Tuesday 30 November 2010

Parsnips. And soup. So parsnip soup, then.

The French, until recently, didn't know about parsnips. Well, the majority of them didn't anyway.
I actually taught ze husband the French word for parsnip, which is panais (N.B. to be pronounced as "pané", not "pannayiece". Thank you for understanding).

Being English and, moreover, northern, I am well acquainted with most root vegetables, and parsnips are nothing unusual. That doesn't mean to say I like them. I acutally have something of a loathing for roast parsnips, in particular. There's just something about the sweetness that I don't like. If they were being blatantly and unashamedly sweet, like sweet potatoes (especially the kind with marshmallows on top, om nom nom), that would be fine, but...no, they try to be subtle, and as ze husband keeps telling me, "trop de subtilité tue la subtilité".

There is one way I like parsnips, though, and that's in soup. I made parsnip soup for ze in-laws a couple of weeks ago and they liked it, too. (It was actually them who bought the parsnips, having discovered some lurking in an obscure corner of the supermarket veg aisle. All is not lost).

I think a recipe may be in order, don't you? (I'm not sure where "order" is, mind. Let me know if you find it).

Ingredients (to feed 6. Maybe. It depends on how hungry they are).

Parsnips say...6 really big ones, or 8-10 smaller ones
Stock -about a litre. Homemade or not. I don't really care. I don't actually think it makes that much difference (ok, ok, burn me, I'm a food heretic. Whatever. It's cold outside, anyway).
Olive oil -a good drizzling sort of amount.
Onions- a few. (No, I didn't say ANYTHING about my recipe being precise)
A potato or two -if you want, and depending on how parsnippy you like your soup. Potatoes dilute the parsnippiness a bit and make the parsnips go further if you think you might be a bit short. (I'm a bit short. Just not of parsnips).
Curry powder - eh, a bit. We'll think about how much when we get to it).
Seasoning


Preheat oven to GM7/200°c. If you use Fahrenheit, go and turn on the computer and look up the conversion.

Peel and chop parsnips, onions and potatoes. Big or small chunks, batons or slices, whatever makes you happy. It's all going to get liquidised later anyway. Put vegetables on baking tray, drizzle with a decent amount of olive oil, stick in oven for about an hour (but keep an eye on them after the first 30 minutes, if they start to burn around the edges reduce the temperature). During this time, go away and translate something, or write a blog post, or have a nap. Or something.

Take vegetables out of oven and put in Big Saucepan. Pour on stock. The liquid should just cover the vegetables. If it doesn't, add a bit more boiling water. No-one will mind.

Let it cook for a bit until the vegetables are all properly soft. Liquidise, either using a handheld blender in the pan or in small batches in a freestanding blender. If you're anything like me, have a fight with the blender, splatter half the kitchen with soup, clean it up and then start again with the blending.

Put soup back in pan. Add salt and pepper to taste and one dessert spoon of curry powder (or cumin, if you have cumin. Nom nom cumin). Stir. Taste. Add more curry as necessary. I think I ended up putting around 3 dessert spoons in mine. Maybe.

Eat soup and feel like a paragon of healthy eating. Or a tarragon of healthy eating. Or an Aragorn of healthy eating, if that's what takes your fancy (note the absence of Legolas here. If we were talking about elfy eating, maybe he'd be around. But we're not).

Happy parsnip hunting!

Monday 29 November 2010

Je crois que nous avons affaire à un...


« Je crois que nous avons affaire à un céréale killer. »
« Pardon ? »
« Je crois que nous avons affaire à un céréale killer. »

(Sorry, anglophones, this one’s in French).

Si vous savez de quel film cette citation est tirée, bravo.

Sinon, allez voir ça.

Mais bon. L’essentiel, là, c’est qu’on a affaire à un céréale killer.

Mon mari apprécie beaucoup les céréales au chocolat, qu’on prend, donc, à chaque fois qu’on va au supermarché. Par contre, même si on en achète plusieurs paquets, ils ont tendance à disparaître à une vitesse pas possible. Comme un TGV, mais plus vite, parce que la vitesse d’un TGV reste possible, hein. 

La raison ? Mon beau-frère, qui passe à la maison parfois à l’heure du goûter, et semble penser que c’est une question d’honneur pour lui de terminer les paquets. Ou peut-être qu’il s’entraine pour les JO de Londres. Les anglais mangent beaucoup de céréales, ils pourraient introduire ça comme sport, non ? (Ou pas. Ce sont des anglais certes, mais des êtres humains tout de même).*

Comme vous avez probablement deviné, c’est lui le céréale killer. Il nous mange nos céréales au chocolat, et puis y’en a plus, et puis puisque y’en a plus, on ne peut pas les manger. Schniff. 

Mais pas de panique ! Nous avons un plan diabolique. Je vous explique. (Vous z’avez vu ? Ça rime !) Nous allons cacher les bonnes céréales dans un carton de Weetabix, et comme ça il ne les trouvera pas. Mouahahahaha. Mouahahahahaha. Mouahahahaha…

…euh…à part s’il lit mon blog, ce qui n’est pas impossible.

*Note de bas de page (c’est important, les notes de bas de page, je trouve qu’on n’en utilise pas assez) : en tant qu’anglaise, moi, j’ai le droit de me moquer d’eux. Par contre, j’aime pas quand les français le font, ces méchants frogs*.

*Note de bas de note de bas de page : Euhhh…je dis ça en rigolant, bien sûr. La xénophobie à base d’amphibiens, c’est pas mon truc. La gelée à la menthe, par contre, j’aime bien. #stéréotype stéréotype   

Fun with Words, Again

Helloes!

I've been playing with a certain automatic translator again. It makes me feel my job is worthwhile.

The phrase I fed it, this time, came from a packet of toilet rolls: they claim to be "doux et moelleux", which translates as something like "soft and squishy". Obviously no English-speaking toilet roll packet would use the word "squishy" (although I didn't think any English-speaking toilet roll packet would claim to be "kitten-soft", either, and THAT exists, God help us).

So. What did the automatic translator make of "doux et moelleux", then?

(Drumroll, please. Please? No? Why not? Naaaaaw, that's not very kind of you! Hmph).

Doux et moelleux: Sweet and mellow.

That is some seriously chilled out toilet roll we're using.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

Bilingue

I have a bilingual computer.

It's a bit confusing for anyone who isn't me, but some bits are in French, some bits are in English, and none of it seems to follow any logical pattern.

I'm setting up backup discs at the moment, and my computer came out with this:



From No. No more penguins.

Don't you just love it when inanimate objects show a bit of personality?

(In case you're struggling to read it, click on the picture and it'll take you to the full-size version in Picasa. We has a technology now!)

Tuesday 23 November 2010

The Beak

I know, I know, I've not been around much lately, apart from the occasional tweet (hey, have you seen my Twitter sidebar? Have you? Have you?) about being hungry, which is pretty much a permanent condition at the moment.

I have been translating. There has been much translating of the translatey stuff by the translator of late.

I have also been growing a beak, or at least, it feels that way.

