Bits from Books

( A photograph of my home town centre, taken in the 1950s when my copy of Newnes Household Management was first published)

So I'm sitting here waiting for the snow to come. We've not had the bad weather here in the middle Midlands, but we're due it today and my girls are expecting their schools to close at lunch-time so they can come home and make a snowman on the green. What can I say? They're an optimistic pair. I've been watching the chaos the bad weather has been causing in other parts of the UK with interest. Apparently, there's a poor woman in Scotland who left her home on 23rd December to buy a turkey for Christmas and is still stuck in town, unable to get back to her cottage, her husband and their six dogs. And the bad weather brings me, in a very roundabout way, on to some bits from books; bits from books I had for Christmas, in fact.

I remember one time, just after one Christmas in the late 1980s we has such bad snow that our water pipes froze and we had long power cuts. Roads were pretty impassible for a few days, but we had a house full of Christmas left-overs and we melted snow on the gas hob for water...believe it or not, we had a lot of fun! I completely forgot about this until my sister gave me Jocasta Innes Country Kitchen as a Christmas present this year, and my mum said "can you remember making the syllabub from that book when we had all that snow?" It all came flooding back, I was about fifteen or so and the syllabub is one of the first recipes I followed from a book. I've never looked back. Here's the recipe.

Good cows they were and never ailed, and plenty of everything there was in that house, good milk and cheese and buckets and buckets of skim for the pigs.
Precious Bane, Mary Webb.

Syllabub
1 lemon
1 small glass (4 fl oz approx) Marsala, Madeira or sweet sherry
2 tablespoons castor sugar
1/2 pint double cream
pinch of ground nutmeg
Grate the lemon rind, squeeze the juice and combine both with the sherry and the sugar. Leave to stand for a few hours, or overnight. Strain (to remove the rind) and add to the cream. Then whisk till thick, fluffy but not too stiff. Spoon into little glasses and serve cold with biscuits.

*******

Well, the snow is falling now. And I quite fancy some rich, snowy-white syllabub to fortify me against the vagaries of the weather. Actually, I can't help but think that syllabub would make a great rich topping for a trifle. I am incorrigible.

Next up, we have two volumes of Alison Barnes' Newnes Household Management from the 1950s. These were a present from the DH and I love them. They offer a complete and comprehensive journey into the 1950s housekeeping ideal, and have a lovely idealistic and business-like tone. Volume one alone includes advice on: pressure cooking; tea party food; getting your figure back to normal after having a baby; how to lay out a herbaceous border and the ABC of dressmaking. But first, I offer you an extract from the foreword.

Home is the most important place in the world. It may be a bachelor bed-sitting room, a rather poky little flat, a part of someone else's house, an inconvenient cottage or a rambling barn of a place. Whatever it is, making it into a home brings its own unique brand of personal satisfaction.

A good home is a well-organised one and produces happy, well-balanced, tolerant human beings, able to give and take. It is in the badly managed homes that you find constant quarrelling, strain, distrust, emotional tension and spoilt, undisciplined children destined, if their parents only realised it, for untold unhappiness when they get out into the world and can no longer have their own way. For a child's earliest experience of adapting itself to others - and so into the pattern of a civilised community - begins in the home. Without the right home atmosphere, no child can ever really learn the true art of living.

Personal happiness and national welfare therefore depend very largely upon sound home management, which is the joint responsibility of all who live in the home.

Here let me add a word of warning: the house that runs as smoothly as well-oiled machinery (and just as soullessly) must never be confused with a real home that has a warm, friendly atmosphere because it is built on a sure foundation of affection and understanding.

Has never a truer word been written, gentle reader?

But now onto volume two, which offers the homemaker instructions on: etiquette; how to make a Christmas centre piece; traditional Jewish food and how to deal with dry rot. However, I shall leave you with their chapter on Elizabethan recipes. There was quite a fad for the Virgin Queen in the 1950s, they were, after all, the new Elizabethans! Here's what Alison Barnes has to say on the matter.

Authentic traditional fare from the days of Good Queen Bess, as served in the Elizabethan Room at the Gore Hotel, London.
Syllabub
Take a pint of canary or white wine, a pint of raspberry juice, a sprig of rosemary, a nutmeg quartered, the juice of a lemon, and some peel with sugar, put these together in a pot all night and cover them. In the morning take a pint and a half of cream, and a pint and a half of new milk. Then take out the lemon peel, rosemary and nutmeg, and squirt your milk and cream into the pot. With a wooden cow, fold at the corners. (The nearest modern equivalent of a wooden cow is a grooved wooden butter par, but this part of the recipe can be omitted without damage to the resulting dish.)

Never mind finding a wooden cow, how in the heck do I squirt the milk and cream? The mind boggles. I imagine Jocasta Innes reading this recipe sometime in 1955 and thirty years later finally coming up with a workable syllabub and punching the air in satisfation. On that note I must anon goode huswives! I shall see you in the mid-term break!

In Which She Has Strong Ideas on What Constitutes a Good Picnic

Another golden rule is: don't lose your cool. Yogi Bear

A picnic is the Englishman's grand gesture, his final defiance flung in the face of fate. No climate in the world is less propitious to picnics that the climate of England, yet with a recklessness which is almost sublime the English rush out of doors to eat a meal on every possible and impossible occasion...Nowhere does the national passion for picnicking show itself more clearly that in our choice of occasions for high days and holidays. No other nation has so many out-of-doors celebrations...All classes and ranks share in this taste; bank holidays see Hampstead Heat turned into one vast picnic ground, and on Derby Day Epsom Downs are so closely packed with people that thew hole population of London seems to have gone a-picnicking. Taken from English Picnics by Georgina Battis-Coombe

Nothing says culinary disaster more than the average English picnic. Yet we're a hardy race venturing forth into the countryside, proclaiming that he weather will turn eventually, putting up with things and NOT COMPLAINING about the limp ham sandwich, warm pop and slightly crushed packet of cheese and onion we're presented when we need to find a little nourishment. This state of affairs, gentle reader, is not for me, when I picnic I like to have a proper feed, something nice to eat which restores my aching mind and body. This is because when I picnic it is always after I've erected an eight man tent. Let me expand on that. When I picnic it is always after I've erected an eight man ten WITH THE DH. Ah, the DH, the sweariest man in the West Midlands (and that, gentle reader, is saying something). Don't get me wrong, he doesn't swear that much at home, he saves his swears for special occasions: assembling flat pack furniture and putting up the tent: but when it does come out it pours forth in a torrent of foul, if creative, Anglo-Saxon, it's like an x-rated Norse saga of a swear, he can swear in blank verse, it doesn't stop, there are rhyming couplets and sub-plots, characterisation and surreal montage. Basically, the man can really, really, swear. So whilst standing in the middle of 20kg of canvas with my arms holding not-so-lightweight-pole-A aloft for what seems like an eternity I am simultaneously following the DH's foul instruction, attempting to make sure the kids don't listen to DH's foul instruction, and smiling apologies to the couple in the deck chairs reading The Daily Mail who are most disturbed by the DH's misuse of our ancient and venerable language.

