Too Many Recipes! 4. Apricot Bran Loaf

This is the fourth in a series in which I will endeavour to cook every recipe (one each week) from a recipe book I started compiling 27 years ago when I was 15 years old.  You will find all the background for this courageous and calorie laden endeavour right here

After our rather sugar laden past few weeks, this cake came as a bit of dietary relief.  It is the sort of recipe that I generally look for - something with a bit of fruit in it so that I can pretend that it is healthy and not feel so bad if I eat a little too much.  And this one has bran too so it has to be kind of a healthy option. Yes?  It has a nice bit of sweetness to it without being loaded with sugar, thanks to the apricots. This is not the recipe though, to cook up if you're looking for indulgence - unless you are on a really, really strict diet and this cake actually looks like an indulgence.  If that's the case, then go for it and enjoy.  

It kind of made me think of ploughman's lunches and mugs of ale taken by the fire whilst watching a bit of Morris Dancing.  Can't say exactly why but there you have it.  Perhaps that should be a clue for this week's music link.  Well, it wasn't going to be but here you go anyway - a bit of Morris Dancing from Oxford and I have to say that it does kind of capture the mood of this cake.  I can well imagine being in the street and watching this, then popping in to a local tea shop for a cup of tea and a slab of Apricot Bran Loaf.  The music link I intended to put up was the song I was singing to myself while I was baking and that, dear reader, is this one from They Might Be Giants.  I love this song.  I love They Might Be Giants.  I love that my children also like their music and so we all get to enjoy it together.

But I digress.  Choose your link wisely, in a different tab of course, so you can read and listen at the same time and we shall proceed.

Apricot Bran Loaf

Ingredients:

120 g dried apricots

1tsp bi-carb soda

1 cup boiling water

60 g butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 1/2 cups self-raising flour

1 1/2 cups bran  (I used oat bran as I couldn't find wheat bran when I went shopping)

Method:

Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celcius (375 degrees Fahrenheit) and grease an 8" x 4" (20 x 10cm) loaf tin, lining the base with grease proof paper.  A little aside here, if you read last week's recipe, you may recall that I had a bit of a flashback about my mum re-using brown paper bags to line her cake tins so this week I tried it and have to report that, not only was it  extremely satisfying but it worked a treat as you will see in the above photo.  

Chop the apricots up into small-ish pieces, depending on how chunky you want your cake to be and put to soak in a small bowl with the bi-carb soda and boiling water for half an hour.  

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy then beat in the egg.  Add walnuts, stir in apricots and the remaining liquid, the sifted flour and bran.  Mix well to produce a fairly stiff cake mixture.  Tip it all into your loaf tin and bake for around 40-45 minutes.  

Leave in the tin for 5 minutes or so before putting it on to a rack to cool.  Slice off chunks and spread with butter. (We didn't bother with the butter.  It was good enough without but you could if you wanted to.)

What's to like about this cake:  

• It's a really easy, fuss-free recipe.  Just remember to soak the apricots beforehand.
• A good cake to have on hand for a fairly healthy bit of morning or afternoon tea.

What's not to like:

• It was a bit on the crumbly side once it cooled down completely.  Perhaps it just needs to be eaten while it's still a bit warm.

This moment - fresh as a daisy

(this moment) - a beautiful idea from Amanda Blake-Soule at soulemama.  A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

Too Many Recipes! 3. Raspberry Chocolate Cake

This is the third in a series in which I will endeavour to cook every recipe (one each week) from a recipe book I started compiling 27 years ago when I was 15 years old.  You will find all the background for this courageous and calorie laden endeavour right here

The original name of this cake in my recipe book is a Basic Chocolate Cake.  I feel it deserves so much more so I have taken the liberty of re-naming it.  Heck!  It's my book.  I get to do what I want!  Henceforth and forever more, let this cake be known as The Raspberry Chocolate Cake.  It is, indeed, basic to put together, which is a blessing for when we don't have much time and/or an almost walking 13 month old is hanging on to our leg, but this cake was so very good it disappeared very quickly indeed.  I actually had to make a second one because the first one was eaten before I had time to ice it, let alone photograph it.  And that was also a blessing because.....well, it was a double blessing actually because it meant that we got to enjoy it all over again and also because it gave me a sense of what the cake was like so I had an idea of how to embellish it as the recipe gave no instructions for icing or decoration.
And now to the music to go with this fine cake.  I have to confess I actually wasn't thinking of, or listening to music this time around.  I thought about linking to My Friend The Chocolate Cake (is that not a wonderful name for a band?) but that is just way too obvious....although I did just link to it didn't I?  Instead, I thought that today I would lead you to this song by an American folk singer, Elizabeth Mitchell.  We listen to a fair bit of her music here but this song in particular is one of my favourites and always lifts my mood.  So now you have a choice.  As always, I will give you a moment to choose your link and settle in with your music, remembering of course, to open the link in a different tab so you can read and listen at the same time......................................................   and, away we go.

Raspberry Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:
125 g butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tbsp raspberry jam
1tbsp boiling water
1 1/2 cups self-raising flour (or substitute with plain flour and 3 tsp baking powder)
1/2 cup milk


Method:
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius / 375 degrees Fahrenheit, adjusting accordingly if you have a fan-forced oven which, I may have mentioned before, I do not.
Grease a lamington tin or 2 x 8" (20cm) sandwich tins and line the base with baking paper if you feel so inclined, which I usually do because even though I grease cake tins well, cakes always seem to stick to the base if I don't line them with paper.  I have just, in this very moment, had a flashback of Mum cutting cake tin linings from brown paper bags which was a good way of recycling them and saved buying baking paper.  That is what I was brought up with but had forgotten all about it until now.  Gosh, it's a long time since I've done that.  Anyway, I digress.  Sorry about that. So back to the making of this cake.....