I've suffered from (yes, suffered from is definitely the right phrase) cold sores as long as I can imagine, and, as my immune system's been a bit busy dealing with colds recently, they've got me again. That's what I really hate about them. They really do kick you when you're down. The swines. (I might use a stronger word here, but this is the Internets, and it doesn't do to say anything on the Internets you wouldn't want your parents/inlaws/younger siblings to hear. Close brackets).

Anyway, cold sores vary in terms of pain levels. Some look bad but don't hurt much, at least after the first day or so. Some make my whole face ache for a week. This particular one feels like I'm growing a beak, and ohhh, it HURTS. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

When I said "no more penguins", I thought that implied I didn't want to be one either. Clearly, I was wronk. (I meant to type "wrong", but I quite like "wronk", so I'm going to leave it there).

Back to the cupboard now (that's where the paracetamol is).

Friday 29 October 2010

Suspension of Disbelief

I've been watching a lot of episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer of late.

Please don't judge me. It was Ze Husband's fault. He MADE me do it.

I'd never seen an episode of Buffy until about six weeks ago, given the only reason I stopped having nightmares about the Big Bad Wolf was because said BBW got chased off by imaginary vampires whose desire to eat me was even stronger. And those vampires could FLY, dammit- my usual techniques for escaping from the wolves didn't work any more.

I digress.

Anyway, with the assistance of a cushion to hide behind and knitting so as to avoid concentrating too much, I've got through three whole seasons. There are many things in Buffy requiring suspension of disbelief- all the vampires, for instance. But the one thing that really gets me is: Just how many coats does that girl have? Normal people have one coat, maybe two, or three at a push. I counted, and Buffy had SIX different coats in one episode. Seriously. And it's not even cold in California.

Back to the cupboard to hide from flying things with fangs...

Tuesday 12 October 2010

Yogurt Love

Helloes! I'm BACK!

And yes, I spell yogurt without an h. I prefer my dairy products uninjured (de-dum CHING).

I made a couple of exciting discoveries during my Masters year in Caen two years ago. None of them had anything to do with medieval history. The best of these discoveries was Casino's yaourts-desserts. They make tarte au citron flavoured yogurts, people! Om nom nom nom nom.

I didn't have a very good year in Caen, as some of you know, mainly due to the ineptitude of the history department and the fact I was living on my own (Catherines, like aubergines, are not naturally solitary beings). The yogurts helped, though. For some reason, food often seems to help. And no, please don't try and psychoanalyse that.

I tried again and again to find these yogurts since leaving Caen, without success. I even ASKED the people in the supermarkets if they'd heard of them, just to show you how serious the yogurt-hunting was.

Yesterday, I was having a bad day. After giving up on my afternoon and having a three-hour nap instead, I decided a trip to the supermarket was in order. Upon arrival, I carried out my usual brief inspection of the yogurt aisle. Nothing. Despairing of ever finding yaourts-desserts again, I offered up a silent prayer to the God of Yogurts*. Surely, I thought, he would be merciful? I spent a month taking care of the SimplyMarket yogurts in December, after all- don't I deserve a little yogurty kindness?

It was then that the miracle happened. Ze Boy (hmmm...or Ze Husband, now?) tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to the bottom row of yogurts in the chiller cabinet.

There they were. Casino yaourts-desserts. My quest for the yogurty grail was over.

Back to the cupboard now WITH MY YOGURTS. Om nom nom nom nom nom nom etc.

*Note: the existence of a God of Yogurts does not cause any theological problems for a Christian. The God of Yogurts is simply a title for that part of the Trinity responsible for dealings with dairy products. I feel rather silly talking to God as a whole about yogurt issues. 
End Note.

Friday 10 September 2010

Rollo

That's it, I've finally given in and got a new computer for work. 
The computer's name is Rollo.

I felt I should possibly offer some form of explanation of our computer naming practices on here at some point, given there have already been a few unexplained references to Arnulf which, upon rereading, could be mistaken for a cat. We can't have people thinking I would condone the presence of a cat in the house. (Apologies to any cat-lovers who may be reading, but I cannot STAND the things and they make me want to tear my eyes out. Just so you know).

It all started with Aethelred. Aethelred was my first computer. The first time I switched it on, it asked me to give it a name. Windows suggested something like "main computer" or "study". How many other computers out there must be called "main computer"? I wanted my computer to be the only one with that name when they called the register at compuer-school, to give it a proper sense of identity. Having a list of kings and queens of England attached to my bedroom wall (as you do), I picked one from there, and so Aethelred was baptised. Not with water, you understand. Noooo.

And lo, the time came for Aethelred to be deposed, as lo, I was moving to France, and lo, he was too heavy, and lo, the family computer had a nervous breakdown and needed replacing. So Aethelred, he did go and become the family computer, and it was good. (Please note, lo is not "lol" with an l missing. Non.)

As everybody knows (erm...everybody? Hello? Back me up here!) Aethelred was deposed by Cnut, AKA Canute. The naming of the new computer was therefore easy. Cnut kept some of Aethelred's accessories, just as the historical Cnut kept Aethelred's wife, Emma. Jawöhl.

Cnut gave up on me last year, some way into fighting the Normans, NOT like the real Cnut, but sort of like Harold, who came a bit later, so it still almost works. Cnut was replaced by Arnulf de Montgommery, a tiny netbook which needed a big name to make up for its diminutive stature. Arnulf de Montgommery was one of the Normans Cnut and I had been attempting to transform into a Masters' thesis. He wasn't a bad sort of Norman, but he doesn't even have a Wikipedia entry, so I thought he needed some sort of recognition.

Rollo is a proper desktop and marks the start of a new phase in life, one that involves ACTUALLY WORKING and GETTING PAID (and possibly getting married as well, maybe). Sort of like the moment when the French gave Normandy to the Vikings to stop them pillaging and the Duchy of Normandy was created. (Wait...what?) 

The first Duke of Normandy was called Rollo, anyway, or Rollon in French, but as my computer is not a deodorant we've gone for the English spelling.

Internets, meet Rollo. Rollo, meet internets.

-Here endeth the history lesson-.







Thursday 2 September 2010

Boudin

Yesterday, I went to the hairdressers in an attempt to sort out wedding hair.


This is a Big Deal. I do not like hairdressers. For some reason, "just sort my hair out, please" never seems to be a specific enough instruction, and I- who have few fixed ideas about my hair, just not a short fringe, please, I put up with that for quite long enough- end up having to describe in detail what I want doing.


Wedding hair being One Of Those Things That Needs Sorting Out, I went on a mission to find a hairdresser in Lyon yesterday (with Ze Boy's sister for moral support). The first place we visited didn't have time on the date in question, so that was out. The second was very overpriced and the name was slightly odd- Saint Algue (Holy Seaweed? Holy Algae? Saint Seaweed? Strange, however you translate it). In the third, the woman was very rude to us, and accused us of wasting her time because we refused to book an appointment to discuss the possibility of booking an appointment for a test for the real wedding-hair thingy. Yes, it was THAT complicated. And she was THAT rude. I quote: "mais là, je perds mon temps pour rien, vous m'avez vraiment dérangé, et vous ne prennez même pas de rendez-vous, enfin, c'est pas possible, quoi..."