After this I need to soothe his savage brow, after this I need to soothe my savage brow (it's either I eat, I do something unnatural to him with a tent peg), after this I need to give a peace offering to tently-neighbours, after this I have to physically remove my kids from the adventure playground I've sent them to in order to avoid their dad's linguistic pyrotechnics and to do all of this I need to be prepared. This is what I don't do.

• I never make sandwiches. They go limp and unless they are made with lovely homemade bread they go soggy. Unfortunately, you need to dislocate you jaw like a python to eat a sandwich made with my homemade bread. Doorstops! Did someone say doorstops?
• Sponge cakes and cakes with nice icing on are a bad idea. They get bashed about, the icing melts away or goes a bit off, they're a pig to cut unless you have a good knife and plate. Avoid Victoria sponges, carrot cakes and so on if you are to have a successful picnic.
• Keep it simple. If you are the chief cook and bottle washer, you don't want to stress out preparing and packing a picnic. Don't bite off more than you can chew, as it were. Have three good dishes and some fruit, as a maximum.

This is what I do.

Pop an espresso machine on the campstove and have it fill with bloody good coffee whilst you dish out:

Tabbouleh*, French bread, hard boiled eggs, apricot muffins, oranges and lemon squash

or

Devilled chicken, potato salad, marmalade cake, apples, and ginger beer

or

Cornish pasties, homemade chutney, apples, lemon cake and squash.

You know, after this repast the DH transforms back into Husband and Father of the Year and flies kites/goes rockpooling/paddling/sandcastle making and I have another cup of coffee and break out the Persephone book I've been saving for my holidays, and all is well, gentle reader, all is well.

Now, if you want any recipes featured on the picnic menus, speak up and I will email you. But do it quick as I'm off to sunny/torrential** Devon in a bit!

Oh, but before you go. Here's how 1940s Americans liked to picnic. A formal, dignified, affair, I imagine, without the not-so-quet hum of dirty words reverberating in the background...

Almost everybody likes a picnic - except mother. But a picnic can be such a pleasant event for the young and old alike that mother should be able to work out a type of picnic which will permit her to enjoy the novelty in the open air as much as everyone.

Prepared Picnic No.2

Fried chicken

Cold Fried Corn

Sliced Tomatoes Cloe slaw

Buttered Bread or Rolls

Apple Pie Cheese

Milk Tea Coffee

Taken from Meta Given's Modern Encyclopedia of Cooking

*I make a big tabbouleh with chickpeas in it and lot of coriander and mint, not so much parsley

**Who can predict the future? Do I really want to know what's ahead? It's best not to mess with the kind of false prophesy they laughingly call weatherforecasting.

I Really Must Spatchcock a Chicken

Last night I made wild foodie promises to the DH (and foodie kiddies) about making marinated spatchcock chicken for dinner, accompanied by a Greek salad and new potatoes. Yes, the sun is shining in England, and I'm all of a Mediterranean vibe. However, I've been faffing around in the garden all morning, pulling weeds in a lackadaisical fashion and drinking coffee with real purpose and dedication. Frankly, I'm not in the mood for spatchcocking...I've told the DH time and time again, that I must be in the right frame of mind for such things (phnar, phnar). However, I've got to get on with it as I'm off to a yoga class soon. I haven't been to a yoga class in years, but I made the mistake at mentioning to a few friends a the school gates that I might attend a class and it all snowballed, so that my "might" became a definite social event. I'm sure I'll enjoy it when I get there, it's just the last time I went, back when I was a teen, the class was full of militant hippies who'd just eaten piles of mung bean stew. When they all bent down to do the "Salute to the Sun" ...well, the answer my friend was blowing in the wind, and it was enough to make my eyes water.

You know, I didn't come online to make fart jokes, honestly I didn't. It's just that I read something really great last night and I'd like to share it with you.

...that everyday, ordinary life lived faithfully is where the glory of God is best reflected - in our homes, communities, jobs, our art, charitable enterprises, and so on. Of course, the truth is told and believed first (truth has content), but after that comes the actual living, being and doing.

Ordinary home life matters for everyone. How we arrange children's lives matters terribly. Starve them physically, emotionally, or mentally; cheat or abuse them in their formative days, and we will throw away their opportunity to develop properly. We can and will destroy lives. And this is a most terrible thing. Not only will their personal lives be damaged, but if that damage involves enough young human beings, the culture will become distorted.

Most of us feel we live in distorted communities. Many people are already so scarred that they can no longer enjoy the simple things in life - such as nature, good conversation with friends with laughter punctuating thought-provoking discussion, a meal enjoyed in leisure, the company of a child, the peace and quiet of gazing at an afternoon sky as one rests after work, lingering over a cup of tea.

Taken from For the Family's Sake, by Susan Schaeffer Macauley

Wasn't that good stuff! Now, I really must spatchcock that chicken. Anon, fellow huswives!

A Big Box of Beauty

He causeth the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man: that he may bring forth food out of the earth; and wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man's heart.

(Psalm 104:14,15)

Here are the contents of my organic box. It all looked so beautiful piled up on my work surface, like an 18th century still life, that I couldn't resist taking one of my very poor photos and showing you all. I'm particularly glad of heart about the first of the English asparagus, which we'll be eating tonight, just with melted butter. What a seasonal treat!

I didn't want this post to be one of my patented, overly verbose, essays, but I did have one or two thoughts that I wanted to share, so here goes!

First, I find it ever-increasingly wonderful that we are given such gifts of beauty to appreciate in our everyday lives. Even the humble cauliflower has a luscious beauty all of its own, it's just that we often don't stop and take a moment to appreciate it, we forget about these natural God-given gifts and lack gratitude, it's a shame really, because these rare moments of true appreciation can become a prayer.

Secondly, and on a more practical level, I've never quite understood why people find purchasing organic boxes so expensive. Granted there's a knack to it, and I think you have to be a pretty proficient and creative cook to incorporate box veg into your daily meals, but expensive they aren't. Here's the list of what I received today, all for £13.75.

Four pints of organic milk

A bundle of asparagus

A Lollo Rosso lettuce

A bunch of organic, FT and shipped not flown, bananas

Several apples

A few pears

A box of mushrooms

A box of tomatoes

A small cucumber

A cauliflower

A head of pak choi

I've compared the cost of this box to supermarket non-organic equivalents and it came to £14.90. However, I suppose it all comes out as expensive if you're throwing half of the veg away at the end of the week, but I have developed a way of minimising waste and getting the most out of your organic box.

