2013 - some best bits

A challenge to myself and to my usually gloomy outlook: to find and write about some best bits or favourite things from the past year.

Knitting
I think the project of the year has to be Dad's Fair Isle jumper, I'm just coming to the end of the first sleeve, so it will not be finished this year, but it is the knitting I am most proud of.  The Jamieson Spindrift I am knitting the jumper in is undoubtedly my favourite yarn find of the year, I never thought I would be saying how soft Shetland yarn is but it has really grown on me.



Additionally I am pleased I managed to get my Pomme de Pin cardigan finished, it was another epic knit, but one I wear a lot, very snug and soft and warm despite its light lacy fabric.



Cooking
The recipe of the year has to be the apple and fruit cake I made for Dad's birthday, it was so, so moist and so simple and clever.  Again it was a recipe from Aunt Daisy dating back to the late 1940s; her books contain a rich seam of recipes to continue trying.  As a recipe it suited my energy levels and needing to pace myself because I could make the apple purée one day and the cake the next, a good while ahead of the party itself so that the cake could mature.  No need like a sponge to cook it that day or at most the day before.

Here is the recipe as it appears in the book, I baked it in a 23cm round tin, the cups are English although it would probably work in American cups and just be a slightly larger cake.  A moderate oven is around 180C though I may have used a slightly lower temperature as our oven can be a bit fierce.  It came out perfectly flat on top without so much as a dip.  When you first bake the cake it does look a bit dry and uninspiring, hold your nerve, wrap it up and pop it into a tin for at least two weeks and your patience will be rewarded.

Apple fruit cake – delicious
Do not cut this cake for a fortnight. Have ready 1 ½ cups stewed apple, sweetened with ½ cup sugar and with 1 tablespoon butter melted into it. Mix together 1 cup brown sugar, 1 tablespoon cocoa; 1 dessertspoon spice; ½ teaspoon baking soda; 2 large cups flour; lemon peel and dried fruit to taste (about 1 ½ to 2 cups). Add the apple mixture and a little milk if necessary. Line tin with greased paper. Bake in a moderate oven for about 1 ½ hours.

Music

After much thought I think my album of the year has to be Seven Stars by Chris Haines.  It is a quiet, peaceful album soaked in the Bible and the past of the church.  Of all the songs the one that I love the most is "Strangers", about our true home, it is a peaceful, hopeful song that helps to put all the worries of today into perspective, speaking of the "colours undiscovered", the "sweet aromas" of heaven and how we will be home soon.  Throughout the year this song has helped me in times of despair or panic to find my bearings again and remember that this life is not forever, that a better life is forever.  You can listen to the album here on bandcamp and read the lyrics here.

Rend Collective Experiment's album Campfire has probably been my other album of the year, full of life and energy.  I am so looking forward to their new album.

My garden find of the year: Southover Grange in Lewes

Books

Elizabeth Jane Howard was my book find of the year.  Radio 4's dramatisation of her Cazalet novels caught my attention and I started by reading her autobiography, Slipstream, in January; a tremendous work, lively and honest, one of the best autobiographies I have ever read.  After this I moved onto the Cazalet novels themselves and devoured them, I was so completely in their world and found myself, in the intervals of reading the world insists in inserting, wondering what was going to happen, utterly caught up in the lives of the characters.  They are more than the usual "family saga" novels, all the characters are real and engaging, no mean feat in a novel sequence about such a large family and there is a strong sense of place.

My reading has also branched out, inspired by Katherine Swift's Morville Hours, a book about the creation of a garden and so much more besides, don't just take my word for it, go and read it, now, go on!  So I have read more garden and countryside books, ideal if you cannot get out that much, to go to other places in books.  I have read my way through most of the Penguin English Journeys books, particular favourites were the volumes by Gertrude Jekyll and Vita Sackville West on gardening and I plan to read more of both their books in the new year.  Some of Gertrude Jekyll's books are out of copyright and so available on line for free which is particularly handy.  The extracts from James Lees-Milne's diaries were amusing too and he has been added to the ever increasing list of books to read, along with more of Elizabeth Taylor's novels.