In a small bowl, mix the cocoa powder, raspberry jam and boiling water to a smooth paste and leave to cool.
Meanwhile, cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl.  Add eggs one at a time, beating well as you add each one.  Add the chocolate mixture and stir that in. 
Now sift the flour at least three times - yes, three.  And yes it does seem to make a difference so is worth doing.  Add this to the cake mixture alternately with the milk and you will have a lovely light cake mix that tastes just delicious.  However, resist the temptation to eat it all raw and pour it into your prepared cake tin/s.  Bake for around 30-40 minutes, keeping an eye on it for the last bit.  Allow to cool, then either eat or decorate it.
I cut the cake into two layers and spread some raspberry jam and whipped cream, then topped it off with some basic chocolate icing and chopped up strawberries, lightly dusted with sifted icing sugar.  I had planned to pile it with fresh raspberries since they are coming into season now but at $11.50 a punnet I was a little (!!!) put off and opted for strawberries instead which did a very decent job.

What's to like about this cake?  Everything.  Easy to make and even easier to eat.
What's not to like?  Honestly cannot think of a thing unless one is on a diet.

Where did it all come from

I think I had what would be called a panic attack today.  Shaking, wanting to throw up, wanting to scream and yell all the words that are saved for my darkest times, crying at the feeling of disgust I felt welling up in my stomach.  The cause?  Well, we have a room at the back of the house which is generally the children's toy room but also serves as a lovely warm sunroom in cooler weather.  I have a beautiful old miners couch against one wall so I can sit with a cup of tea and some knitting and look out into the back garden.  It's a quiet place to rest sometimes when the children are having an afternoon sleep.  Being a toy room it also, as one would expect, has toys in it, along with a bookshelf and cupboards to store our home-ed materials - workbooks, drawing books, art supplies, all that sort of thing.  It is a small room and tends to get messy quite often which is annoying (to put it mildly) but I usually manage to organise a team effort to tidy up, sometimes it seems easier to do it by myself or some days it seems to work best if I just close the door and walk away.

Today though, the three older children were having a sleep while the youngest one stayed up with me.  I haven't put my head in the back room lately.  Mainly because there is something behind the door that means I can't open it fully - a fair indicator that things are not going to be good  if I do go inside.  I've managed to avoid going in there or thinking too much about how bad it might be.  Today though, it was really the only room Marta and I could be in since it was raining outside, the sewing room was not a room I wanted to be in with an inquisitive 13 month old at that particular time (read: when I didn't want to have to bother about what she was getting into and stopping her from ripping my beautiful and much treasured craft books) and David was asleep on the couch in the loungeroom.  So off to the back room we went.

Well, I couldn't get to the miners couch, and even if I could have, there was no room on it to sit down.  The floor was covered in cushions, more cushions, toys, toys, toys and an odd assortment of ....well......, rubbish.  Plastic containers that the boys had purloined from the kitchen to hold collections of boy treasures were strewn about, most of them empty (the contents, it seemed, were mostly on the floor) along with papers, bits of Lego(even though the Lego has supposedly been packed away for four weeks because it was still not packed up after repeated (like, ten) requests last time it was out), wooden blocks, cast off clothes, a special handmade cloth doll I had bought Marta for her first birthday only a month ago..... Actually, that is when the panic attack started to kick in.  Seeing Marta's beautiful doll that I had given her to be her 'particular' doll, left on the floor by her big sister who had been playing with it, under a pile of cushions was like a smack in the face.  The whole scene just screamed at me that my children do not value what they have.  And that was another smack in the face because it means that I have failed somewhere in teaching them this.  I know that I am often saying to them that we must look after what we have but that message is very clearly not being taken in.  I am obviously not modelling that behaviour well enough myself.

So I began to pick up more cushions to make a clear space on the floor so I could see the level of damage.  And that is when the second wave of  panic overtook me.  Toys, bits of toys, things they had really, really wanted at one time or another, pencils, textas with lids off, a 300 piece jigsaw puzzle started but scattered across the floor after maybe 20 pieces were joined.  All of it just left there, with absolutely no thought for looking after what they have, and indeed, all piled over with cushions.  It was this obvious excess that filled me with disgust and literally had me wanting to throw up.  When it is all packed away it doesn't seem like so much but having it spread all over the floor made it clear just how much stuff we have in that small room.

With assistance from Marta (she found all the lidless textas for me!) I started sorting through it all, throwing a lot of things I would normally have just put away, into rubbish bags.  Every time I find myself on my knees tidying up this room I tell myself "I am not going to do this again". But of course I do.  Today, when I said it, I meant it.  This stuff was going.  I ended up with four shopping bags that went straight into the bin before prying eyes could inspect them.  A lot more things went into a big box destined for the op-shop. At some point I put Marta to bed, made myself a cup of tea and sat down to review the situation.  There had been several waves of panic throughout the time it took to sort out everything into rubbish bags, op-shop boxes and a smaller pile of things that would be kept and put back in the shelves, or packed away for awhile.  It was such an incredibly uncomfortable feeling, so much so that even now, some time later, when the panic has subsided, I still feel close to tears.  Why do we have so much stuff?  And they are constantly asking for the new this or that which, of course they seldom get, but still, we have SO MUCH!!!!

Then there is the nagging thought that Christmas is very near and well intentioned aunts and uncles will give the children more toys, more stuff that will end up in pieces on the toy room floor.  I even started composing a letter to them all explaining that really, the children have enough toys and could they please not buy more this Christmas as it is quite overwhelming.  I don't know how well that letter would be received.  And in truth, I would have to send the letter to myself as well since I am just as guilty of buying Lego kits and similar sorts of things around this time of year and at birthdays.