• First, go for a box which contains fruit as well as veg, especially if you have children. Not only do you tend to get very kid-friendly fruits, such as apples and bananas, but you often get some expensive exotics too, such as mangoes and pineapples; a fine treat and a nice surprise. This eliminates some of the veg waste as bananas and apples keep well and are always eaten as snack in lunch boxes.
• The company who provides my box gives away surplus milk to those who buy milk with them on a regular basis. The dairy often has a surplus and they don't want to waste it, so you tend to be quids in.
• When your box arrives examine it in terms of what is most perishable. So we're eating the asparagus tonight, because it's best eaten very fresh and we'll also have BLTs to use the lettuce and tomatoes. The pak choi will do for tomorrow as I'm doing salmon with garlic and ginger, and the cauliflower and mushrooms can be eaten as and when. eat the most perishable first then they won't go off.
• Do your weekly shop and meal planning the day after the box arrives. That way you can plan the veg into your normal meals without having to re-jig everything.
• Get to know your veg box man or lady. Not only are you likely to get freebies (see milk) if you're a friendly and regular customer but also you get to have a personal relationship with a local business person who like food. This is good, we need more of this!

Well, I really must go. The kids are painting in the kitchen and I should supervise! Happy veg eating my friends!

Medieval Angels, Victorian School Ma'ams and Rabbit Midwifery

Blimey! What a busy weekend we've had chez Domum! On Saturday we made like Lizzie Bennett and hot-footed it to Derbyshire (the finest of all counties) to visit the National Trust's Museum of Childhood at Sudbury Hall, just outside of Ashbourne. We all had a great time, the museum is a real treat for all of the family and I can highly recommend it. My eldest girl tried to climb into a chimney to sweep it (there was a mock display of the various kids of work children had to do in the 18th and 19th centuries) but she chickened out when she had to turn a corner in the chimney...it must have been pretty hairy up there as my eldest enjoys a spot of abseiling and indoor caving of a weekend!

My youngest was completely enthralled by the mock Victorian classroom, complete with mock Victorian school teacher who taught deportment, cleanliness and curly letters! I am amazed at how well the little one took instruction from such a fearsome woman, but she just adored the whole experience, especially when the teacher told her how well she could sit up straight. The child glowed with pleasure. I wonder if all of that Christian/hippy/attachment parenting she's experienced so far has given her an inner longing for a bit of sergeant major treatment... amateur psychologists, answers on a postcard please. As well as the museum there's a lovely Queen Anne stately home to visit, complete with 1930s kitchen and a long gallery used in the filming of the BBC's production of Pride and Prejudice. Also, on the grounds a rather beautiful church. The DH thinks that the church may have been 17th century too, but as we walked around we saw that dotted amongst the plain dressed stones on the exterior of the church were some earlier elaborate carvings; an imp pulling a face and this beautiful angel, to name but two. The DH says the carvings were probably medieval and belonging to an earlier church building that may have been on the site. I rather liked the angel, she looked so stately and dignified perched so high up in the church fabric: "so this is a how a medieval craftsman imagined angels way back when?" I thought to myself. My thoughts however, got no further than that, as my philosophising is very much of the Pooh Bear variety and I was distracted by thoughts of the tea shop. (Ahh, the blessed NT tea shop, is there no finer institution?)

So on to Sunday. After church the DH spent three hours erecting a rabbit hutch. I had to take the children inside when he was doing it, his swearing was wild. The thing is, when the DH swears, he doesn't just swear, his swearing involves a weird stream of consciousness with meta-narrative, and sometimes characterisation. It's like listening to a live reading of Ulysses. However, we only get the James Joyce treatment when he has to construct anything from a flat pack, this is thankfully quite a rare occurrence. So why were we torturing the DH on a fine Sunday afternoon, an afternoon when sane men are sitting in the garden on a comfy deckchair sipping Sam Smith's? Well, because we wanted to prepare for Mrs Much and Ruby, our lovely lady rabbits!

We went to the rabbit breeders with the intention of buying to baby rabbits ( a buck and a doe) and keep them together so they have a bit of company, it was also my intention to take the to the vets and have them "done" so they didn't breed. Hmm, well the best laid plans of rabbits and men and all that jazz. The breeder showed us all she had and we fell in love with a year old Dutch whom we've called Mrs Much. Mrs Much is sad because she misses her babies, who have all been sold by the breeder, Mrs Much has a touch of rabbit post-natal depression. My heart melted, the eldest girl's heart melted. We bought Mrs Much. Did I mention that Mrs Much is probably preggers and ready to drop a litter in a months time? We also have a big softy called Ruby. Ruby is friends with Mrs Much, Ruby likes a cuddle and thinks she's a Guinea Pig, Ruby is a beautiful lilac colour. We all love Ruby. Did I mention Ruby may indeed be pregnant by a lion haired buck called Aslan? My father has informed me that only a crazy person buys two pregnant rabbits. He's probably right. Our plan is to keep one kitten from each litter and sell the other bunnies. The breeder says we'll have no problem selling them, and she'll even buy the kittens back from us when they appear. And you know, gentle reader, nothing says "Spring-time" like two pregnant rabbits!

In The Handwork of Their Craft is Their Prayer

Nicholson Evening At Boothby

We've had good weather in the UK over the past week or so. It's been gardening weather and spring cleaning weather indeed. I passed a happy morning in the garden, not doing anything special, just tidying and pottering and I came inside with a small armful of greenery and forsythia.

I have a table in my living room, a side table which belonged to my great-grandmother, it's the kind of thing you'd find at a car boot sale or a junk shop and pay a fiver for it, but it has a nice colour and shape and I have a lamp, I bought years ago from Habitat, on it and an elaborately carved candlestick I picked up from one of those ethnic/hippy shops you find in posh market towns. I arranged my bits of rosemary and eucalyptus with the sprigs of forsythia and it made me happy to do such simple work. I thanked God for that corner of my living room, the flowers and greenery from the garden, the candlestick and the old table, it looked so pretty even though I'm not such a brilliant florist, and I was suddenly reminded of an Arts and Crafts banner hanging in York Minster. It shows St Hilda and underneath this venerable Northern saint it has the words: "In the Handwork of their Craft is their Prayer."

The gift of creativity is such a fine one, it gives real satisfaction and you don't necessarily have to aim for perfection to enjoy it. In fact, I sometimes think if we do aim for a perfect result the work becomes less satisfying, creativity becomes stultified in Self. That is to say, we become too aware of the faults in the work, to aware of what other may see as a failing in ability, and this awareness curbs the joy we have in the gifts we have been given.