One word: POUFIASSE. (There is no satisfactory English word in this case. Sorry).


The fourth place was fine. I went in, made an appointment for a test-chignon the same afternoon. I came out with hair crunchier than deep-fried seaweed (look! More seaweed! Maybe if I save it we can make sushi?), but it was ok. The hair is now sorted.


To make my hair do what she wanted, the hairdresser put a boudin in it.


Let's see what GoogleTranslate makes of that, shall we?


la coiffeuse a mise un boudin dans mes cheveux   gives:    


(wait for it...)


The vanity put a sausage in my hair.


It seems my job is safe for now.

Friday 27 August 2010

Adressing the Issue Again

Five to ten this morning, the phone rings.

It was the Place My Dress Is Lurking.

My dress- which I was supposed to be picking up from the shop tomorrow morning- is not back from the cleaners yet. My dress, for that matter, has not even been cleaned yet. Apparently, they're lacking a piece of paper with my signature on it saying I accept responsibility for them cleaning my dress. What?

There are now only three days before I leave for France, three days which are also a Bank Holiday weekend. This Could Be A Problem.

Apparently, they're going to clean it tonight and it will be delivered tomorrow by courier. Hopefully. Maybe. I blame the gnomes. Wish me luck and watch this space.

Going to hide in my cupboard now. My mother is trying to play the piano and it's not pretty.

Wednesday 25 August 2010

Moomins and Jelly Babies

Zis weekend, Ze Boy and I have been in Finland.
We have now finnished being in Finland (de dum CHING!).

No More Penguins presents its official congratulations to Mark and Hanna for the whole getting married thing. Getting married is a Good Thing. Inviting us is also a Good Thing, or at least, we think so. We've invited ourselves to our wedding, anyway. Just ours isn't in Finland.

We brought some gherkins (long story) and some Moomin biscuits back for the tribe. The tribe, in our absence, got us jelly babies (another long story).

Cue discussion after tea last night:

M: "Who d'you think'd win in a fight between a Moomin and a Jelly Baby?"

(Cue attempts to make jelly baby and Moomin biscuit fight. I bet on the jelly baby, but it got squashed before the Moomin biscuit broke, so I lost).

ZB: (must restrain self, must not type in French accent....) "Oooo, what do you think the child of a Moomin and a jelly baby would look like?" (Picks one of each out of packets, makes them talk to each other then scuttle off behind a bowl on the table...)

M: "I will not have biscuit porn on my kitchen table!" (tries to send youngest tribe-member to bed as biscuits are now engaging in inappropriate activity)

NMP, in mean time, has been occupied splicing the head of a Moomin onto the body of a jelly-baby in Frankinsteinesque scene of genetic modification. The resulting being was declared somewhat scary and its creation fundamentally immoral.

Result: Moomins beat jelly babies. Babies of Moomins and jelly babies are stronger than both but their creation is morally reprehensible. We're stronger than all of them, so we get to eat the lot.

Mwahahahahaha.

Monday 16 August 2010

Shopper Profile No.2

I've had an eventful couple of weeks, and I'm no longer working at The Shop, but I thought I might as well carry on with the shopper profiles....

The Little Green Backpack (n).

The Little Green Backpack (LG- not LGB, that's something quite different) somewhat resembles a juvenile LWB but is far more pleasant to deal with. Native to south America (often Argentina), the LG travels in small herds accompanied by an adult.

Key Traits: attempts to buy a tie for its father and an ornamental thimble for its mother in very basic English. (Incidentally, I now know the word for "thimble" in a number of languages. I feel this is an important life skill). Very polite. Key phrases include "how many much this please?".

NMP reaction: Why can't the Locusts With Backpacks be more like this? Can I have one? Squeeeee!

Next: The New One Preez?

Wednesday 4 August 2010

Shopper Profile no. 1

Locust with Backpack (n). Teenager from EFL (English as a Foreign Language) school in the Cambridge area. The LWB is easy to identify and travels mostly in swarms with others with the same coloured backpack. 

Key Traits: Talks very loudly. Often, five or more will cluster around one individual who may or may not buy a £7.50 tshirt. Takes great pleasure in pulling stock off shelves and leaving it in wrong place. Extreme cases may actually throw goods on floor whilst looking sales staff in eye. Rarely says "please" or "thank you", although one might think that, with all the money their parents pay for them to spend several weeks learning English, they would be aware of such rudimentary phrases.

NMP Reaction: Shock, desire to "write to their parents and tell them what their children have been doing" and/or refusal to help until they say "please". Example:

LWB: I need this in blue.

NMP: (pause...) You need, or you would like?

LWB: ermmmm.... I would like, please.

NMP: (smiles) Of course, I'll go and get you one from upstairs.


Not to be confused with: the LGB (Little Green Backpack). See next entry.




Monday 2 August 2010

That Friday Feeling

You may have noticed I've not been around much recently. This is because I have been working and translating and trying to plan a wedding. I would still have the time to post things, but the thing is, I don't seem to have the surplus mental capacity. By the end of the day, I even lose the ability to count in multiples of £5.99. It's becoming a problem.

The good news?

Today is FRIDAY! Well, on my planet it is. I'm not at work for the next two days, therefore it must be the weekend, therefore today is Friday, no?

(Please don't pop my happy Friday bubble. If you do, I will have to go and hide in my cupboard until things get better, and that may take some time).

Friday 23 July 2010

Found In Translation

For those who've been following the professional progress (or lack thereof) of the author of this blog, I have some Very Good News Indeed.

For those who haven't been following, well, my professional activity over the last year or so since I finished my M2 (research degree) has involved selling vegetables, arranging yoghurts, and, most recently, renting academic gowns to graduands whilst trying to resist telling them how hard it is to find a decent job afterwards. 

I had no reason to be optimistic, you see. I was accepted for a PhD in Cambridge but it fell through for lack of funding. My attempts to be taken on as a trainee archivist failed for want of experience- to get experience, you need experience (DOH). Finally, the English Heritage graduate trainee scheme for Historic Environment Management, in which I had placed my remaining hope, was abolished three days after I applied because of the Tory party. I won't go into it, but it was DEFINITELY their doing.

I'd been thinking about translation for a while- I've done a bit in the past on a voluntary basis and really enjoyed it, but I wasn't sure how I'd go about doing that as a job without relevant qualifications. As it turns out, there's no fixed route into translation in this country. I applied for something earlier this week on the off-chance, knowing I was unlikely to get it as I didn't have a single one of their 'essential' qualifications.

Y'know what?

Sometimes, a bit of nerve pays off. 
Sometimes, after a year of struggling to find something, things start to come together.
Sometimes, someone will take a chance on the overqualified shop-girl and get her to do a sample translation.
And sometimes- just sometimes- they'll offer her her first freelance projects.

WOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  

Thursday 15 July 2010

Cake Thursday: Walnut

Today's Cake Thursday cake (well, it wouldn't be a Cake Thursday lasagne, now, would it?) was walnut, as you may have guessed from the title, with coffee icing, which you probably didn't. It was, I think, one of the best yet, so I'm going to post the recipe (as ever, approximative and haphazard, and if your kitchen's not a mess by the end of it, you're doing it wrong).


Ingredients


6oz (150g) Brown flour. If you don't have any in, it's not worth making a special effort to get it. Self raising flour is fine, just omit the baking powder.
3tsp (c.à.c.) baking powder 
6oz (I'm not going to keep writing 150g each time, I'm sure you can work that out for yourselves) margarine
4oz (100g) brown sugar
2 good-sized spoonfuls honey. I think a good-sized spoonful is probably a heaped dessert spoon. If you dip the spoon in boiling water first, the honey won't stick, but then you won't be able to lick the spoon afterwards. Hmmm. Tricky one.
3 eggs from happy chickens. Battery-farmed eggs just don't make good cake. Honest. They also hatch into Duracell bunnies if you leave them long enough.
6oz walnuts. Bashed up is fine. If you have walnut halves, bash about 4oz of them up into smaller bits.


Stick everything except the walnuts in a Big Mixing Bowl (R)- every home should have one! and give it to someone else to mix mix well with a wooden spoon or similar. Preheat oven to Gas 6 or Standard Oven Cake Making Temperature about now. Mix in 2/3 of the walnuts. I made mine in a standard loaf tin, but if you want to make it as a layer cake (yay! twice as much icing!), it will also fit nicely into two 9" Victoria sandwich tins. Stick cake in oven. Wait for oven to cook cake (yes, it does it for you! Now isn't that kind?). This make take anywhere between 20 and 45 mins, depending on the temperament (no, not temperature) of your oven and the size of the tins you used. Generally, thinner cakes will cook quicker. Basic physics, yes?


Once the cake(s) is(are- catering for all eventualities here) cooked, leave it/them/him/her to cool for at least an hour. Infuriating though this is, the icing will melt if you don't wait. Talking of which...


Icing ingredients


3oz (75g) butter. Take this out of the fridge while the cake is cooling to soften up a bit.
6oz (can you remember how much that is in grammes? I hope so...) icing sugar
2 dessert spoons very strong coffee. Like, REALLY strong. Undrinkably strong.
2 digestive or other relatively plain biscuits

Mush the butter up until it's soft and creamy. Don't melt it or the results will be disgusting. Stir in icing sugar, then add the coffee one spoonful at a time- keep an eye on the consistency, if you add too much liquid the icing will be too runny.


Put icing on cake, or on both layers if you're making a layer cake. This recipe will make a bit too much icing for a loaf cake. This is where the biscuits come in. Smear remaining icing on biscuits, sandwich together and eat. Om nom.


Press the remaining walnuts into the icing while it's still soft. This cake will be happiest in the fridge, especially in summer, because of the butter in the icing.


Happy baking!

P.s. New font size- better/worse/indifferent?

Wednesday 14 July 2010

It's all relative

Hellyloes! Yes, I am still alive and functional. Just about.

I thought my life was relatively normal (note the "relative" there, it's important). And then, last Tuesday night, I found myself making chlamydomonas cupcakes. (I was going to put "Chlamydomonas" as the title of this post, but I decided it sounded a bit too much like an STD).

Chlamydomonas, for those of you who are wondering (if you're not, feel free to scroll down to the next paragraph) is a genus of algae, a member of the Volvocales order (algae which have their headlights on even in the daytime?) which Ze Boy has been studying for the last few months. It was his last day at the lab, so I made him cakes to take.

This is a chlamydomonas:
 
From http://plantphys.info/plant_biology/labaids/chlorophyta.shtml- 
credit where credit's due, I do not have the necessary algae-photography skills

Note the flagella (those things that look like antennae- it uses them for swimming) and the big round eye-spot in the middle.

This is a chlamydomonas cake...


It looks so unhappy, poor thing, like a chlamydomonas out of water

...and a whole colony of them!

 

Well, I say a whole colony, but I actually only made 16. A real colony would have about 3000 of them, but that would be one heck of a lot of cake.


Ze Boy and I then proceded to run round the kitchen pretending to swim with our flagella (ummm...the leftover liquorice bootlaces) while the cakes looked on in befuddlement.

And they're letting us get married?

Friday 2 July 2010

Ten Good Reasons To Move To Sweden

1. It's too hot here

2. They don't have the Tory Party in Sweden. Well, they better not...

3. I can be as pale as I like and still look tanned

4. In my dreams, it would sort of be like living in Ikea, in a very good way

5. We could open a very English tea shop with polka dot teapots and it would be exotic

6. Sweden is not south of anywhere. Well, nowhere habitable, at least.

7. Big houses at £42,000. You couldn't get a one-bedroom bungalow next to Sellafield nuclear power plant for that

8. Father Christmas! I imagine he's a very good next-door neighbour (what do you mean, he lives in Finland? I'm sure he lives in Sweden really!)

9. The fact my mother knows the words to Abba's "Honey Honey" in Swedish (seriously, I am Not Kidding, the £2.99 CD bin in Tesco has a lot to answer for) might actually come in useful

9 1/2. I could wear really big jumpers all year round, not just 7 months of it

9 5/8. Daylight in winter is overrated, anyway

10. It's TOO HOT HERE. Or have I already said that?

Thursday 1 July 2010

Nutella Cakes, The Recipe

...Because I feel it's only right to share this one with the world.

As per usual, this is a Catherine-style recipe, i.e. relatively haphazard and fairly open to interpretation, but I'll try and be fairly precise!


Ingredients

3oz (75g) self raising flour (ou 75g de farine normale et un peu plus de levure chimique)

1oz (25g) ground hazelnuts (optional and fairly expensive, can be replaced by same quantity of flour)

2oz (50g) cocoa powder

3 eggs (medium? large? I don't think it actually matters)

6oz (150g) Marjoriiiiiiiiie! Erm, margarine, I mean, or butter

6oz (150g) sugar (white, brown, whatever). If you have treacle to hand, replace 1oz of the sugar with a tbsp of treacle. If not, don't worry about it.

3tsp baking powder, or 2tsp if you replaced the hazelnuts with flour


Stick all ingredients in a Great Big Bowl and whack the heck out of it with a wooden spoon (if you're feeling in need of exercise) or an electric whisk (if you're lazy like me).

This will fill about 12 small muffin cases, less big ones, more smaller ones (logique, quoi)

Medium ones will take about 20 mins at GM6, 180°, or whatever your oven thinks is the appropriate temperature for cooking cakes.

Wait for them to cool off a bit, then make the topping:

Put three tbsp of nutella in a bowl and then one in your mouth (this way round, please, the other way isn't particularly hygienic). Add 1 tbsp boiling water and 2 tbsp icing sugar. Mix well. Adjust quantities of icing sugar and/or water until it feels like thick icing. Spread on cakes.

Done!