So what is the answer?  Allow the children fewer things?  Impose stricter discipline about how much they may have out at any given time and watch them like a hawk to make sure they pack up each thing as they finish with it?  Ugh, that second option just sounds miserable.  I have read a few articles about a movement called "Simple Living".  This is one I thought was particularly good, from a couple of years ago.  It sounds funny to call it a movement but there you have it.  These are the times we live in.  Perhaps I need to read about some more experiences of it - about people just living with a whole lot less stuff.  The stories I have read have mainly been about people without children.  How do we raise children in this age of consumerism, in a way that teaches them to honour what they have and to actually want less stuff?  It's one thing to impose that kind of rule on them but to teach them to want less is another thing altogether.  Maybe it comes back to modelling the behaviour, which is where I seem to have gone wrong.  Agggghhhhh, it all seems like there is so much thinking to be done about how I want us to live, what values I want the children to grow up with and model all of that more consciously.  Otherwise I'm just adding to the problems of overconsumption that we, in the Western world are so guilty of.  I'll let you know how we get on.

Too Many Recipes! 2. Golden Aloha Cake

This is the second in a series in which I will endeavour to cook every recipe (one each week) from a recipe book I started compiling 27 years ago when I was 15 years old.  You will find all the background for this courageous and calorie laden endeavour right here

When I read the name of this recipe, Golden Aloha Cake, I couldn't help but imagine something rather magnificent and maybe a little bit flamboyant.  Something pineappley and exotic. Something that would give you a feeling of laying under a palm tree on the beach in Hawaii, listening to a bit of this.  If you read the first post in this series, you will know that I had high expectations of these recipes.  They en captured many of my hopes and dreams of how I would live once I was grown up and living a life of sophistication out in the big world.  Imagine my surprise then, to find out that it is really just a fairly ordinary cake.  It kind of matches the surprise I felt in finding out that being grown up was not always such a sophisticated affair as I had expected. Not that the cake wasn't very tasty and not that life isn't very pleasant.  But the cake just didn't really live up to it's name. Perhaps I should have been listening to that bit of ukulele music linked above.  Instead I was listening to Brooke Fraser's music which mellows me out no end. So you can choose which you would like to listen to while you read through the rest of this.  So here is a moment in which to go to the link of your choice (remembering of course to open it in a separate tab so you can read and listen at the same time.  I'll just do something else for a moment while you organise it all  .............................................................. Okay, shall we continue?  Which did you choose I wonder?

Getting back to business now. In retrospect, had I known what I was going to end up with (which I should have because I did read the recipe a couple of times before I started) I could have planned to deliver it with a bit more pizazz.  Perhaps I should have layered it (the recipe did mention filling but I chose to ignore it) and topped it off with some beautiful golden hibiscus and some sparklers.

That said, it was a lovely cake to eat.  Just ask any of my children.  Even Ari, who is not a big cake eater, was very happy with this one.  It had a beautiful soft texture and was sweet and moist.  The original recipe in my book didn't specify an icing beyond "white frosting" so I made up a basic lemon icing which I have included in the recipe below.  And with that said, here it is now!

Golden Aloha Cake

Ingredients
3 cups self-raising flour (or use plain flour and add 2 tsp baking powder for every cup of flour)
1 1/2 cups sugar
pinch salt
1 cup milk
185g butter, softened
2 eggs
3 egg yolks extra
1/4 cup milk extra
1/3 cup pineapple juice or pineapple and orange juice
1 tsp vanilla essence
white frosting
coconut


Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (375 Fahrenheit).  Grease 2 x 20cm (8") sandwich tins and line bases.


Sift flour, sugar and salt into a large bowl.  Add milk and softened butter and beat with an electric mixer on low speed for two minutes.  Add eggs and egg yolks, beating well after each addition.  Blend in the extra milk, pineapple juice and vanilla essence.  Continue beating a further two minutes.


Divide mixture evenly between the two sandwich tins and bake for 30 minutes.  Allow to cool in tins for a few minutes before turning out onto cooling racks.
When cool, fill, cover with frosting, sprinkle with coconut.


Easy isn't it?  But it doesn't say any more about what filling or frosting to use.   This is the lemon icing I made up.  The quantities are, I am afraid, estimates as I didn't measure anything so add the liquid to the icing sugar bit by bit until you get the right consistency.


2 cups sifted icing sugar
1 tbsp butter 
2 tbsp boiling water
1 tbsp lemon juice


Melt the butter in a small bowl of boiling water.  Add the lemon juice then pour into the icing sugar and mix well.


What's to like?
I liked that this was quickly put together using a method that I had not come across before.  I have to admit that creaming butter and sugar, although it is pleasantly familiar, is not my favourite way of starting a cake.  


The texture of this cake is really something.  The softness really makes this a very edible cake.  In fact ours lasted less than 24 hours - for both cakes!!!!


What's not to like?
Apart from the disappointment over it not being quite as special looking as I had imagined (and I am still surprised at my surprise because, as I said earlier, I did read the recipe through beforehand.  The lack of spectacular decorations called for should have been a clue that this would indeed be a pretty plain looking little number) there is really not much not to like, unless you don't like soft, sweet cakes.  I will point out here, and perhaps I should have done so earlier, that there is not a very strong pineapple flavour.  In fact I don't know that I could taste it at all.  I did think of putting a bit of Malibu in but wanted to make up the original recipe before fiddling with it.  Perhaps next time I will.  

This moment - she is learning to write her name

(this moment) - a beautiful idea from Amanda Blake-Soule at soulemama.  A Friday ritual.  A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week.  A simple, special, extraordinary moment.  A moment I want to pause, savour and remember.

A call to craft from Amber.