During the middle ages calligraphers would make visual jokes out of their errors, laughing at their mistakes only made their work more beautiful, more human. Their lack of perfection didn't stop their prayer or their handcraft, but only humbled them, in the best possible way.

I shall leave you with what Jospehine Moffett Benton says about perfectionism.

It is in the light touch, in whimsicalities, in a sense of the ridiculous that we best see our littleness, see that we are but a seed that needs to lie dormant in the good, dark earth of God. Recreation provides the change in rhythm that sends us back refreshed to homemaking and service in the community. Those who never unbend and relax, who strain to eagerly fly off into the life of the spirit, miss being rooted and grounded in the love of God. The cross is firmly fixed where we begin to be created anew.

Mrs Beeton's Beetroot Soup (not) and My Own Beautiful Dust

This bit's for you, Sarah.

I've been mourning the loss of poor old Doris the Dead Dyson for a good few weeks now. I've missed her lightweight chassis, her lovely long hose, I've missed the way she used to glide around the house, but mostly I've missed the sheer power of her suck. You see, after she went to vacuum cleaner Valhalla (Doris was great, but I'm not sure she was Christian), we economised and bought a terrible, heavy, lumbering beast of a Morphy Richards thing. This vacuum cleaner was such a duffer, I think it has been entirely responsible for my bad back of late. I try to feel sorry for this machine, it's not his fault he's not Doris, but really enough is enough, so I contacted a firm which sold reconditioned Dysons and low and behold, and £30 later, Dino the Dyson arrived on my doorstep. Now, Dino is called Dino because he's such an ancient make of Dyson I'm sure they quarried him out of a rock face in Arizona (or perhaps the Isle of White), he's a dinosaur, a fossil, but he is a Dyson, and just to prove it this is what he sucked up the other day AFTER the Morphy Richards back-breaker had finished doing it's job. Dust, ladies, beautiful dust!

Next up a couple of recipes. First, Nigella Lawson's Potato Bread, a great bread, crisp and chewy, but not too dense and it doesn't taste a bit potato-y. It rises like a dream, so well in fact that when it rises I can imagine it died green and chasing a young Steve McQueen out of the cinema, just like "The Blob". Anyway, if you want this venerable receipt please email me, as it's a bit long to put on the blog.
Now, for Mrs Beeton's Beetroot Soup (not). Now, when it comes to beetroot, my cup runneth over. It's that time of year, isn't it, when we all get a bit sick of root vegetables, especially,if, like me, you grow your own or get an organic box. So I decided to soup the glut. I also hit upon the idea of looking for a beetroot soup recipe in Mrs Beeton (combination of assonance and alliteration in a recipe title appeals to something deep within my soul) however, when I looked, no such recipe could be found: there were recipes for sprout top soups; carrot soups; turnip soups,: cow's cheek soup; and a charmingly named, benevolent soup; but no beetroot soup. So, I made up my own. Here it is, oh, I'll leave quantities up to you, but I've put in brackets what I used, just to guide you.

Mrs Beeton's Beetroot Soup (not)

A quantity of onion (1)

A quantity of leek (1)

A quantity of potato(3)

A quantity of beetroot(5)

Butter, cream, milk and stock.

Peel and chop the veg, sweat for a good while in the butter, as ten minutes of sweating will ensure a good soup. Pour hot stock over veg , just enough to cover. Simmer for 40 minutes or so, or until your beetroot is tender. Thin down with cream and milk and season to taste.

Serve to poorly little girls with a mania for pink.

Enjoy, gentle reader, and anon!

The Daily Round (For the Modern Girl)

In many of my vintage household manuals a definite series of daily tasks is prescribed for the housewife to complete, this they call the daily round. For those not in the know, the daily round is a cross between a daily light cleaning and a general tidy up. In the books I own, dating from the 1860s to the mid 1950s, the tasks listed offer us an insight into the lives of the women of the time and also a glimpse of their social attitudes. By examining what what expected of them, in terms of daily cleanliness, we can see how those women viewed their homes, their families and their lives. Over the next week or so I'm going to do a few posts on how our forefathers(mothers!) cleaned their homes, or more importantly how they aspired to clean their homes, and also talk a little about the roles of servants during the latter part of the nineteenth and the early part of the twentieth century.

However, before I post on our domestic past, I thought I'd post on the domestic present and talk a little about my daily routine. Blimey, I hope this is of interest to you!

I see my daily round as a way of getting the house to the required level of comfort needed to sustain peaceable and healthful living. And, put in those terms it seems that the daily round is an important part of my day. However, the daily round does not involve big jobs; floor cleaning, ironing, changing bed linen, shopping or running errands; but a series of small tasks which you can generally whizz through. I have a family of four messy people, and include myself amongst the messies, but my daily round takes me no longer than 45 minutes to complete, and often as little as half an hour as the week goes on. Here's a truncated version of what I do.

Upstairs

Make beds, draw curtains, pick up stray clothes and stray toys, throw laundry down the stairs, straighten wet towels to dry, throw dirty towels down stairs, wipe over bathroom sink and counter, clean loo, open bedroom windows.

Downstairs

Wash breakfast dishes, wipe over kitchen counter and hob, straighten kitchen table of all comics, toys and books, recycle and put out rubbish, fluff up living room cushions and throws, wipe crumbs off coffee table, water plants, put laundry in wash, clean downstairs loo and look over towel and basin.

I like to get his stuff done before 10:30 am, so I can get other cleaning jobs done, prep a meal, bake, craft, blog (!) or even go out into town or see a friend. And, although the list seems pretty long reading, in practical terms it takes no time at all because I always do it in the spirit of my house-cleaning motto:

"do you want it done, or do you want it perfect?"

That is to say, my home cannot be perfectly clean unless I become a bit neurotic, and being neurotic is neither peaceful nor healthful so I always aim for "just good enough". I suppose I should now define what "just good enough is." I think the best way to do that is to imagine a friend has popped around unexpectedly. First, she needs to visit the loo. She doesn't want to eat her breakfast off your bathroom floor but she does want to pee in comfort and confidence! So, you need to provide her with a clean loo, clean basin, soap, a towel and loo paper. Now she asks for a coffee and keeps you company in the kitchen. She doesn't expect highly polished stainless steel or perfectly ordered cupboards, but hygienic work surfaces and clean cups to drink from, she doesn't expect your fridge to smell or her feet to stick to your kitchen floor. This friend, is now becoming a bit of a pain in the neck and promptly faints. You say she can lie down on your bed, she shouldn't expect lit candles and lavender striped linen sheets, but a made bed, clothes in the wardrobe and a dust free dressing table. Well, you get the picture, you can imagine yourself making the place comfortable for a friend, when really you're making your home comfortable for your family to live in.