Tomorrow I shall do some thinking on goals for the coming year as is traditional.

Some knitting and more cake

Finally a finished piece of knitting to show off, a little jumper for a baby cousin, the pattern is Fiddlehead Pullover and the yarn Patons Fairytale Dreamtime 3ply.  Yes, you read right, 3ply.  I still have no idea when or how I ended up with this yarn, it is gorgeously soft, but knitting anything in it takes ages, especially when squeezing it in between a big Fair Isle project.  Talking of which, the jumper is now onto its sleeves, which are beginning to take shape after a shaky start.



Then there have been two more cakes made, one for the day of my Dad's birthday, a lightly spiced sponge and the other for the lunch party for his birthday, an apple and fruitcake, which matures for at least two weeks before cutting and becomes rich and moist in the process.  Both from the books I mentioned in my last post.  Where would we be without old cookbooks?


Spiced sponge, cake plate courtesy of my parents

Christmas seems to be rushing towards us at breakneck speed, how it has accelerated over the years.  When I was a child advent seemed to drag on forever and it seemed as though Christmas would never come!  So I am busy, or as busy as I can be, allowing for headaches and naps, my Christmas preparations only succeed by starting early and plodding along steadily, so on I go.


Fruit cake on left, Colin the Caterpillar cake from Marks and Spencer (which has long been one of Dad's favourites) on right.

Eggless Christmas Cake

A couple of weeks ago my dad and I had great fun making our own Christmas cake, which due to an intolerance to eggs running in the family, we have made egg-free.  We used a recipe from the 1947 Aunt Daisy's New Cookery No.6, a cookbook that had belonged to my maternal grandmother, who was a friend of "Aunt Daisy", otherwise known as Maud Basham.  "Aunt Daisy" was a regular on the radio in New Zealand between the 1920s and 1960s and apparently would rattle out recipes at a tremendous rate.  It was lovely to make a cake with so many family associations and if the taste of the batter was anything to go by it should be delicious.

We made various changes to the recipe, including halving the quantities, since we have no real need of a vast Christmas cake and I thought I would share what we did in case it could help anyone else who cannot eat eggs.  Older cookbooks, especially those published around the war, can be a very good source of egg free cake recipes, since eggs were sometimes hard to come by.  Anyhow, here goes:

Eggless fruit cake, adapted from Aunt Daisy

Figures in parentheses refer to smaller size of cake

(10oz) 1 ¼ lb plain flour

(6oz) ¾ lb brown sugar

(2oz) ¼ lb peel if liked

(½ tsp) 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

(just over ½) about 1 ¼ cups milk

(4oz) ½ lb butter

(12oz) 1 ½ lb mixed fruit

(2oz) ¼ preserved ginger

(circa 8) circa 16 glacé cherries

(1Tbsp) 2 Tbsp treacle

(½ tsp) 1 tsp each vanilla and almond essence

(2 Tbsp) 4 Tbsp brandy

zest of (½) 1 lemon

(½-1 tsp) 1-½ each ground cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg

Put oven onto heat to 150C (Gas Mark 2)Cream butter and sugar. Add treacle and mix in, followed by around half the milk, and the essences. Begin mixing in flour and fruit alternately a spoonful or so at a time. Add lemon zest, brandy and spices and stir in. Finally mix the remaining milk with the bicarbonate of soda and stir in. Put in a prepared cake tin, using the smaller quantity we made a cake that came about 2/3rds of the way up a 22cm round tin. Place a circle of greaseproof paper, with a hole in the middle, on top of the cake to prevent it from browning too fast on top. Cook on the lowest shelf of the oven at around 150C (Gas Mark 2) for just under two hours for the smaller cake, I would imagine closer to 3 hours for the larger cake (sorry I cannot be more exact, but 1940s cook books can be a little sparse on detail).

