Shhhh secret blog

Not only is it passworded it also appears several people who are supposed to be able to come and read it can’t see it either. Soon it’ll only be me, talking to myself. At least I never skim read it 😉

This morning we slobbed around rather as the weather was dreadful – pouring rain, howling winds and at 11am it was as dark as dusk. No snow though 🙁

Scarlett did some drawing, Davies did some pc gaming, not sure what Ady did but it’s bound to have been productive and I did some baking. I made a chocolate swiss roll – my first ever attempt. It didn’t go terribly well really, I took it out of the oven too early and it was still liquid in the middle which I only discovered when I turned it out of the pan. I managed to get it back in the pan again and back in the oven to cook to through properly but it meant I lost a little of the mixture and that having been turned out twice onto a sugared surface it took up rather too much sugar. I think I also slightly overfilled it with cream too as it only rolled over once rather than tidily a few times. It tasted very nice even if it didn’t look very swiss-rolly. I also made some cheese pennies (sort of cheesy biscuit things) which had to be chilled before cooking and could possibly have done with slightly longer chilling as they spread in the oven more than planned. They were still very nice though.

The weather seemed to magically clear up at lunchtime and we went over to my parents. We beat my Mum there by about half an hour as she was working this morning. She has a 8 week temporary contract at M&S for 20 hours a week. She is a life-long M&S shopper and thought she’d love it but although she’s determined to stick it out for the couple of months she is not really enjoying it at all. I am not hugely surprised having worked in Bhs and known how the Christmas temps there were treated and indeed what a bitchy, competitive environment that sort of high street retail is it’s not a big shock that M&S is no different. Neither of my parents have ever had jobs where they have struggled having been mostly self-employed so whilst I am sorry for her not enjoying it and proud of her for sticking it out I am also slightly pleased that she is realising just what the real world of work can be like and why I changed jobs so often. This time of year always makes me shudder at the memory of all those Christmasses worked in retail.

We had lunch including the cheese pennies and swiss roll and then spent a few hours chatting before coming home again before dark to get the chickens away. I made some door signs for the rooms at Helmsley including festive pictures which the kids coloured in and then they both decided to do some painting. Davies’ secret santa pressie is a watercolour in a frame so he did that while I made cut out snowflakes at Scarlett’s request for her bedroom.

I’ve made a start on my first non-rag-rug peg loom creation which is a rainbow scarf just made from weaving wool. So far it looks pretty good :). Baths and dinner and Survivors for Ady and I which looked quite promising.

I meant to blog the news about the allotment too. Ady’s work have been talking about putting together veg kits for the whole year which you pay for upfront and then get sent trickle-fed through as and when you are supposed to plant stuff – the idea being there is sufficient for a years supply of veg for a family. They are also wanting to create a blog to sit on their website to give a laymans guide to growing your own. Ady mentioned our allotment and they were very interested so I said he could give them the link to my self-suffish blog. We’re not sure quite what they want from us yet other than progress reports and some photos of how we get on but they will now be supplying all our plants and seeds for next year along with any other items we might need. I’m not sure whether they will be wanting to use any of my writing but apparently there were several comments about how well it was written and what compelling reading it was so I felt quite chuffed with that :).It does mean I may now be a bit more cagey about what I write on there knowing it is being read by a bigger audience but free plants and seeds in exchange for that seems worth doing and it could well lead to other things. 🙂