I have a few hints for establishing a daily round, which I hope you'll find interesting, if in fact helpful. Here come the bullet points!

• Just do it. Don't look at the mess just pick it up. I'm one of life's philosophers, in fact I do spend inordinate amount of time in deep, Pooh Bear-style thought. If you are like me and stand in the bathroom for twenty minutes contemplating what people's toilet habits say about their personalities, PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER and spend five minutes cleaning up.
• Set your oven timer. Think about how many minutes you can bear cleaning, then minus that time by five minutes. Are you left with only five minutes on that oven timer? Well that's just fine, you'll be amazed at what you can accomplish if you don't do it perfectly and don't stop to navel-gaze. You may even want to set the timer for another five minutes.
• Give yourself a little reward. A nice cup of tea and an hours blogging is always a good incentive for yours truly.
• Abandon lists. Lists are great for big, must do jobs, like pay gas bill and pick up prescriptions. But it is not wise to list all the piddly jobs you do in a day, it's nice when all the tasks get ticked off and completed, but a slap in the chops when you've not accomplished hardly any, for whatever reason.
• Establish the round as a routine. A routine of piddly jobs to get over and done with as soon as possible. The routine is good for you and good for your kids. They'll know that they can paint, go to the park, have a bit of mummy-kid time as soon as the round is done, as soon as the oven timer goes beep.
• Little ones can come with you. Get them to wash a door. Put a towel that needs laundering under the door and give the little one a clean cloth and some bubbly water. Your door will not be clean, and your floor may be a bit wet, but your kids will be happy and entertained whilst you go like a whirlwind. Praise all door cleaning activity fulsomely.
• Get stuff into perspective. Having grey grouting is not a stain on your character, just a stain on your grouting. Do what you can and when you can, simply to make your home more ordered, happy and hospitable.

Well, I started this post by saying that how own ancestors viewed their daily rounds said a lot about their social attitudes and how they viewed their home-lives. I wonder what my thoughts on my own particular round say about me? Answers on a post-card, please...no, on second thoughts it's best to live in ignorance!

Anon, fellow huswives and happy homemaking!

Notes and Queries, Hidden Art, and the Give-Away Announcement

Well, I want to thank you all for the nice comments you left in my previous post, they were all very much appreciated. However, without further ado I shall announce the winner of the book, magazine and dishcloth...drum roll please...it's Angela! I know that Angela is a very creative person, so I think she'll really enjoy "Hidden Art." It's a great book, and not just for homemakers I think, all about how Christians can bring beauty and artistry into their every day lives all for the glory of God, something which I think we modern Christians tend not to do, but I believe is of real importance.



Home Chat is a bit of Edwardian fun, a penny magazine, aimed at the women of the lower middle classes and full of interesting tips and remarkable advertisements...those poor Edwardians seem to be horribly (ahem) "bunged up"...probably due to over-consumption of suet pudding!



Next up is this knitted dishcloth. I used the Quaker Ridge pattern as featured on the Mommy Cooks blog (a great blog, still online but no longer updated)...my cloth turned out rather differently to hers, but nevertheless I still like the pattern!


So now on to the Notes and Queries section of the post!


Seraphim, now joyously untormented by those of us who leave it to the last minute to post our tax returns, wanted to know about knitted dishcloths. I'm pretty passionate about knitted dishcloths (I know, what a thing to be passionate about). They're eco-friendly, frugal, last forever, ethical, a good way of practising new stitches, a great beginner's project and more importantly they're rather pretty. Anything which glamorizes the washing-up is okay in my book, and they follow that great tradition Christian women of yore had of making everyday items beautiful. There's a great online resource for dishcloth patterns, that you'll find here, or you can make your own pattern and experiment! In the UK you can by dishcloth yarn, quite cheaply in most craft shops, but you may have to go to big cities to find the nice self-striping colours you find used on American cloths.


Next up, Niki from Rural Writings asked for a recipe for a classic Victoria Sponge, but converted into US/Can cup measures. I'm really glad she asked the question as it's something I've been discussing on Nan's Letters from a Hill Farm blog. Most British women know the recipe well because it follows a specific pattern of ounces. So for a small, 6 inch, cake, you'll need 4 oz of butter, 4 oz self-raising flour, 4 oz of sugar and 2 eggs. For a larger cake the pattern is all the 6s and 3 eggs, for a big cake all the 8s and 4 eggs.


But the trouble with converting this into cup measure is that a cup of flour and a cup of sugar do not weigh the same, so if you put the measurements into one of those online cooks' measurement converters it comes up with all sorts of unmanageable decimals. Another problem with this kind of conversion is that the way flour works in different countries is not standardised. What rises in the UK, may not rise in Canada, may not rise in the USA. So what I've done is email Niki with a Nigella Lawson recipe which has been specifically written for the American market. I trust Nigella, her How to Be a Domestic Goddess book is an excellent bakers resource and she's really well read on her subject, so I reckon this cake is a pretty decent approximation of the English classic. Also, have a looks at Nan's blog about Laurie Colwin, the book sounds wonderful, so I imagine the cake recipe featured is pretty good too.

Edit: have now proof-read this post, I hang my head in shame, thank you for putting up with all of those errors!

Edit Number Two!!! Here's Erin's recipe for an American Victoria Sponge

1/2 cup soft margarine

1/2 cup sugar

2 eggs(1 tsp vanilla extract)

1 cup self-raising flour

As four ounces of flour is one cup, but four ounces of sugar is a 1/2 cup.

Jobs for February, Both Seasonal and Vintage

Well, in my copy of The Happy Home, A Universal Guide to Household Management, published by The Good Housekeeping Institute sometime in the early 1950s, jobs to do in January are given thus.

January

Check annual accounts and draw up budget. Extra entertaining. Marmalade making. Turn out linen cupboard, and make a list of necessary replacements; buy these if possible at White Sales.

You'll be glad to know that on the 31st January (last minute Domum strikes again!) I submitted my self-assessment tax return to the Inland Revenue (this, in my view, substitutes "check annual accounts" on the Good Housekeeping list) and made marmalade. My linen cupboard is sadly non-existent so I pickled some beetroot instead.

Now, if you fancy having a go at marmalade making, I urge you to try whilst the Seville oranges are still in the shops. It's not nearly so much of a faff as you'd think and the results are delicious. You need roughly two pounds of oranges and six pounds of sugar to make ten large jars, so it works out as an exercise in frugality, but only if you and yours like the stuff! Here's the 1950s recipe I used, again from Good Housekeeping's The Happy Home.

Seville Orange Marmalade

2 lb bitter oranges

1 lemon

6 pints water

6 lb sugar.

