love those cupcakes

Celebrations

The Boy here has been offered a place on the MRes course he applied for, along with funding.  It was also his birthday yesterday and the Girlie and her boyfriend came up from Manchester to join in the celebrating.  After card and present opening, it was lunch and a mooch round the shops in Helmsley in neighbouring North Yorkshire.  Then a short drive to Coxwold for views of Byland Abbey and a white (ish) horse and a final stop in Kilburn, location for a short lived love affair and Robert 'Mousey' Thompson's workshop.  A wonderfully carved bowl came home with us, courtesy of a surprise cheque for me from HM Revenue and Customs that morning.  The celebrations finished with dinner at our favourite veggie restaurant, with birthday cake instead of pudding back home. I'd used a (new to me) BBC Good Food recipe that included 325grams of 70% chocolate and which turned out to be one of  the worst chocolate cakes I've ever eaten.  It took almost 3 hours to bake, weighed a ton and, though moist, was far, far too dense.  No prizes for guessing where the leftovers ended up.

 

Life and pie

Our dental surgery is a short drive away in a little market town in North Yorkshire.  After my appointment on Monday, when a very dishy locum pronounced my tussy pegs "perfect" (I'd have to say my own dentist has never described them in quite that way), I celebrated with a cappuccino and a mooch round the shops. 

Yet more wool for the crocheted blanket was purchased.  It's almost the size I want it to be (the plastic hook snapped last night so I'm managing with the stump) but I have no idea how to finish it.  Do I continue with the shells or would it look better with a special edging?

A display of punnets of blackberries caught my eye as I was passing the excellent greengrocer's so I bought a couple with the vague idea of turning them into a pie with a couple of apples that were hanging about in the fruit bowl.  My dad used to bake the most delicious fruit pies, the pastry always so short and buttery and just the right amount of filling.  I don't think this one was up to his standard but it struck me that it was a fitting pudding to serve on the day which marked four years since he passed away.

Snippets from the last week

• Continuing to work on the crochet blanket which has, so far, cost me 70 quid in wool. And there's still a way to go.
  

• Stocking up on reading material.  Not that I needed to.  I just can't seem to stop adding to the book pile.

 

• Baking cake.  Banana, walnut and chocolate.  Yes, for consumption by others.  And yes, the waistbands are definitely less snug as a result of all of that resisting.

• Experiencing vertigo.  For 2 days.  Horrible.

• Buying supermarket roses.  The ones in the garden are just too soggy to cut.

• Enjoying a day out in Newcastle.  The Boy had an interview at the university (for a Master of Research course) so I tagged along to do a bit of shopping and treat him to a late lunch.

• Munching on cherries.  Seems I'm not the only one.  At least I don't roll them around the floor with my nose.  Or eat the stalks and the stones.

 

Hooking up with the past

My first attempt at crochet was when I was 12.  Aunty M, who by then had taught me to knit and embroider, started me off in the summer holidays and a blanket of reasonable proportions was quickly produced. 

This is the same blanket which always came out of the airing cupboard (where it still lives) when the Boy and Girlie were littlies (sigh) and languishing on the sofa with whichever lurgy they'd managed to catch.

It wouldn't withstand close scrutiny, with the funny mix of yarns (cotton, wool and, ooh, Bri nylon) and the colour changes in the middle of rows when the yarn ran out.  But it seemed to do the trick whenever a tummy ache needed soothing.

I didn't pick up a crochet hook again.  That is, until last Thursday when the urge to have another go inexplicably (maybe it was something to do with the weather or not getting out much because of this damned ankle which is still giving me gyp) came over me. 

Aunty M couldn't remember how to cast on so I turned to Google for instructions.  After I don't know how many attempts with an old plastic hook which I found lurking in the bottom of the knitting needle bag, the penny finally dropped and I was off. 

A quick trip to the shops and a bag of pure merino wool later, another blanket is rapidly taking shape (whilst the laundry mounts up and the dust gathers everywhere). Like the first one, it's far from perfect (some of those 'shells' are bigger than they should be) with a made up method for changing colour.  But Aunty M was impressed.   Unlike someone here who advised "Keep it small, there's not much room left in the loft".

The Girlie was home at the weekend (for a spot of bridal hair accessory shopping) so the crochet hook was put down down long enough to bake a cake.

Chocolate Victoria sandwich with a Nutella and fresh cream filling.  None for me as I'm still sugar-free.  It must have been okay as it quickly disappeared.  And no-one needed the Tummy Ache Blanket.