Today had just been one of those really crappy days when things go wrong.  I had not slept well last night, laying awake trying to work out why a singing project I had been trying to get going for the local home-schooling community wasn't working out so was already tired and irritable.  We had a paediatric appointment for Marta which we were running a little late for but could still just have snuck in on time if the car hadn't broken down on the way.  So I decided we could walk the rest of the way.  I had the four children with me but I figured that it wasn't that far, I had the pram in the boot for Marta and yes, we really would be late but we might still be able to get in.  But the children had been picking up on my mood of irritation and distraction all morning and were in no mood for this.  Plus Jovanka had worn a pair of shoes which are fine to play in but not good for walking, especially when that walking has to be done quickly.  So her shoes kept slipping off which was making her really cross and she ended up standing in the street crying because it was all just too much.  At that point it all just got too much for me as well.  I turned the pram around announcing that we would be going home.  I am sure that the man walking past with his dog saw the dark storm cloud hanging directly over my head.  We marched back to the car, I was able to at least start it and we crawled home at 10km/h with the children under strict orders to say nothing.  Not my finest hour.

A little later that day I had to tip out a full 2 litre carton of milk because it was off although it was still well within it's use by date, so we had no milk.  That's a big deal at our house because no milk means no cups of tea and that is not good.  The gnocchi I made for dinner disintegrated into mush when I cooked it, for the third time in a row.  I am no gnocchi novice.  I have cooked dozens of batches successfully but for the last few months it has been touch and go.  I don't know if I've lost the touch or if potatoes are just not what they used to be.  Okay, so it's probably me.  Anyway, that left us without dinner so quickly cooked up some pasta to go with the napoli sauce that was supposed to go with the gnocchi.  To add to this, I found that I was noticing every bit of mess as I walked through the house, and there is a considerable amount and I can turn a blind eye to most of it pretty well most days but today was not going to be one of those days.  A book arrived in the mail - a lovely book about organising oneself so that one can be a better and happier parent.  Do you think I could organise any time to sit and read it?   Short answer, No.  Long answer, Nooooooooo.  How can I get organised if I can't even organise some time to sit and read the book that will give me the magic answer?  Okay, I know there will not be a magic answer in this book but I like to pretend that there will be.  It gives me hope for a short time at least.  In the background of this day, imagine a soundtrack of two constantly squabbling boys who could not seem to get along but could not go their own ways, although the suggestion was made to them several times.  Yep.  Crappy day.  And it all came down to my mood which I just did not have the energy to try and turn around into a positive one.

And then (thankfully there was an "and then" otherwise who knows where the day might have ended up)  I read this post by Amber at Mama Moontime and quite suddenly my outlook changed.  Amber is calling for contributions of small hand-crafted gifts to make up an advent calender for her 3 year old niece who was recently diagnosed with leukemia, and for her brother and sister.  Any gifts received in excess of what is required for the advent calender will go to children at the Sydney Children's Hospital. There is more to it than this.  Amber has put a great deal of thought and imagination into the organising of it all so please, if you are interested, have a look at her blog for more details.   I have put my name down and hope that you might also be inspired to do so.  I hope she receives thousands of pledges of little gifts.  She has already given me a great gift today and that is one of perspective.

Yes, lots of things went wrong in my day and yes, we were all in a pretty lousy mood for a lot of the time but do you know what?  My little girl Marta, who has just turned one is starting to walk and today, she took 10 unsteady little steps that got her about a metre across the floor.  That's not much for us but for her it was one metre closer to her Mama which is where she wanted to be.  I had not been paying attention to how big a step that is for her because I had been so caught up in my own head.  Then this afternoon we all went for a walk along the street to a neighbours house where there is an amazing mulberry tree overhanging the front gate, inviting passers-by to feast, and feast we did.  While we were there, another family who live nearby were just pulling into their driveway and wandered down for a chat.  We hadn't seen them for ages.  In fact, they'd not even met Marta  and we had not met their 18 month old son (yes it had been too long) so it was a real treat to stop for a while and catch up on news while my children ran around on the nature strip with her children and we make plans to get together again soon.  It had been such a pleasant few moments but I later put the memory of that pleasure to one side so I could continue to dwell on the negative thoughts in my head.
Reading Amber's post just put my day into perspective.

So thanks Amber for a kick in the pants reminder to think of others and be thankful for what we have.  May your days be blessed.

Too Many Recipes! 1. Viennese Chocolate Cake

This is the first in a series in which I will endeavour to cook every recipe (one each week) from a recipe book I started compiling 27 years ago when I was 15 years old.  You will find all the background for this courageous and calorie laden endeavour right here

Recipe number one in my little black book of cakes and biscuits is an odd one for a Viennese Chocolate Cake.  Odd, I say, because it has crushed cornflakes scattered over the top.  I don't know that much about traditional Austrian cooking but I'm pretty sure there weren't a lot of crushed cornflakes floating around the kitchens.  So I'm not at all sure what makes this cake particularly Viennese, but I did find that I was humming The Blue Danube for most of the day that I made this cake and thinking of the Viennese Waltz, which one might dance to this beautiful music.  In fact, I am listening to it now via YouTube.  Click here and you can also listen to it while you read the rest of this post if you like (just open it in another tab so you read and listen at the same time).  I'll wait a moment while you organise it................................................Oh, and please excuse me while I change fonts.  Right, here we go.

Viennese Chocolate Cake

For the cake:
125g butter
3/4 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
2 cups self-raising flour, sifted (I use plain flour with 4tsp baking powder - 1 tsp to each 1/2 cup flour)
1 tsp instant coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla extract or essence
1/2 cup milk
60g chocolate 


For the topping:
60g butter
1/2 cup walnuts
1/4 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup lightly crushed cornflakes
1 tsp cinnamon


For the Mocha Cream:
300ml cream
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp instant coffee
1/2 tsp vanilla

Method:
Preheat your oven to 180 degrees Celcius / 375 Fahrenheit, making suitable adjustments if you have a fan-forced oven, which I don't.  Grease and line the bases of 2 x 8" (20cm) sandwich tins.