Wipe the fruit, cut in half, and remove the pips, tying them in a muslin bag. Slice the fruit and put it together with the water and bag of pips into a preserving pan or large saucepan. Boil until the rind is tender and the contents of the pan reduced by about one-half (1- 1/2 hours). Remove the bag of pips. Add the sugar, stir until dissolved and boil briskly until the marmalade jells when tested on a cold saucer. Pot and cover immediately.

Now, for marmalade novices, remember to slice your fruit as thinly as you can without going mental through boredom. Also, de-pith your lemon and put this pith in the muslin bag with your orange pips, oh and talking of muslin bags, a clean, child's sock will do for this venture if muslin eludes you. When your rind is tender, wait for the mixture to cool a little because it is best to squeeze out all the pectin gathered from the pips in your muslin bag/sock (a joyously messy business). Make sure you dissolve all the sugar over a low heat before you even begin to think about boiling the marmalade. Email me if you need any further help.

You will be glad to know that in February I shall be turning over a new leaf and do any seasonal household jobs throughout the month rather than in my usual last minute rush. I have perused my vintage household management books, in order to find said seasonal inspiration, and here's what I've found.

From The Happy Home.

February

Prepare for spring-cleaning by turning out cupboards, drawers, shelves, book-cases etc. Make plans for any interior decorations. Arrange for chimney sweep.

Hmm, not too sure if I approve of this "turning out" business. I like my cupboards crammed full of useful and important junk. Let's have a look at what Aunt Kate's The Housewife's Calender, from 1930s, has in store for this month. Oh, there's such a lot of reading to do! Aunt Kate is so verbose (now there's the pot calling the kettle black) I shall paraphrase.

February

Buy a melon, tackle your cupboards (oh no, not you too Aunt Kate), brush up on your pancake recipes, sow hardy annuals, make new kitchen curtains (okay then), have a leap year party and invite single people (what larks!).

Aunt Kate is always such a joy. I feel I can fulfill my housewifely duty by buying a melon and having a jolly good knees up (is it a leap year btw?). I am formally ignoring all advice vis a vis cupboards, just so you know. Now let us examine my much beloved A Calender of Country Receipts, by the blessed and much under-appreciated Nell Heaton, again I shall paraphrase, but if you want a recipe mentioned in the list, please email me.

February

Make beetroot wine, orange curd, lemon wine, honey beer, chilli and onion sauce and remember to waterproof your garden boots.

With your larder stocked with such goodies you could have a mighty fine February knees up. Oh, I think I shall be making the Chilli and Onion Sauce (in fact a chutney) over the next month or so, I'll let you know how it works out.

So to leave you, I give you the view from my front door this morning. Warwickshire schools are still open, and such news my children took as a cruel blow. Anon goode huswives, anon!

Rib-Sticking Fare and Hand-Made Dollies

I thought I'd show one or two of the dolls I've been busy with over the past month or so. I didn't manage to take photos of all of them, as I had to whisk them off to their owners pretty sharpish (working to a deadline is not one of my natural strengths). I'm very much enjoying making them and when they're finished I pat them and fuss with them and sometimes give them a little cuddle. (Good grief, what an admission to make! I am probably certifiable, but generally harmless). I've had some great feedback from my friends though, one said her niece was taking the dolly to bed, which I think is the finest compliment I can get.

I've noticed I'm developing a definite doll-making style. I can't help but make a little knitted corsage for most of the doll, and always feel it necessary to give the doll "big hair". I have made a straight haired blonde doll, but for me it just wasn't the same as making a curly-girly! The next doll I shall make will have different feet though, Jenny's new ones have feet you could slip a shoe on, this would be a definite improvement to the dolls I make.

Anyway, the brown haired girl went to my friend's granddaughter this weekend, and I'm not sure what the little girl has named her, but the one below was given to my youngest one, as she fell in love with the red hair when I was making her. We've called her Aishling, after the lovely Christy Moore song.

Also this January I've set myself the task of learning a few new recipes. Seeing as I have a certain avoir du poids ce moment I haven't been baking as much as usual. Well, apart from that carrot cake I made the other Sunday, oh, and that cheesecake I made when Sarah came a-visiting. Well, okay then, I have been doing a fair amount of baking, but some of this baking has been sickeningly virtuous.

The cake that looks a little like malt loaf or tea bread below is actually made from All-Bran and contains no egg or fat. No, don't say "yuck" it's actually jolly nice, does taste somewhat like an old-fashioned malt loaf, is a doddle to make. I like it spread thickly with butter. There really is no hope for me. Oh, and if you eat the cake neat, there are no more calories per slice than a bowl of cereal with raisins. Here's the recipe.

4 oz All-Bran

5 oz caster sugar

10 oz dried fruit

1/2 pint milk

4 oz self-raising flour

Put All-bran, sugar and dried fruit into a bowl and mix well together

Stir in milk and leave for at least 30 minutes

Sieve in flour, mixing well and pour mixture into a well greased 2 lb loaf tin.

Bake in oven at 180c for about 1 hour.

Next up I've been trying out new recipes for various stews and casseroles. I don't know about you, but I developed a stew recipe years ago and I've pretty much stuck to it. I do so many slow braises and stews in the winter-time and it was all becoming a bit same-y so I thought I'd have a go at something a little different. I can highly recommend the Blessed Delia of the Mispronunciation's Beef in Designer Beer, and also Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall's Savoury Beef Cobbler and Chicken in Cider with Rosemary Dumplings. I shall link to a page where the nation's favourite gentleman farmer has waxed lyrical about stews and pies, a nice read, good recipes, with the added bonus of a picture of the man himself...I find him personally quite charming.



Oh, and talking of photos, here's a picture of the aforementioned Beef Cobbler, looks quite similar to the one on Hugh's page. Am I the only person in the world whose food looks rarely like the picture in the cookbook? I imagine this is because I am a bit of a sloppy worker. Well I think that's enough for today! Anon, gentle reader and happy housewifery to you!

It's an Institute You Can't Disparage

This post contatains some sensitive material, if your little ones are reading over your shoulder, you may want to move on and read this later!

Now, I did say to my friend Jenny that I would post on "the daily round" today and how it has changed throughout the decades, but I've (ahem) changed my mind. I've finally booked up the courage to post on something I've been itching to do for ages. You see ladies, amongst my collection of old cookbooks and homemaking books, I have some "top shelf material". That is to say, I have one or two vintage tomes that specifically (and explicitly) tutor on the subject of marriage and motherhood. The books are often simply titled "The Marriage Book" or "Marriage and Motherhood", and date mostly from the 1920s to the 1950s, a time when s*xual activity was not seen as taboo, but was kept within the confines of the marriage bed (largely). However, it would be a mistake to think that the books are simply manuals on how to conduct the intimate relationships, they go further than that, and because of this they offer a more comprehensive insight into the way every-day people led their lives than many of my household guides and recipe books.