Once the cake is cooked take it out of the oven, place in its tin on a wire rack, remove the greaseproof paper from the top and “baste” with a couple of tablespoons of brandy before covering the entire tin closely in tin foil and leaving until completely cool. I got this tip from Nigella Lawson's How to Be a Domestic Goddess and it helps to keep the top of the cake from getting dry and hard.

I found this page of conversions from the BBC Good Food website helpful, especially if you wished to make a square instead of round cake.

Ours is now wrapped up safely and in a tin awaiting Christmas, although we have not yet decided how to decorate it.  I hope you find this recipe helpful and enjoy it.

An Insomniac's Miscellany

Once again I cannot sleep.  No matter how relaxed I try to get before bed as soon as I lie down I get tense and my jaw clenches and the more I lie there, the worse it gets.  So I find it best to get up and potter gently about, listening to quiet music, doing a little simple knitting, reading, anything to try to relax as I sit in the lamp light.  This being unable to sleep has been going on for a few months now and I have reached the point where I am sufficiently fed up that I have made a doctor's appointment, so that is Tuesday's fun outing.

So lack of sleep is making the rest of life harder and I have little to report.  Dad's jumper is coming along nicely and my thoughts are increasingly turning to Christmas, a festival I love.  All those sparkly lights and hope in the darkness and familiar rituals; I love Christmas in all its infinite variety.  Although I do need to get realistic and try to curb my desire to make everything for everyone.


Puddings pre-cooking

A few weeks ago we made two Christmas puddings, as we had got down to only one left in the store cupboard and the puddings really are best matured at least a year.  It was a nice family occasion, my parents and I each took tasks and shared out the work; Dad managed to get himself the job of adding the brandy!  I must try to write down a recipe as my mother pretty much carries it in her head, which would make it tricky if I ever wanted to try making one on my own.  Next on the agenda is an attempt at a Christmas cake, which I have less experience at and past attempts have not always been a great success, however, I have been reading up and gathering tips.  How do you decorate your Christmas cake?  My family are not keen on the traditional marzipan and thick icing so I am looking for ideas.

For now, back to the task of trying to relax enough to sleep.

Anyone for cake?

A rare bit of baking, Nigella Lawson's Coca Cola Cake from How to be a domestic goddess.  Tastes rather good, even if I say so myself.



On the knitting front I'm a bit more than half way through my first London Underground sock and I am on the first front of my Double V cardigan, having done the back and one sleeve so far.  Both enjoyable knits, I love how effective the cardigan's lace pattern is for such a simple pattern.

Later: I went back to that "simple pattern" to find that I had gone wrong a number of rows back so I am only just now past where I was yesterday, having spent a considerable time unknitting (also known as "tinking" - knit backwards) and reknitting.  Hopefully it will go better from here on in, but that will teach me!

52 Weeks of Happy - week 9 (belatedly)

Life has somehow overtaken me and I am now two weeks behind in "52 weeks of happy", it may be challenging remembering what happened in the week before last so you will have to bear with me!  I did consider doing weeks nine and ten in one post, but that seemed somehow to be cheating.

1. Camomile Tea - recommended by a friend because I was so stressed and tense I could not relax, to the point where I was rigid with tension or shaking.  It worked almost at once, unlocking the tension enough that I could then work on relaxing and could cope again.  Since then I have had some every day and while I am not completely sorted, it is helping.

2. More signs of spring - some more tree prunings, this time from the magnolia tree outside the house.



3. Marking Time - the second of the Cazalet novels by Elizabeth Jane Howard.  It is ages since I was so lost and absorbed in a book, or a series of books.  They deal with the life of an extended family in the years surrounding and during the second world war, there is so much skill in the way she tells the story from different perspectives and managing to produce an ensemble work in which there are no weak or under-developed characters.  I have ended up caring about these characters intensely, truly caring what happens to them.  The novels are being beautifully dramatised on radio 4 across this year to mark Elizabeth Jane Howard's 90th birthday.