In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar. If the butter is too hard, I sit the bowl in an inch or two of hot water in the sink for a couple of minutes to soften the butter a little but just make sure the tap is turned away from the bowl so it can't drip into the butter and sugar mix.  Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition


Chop up the chocolate roughly and melt it in a heatproof bowl over simmering water.  When it is completely melted, add it to the cake mixture along with the instant coffee.  I made the mistake of using granulated coffee without dissolving it in hot water first.  I actually put it in with the melting chocolate, thinking the heat would dissolve the granules.  It didn't, so I got little grains of coffee in my cake.  While it wasn't a big mistake, next time I would dissolve it in 1/2 a teaspoon of boiling water or, if you're not big on instant coffee, you could use a teaspoon or so of a really strong espresso shot and enjoy drinking the rest.


Now fold in the sifted flour, alternately with the milk.  You should end up with a fairly thick-ish cake batter.  Divide the mixture between the two sandwich tins.  I didn't have any of these so used a couple of 22cm cake tins which meant my cakes were not as high as they should have been.  I will have to buy some sandwich tins though as quite a lot of the recipes in this book seem to call for them.  Make up the topping according the instructions below and sprinkle over one of the cakes.


Bake the plain cake for 30-35 minutes and the cake with topping for 45-50 minutes.  Leave to cool a few minutes in the tins before turning out on wire racks.  The cake with topping is a little tricky as the crumbly bits wanted to drop off so it had to be done very quickly and deftly.  Leave them to cool completely then refrigerate several hours or overnight.  I imagine that the intention here is that the cakes would be wrapped in plastic wrap before they're put in the fridge.  Instead, I wrapped them in tea-towels and left them in the pantry overnight..


Slice the cakes carefully in half so you end up with four layers.  Sandwich them together with the Mocha Cream, keeping the layer with topping for the top (of course!).  Spread the sides of the cake with Mocha Cream also then chill before serving.  This last point about chilling the cake is well worth observing.  We cut into ours straight away and it was quite dry and disappointing.  However, after it had been left a few hours it was much, much better.  The cake had absorbed some moisture from the Mocha Cream (don't know why I feel compelled to give that capital letters) and it was quite delicious.  The next day it was still very good but the crunchy topping had lost some of it's crunch.


To make the topping:
Combine walnuts, sugar, cornflakes and cinnamon in a bowl.  Melt butter and mix gently into dry ingredients.


To make the Mocha Cream:
Combine all ingredients in a bowl, stirring gently but do not beat. This time I did dissolve the coffee granules in a tiny bit of hot water (1/2 tsp) and it worked beautifully.  Chill for several hours or overnight (while the cake is also resting) then beat until well thickened.




What's to like about this cake:

• I liked that it used melted chocolate instead of cocoa in the cake.  It was an interesting way of making a chocolate cake that I hadn't come across before.
• I also liked that is was, despite the fanciness of the name, quite a basic cake to make but it produced something that looks a little bit special.

What's not to like:

• I had to be a bit more organised than usual (not my strong point) to put this all together as components had to be made and then left for several hours.  I am generally inclined to choose recipes that can be made up and eaten almost immediately.  Even waiting for cakes to cool down to be iced can sometimes be too much as little hands will be picking bits off the edges as soon as the cake hits the cooling rack. 
• I ended up making the cake and the mocha cream in the evening so they could sit overnight and be ready for morning tea the next day.  Otherwise, they would need to be made early in the morning to be ready for afternoon tea or dessert.  Not too much of a hardship altogether really, just a bit of time management. 

Too Many Recipes! And so we begin.

Long, long ago, many lifetimes ago it seems, there was a girl growing up in the Mallee in the north-west of Victoria.  She lived with her father and two older brothers and spent her days going to school, spending time with friends, making things, going for walks through the bushland that surrounded her home and dreaming of one day making a home of her own, with a good man and five children to care for and love.  The girl imagined sewing and knitting clothes for her children, just as her own mother had done and baking all sorts of good smelling delights for their afternoon teas.  In these ways, she would show them how much they were loved.

So, she bought an exercise book, decorated the outside of it and began collecting recipes, just as her own mother had done many years before.  Soon after, the first book was given the company of two more books.  The first was for cakes and biscuits, the second for savoury dishes and the third for desserts.  Each recipe added was another layer to the dream life the girl imagined for her future self.  Images of aprons, dustings of flour, bountiful casseroles laid out on a checkered tablecloth and around the table, happy, healthy, well-fed children who glowed in their mother's love.

It has to be said though, that there was a degree of duality to the girl's recipe collecting.  Along with the wholesome casseroles and nut-loaves that would nourish her children's growing bodies, there were recipes that spoke to the girl of a different lifestyle; a lifestyle of sophistication and glamour, of dinner parties with interesting guests and of menus with a hint of continental influence.  All a far cry from the meat and three veg that she was used to cooking for her father and brothers each night, or the scones, anzac biscuits and tea-cakes she baked on weekends.  So into the girl's recipe books they all went, the wholesome one-pot cook ups and the fruit cakes feeling a little dowdy and colloquial next to the French Quiche Lorraine,  the grand Sacher-Torte and the Italian Cappucino.