There would be pictures, but my camera appears to have died. EIther that, or my 99p-for-four batteries weren't that much of a bargain. Come to think of it, it's probably the latter.

Wednesday 30 June 2010

Overheard at Work, vol.1

Or, funny things non-anglophones say in the shop.

Incidentally, I love the word "anglophone". It doesn't really exist in English, but it gives me a rather entertaining mental image combining certain features of a saxophone with an anglepoise lamp. Just thought you should know.

1. "Ve are looking for ze weapons of Fitzwilhelm College".

Translation: We are looking for the arms (heraldic shield) of Fitzwilliam College.

2. "I would like a pair of Christ's handcuffs".

Translation: I would like a pair of Christ's College cufflinks.

3. "I would like fresh one please".

Translation: I'm going to make you run up and down three flights of stairs four times in 30° heat until I decide I actually prefer the first tshirt you brought me.

4. "Is it here we pick our stuff up for graduation?"

Translation: I just assumed someone else would have booked my graduation things for me. What do you mean, you don't have any left? Are you a gown hire shop or what?

More to come soon, I imagine. Oh, how I love tourists.

Wednesday 23 June 2010

Cake Thursday

Last week I sort-of-accidentally started a new tradition at work: Cake Thursday.

I'm off Tuesday and Wednesday, and I like to do a bit of baking on one of those days- cake, or bread, or biscuits, or cui-miam-miam as it was last week. We have a gas oven, and the fact that we have to pay for our gas directly through a meter in one of the kitchen cupboards (seriously, I didn't know those things still existed until I moved here) means I feel guilty about putting the oven on with less than three different things in it.

I also have some exciting and under-used baking toys (thanks to Lauren for the first, Madeline for the second) I want to get more use out of.

Last week, I made chocolate and Nutella fairy cakes. This week, I'm thinking lemon drizzle cake. I'm after some new ideas to try, though, and this is where you lot come in- any suggestions? Challenges? Bizarre ingredients I should try and incorporate?

Friday 18 June 2010

Cui Miam Miam

Tonight, we're having people over for dinner, Breton-style.

Ze Boy and I have been thinking about galettes for a couple of weeks now, and, as usual with this kind of thing, we'll only be able to get the idea out of our heads once we've eaten them. Alas, I couldn't find buckwheat flour in Tesco, but I have brown flour, so that'll just have to do. A friend of ours has stealthily imported some proper cider (none of this strongbow nonsense, thank you very much!), so the thing is going to be Done Properly.

For pudding, I must admit to having found inspiration in an Oldelaf et Monsieur D song. After trawling the internet for a recipe (and trying to work out how to spell the damn thing, Google doesn't work if none of the letters in the words match up), I finally found a trustworthy one on a friend's blog. The thing I've made goes by the somewhat unpronouncable name of Kouign Amann, or, to use Ze Boy's version of it, Cui Miam Miam. Actually, he informs me that it's meant to be spelt "couie miam miam", but that sounds a bit too much like something extremely vulgar, so I've gone for the Cui version. In any case, a kouign amann by any other name would still have as much butter in it. Om nom nom.

Back to the cupboard now to hide until our guests arrive.

Wednesday 16 June 2010

Woof!

I've been slightly preoccupied with trying to lose my accent in French of late. I can sometimes fool people for a little while, depending on how observant they are or what we're talking about- there are a few words, not necessarily the obvious ones ("feuille" and "bouilloire"? No problem) that give the game away.

Sometimes, though, people spot something, but can't quite put their finger on what it is. My accent in French doesn't conform to expectations of how an English person would speak French.

Cue comment from a lady in the supermarket where I worked over Christmas:

"Vous êtes Alsacienne, Madame ?"

Literal translation: "Are you an Alsatian?"
Proper translation: "Are you from Alsace?"

Makes me smile every time.

Oh, and incidentally- this is why you should never, never, never, ever use online translation sites. Leave it to the professionals!

Back to the cupboard now to scratch behind my ears and chew a few shoes. Might go and scare a few small children by pretending to be the Big Bad Wolf later, too.

Saturday 12 June 2010

Ties, Damned Ties and Statistics

It's May Ball time in Cambridge at the moment. Why exactly the May Balls are in June is beyond me- surely, with the average intelligence of the Cambridge student population, they could get the name of the month right? Not complaining, though. I like the peculiarities.

The shop I work in has been around for over 120 years and was, for much of its history, a gentlemen's outfitters. A lot of the original shop-fittings are still there- notably a wall of glass-fronted cabinets with brass fittings and pull-out trays full of ties.

This week, with the approach of the May Balls, we've been selling an Awful Lot of Ties. Bow ties, in particular, seem to be doing pretty well this year- I'm not sure if it's something to do with the fact that the new Dr Who wears one, or if the latter is a symptom of the growing popularity of bow ties rather than a cause. I favour the latter theory, I think.

I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this. I got fed up with running up and downstairs for ties yesterday and the phrase "ties, damned ties and statistics" popped into my head, and I just felt the need to use it somewhere.

That's all.

Back to the cupboard now, if it hasn't been invaded by rogue neckwear.

Monday 7 June 2010

Madwoman in the Attic

I haven't been around here much since I started my new job, but I have resolved to change that.

Today, I spent the day in the attic at work putting stickers on tags and tags on hoodies. Ah yes. For reasons unknown, a tag is no longer enough. We need TAGS WITH STICKERS ON, d'you hear? TAGS WITH STICKERS ON.

Last time I spent a day in the attic, it was so mind-numbing that I could actually hear my brain cells screaming for mercy after the first half hour. This time, though, I came prepared: an MP3 player full of variété française and Radio 4 podcasts.

There was a wonderful moment, mid-afternoon, when I encountered the past historic tense in a song I was listening too (amis français: c'était eûmes et la chanson était de Brel. J'envoie un Mars au premier qui arrive a me dire le titre de la chanson en question...). It was unexpected, and it made me smile. It also triggered a domino-effect of smiles that lasted all afternoon. Will any of the tourists buying our hoodies ever suspect what the shop girl was thinking about as she stuck labels on the tags? What would they think if they knew?

Having done my fair share of menial jobs over the past few years, I've developed a taste for the bizarre conjunction of practical and mental occupations. The summer after my A Levels, for example, I worked in a fish and chip shop and practiced declining Latin nouns on the edges of the newspaper when the shop was quiet. The following summer, I cleaned toilets whilst listening to Classic FM.

It all boils down to an attempt to maintain a certain degree of sanity, although my colleagues tend to see it as proof of the opposite: for them, I have become the madwoman in the attic. Long may it continue.

Friday 30 April 2010

Wildebeest!

Best video of the Gnu Song EVER!

Thursday 29 April 2010

Matters of Size

A particular gentleman, who shall remain nameless (partly because I don't know his name) came into the shop last week to change his t-shirt, which he was wearing at the time, for a different size. I wasn't surprised, really, as the t-shirt in question looked a bit on the small size. The problem was he wanted to change it for the next size down.