4. Apple loaf - from the Edmonds' cook book, essentially a soda bread with grated apple added.  It was moist and tasty with a dense but not heavy crumb.  Even better it was not hard to make so hopefully I will be able to make it again soon.  I am considering whether some spices and sultanas would make good additions, sounds like experiment time!

52 Weeks of Happy - week 3

This has been a slightly strange week, during which the admonition to "Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those who mourn" (Romans 12.15) has never seemed more apt.  For my friends there has been great sorrow and also some joys and I have had the joy of my birthday, it has been quite emotional at times.

Nonetheless there have been joys this week, life at its essence is a sharp mixture of joy and sadness.  The biggest joy has been my birthday so we shall make that number one.

1. My birthday, which I managed to approach with the minimum of trepidation and soul searching about "achievements" and which my family and friends combined to make special.  I had a great many cards and generous presents and messages and feel thoroughly spoiled and humbled that so many people value me.


Birthday banana cake

2. Wonderful new yarn that my sister gave me for my birthday, hand-dyed in stripes, in the colours of the London underground lines, from Trailing Clouds.  I am most excited about knitting this, I still find self-striping yarns exciting, knitting away, wondering which colour will come next and when.  Additionally I am in awe at the hard work that has gone into dyeing this yarn to create approximately six round stripes in so many colours, by hand.



3. Coffee with a new friend and her little boy who is about a year and a half.  A delightful and refreshing combination of a good chat and some play with her little boy, who is very sweet and well behaved.  To be repeated soon I hope.

4. Beautiful snow, which has been falling steadily for most of the day, giving us more light than we have had for a while and muffling noise, creating a quiet, bright, cold world, although I feel terribly sorry for the birds.


A goldfinch on its way to the bird feeders

And so on we go through the year, hopefully I will be able to shake off the threatened depression and accompanying lethargy and "what's the point" feeling more this week.  I think the weekly discipline of looking at the good things that have happened is helping though.


A cyclamen flowers on

WIP Wednesday (with added biscuits)

Another bad week, I suppose it's a crash or what some people call a "fibro flare".  My mood is very mixed too which makes things extra hard, and the weather is not helping.  So in between trying to stay cheerful, stretching and trying to get the movement/rest balance right I've mostly been knitting.



I have finished the first of the Thelonious socks, which I'm very proud of although I am hoping that the second one takes less time than the first.  Hopefully it should since I now understand the ideas behind the design.  Other than more ploughing on through my alpaca cardigan I have mostly been working on my lace shawl, I've finished two more sections since last week and am into the next section.  It's a satisfying and interesting knit, good for those times when you need to focus on something to take your mind off life.



Lastly the ghastly weather has made me itch to get baking and yesterday the need to bake took over and I made a half batch of melting moments from the Edmonds' cook book, they are very very yummy and moreish, definitely something to make occasionally rather than regularly!  I'd recommend Edmonds', which is a New Zealand cook book my mother, a native of that country, introduced me to at a young age, apparently every household in New Zealand owns a copy.  It contains a tremendous variety of baking recipes that work beautifully every time as well recipes, tips and instruction on general cookery.  Thus it is a great favourite in our family.  You can find the recipe for melting moments in Edmonds' virtual cookbook, where it adorns the front cover.

Little Donkey

Aren't the weeks and days leading up to Christmas manic? Though my "manic" is probably most people's fairly ordinary, but that's par for the course. I have socialised, wondered why I don't do this more often as it's really fun, then spent the next week slowly realising why as I gradually recover (still not quite there and it's been more than a week now). I have baked, since naturally it is not Christmas without home made gingerbread, among other things. I have done a lot of finishing on knitting projects, knitting is just delayed sewing, it gets you making the fabric, then the sewing sneaks up on you. I have yet again discovered that much as I adore choosing and giving presents, I'm no fan of wrestling the wrapping paper into submission. And I have helped rescue a fallen down Christmas tree, among other Christmas preparations.