 Years passed.  The girl left the Mallee and eventually found herself living in one of Melbourne's cool inner suburbs. The books had long been filled and were added to with more notebooks and folders, and the ultimate, real shop-bought cookbooks by the likes of Stephanie Alexander, Jamie Oliver, Stephano di Pieri, Nigella Lawson and Charmaine Solomon; books on baking, preserving, and the ultimate chocolate cookbook, Marcel Desaulinaire's 'Death By Chocolate'.  Friends gave her a subscription to Gourmet Traveller and she read about all manner of exotic ingredients, cooking methods she had never imagined and kitchen gadgetry that would ensure she looked like a serious home cook.  She read about restaurants and dinner party menus that made her girlhood imaginings of sophistication look as dowdy and colloquial as the casseroles and fruit cakes had previously.  She scorned the supermarkets in favour of South Melbourne's fresh vegetable markets, the Asian markets lining Richmond's busy Bridge Road, bustling Prahran market, bought only fresh, handmade pasta and eventually made the rather expensive shift to organic produce.  She was on her way to becoming a food snob.

More years passed and the girl (for she still felt quite young on the inside, despite the lines at the edges of her eyes and the beginnings of grey in her hair) left the big smoke to raise her soon-to-be-born babe closer to her sisters in the regional city of Geelong.  In the blink of an eye (or so the intervening nine years seemed) she was mother to four and wife to none.  As her babies grew up, she found that they didn't like a lot of the foods she had become accustomed to eating.  Singapore Hawker Stall Noodles were refused, Chicken Butter Masala caused noses to be turned upwards, Pad Thai was sent packing.  It seemed these children of hers wanted (horror of horrors), meat and three veg; the very thing the girl had been running away from since she had left home.  So she reaquainted herself with the dishes of her childhood, the dishes her mother had cooked for her when she was little, the dishes she had cooked for her father and brothers.  But, as she so often did in life, she did them her own way.  Familiar recipes were tweaked (although there were some she wouldn't dream of changing),  menus were adapted to suit the tastes of her growing family, she learned to make her own pasta with fresh eggs laid by her brood of hens, and her children grew.  Strong, healthy and happy just as she had dreamed of all those years ago.

The funny thing is, that the very first recipe book she started, way back then, had hardly ever been used except for a few absolute favourites.  The Hungarian Chocolate Pancake Cake, the Petite Roulades and even the good old Sacher Torte sat quietly unnoticed as the girl whipped up batches of Anzac Biscuits, Butter Biscuits and Dutch Orange Cakes from her high school cookery book, banana cakes, rock buns and cinnamon teacakes for her hungry children.

One day the girl wondered to herself, and then to her sister, "What if I cooked every recipe in that first book?  One recipe a week. Just to see if they're any good."  After all it seemed a shame to have all those lovely sounding recipes sitting there untried.  They both agreed that it was a fine idea indeed although, at that rate it would take about three years to get through just that one book and a lifetime to get through the whole collection, even if she stopped collecting recipes that very day, which I can assure you, she will not.

 Inspired by the film 'Julie and Julia' but with no such expectations of fame, the girl decided to record her baking triumphs and failures in her blog.  So she made herself a cup of tea, opened the book to recipe no. 1, dated May 1984, a Viennese Chocolate Cake, written out in her best teenage handwriting and made a shopping list, written out in her scrawling grown-up handwriting.  Then, when time permitted, she put on her apron, and began creaming the butter and sugar, losing herself in the familiarity of the motion.

What's in your work basket?

I love those 'What's in your work basket' posts I've seen on other blogs, such as this one at Soulemama.  So I'm going to share the contents of mine with you.  Let me say first, that the inventories I've seen on other blogs have been full of works in progress and this is all terribly impressive but I don't think they reflect the full reality of a busy life with children as mine does.  So this is what I found this afternoon as I was cleaning out my basket in desperation because I couldn't find anything I needed:

• Cotton yarn and pattern for my current work in progress, along with said WIP,
• Orange wool left over from this cardigan finished last week,
• A tangled ball of sock yarn left from these socks finished in August,
• A little purse to hold knitting tools - scissors, stitch holders, stitch markers, tape measure, etc although these things were to be found scattered about in the basket this afternoon,
• One polar bear who found his way into the basket when we went for a picnic last week,
• One pair of pink tights, size 1, discarded due to warm weather at the home-ed sports day last week,
• One long-sleeved top, size 3, discarded as above,
• One small spotty sock - I would like to know where the other one is please.

• One red duplo block,
• One small wooden fish,
• One little felt chicken,
• 2 blue pens,
• A copy of Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Workshop (one of the most useful knitting books I've ever picked up so it travels everywhere with my knitting), 
• An assortment of needles left in there from projects past,
• A handful of store loyalty cards which Marta emptied out of my purse at last week's sports day,
• A bundle of receipts (also from my purse and emptied out by Marta),

• One dessertspoon (?????????)
• One needle holder,
• One pair of hand-knit socks waiting to be mended
• Tag from a blackberry vine we planted in the garden last Winter (2010) that fell out of my gardening notebook and somehow found it's way into the knitting basket.
• One face-cloth, not pictured, as it needed to be put in the wash immediately!

That's it!!  I now have the task of putting all of these things away where they belong so I can reclaim my basket for it's intended purpose.

So........what's in your work basket?

No ordinary cardigan

Oh do not be deceived my friends.  This may look like quite an ordinary little cardigan but it is much more than it seems.  This cardigan represents the beginning of knitting freedom for this knitter.

Until now, I have pretty much been a pattern follower to the letter, using the recommended yarn - even choosing the same colour.  My problem is that if I am looking at a pattern in say, a foresty-green colour, (which I generally like), then it will be the colour that draws me in as much as the actual garment design.  Which can be pretty limiting because if that same pattern was in a hot pink (which I am not fond of, not even generally) then there's a fair chance I won't give the pattern a second look.  I seem to lack the imagination required to picture that design in foresty-green.  My brain just doesn't work that way - perhaps I am too literal.