He asked my opinion on the new size, trying to decide if he should go for medium or even small. I can't remember what I said. I believe I may have squeaked. Well, it was the only non-commital noise I could think of at the time. Anyway, he bought the medium in the end. But someone really does need to tell him HIS T-SHIRT IS TOO SMALL.

Any volunteers?

Wednesday 28 April 2010

Antydisestablishmentarianism

Officially, I have three housemates at the moment.

Unofficially, I have several hundred.

We have an ant problem, you see. I have no major objections to them on principle, but I really don't want them in my kitchen. Rather like tinned sardines, actually, and Angel Delight. This association between ants and food may seem strange to some, but I have actually eaten ants, albeit inadvertently. During a week's camping trip in France, I stupidly left an open bag of ready salted crisps in my already ant-infested tent. One nap time, whilst reading, I absentmindedly reached for the bag of crisps and started eating them. Only after a couple of handfuls did I realise that the black bits were not pepper.

I tell you this that you may better understand my reluctance to allow the ants the run of the kitchen, and my decision to wage war against them using shock, awe and a hoover.

Back to the cupboard now. I think there's some ant powder in there somewhere.

Tuesday 27 April 2010

Book of the Fortnight, no. ?

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...

Got it yet?

I'll give you another clue: Mrs Danvers.

For many, the title of this book will have been evident from the first line alone; the opening sentence of Rebecca must be one of the most recognisable in the history of English literature, bested, perhaps, only by "Reader, I married him" and "It is a truth universally accepted that a single man, being in possession of a fortune, must be in want of a wife" (name those books!). Somehow, this sentence has succeeded in permeating the national consciousness in a way that few other have. The character of Mrs Danvers, too, is instantly recognisable. Actual contemporary situations, too, are compared to that of the second Mrs De Winter living under the psychological shadow of Rebecca. And yet, many have never read the book; until last week, I was one of them.

I have a slight issue with so-called classic books. The way their reputation precedes them is, at times, forbidding; it takes a certain amount of courage, or persuasion, to tackle one. At university, I took three different modules just to make myself read certain things, most of which I enjoyed when I got to them. Reading the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid for Classical Literature 1A, for example, broke the mystique surrounding ancient literature and gave me the nerve to pick up Ovid's Metamorphoses, which I read in ten-minute chunks on trams around Grenoble, a treatment it lent itself particularly well to. Intellectual History made me read Plato and Cicero and Aristotle, St Augustine and Thomas More. I enjoyed that somewhat less, possibly because of the way the course was structured- City of God in one week, anyone? No, thought not.

I am a great believer in public libraries, but it's easy to borrow a book. Once you get it home, though, there's no pressure to read it. And so, just after Christmas, I bought a copy of Rebecca as part of a three-for-two offer at Waterstones. If I've bought it, you see, I have to read it, otherwise it would be a great waste. Yes, you see, it's that self-guilt-tripping thing again. It works, though, you know.

Anyway, I'm very glad I did. Rebecca is a truly wonderful book; in spite of its gothic novellish tendencies, it stays just the right side of melodrama and remains firmly within the bounds of reality. There are no ghosts, and Mrs Danvers is not a monster, at least not in the Frankenstein sense of the word; the nameless Mrs De Winter is terrorised by a falsified idea based on a misunderstanding, not by ghouls and spectres. The reader, looking in from the outside, sees Mrs De Winter fall into a psychological trap from which she cannot escape, caused not by explicit lies but by concealed truths, helped along by the peculiar behaviour of a clearly psychotic housekeeper. Rebecca is in some respects a very modern book, ahead of its time. Du Maurier's decision not to name the second Mrs De Winter is a very clever plot device; at the beginning of the book her reasons for doing this are not clear, but by the end, it is difficult to imagine what the heroine could have been called without the book losing something.

Off back to the cupboard now to check for skeletons and psychotic housekeepers.

Thursday 22 April 2010

Book of Last Fortnight

Yep, I'm running late again. That's what work does to you.

I read Atonement two years ago, and I'm slightly ashamed to admit it made me cry. Not just sniffles, mind, proper lying-on-my-bed-howling in a way I hadn't since reading Black Beauty for the first time at the age of eight. In my defence, I was tired, but it does take one heck of a book to do that to me. This from someone who got through the literary bloodbath that is Russian Literature 1A without shedding a tear and who, at the age of three, on seeing a pigeon mown down by a lorry declared it to be "quite interesting, actually".

What I'm trying to say, in a roundabout way (no, not a Magic Roundabout, though my hair does look a bit like Dougal at the moment) is that I think Ian McEwen is one of the best English language authors around at the moment. Sure, it's not high literature, but his work is entertaining and engaging and honestly, speaking as one who has to sift through heaps of dry historical documents on a regular basis, that's often what I want from fiction.

Here comes the bit where I tell you what I've actually been reading. Don't worry, I won't turn round at the end and tell you the nice bits were all made up and actually they all died. (Bitter much?)

The book was, as you've probably guessed, by Ian McEwen, and it was On Chesil Beach. The book is set on the wedding night of a young couple in the south of England at some point in the after-war period. I have a great fondness for books set in England in the first half of the twentieth century. This was the time of Elgar and of Vaughan Williams, the time of DH Lawrence and Vera Britten, of Rupert Brooke swimming in the mill pond at Grantchester. The period lends itself well to escapist imaginings: far enough away in time to be idealised, but close enough to keep a sense of familiarity.

We see the newlyweds' story through the prism of this one place and one time, the evening spent by Chesil Beach. The book is short, but tells us all we need to know to understand. The two protagonists find themselves at loggerheads, but the reader, sympathising with both, does not find themself taking sides: McEwen's delicately balanced treatmentof the dispute does not attribute blame. What happens happens because of a slightly mistimed movement, an unwise choice of words: no-one is at fault. The outcome is far from ideal, but it is hard to see how it could have been otherwise.

Back to the cupboard now. I have much to do.

Friday 9 April 2010

Attitude Problem

This country has a serious attitude problem.

No, I'm not talking about anything to do with the forthcoming General Election. There will be no politics on this blog.

What I AM talking about, however, is the attitude to unemployment which seems to be prevalent in this country. Look through any tabloid newspaper and it's a fair bet you'll find the word 'slackers', 'moochers' or similar somewhere in there. Actually, that might make a pretty good drinking game. Hmmmmmm. One shot every time The Sun, The Mirror or the Daily Mail says anything about people on benefits.

I never knew much about unemployment before. Sure, I knew it was a bad thing for the people experiencing it, and I knew people kept moaning about how benefits were too high and how the system benefited scroungers. (Ah yes. That's the other word I was looking for earlier). Well, that's a load of rubbish.

I had it easy, I was living with my parents. I could have fed myself on the statutory fifty pounds a week, no bother. But I know I couldn't have afforded to pay bills on top of that. Another thing I couldn't have afforded- and this is the bit that really gets my back up- is the £5.60 I had to pay for a return bus ticket to the job centre once a fortnight. When you're living on fifty pounds a week, that's more than five per cent of your income. On principle, I asked, and there's no help available. The sheer injustice of losing that proportion of one's benefits just for living in a town without a job centre is staggering.