There has been so much I have wanted to do but been unable to manage and I have found it hard telling myself to slow down and stop and admit that there are things I just can't do. I haven't made it to a single church service which is disappointing and even dozed through most of the "Carols from Kings" on the radio. This is the struggle I live with day to day but somehow it is twice as hard at Christmas. In an ideal world I'd like to hold a huge Christmas with a table full of family and friends, while I cook up a storm in my perfectly decorated house. Reality can be so different sometimes! Though not necessarily worse, I am trying to learn to celebrate what I have got and make the most of the present momentI think I must be a slow learner because I'm shattered and have had the same headache (from over doing things) for a good week now. Today I cracked and took the good headache pills so I can at least have Christmas day headacheless (I hope!). I am doing better than earlier in the week, when I had made myself so stressed and anxious that I could not sleep.

A number of times in all of this I have looked up at the little wooden decoration a friend sent me a couple of years' ago which shows Mary and Joseph travelling with their donkey and it has refocused me on the why of Christmas, which I find easy to loose in a welter of anxieties and preparations. Thanks to that reminder, a number of times I have been able to say that it does not matter, whatever it is I am worrying about, Jesus matters. He came and stooped to meet us and because He came we all have hope: hope for now and hope for the future. I will do my best to focus on that hope this Christmas and for the future and be glad that at least my Christmas does not involve a seventy mile donkey ride.

I wish you and your family a peaceful and joyful Christmas. I'll leave you with this lovely and local carol:

"Then why should we on earth be sad,

Since our Redeemer made us glad:

When from our sin He set us free,

All for to gain our liberty...

"All out of darkness we have light

Which made the angels sing this night"

Stir up Sunday

Today my dad and I marked "stir up Sunday" by making Christmas puddings, dad does love a good tradition. He loves Christmas pudding too! It was fun and lovely to spend some time together. He reminisced about making Christmas pudding with his mother and grandmother as a child and how his mother would put a bit of ale in and his grandmother finish off the bottle!

Pre-cooked

We made two puddings which should be eaten in 2012 and 2013, God willing. Everyone had a stir and made a wish and I've hidden plenty of money (wrapped in greaseproof paper) in both. While we were in a pudding frame of mind, and had the brandy out, Dad got this year's pudding down and "fed it" so that it will be plentifully moist and rich for Christmas.

The smell was gorgeous, particularly the spices, we used cinnamon, freshly grated nutmeg, a bit of ginger and a little ground cloves. I increasingly love spices, especially since reading Elizabeth David's brilliant book on the subject, their scents and tastes are magnificent; must use them more. I'm tired now but it has been a nice weekend, makes a lovely change, breakfast with knitting friends was a great start to the weekend and then the pudding making today, may there be many more weekends that are similarly nice, relaxed and happy.

Radio silence

I haven't posted for a while because there hasn't been a lot to say. It's just more of the same, more feeling awful, more waiting for appointments, more impromptu trips to the doctors', more things I need to do piling up undone, more depression, more antibiotics, or antibirockets as a fellow raveller put it.

I feel truly pathetic for getting so down, other people have things far worse than I do and manage to live with far more grace, although I know depression doesn't help me to do this. Life is just so hard, unrelentingly so and I'm trying so hard to hope. Being so isolated doesn't help either, particularly spiritually, being an isolated Christian with depression isn't easy, I'm trying to believe, trying to keep communicating with Jesus, keep worshipping, but not succeeding very well.

At least I've got an appointment later in the week to see Father Andrew, a lovely retired vicar or priest (he wears a dog collar so he must be something like that?) who is wonderfully understanding and one of those people who is so Jesus-like. Crucially he is also easy to talk to; I find even when I do see people that it's really hard to open up. I guess you're never sure how people will react and it's rare that any one's got the time and inclination really to listen. And I don't know how to start or what to say and I don't really have the energy to socialise anyway. It's that catch-22 situation of being lonely but not well enough to see people.