What my brain can do though, is dream up a picture, from scratch, of something I would like to make.  And thanks to my new found best friend, knitting guru, Elizabeth Zimmermann and her Knitting Workshop book, I can work out how to make it. For instance, this April I decided I wanted to knit a cardigan for Jovanka for Winter.  So I thought about it for a few days and over time I came up with the design I wanted.  I sketched it down, got approval from the little madam herself (Jovanka that is, not Elizabeth), whisked her off to the local yarn shop and left her to choose her yarn (she chose a Woolganic pure wool 8ply) in a shade of orange which reminds me that I must, must, must get those pumpkin seeds planted this weekend.

Following the guidelines EZ gave, I cast on and got knitting, doing the back and fronts all in one on circular needles.  The sleeves were also done on circulars so there are no seams.  The sleeves were integrated when I reached the yoke and then it was just matter of decreasing to the neckline, knitting the moss stitch collar, casting off and then grafting a dozen stitches under each arm to join these stitches to the body.  I loved doing the calculations for each step rather than relying blindly on a pattern and hoping that it would fit.  I knew that this would fit because it was based on measurements I had taken so I felt like I had more control over the whole thing (and I do like to be in control).  I also loved learning new techniques and skills along the way so that I feel I am a much better knitter than when I began this piece.

What Elizabeth Zimmermann has given the knitting world (in case you've not come across her books), is a series of calculations which allow you to knit up a jumper or a jacket or a cardigan without a written pattern, provided you know a few measurements of the intended wearer.  It is surely the most practical advice I've been given in 35 years of knitting and has given me the freedom to design what I want to knit, without having to hunt around for a pattern that matches the picture I have in my head.  With that freedom has come the courage to have a go and if things don't work out as I expect then it is a lesson learned.  It's the kind of courage I see in my children as they go about their business of exploring the world around them and the kind of courage and imagination that seems to be discouraged as we grow up; the kind that tells Jovanka that she can choose five completely different buttons from the button box if she wants (and she did). Yes it's safer and easier to follow a pattern.  You know for sure what you're going to end up with, more or less.  But for this little knitter at least, it's not half as much fun!

And now, if you're seeking some inspiration, why not pop in and have a look at Our Creative Spaces, where crafters share their work with the world.  You will see this little number, along with a whole lot of other crafting wonder. I just had a peek and there is some beauty to behold there.

Another laundry lesson learnt.

If you've read any of my posts before, you might recall a small incident involving my washing machine, a load of washed sheets and a washing machine door that refused to open.  In case you haven't read it, or would like to refresh your memory, or maybe you're just one of those people who finds that reading about the misfortunes of others makes you feel better about your own sorry lot, then you can find that post right here.

In my defence I will say of today's incident, that for the last couple of years I have been recycling the water from my washing machine, via a greywater hose connected to the outlet pipe.  So for a couple of years, I have not had to consider the possibility of an overflowing laundry sink or a flooded laundry floor.  Until today.  This is what I get for cleaning out the fernery.

You see, the greywater hose connects to the washing machine's outlet pipe, passes through the window above the washing machine, travels across the fernery floor and makes its' way out to the garden where it keeps my lawns lush.  Well, that's what usually happens.  Until today.

The fernery, well it used to be a fernery until it got piled up with a whole load of other un-fernery related stuff, had been getting a bit messy.  Well, to be honest, 'a bit messy' is kind of an understatement.  It had gotten so bad that I couldn't walk right through it without having to take very big steps to avoid stepping on something and even then it was chancey.  It had gotten so bad that I was embarrassed to invite people over because they would not be able to avoid seeing my poor, sad fernery that used to be quite lovely, as they came in the back door.

Over time, this un-fernery related stuff that had been stored there by a friend for a few weeks which turned into, oh, about 13 months not that I'm counting, had spread out as boxes were opened in a search for one thing or another and had been added to with more boxes and bags of stuff.  Boxes had split and contents had tumbled out across the concrete floor.  Thinking that surely this friend would soon be taking this stuff away, as it was very clearly becoming a nuisance and really, it had been way more than just a few weeks, and thinking also that this friend should take care of their own stuff and not rely on me to clean up the mess their stuff had created, I left it there in it's state of messy mess-ness.  Time passed.  More time passed.  Yet more time passed.  Hints were given.  Suggestions were openly made. Begging is not my style.  The mess remained.

About a week ago, it became apparent that work needed to be done along the outside west wall of the house. Stay with me.  This is relevant because, to get to the aforementioned outside west wall of the house, one must pass through the fernery.  Yup.  Visions of tradesmen stumbling over these piles, muttering to themselves that they couldn't believe anyone could live like this troubled me terribly.  (If you ever hear me say that I don't care about any one's opinion of me, please know that I am lying).  It was also a fairly real possibility that no self-respecting tradesman would bother stepping through all of that and would instead turn on their tradie booted heels, get back into their tradie ute and be on their tradie way.  If the work was to be done, as it must be, the mess had to be dealt with.

So I spent one of my precious afternoons re-packing and re-stacking boxes and bags, sorting out rubbish that had accumulated throughout all of it and sweeping up piles of accumulated dried leaves that had dropped from the passionfruit vine growing over the fernery.  There was now a clear pathway for the tradesmen, room to park the pram and space for the children to store their bikes out of the rain.  And the piles of un-fernery related stuff looked even tidier than when it had all been dumped there in the first place.  What joy there is in a relatively tidy room / fernery.

This is where we get back to the laundry debacle of the morning.  If you are still there.  Underneath the piles and piles of stuff, the greywater hose had been lying all that time, quietly and conscientiously carrying the washing machine water out to the lawn, never asking for attention, never complaining, even though it now had a split and was leaking water onto the floor.  Being a small split and not a great big flooding split, it had managed to go unnoticed underneath everything.  Now that it was uncovered and found to be leaving a watermark on the concrete floor it seemed wise to disconnect it from the washing machine outlet, leaving the greywater to go into the sink and straight down the pipe.  As I said earlier, "until today".

