Photograph an outside flower' was always going to be a tricky one in Scotland in January.  At the start of the month there were still a few of the dyer's chamomile flowers clinging on looking more than a bit sad:

But other than that there was very little. There were some small blue flowers on a plant in my garden - the name escapes me and as it's blowing a hoolie and chucking it down out there I'm not going out to check the label - but I couldn't get a picture in focus. So I cheated and took one of the daffs from the kitchen outside and took a picture of it in the snow, purely because it looked pretty!

The new recipe challenge was an excellent one as I rarely cook from recipes and have a rather stagnant repertoire of Things I Cook. Nice things, but the repertoire could do with expanding. So after much browsing I chose the Fruity Lamb Tagine from the BBC Good Food website, made it and blogged about it last week (in the post 'Things and Stuff' - I'd link but it's only two posts ago so that seems a bit silly). It was very weird browning the lamb and knowing I wasn't going to have anything minty with it - I'm obviously such a creature of habit that the smell of lamb immediately makes me want mint!  Pavlov's cook..   But it was really delicious, it will be added to the repertoire and I'm so glad I had the Mixed Challenge to push me into cooking something new!

My only fail was in the 'writing a letter' challenge. I could do it today, though I've no idea who I would write to, but I've got a cold and to be honest I'm planning on going back to bed for a bit while my jeans dry on the radiator (soaked from the knee down - clammy, lovely..) before getting the kids from school.  And although I haven't written a letter I did have an excellent result from having written a letter in December. With several of my older relatives I put a letter and a photo of the kids in with the Christmas card. A few days ago I had a 'phone call out of the blue from one of these relatives to say thank you for the card and the pictures. Jean is an older cousin of my mum's, in her eighties, and she sends birthday cards without fail to everybody in the family.  I haven't actually seen her for decades, but I send her Christmas and birthday cards and try to let her know what we're up to and so on, and she rang up to say how much she liked the picture of the kids.  It's easy to stay in touch electronically with my contemporaries and in fact with quite a lot of the older generation, but it's good to be reminded that not everyone's online or chooses to be online and that a letter in the post is a nice thing for anyone to get.

I'm intrigued to see what February's challenge will be. I'm guessing not bungee jumping. Hope not anyway, I'm forbidden to in case my retinas detach - you know like I was planning to go bungee jumping.. *rolls eyes*  I leave the insane adrenaline junkie stuff to my brother and, slightly worryingly, to my daughter who seems to take after her uncle rather than sensible people like her parents.

things and stuff

So where have my snow pics been then? Well, truth be told, we've only had a little snow here. It has however been quite chilly. I was going to say bitterly cold, but that's an exaggeration. It has been freezing for several days (lost count), and at times (e.g. when standing in the windswept school playground) it has felt bitterly cold, but bitterly cold is what it is in the Arctic tundra. Not the Central Belt of Scotland.  However the cold weather has meant clearer skies and that has meant sunshine - yay!

I actually quite like a very sparse covering of snow because it lightens up the landscape without making it monochrome. Deep snow can be lovely but a few years ago when we had heavy snow that stayed for a month it got very tedious and I was longing for colour. This January has had loads of colour. My 99p bunch of daffs are still brightening up the kitchen window:

my gorgeously bright stripey thing is progressing nicely:

and my ice-art in the garden is looking a little anaemic:

Still any colour in the garden  is better than none at the moment.   This was inspired by a picture that was doing the rounds on Facebook (and probably Pinterest) last week. The idea is you fill a balloon with water coloured with food colouring. Let it freeze, then cut the balloon off and you have colourful ice-globes in the garden. It turns out that making water-balloons is a messy process. I'd never done it before and had to refer to my mental back-catalogue of Calvin & Hobbes to figure it out. Similarly, adding the food colouring is.. entertaining. Well, my kids were entertained anyway.

It probably all works better in a properly cold country, but here it took days for two of the balloons to freeze to a pleasing egg shape, and the third one hasn't managed yet (a blue balloon, perhaps the colour made a difference). The two frozen balloons turned out not to have frozen quite the way through, so I got a broken eggshell effect which is quite pretty. I'd given up on mixing colours fairly early on so I have one clear ice-egg and one pale yellow one. Yes, the yellow one does make me think of the jokes about yellow snow. But it's still pretty, especially as I can guarantee there have been no huskies in the garden.

I have been cooking with colour too. I tried a new recipe yesterday. By 'tried a new recipe' I mean I found a recipe that looked interesting and actually followed it instead of making something up which is my usual method. It was Fruity Lamb Tagine and it was delish, and will be added to my repertoire. The only thing I omitted was the coriander leaves because they just taste of soap to me. But I did sprinkle the pomegranate seeds on top and very pretty and jewel-like they looked too. This was my first encounter with pomegranate seeds. Some week eh? First water balloon and first pomegranate! Well, I find excitement where I can..