I'll talk about the job centre itself some other time when it's less fresh in my mind. But for now, I will not be going back. I have escaped the system, attained the nirvana to which every unemployed person aspires.

Yes, people. I have a job.

Friday 2 April 2010

One-a-Penny, Two-a-Penny


Hot Cross Buns!
As ever, apologies for my pathetic attempts at photography. They actually looked quite pretty in real life.
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I am a great believer in Hot Cross Buns. Firstly, they have a fixed season, and a short one too- it makes you appreciate them all the more knowing they're only around for a few weeks. Secondly, bread products. Nom nom nom. With raisins in them. OM nom nom nom nom.
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(Incidentally, the Woodsettes scored a major victory the other day- we managed to get both our parents to use the word "nom" in the course of one meal. Virtual high five? Yes, I think so).
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Thirdly, there's all the symbolism. The cross bit is pretty obvious. But there's also the fact that you wait three hours for them to rise (spot the Easter parallel...) and that they're traditionally made in batches of 12, like the 12 disciples.
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Home-made hot cross buns, however, have always been a bit of a problem. Firstly (yes, I'm in a numerical listing mood, can you tell?) they tend to be a bit dense, veering towards the cannonballesque. Secondly, they're practically inedible within six or seven hours as they get even harder. Thirdly, even fresh out of the oven, eating the traditional flour-and-water cross bit is in itself something of a penitential experience.
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This year, I decided it might be time for a new recipe. Normal bread without chemical treatment goes stale very quickly, a fact anyone who's tried to eat a baguette more than a day old can attest to. Brioche, on the other hand, is much softer to start with and keeps a bit better because of the fat content. It also gets eaten faster because, well, it's tastier. The obvious solution to the hot cross bun problem? Adapt a brioche recipe! It proved fairly straightforward, actually, and the test batch I made last week (just to check, you understand) all got eaten before they went stale. The only problem was the crosses on top, which were still quite painful to eat. Now, I could have gone down the icing route, but that just wouldn't feel right- a hot cross bun should be cooked with its cross on, adding the cross later is somehow cheating.
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The answer?
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MARZIPAN!
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Had I been organised, I would have bought marazipan. I wasn't, so I made some instead. It's very straightforward, actually, and for once I wasn't left with half a packet of marzipan drying out at the back of the fridge. For reference, the recipe is as follows:
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4 oz ground almonds
4 oz icing sugar
1 egg white
pinch of salt
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Mix everything together. If it's too sticky, add cornflour little by little until it behaves itself. Knead and leave in fridge overnight to harden up a bit. Keep the egg yolk for glazing your hot cross buns.
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That's it! Being disorganised can be awfully tasty, you know.
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Back to the cupboard with a dozen or so hot cross buns, methinks. Om nom nom.
(Incidentally, I'm having a couple of formatting problems, so please excuse the slightly peculiar layout).


Thursday 1 April 2010

Before and After

Guess what I've been up to this week?
The photos below should give you a clue...

Before... (before what? Possibly Before Christ, if the state of the cushion is anything to go by)


...and after, back at home under the piano



Yes, I'm about this far away from becoming a Lady Who Lunches. Please send help. Or invitations to lunch, either will do.

Tuesday 30 March 2010

Menus

Little by little, the wedding planning steals my sanity (what little of it remains). The venue hunt is still ongoing. One thing I'm really enjoying, though, is getting sample menus from caterers, especially ones we can't afford- it would appear that the more expensive the food, the more ridiculous the names they give it.

My favourite example from a French caterer:

Hérisson de magret de canard fourré au pruneau: prune-stuffed hedgehog of duck breast

There are a couple of good bread ones, too- it can come as a trilogie (yes, that really is trilogy in English) or a farandole, which presumably means the bread is enchanted and dances for you before you eat it.

The worst culprits on the stupid name front, however, are English. The hedgehog thing is pretty daft, admittedly, but you can see where they're coming from. I sent an enquiry to a hotel near home just to see what kind of things they had on offer, and it was worth the effort for the pure comedy value of the menu they sent me. They seem to have a problem with the word "with", you see. Instead, we have:

  • Presented Upon
  • Accompanied By
  • Set in (as in "Medallion of Seabass set in a Warm Vinaigrette")
  • Complemented by (cue mental image of a blackberry coulis making pleasant comments to a mango cheescake- "my, my, you look fruity!" and the like)

And my absolute all-time favourite:

  • "Pork Presented on a Plinth of Roast Apples".

A PLINTH?

Really, hotel people? A PLINTH?

Thursday 25 March 2010

Books and Prejudice

(AKA Book of the Fortnight, No. 4)

To understand the following, you must realise that, in my lifetime, I have met three people I really, very strongly, dislike. This isn't just dislike, this is just-being-in-the-same-room-as-them-makes-me-shake-with-anger. These are the people I have nightmares about.

(Incidentally, if you're reading this, fear not, you're not one of them).

The book I read last week is the favourite book of one of those people. It's quite a well-known book, and the kind of thing I would almost certainly have read before without this connection. You see, book preferences are such a personal thing, I was certain I wouldn't like it. Then, just last week, I came across this book (OK, OK, I'll get on and break the suspense, but in a minute, d'accord?) in the library, and I thought I'd give it a go. Well, I'm unemployed, and finding something worth reading amongst the Mills and Boon style dross that constitutes 90% of our local library's stock is always hard work.

You know what?

No, I can't say as I've ever met him.

Sorry.

Where was I?

Ah, yes. Well. I LOVED the book. It's been a long time since I've been able to get into something like that. Two days was all it took me, and it's not particularly short.

I might even tell you what the book's called, now.

It's The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood.

Moral of the story: I should lose some of my prejudices- who knows what else they've made me miss?

Thursday 18 March 2010

Best of British No. 3: The Coffee Morning

Last Saturday, my mother, youngest sister and I went to a coffee morning. It's been a while since I went to one, and, being somewhat out of the habit of coffee morning attendance, I was able to observe it with, as it were, new eyes. Not really new eyes, you understand- I'm still myope comme une taupe, or blind as a bat, depending on which small mammal you want me to be. But yes. Anyway.

I'm not sure coffee mornings even exist outside the UK, so I'd probably better explain. The principle is that individuals, often but not exclusively women of a certain age, gather to drink coffee and eat biscuits in the name of charity. You pay for entry, which entitles you to the said drink-and-a-biscuit. In actual fact, it's more or less an institutionalised form of elevenses (see previous Best of British post).

Then, there is the raffle. There is always, always a raffle. It is rare for anyone to enter a raffle because they actually want to win one of the prizes. Coffee morning raffle prizes are notorious for being re-donated to the next coffee morning raffle, so the same things go round again and again and again, until some small child wins one of the prizes and gives it to a great aunt for Christmas, at which point the prize may be displaced geographically and enter onto another town's coffee morning circuit. People buy tickets because, well, it's vaguely fun in a soft-gambling sort of way, and it's another way of supporting the charity.