However, before this all gets too depressing for words, there have been a few other things going on. The loaf of bread I made overnight in the bread maker has come out very nicely, a light wholemeal loaf. But I have had to undo ten days' hard work on a cardigan I have been working on because of a simple mathematical error that means it was working out far too small. One of this afternoon's tasks will be to start the cardigan all over again. Such is knitting I suppose, one blessing is that the yarn doesn't seem overly bothered by being undone, some of it for the second time. It is a bit disheartening to see ten days' work reduced to a pathetic huddle of bundles of yarn.

I am going to go outside into the garden now, since the weather has changed once again, from November back to proper August weather.

Oh and while we're on the subject of the radio - Radio 4 has just started another of its modern production of lost Paul Temple serials, past ones have been superb, truly the BBC at its very best - you simply must listen!

Bits and bobs

I've spent the past few weeks mostly recovering from the benefits appeal, which mercifully I won. But it was a huge trauma and stress, I'm only just sleeping properly after it. It is deeply invidious that the system should be so skewed against the sick.

On a brighter note I've continued pursuing the domestic arts. It makes sense really, I'm home so much, at most I'm out two hours a day; homely things like baking bread and knitting make sense as occupations. Baking bread is tiring, but rewarding and interesting, I've been reading Elizabeth David's English Bread and Yeast Cookery, a work I highly recommend if you are at all interested in baking your own bread. In it she explores the history of bread making and all the technical details, before going on to provide comprehensive recipes that work well. Although I have only really dipped in and out of it (it is an immense work) it is an entertaining read, Elizabeth David was not just passionate about food but crucially was a superb writer. She leaves one in no doubt as to her opinions. Illustrated here is my first attempt at a Coburg loaf, which is apparently just like a cob loaf, but for the cross cut on top.

With the onset of spring my annual enthusiasm for gardening has returned and this week Dad did all the hard work and I put some spinach, baby cos lettuce and tomato seeds in some pots. The cos lettuce leaves have already sprouted and together with the baby spinach leaves should provide some interesting lunchtime salads. Our pond goes from strength to strength, being currently full of tadpoles; it resembles a bustling city, the surface of the water constantly aquiver. The fish seem remarkably unconcerned by their little companions nor by the newt who we spotted in there this week.

Knitting takes up most of my time and energy, but I would like to have a go at some sewing, hopefully this coming week I'll manage to prise myself away from the knitting needles. Overall things are very quiet, lonely at times. I've managed to get to church group a few times lately, they're a lovely group of people, all my friends are lovely people, just far too busy. I suppose it's no fault of theirs, but it does leave me on my own the vast majority of the time and I can't remember when I last met up with a friend except at church group or knitting group, which is just a bit depressing.

Still got to keep my pecker up I suppose, could be worse? Or something like that! While we're on the subject of good attitude I'd recommend reading Kate Davies' blog Needled - a lecturer in 18th century fashion and social history she recently had a stroke and her account of recovery has been amazing. Every doctor ought to read it as an account of what it feels like to have a stroke (or indeed any other sudden change of circumstance and health). She writes with humour and grace and although the word 'inspiring' can be somewhat overused in this case it is in way hyperbolic. She also makes gorgeous knits such as the famous (in the knitting world!) Owls jumper and the photography is brilliant. Over and out for now, hopefully I'll update this more frequently, who knows.

mmm cake

Today, since we are still surrounded by acres of snow, I held a tea party to which our dear neighbours came and for this purpose I baked. I was really feeling the need to bake, as sometimes one simply does and in such circumstances it seems only fair to share.

I made some wonderfully nostalgic butterfly cakes and some 'chocolate crinkle cookies' (from the allergy free cook book), which went down particularly well with John-from-next-door.

Of course I had to get some pictures!
Enjoy, hope they don't make you feel too hungry. In other news my cardigan is now onto its first sleeve, I'm trying not to get too bored by plain stockingette stitch, at least it's in the round and on one 16in circular, so it's just knit knit knit away.