In The Marriage Book, which carries the rather wonderful sub-heading of "for husbands and wives and all who love children", young men are encouraged not to consummate their marriage on the wedding night, and indeed this is advice which is often repeated in many of the vintage books I have on marriage.

There are times when, owing to nervous fatigue of the wedding and travel attending the honeymoon, the young woman is too tired to respond to any long caressing...he will find generally with the coming of morning that the expression of affection against which she would have reacted unfavourably the night before is now thoroughly welcome and met with responses.

The attitude of the writers suggests that although many women enjoyed "kisses and caresses" during the engagement period, they would be v*rg*ns on their wedding night and would need careful and gentle treatment before the consummating act.

Little by little this love play should be carried to greater intimacy, care being taken not to make the woman feel she is being hurried or pushed into more intimacy than she desires.

However, the woman was in no way tutored "to lie back and think of England".

She, on her part, if she has an honest desire to achieve normal, wholesome s*x relationship, will put on no false modesty, nor will fail to show her husband that she is enjoying what he gives her. After half an hour or an hour of loving, the woman is usually as eager for intercourse as any man...

As a modern reader I find it interesting that these books explode the myths surrounding s*xual activity pre the s*xual revolution of the 1960s. The Marriage Book shows us that women were expected to find enjoyment in the marriage bed, that men were expected to provide "half an hour or an hour of loving" before the act, and the men are told that at times a woman will "pass through several noticeable o******s before her passion comes to an end." So, Philip Larkin was wrong, "s*xual intercourse" did not "begin in 1963", it was there all along, but confined to a very private sphere, and placed firmly within the context of marriage. As an aside, we are told that even a married woman should "never be pushed into more intimacy than she desires"...how many of our young girls today can say they never feel harried or pushed into more intimacy than they desire?

Now, these books tend to focus on these intimate relationships in their initial chapters, but aim at being comprehensive guides. So we often find alarming juxtapositions of topic within the contents pages. Here are a few chapter headings, as an illustration.

S*x in Modern Life

Common Mistakes

Motives for Birth Control

Choosing a House

The Wife's Creed

Food for the Average Family

Don't for Mothers

Christmas Dinner Menus for Six Persons

Simple Patterns for Children's Wear

These books aim for all-round happiness in family life, and see each aspect of marriage as interconnected, they simply offer more personal advice on the general homemaking manuals of the period. I think we modern types see our lives are more compartmentalised: we don't necessarily see how our intimate lives are related to what we cook, how we manage finances, how we rear our children: but these 1930s manuals did, and I tend to agree, simply because our health and happiness does tend to rest on how we conduct our home-lives, and what constitutes a home-life is myriad.

Before I go, let me leave you with a rallying cry, from Marriage and Motherhood, a call to all patriotic British women which firmly places the book's context in the immediate post-war period. It is interesting to see how the "ideal" has changed over the past fifty years, and indeed how the "ideal" of womanhood is often changed to suit the economic and social climate of the period.

To make a success of marriage and motherhood is the ambition of every true woman, and in doing so she in not only realising personal happiness, but performing the greatest service to her country that is in her power. Happy homes are the bulwarks of a nation, for they provide the only environment in which really satisfactory citizens can be reared, and there was never a time when they were more needed.

Well, I hope you have enjoyed my trawl through the more unusual examples of my book collection. What are your immediate reactions to the advice given?

The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men...and all that yackety-yack

Today's plan was a wonderful plan. Listen and I will tell you the story of today's most beautiful plan. I was to do my "daily round", clean my windows, wash my floors, make a shepherd's pie for tea and settle down in the afternoon to watch a Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland musical and sew the hair onto the doll I'm making for my friend's granddaughter. It is now 11:26 am and none of this is done. It looks as though I will not get to see the film, which is a shame because I hear that Mickey and Judy want to put on a show! "Why has your day gone completely to pot, Dulce Domum?" I hear you ask. Well ladies, it's because I have quite serious problems with my plumbing.

No, not "plumbing" in the Les Dawson woman's problems sense of the word, but plumbing as in the exploding toilet, urine soaked chip-board sense of the word. Let me elucidate. Part of the old "daily round" is to give the bathroom a tidy up. You know, wipe down the sink, clean out the plug, swish toilet cleaner around the toilet, pick up towels, but when I went in there I knew something was wrong. The laminate tiles on the floor were lifting up, there was a funny smell (well, funnier than usual, anyway). Never one to go half measures I ripped up the tiles and had a look at what lurked beneath. What lurked beneath was the aforementioned urine soaked chip-board. My toilet has been leaking and the waste has been soaking into my floorboards.

I ring for a plumber. Here is what I've learnt about plumbers, gentle reader.

1. Plumbers rarely answer their telephones.
2. Plumbers are not interested in my toilet, your toilet or anybody else's toilet. They are only interested in fitting new central heating systems.
3. All plumbers are from Acocks Green. You may be ringing from Lancarshire, Lanarkshire or bloody Timbuktu but the guy on the end of the line will have a Brummy accent and suck through his teeth when you mention your toilet problems.
4. I am going to re-train as a plumber. Then I will have the wherewithal to earn a million and rule the world. Knowledge is power, people. And knowledge of plumbing is the most arcane and useful power of all. Of course, after retraining I will have to move to Acocks Green, that enclave of all plumbers, but this is a small price to pay...or is it?

I'm off now, to stare at my kitchen ceiling and pray that the toilet waste lurking above does not seep down and drip into my kitchen sink. However, before I go let me leave you with this wonderful Les Dawson "Cissie and Ada" joke. Enjoy (and weep for me)!

CISSIE: Leonard took some lovely photos... He's got a big polaroid

ADA: Ooh they can be painful - does it affect his balance?

The Old Wives' Diet

So here's the thing. I suddenly realised the other day that everything I know about good nutrition and healthy food habits I learnt from my granny. The advice she would give to us kids over and over again (which we largely ignored) was so timeless it's now seen to be incredibly modern. I've come to the conclusion that we don't need doctors, nutritionists, psychologists (and heaven forbid) "lifestyle gurus" to tell us what is good for us, we just have to listen to our nans! It seems to me that there was a point in time when we began to reject the homespun wisdom of elderly women. What with modern culture's preoccupation with extreme youth, and a kind of unspoken denigration of women's traditional skills (perhaps because these skills are rarely practised in the market place?), and more importantly the break-up of the extended family, these things have left us with an over-complication of what was once simple good sense. Anyway, enough of my cod-sociology and on with the talk about grub! Here's what my granny used to say, coupled with the modern research which backs up her ancient wisdom.