There's no way to photograph food in a domestic setting and make it look truly appetising, but trust me it really did taste nice.

Lucky me!

My own Secret Santa is a star! Look at that bookmark! The whole present was lovely - the little tins, chocolate, the little silver shell, but the bookmark made specifically for me was just perfect! (Click on the pic to enlarge and you'll see what I mean)

It's been a lovely Christmas - lazy and easy-going. Presents were wonderful - knitting books, yarn, Kindle cover, Moomin postcard, chocolate liqueurs, Lush bath stuff, sword.. sword? Yes, my Beloved has been suggesting 'sword' as a present for everybody we know for the last umpteen years (he's not much help when it comes to suggesting things) and at last he's put his money where his mouth is:

Letter-opener!

I actually lol'd when I opened it. Isn't it cool? My Beloved (who knows about such things) reckons it's pretty good. Very swordy. I've been reading quite a bit of Terry Pratchett recently and reckon this is pretty much Feegle-sized. Nifty! The kids love it - every time something needs opened Miss Mouse yells 'Mama! We need your sword!'

Over the last few days I've been wondering how much sellotape can be safely consumed while tearing it off with one's teeth when wrapping presents. Just an idle thought, you understand. *cough* 'scuse me, furball..

A new culinary experience for me this Christmas were Cadbury Magical Elves, from Miss Mouse's selection box. Chocolate with popping candy (i.e. Spacedust for those who remember such things) in it! Weird, very weird. Too weird for Miss Mouse which is why I was trying it.

Aside from sellotape and Magical Elves, we've only been moderately indulgent on the culinary front - we never go over the top really. We had roast chicken on Christmas Day with things we like but not going overboard with 'all the trimmings'. Thanks to my Beloved shopping at Lidl we had Wildpreiselbeeren (lingonberry sauce) for the first time and we love it! A jar of cranberry sauce was on the table too but was largely ignored. The kids had homemade pizza, because they're not that bothered about roasts.

We haven't had any mince pies because I didn't buy any and couldn't be bothered to make any. We still have last year's Morrison's Christmas Pudding in the cupboard (use by April 2012 - maybe the whim'll take us by then). I quite like Christmas pudding but only in such minute quantities that it's not really worth bothering. It's so flamin' dense!

I started writing this post this morning but constant interruptions have derailed my train of thought. I think perhaps it's time I went to bed!

Making Monday 7

It was my daughter's first full day at school today (after several weeks of half-days) and I just couldn't settle to anything. I did plenty - went for a run in the wind and rain, did two loads of washing, mended rips in two pairs of trousers, persuaded the cats that no the weather hadn't improved in the ten seconds that had elapsed since I let them stick their noses out the door - but couldn't settle to anything for very long. I just kept wondering how she was getting on, if she'd cope at lunchtime, how grumpy she'd be by hometime... So I just drifted around, doing a bit of this, a bit of that, but unable to really concentrate. I even had a DVD to watch - Bright Young Things - and usually I find things like that suitably distracting because even if the story doesn't grab me I appreciate the costumes. But nope, couldn't concentrate.

And after all that, she was fine. Tired of course, but happy enough.

So, as the weather was what I'd usually describe as 'Shetland weather' I embraced the fact that I was mostly indoors today and did things such as appreciate my garter-stitch squares:


Aren't they gorgeous piled up like that? So squishy. I quite often find that I like the look of a wool when it's still a skein but it loses its allure when I knit with it. And similarly I like the look of my garter squares when they're piled up on each other but I wonder if I'll like them as much when they're sewn up into a blanket. Maybe I should just knit a huge stack of them and display the stack as a piece of art in its own right!

I also appreciated my cut-flowers:


.. cut yesterday because I knew the wind was going to bash them to bits anyway so I might as well cut them and enjoy them indoors. I followed Belinda of Wild Acre's tips in her post on harvesting flowers from your garden, so I'll see how they do. Some of them were slightly past it when I cut them of course, but, well, I felt sorry for them. I grew the calendula for dyeing purposes so if I'd been organised and had some wool wound and mordanted I could have tried another calendula dye. Oh well, never mind. And on the kitchen window-sill masking the view of the battered garden...

Can't resist the sweet-peas. Oh, and the Boy's tomato plant needs to be repotted really.

In the end, it being that kind of day, I retreated to the kitchen and mused on the importance of the onion.

Resulting in bacon/tomato sauce with pasta - comfort food for a wild day. I took pictures but they looked all yellowy, like the food pictures in takeaways. Not nice. Tasted good though.