On top of the raffle, there's always a cake stall and a tombola, which works along the same lines as the raffle, a bric-a-brac stall or two, and a book stall if you're lucky.

Then- and this is what I really wanted to talk about- there are the games.

Saturday's coffee morning was the district Brownie and Guide one. This species of coffee morning is notorious on a number of counts. First, you don't go for the coffee: the leaders see these occasions as the ideal opportunity for Brownies to pass their Hostess badge, so you get half a cup of lukewarm coffee served by a seven-year-old who will, more likely than not, manage to get the remaining contents of the cup all over the table. Secondly, the cake stall is presided over by the Trefoil Guild (retired guiders who often bear more than a passing resemblance to Miss Trunchbull in Matilda) who charge ridiculous prices and refuse to smile. Thirdly, they make the Guides come up with new games each time. This Saturday's was a classic, possibly the worst I've ever seen.

Dropping two-pence pieces onto five-pence pieces in a bucket full of water.

No kidding.

£1 for five goes, and if you managed to cover the 5p with your 2p, then you won a penny sweet.

Seriously. And then they wonder why the Guide stalls never make any money.

Monday 15 March 2010

Girl vs. Wild

The neighbours have had their front garden done. It's very nice, in a minimalist and low-maintenance sort of way- gravel, small bushes, lovely slate path, that kind of thing. It's also very, very tidy.

Our front garden, untidy at the best of times, is currently attempting to revert to nature. It's a mess, and we can't do very much with it. It's north-facing and the soil is rubbish (literally- we keep finding lumps of polystyrene in it). There's a good-sized budleia and a hydrangea, both of which keep attempting to attack each other and, worse, passers-by. Apart from that, though, the whole thing is covered in ivy and brambles and other plants which are clearly on the verge of becoming carnivorous. This morning, I dug out six buckets full of dead plant matter (the kind of activity that makes my parents ask who I am, and what I've done with their eldest daughter), but it doesn't seem to have made any difference. If it gets any worse, we're going to need rescuing.

Any knights with shining secateurs out there?

Saturday 13 March 2010

Chouette Patate

Après les carottes, une patate.


Et après la patate...


...une chouette-patate!
C'est fou ce qu'on peut faire avec le même patron.

Bon, ok, c'est un hibou, mais il aurait fallu plus de force d'ésprit que je n'ai pour résister au jeu de mots.
J'ai fait le hibou pour offrir à ma grand-mère (demain, c'est la fête des mères ici). Au moins, elle pensera que c'est un hibou. Mais nous, on saura que ce n'est qu'une patate avec des ailes.

Thursday 11 March 2010

Inevitable

It had to happen some time.

As you may have noticed, I'm quite big on the whole anthropomorphisation of food thing, especially where vegetables are concerned.

As you may also have noticed, I'm currently unemployed and have quite a bit of time on my hands.

Bear with me, I am going somewhere with this. I am, no less, going into three dimensions...


Oh yes. I made a cuddly carrot.

Well, strictly speaking that's not true.

I made three.


Carrot no. 2 is magnetic. Carrot no. 3 is a keyring. I tried a different expression on carrot no. 3- it was meant to look worried, but I think it's come out looking a bit shifty. Ah well. We all need a shifty-looking carrot in our lives.

I'm thinking of calling the big one Betty. Betty-Carotene, you see.

Just to bring things round full circle, my first ever stuffed penguin, and one of only two permanently saved from the biannual penguin cull, is called Carrot.


"It's a good job she didn't give me a nose, I bet you really stink of fish!"

Be warned, this is just the start. There's more.

Back to the cupboard now to root out some more googly eyes.

Monday 8 March 2010

Magic Roundabout

Carousel is over now, and I have a better idea of what actually happens in it. If anyone's interested, there's a plot summary on Wikipedia- it helped me a lot in understanding what was going on (you can't see much from an orchestra pit, it being, well, a pit, and all that).

This nearly ended up being a Best of British post on amateur dramatics, but I think the Americans do a pretty good line in that too. Ah well. If this was in French, I could call it a phenomène anglo-saxon, but the last two words have different connotations in English, where an "anglo-saxon phenomenon" could only really be something to do with pre-1066 British history. Not that that would be an odd thing to find on this blog, but still, y'know...

Anyway. Yes. The production was very good indeed. It displayed a number of classic features of small-town amateur dramatics, to whit:

-one of the male leads was pushing seventy and clearly at least twice the age of his female counterpart (Mr Snow and Carrie, for those who're following

-the second female lead (Carrie) was visibly pregnant, in spite of the best efforts of the costume department to hide it

-a pretty spectacular range of accents- various forms of american (the story is based in Maine), generic northern, and one notable example of full-on Cumbrian: " 'e works ont' carousels..."

-most of the acting was really good, which made the two or three really bad actors really stand out, to great comic effect

-REALLY DODGY sound effects from a tape played over the PA system

-Overenthusiastic tech blokes with dry ice. Oh good grief, the dry ice. Cold smoke coming over the edge of the stage sinks. What's just below the stage? The orchestra pit, that's what. *Coughs, splutters, and the like*

Though some of this may sound critical, it's actually not. You see, these are the things that make amateur dramatics so wonderful. Everyone joins in, everyone gives what they can, and the audience goes along with it. There were teary eyes at the end of You'll Never Walk Alone, and they clapped along to June is Bustin' Out All Over. (Actually, my mother- no great fan of musicals- has a new set of lyrics to that one, involving the word "bra" and a nice rhyme of "jiggly" with "wiggly"- I'll let you work the rest out for yourselves).

So, yes. That, as they say, is that. The week is over. I'm going to miss it- well, once I've got the music out of my head I will- it aint 'alf tenacious.

Monday 1 March 2010

Book of the Fortnight, No. 3

I'm a few days behind, yet again (EDIT: nearly a fortnight behind, because the internets ate this post and I hadn't realised it wasn't published). One of the problems with unemployment, actually, is that you lose track of what day it is, what week it is and the like, and so your perception of weeks, fortnights and the like becomes more flexible.



Then again, maybe I'm just lazy and/or forgetful and should stop making excuses. Bad Dobby.



This fortnight's book was nearly another history one, but I've decided to spare you a post on methodology and the interdisciplinary approach for now. Instead, I re-read (yes, re-reading counts, as long as the book merits it) The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom, an autobiographical account of the author's experiences sheltering Jews in occupied Holland, for which she was eventually arrested and sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp.



The most startling aspect of the book is the remarkable faith demonstrated by Corrie and her sisters, devout Christians who based their decisions on prayer and reading the Bible. The tone of the book is perhaps a little too evangelistic for some tastes, almost bodering on hagiography when ten Boom talks of her sister, Betsie, who died in Ravensbruck, but the overwhelming impression is one of sincerity and true conviction. The book issues an unspoken challenge to believers to truly put their trust in God; so many of Corrie's actions appear courageous to the point of recklessness, but the strength of her faith meant she was certain that everything would work out for the best.



Amazon informs me that there is both a prequel and a sequel to this book available these days. I'll have to see if the library has them.