1. (This is my favourite one). She used to tell us that fish was "brain food".This would make us all laugh...but we were laughing on the other sides of our faces when in 1994 an American research department found that the fatty acids in oily sea fish contributed healthy brain function and optimum eye function. Apparently, they're also linking lack of EFAs to increased instances of childhood depression. For a bit of modern information on what my granny knew all along, go here! Oh, and don't forget EFAs are good for your heart too (granny may have told me this as well, but I can't be sure...I need more brain food to help my memory, lol!)
2. "Sit down and eat your dinner at the table!" Granny knew that sitting down to eat as a family was good for us kids. We could have time together as a group, learn proper manners, and importantly eat a nutritious meal under adult supervision. There's something of a renaissance in family meal-times going on at the moment. Thank God for that, I say. Here's an excellent article which shows all of the research into why family meals are important to a child's development, both socially and nutritionally
3. "Eat your greens." We all know that greens are a nutritional power house...your granny told you, my granny told me and now trendy life-style nutritionists are telling us! Go here for the modern take on what we've always known.
4. "Eggs are the perfect food." Now, granny used to say this right in the midst of the various egg controversies which were going on during the 1980s. "No," she would say, "they're wrong! Eggs are good for you!" For years now, we've seen eggs as packed with cholesterol and riddled with salmonella and therefore something to be avoided...but perhaps to the detriment of our health. Eggs are a good, inexpensive, source of choline which is vital for healthy brain function. They also contain anti-inflammatory vitamins and minerals and are excellent in helping macular degeneration. This is only half the egg story. Go here for a really comprehensive look at why my granny was right!
5. "Fruit is good for the skin, because it cleans you out!" Yes, my granny thought that because fruit made you go to the loo more often all the badness in your body (which she thought caused teenage spots) would be (ahem) pooped away. Of course, we now know that all the of the vitamins, minerals and enzymes contained in fresh fruit are good for our overall health, but here is an article, especially written for teenage acne sufferers, which shows my granny's take on the "elimination of toxins" may not have been that far off!
6. "A little bit of what you fancy does you good." Now, I have my own take on this particular piece of good advice. Portion sizes have grown since my granny's time and we've all got fatter. However, my grandparent's generation rarely denied themselves anything; dumplings, beer, cake, pie, mashed potato, fatty meat...they just ate smaller portions of everything and manged to keep their daily calorie intake within the realms of reason. Modern diets are marketed on the "eat as much as you of like" idea. That is, we can eat as much carbohydrate as we like but must cut out fat and eat less meat OR we can eat as much meat and fat as we like but must cut out carbs. This leaves the dieter with a natural craving for the "bad" food, after a few weeks of these punishing regimes, but no idea of what constitutes a healthy portion size. These are the diets of the modern age, where nobody does anything with any sense of moderation...we live in a binge and purge society. But granny knew best. It's good for the soul to eat what you like. It's good for your body to eat a varied diet. However, you just can't be a greedy guts!

Well, there you have it. I'm passing on my granny's wisdom over the very modern tool of the internet! Do you have any good advice your gran gave you? Or, and here's a good question, what other things did granny advise on, which make good sense, but we're still choosing to ignore?

Nina (but not Nicholas), A Recipe I Made Up with My Very Own Brain, and Various Thoughts on How Women Love

I'm in one of those bizarre positions where I've got such a lot to blog about and not enough time to SPEAK MY BRAINS in html format! So I'm going to try to cram a few bits and bobs in one single, and probably very disjointed, post. First, I came back from Spain determined to buy a book on Spanish food, particularly Spanish baking. However, funds are a little low ce moment and even though I am slightly enamored of this weighty tome, I have yet again vowed to go on a book-buying embargo (yes, I know you've heard this all before). So I politely asked my brain to come up with an Iberian-style tea-time treat and this is what my brain came up with. Not bad brain! In future I will look after you by keeping off the gin and doing more Suduku!

Dulce Domum's Orange and Almond Cake
3 oz butter
4 oz caster sugar
4 oz self-raising flour
4 oz ground almonds
2 large eggs
1/4 tsp almond extract
grated orange rind (from one medium orange)
juice from 1/2 a medium orange.

Cream together butter and sugar, add beaten eggs gradually. Add orange rind, almond extract and then fold in the ground almonds and the flour. At this point you will need to loosen the mixture with the orange juice (you may not need all of it, just loosen to dropping consistency). Grease a loaf tin (a 1 lb loaf tin is best but I had to use a bigger one), place mixture in tin (sprinkle on a few flaked almonds if you have them) and bake at 150 degrees for around half an hour, or until the cake is firm to the touch. Like all cakes with ground almonds in this cake is an excellent keeper. Oh, you could make an orange glaze or syrup to go on top of the cake, I didn't do this but I bet it would be delicious.

Well, Nina the Waldorf doll is finally finished. I didn't do any crafting at all whilst I was on my hols. So I finished her off this week. She's a bit of a labour of love actually. I've changed her clothes goodness knows how many times, and I think this is because I know the little girl the doll's going to and wanted it to be just right. Anyway, I really must stuff Saint Nicholas (and it's not everyday you get to type a sentence like that) and get cracking on the wool shop order (she wants as many as I can make ...that will be one then) and make a new doll for the girls (a little red-head I think). Also, my friend Zillah sent me a fabulous book on knitting historical figures, believe me, there are some doozies of dolls in this book, but I shall blog about it next week, I think.

Next up, I've been thinking about love, and how the way we love changes and adapts as we gain in maturity. When I was in my late teens I was pretty desperate for love and romance, to put it bluntly I wanted a man to love me. I'm not particularly embarrassed by this, I reckon it's usual for most girls. I was fortunate in the fact that I did fall in love with a man who loved me back, and reader, I married him. Of course, then most of us go on to have children, and our children love us. A small child's love is almost miraculous in the fact that it is purely unconditional, they seem to be hardwired to love their mothers. Oh and aren't these different types of love we women receive great gifts? The love of a good man and the love of children isn't really something we should take for granted, it's something to be nurtured and respected. To be honest with you, as a young woman I tended to define myself by who loved me; boyfriend, husband, babies. But now, as my children grow older and my marriage is more mature it seems as though I've gone through a subtle shift in thinking, I've come to believe that my womanhood will be defined not simply by who loves me but how I love them. That the nature and quality of the love I give serves to define my developing sense of womanhood, that the giving of love may be my reason for being. I don't want this to seem particularly morally grandiose, I get a great deal of pleasure from loving, my family and my husband are lovable, it's just that I've found that age has brought an increased pleasure in the performance of small acts of love, there's a joy in it, and I was just wondering if any of you feel the same way?