What happened today?  Today I decided to hand wash some woollen jumpers.  Normally I do this in a big plastic tub that is perfect for just this very job.  But the plastic tub is currently otherwise employed, holding all the paraphernalia that one picks up from the floor of an eight year old boy's bedroom floor.  That is a whole other story which I will not go into now because probably you've got other things to do than just sit here reading my tale of woe.  Suffice it to say that the plastic tub I would normally use was not available for service at that particular point in time.  So I put the plug in the laundry sink, half filled it with water and a dash of wool wash, put the woolly jumpers in, swished them about a bit and left them to soak while I made breakfast for the troops.  If I had thought about it for even half a moment, I would have realised that the water from the load of washing I had put on five minutes earlier would also soon be making it's merry way into the laundry sink and there might be a problem with that.  But no.  I went off to the kitchen, feeling good about having a load of washing in the machine and a tub of soaking woolly jumpers, all done before breakfast.

There are days when I hear the voice of  Forrest Gump's mother in my head saying "Stupid is as stupid does".  Unfortunately the voice does not come into my head until after I've done something stupid!  Otherwise things might go quite differently for me and I might not find a laundry sink that just can't take any more and a laundry floor covered in water.  Worst of all was the fact that my lovingly hand knitted, hand washed woollies were now sitting in an overflowing sink of water that had been through the washing machine and a load of dirty clothes and did not look like the kind of water I wanted to be washing my woollies in.  Pull the plug out frantically, spilling more water onto the floor in the process, not that it matters because a bit more is not going to make much difference at this point.  Retrieve my precious woollies, wash them out in a bucket that is not quite so perfect for this very job, hang them out, hang the rest of the washing out, make myself a stiff cup of tea and spend the rest of the day chiding myself for not having the backbone to tell my friend plain and clear that the stuff in the fernery needs to be gone; for being so completely disorganised that I don't have the right tub for the job even though said tub has been in my son's room keeping heaven knows what off the floor for two weeks and should, by rights, have been where I needed it by this morning and finally, for being too hard on myself and for chiding myself for something that could, kind of, happen to anyone.  Except to those who have a backbone and a plastic tub that is perfect for the job and available at the time of need.  Oh to be one of those people.

My Creative Space - Crafters Starteritis

Preface:  Aside from my infrequent ramblings to the blogosphere, I also keep a journal which listens to all the unwindings going on in my head.  I came across this one from May and thought I might share it with you here.....

Friday 20th May 2011
Today I have Crafters Starteritis ADHD.  Onset began last night as I was waiting for sleep.  Ideas spinning in my head.  Good ones!  This morning, first thing, I drew them down before they slipped away.

It began with the thought that Ari's handknit socks needed new feet.  So I'm thinking the best way to approach this - cut off the foot - don't worry about unravelling. So then what can I do with the offcut?  Could it be put to any use?  And what about those big brown woolly socks I cut up to make elbow warmers from the legs?  Aha!  Slice the feet through and use the resulting fabric (which is felted from washing anyway) as insulation in an oven mitt - a pair!  Perfect.  Then thinking about how it peeves me to keep throwing out socks - odd ones, holey ones.  Don't want to make a sock snake.  Oh!  Got it!  Cut them into rings.  Knot the rings together to make a rope.  Braid them and sew into a mat.  Then thinking about knitting 'cause I just bought some cool cotton/bamboo mix yarn - multicolour orange, pink, yellow.  Pants for Marta?  Bought it for a dishcloth.  Is it wrong if the baby's pants match the dishcloth?  Well, maybe use a different colourway for each if this yarn kits up well.  But maybe cotton is too stretchy for pants on a soon-to-be crawling baby.  What about some dark grey 4 ply longies with pink stripes.  So pretty.  Oh, the choices!!!

So today the dishes have been piling up because all I want to do is MAKE SOMETHING but can't decide what to start with.  Cut up a few socks from the odd sock basket to trial and it works well, looks good and I think will be a good bath mat.  Move on to the next thing.  Laid eyes on a length of fabric I bought for a doona cover.  Looking through the cupboard for good contrast fabrics.  Found lots of pieces for pants for Marta and a skirt for me (or crazy trousers).  Still looking for contrast fabric.  Move on to the box in the hallway (the one set aside to take to the op-shop).  Nothing there but found some more pieces I liked for other projects so kept those pieces out.  Move on to the cupboards in the back room.  Nope, not there either but remembered I wanted to look for some fabric for a table topper for Jovanka's bedside.  Pulled out a few options for her to choose from.  Oh - and there's the flannelette for p.j's for them all.  Pull out a pile for them to choose from.  Interrupt their play.  They must CHOOSE NOW!!!!  Choices made.  Move on.  A game of Jenga on the loungeroom floor with them all.  Marta happily clacking a couple of blocks together.  Another game.  Dinner on.  My goodness the kitchen's a mess. Hmmm.  Think I have some p.j. patterns.  I'll just go and look.  Perfect.  Boys size 8 for David and I can adjust for Ari.  Girls size 1-4 for both girls.  Excellent.  Won't need to make my own patterns after all.  Blow!  Can't cut anything out now.  Dinner nearly ready.  Table's a mess.  Dishes all over the bench.  Marta will soon need attention from her Mama. Make a quick salad.  Thoughts spinning in my head.  Write it all down.  So!  Nothing started.  Fabric out for a dozen or more projects but no time or space to do anything RIGHT NOW!  It's my own SPACE-TIME continuum whatever that is.  SPACE, TIME and ENERGY.  It's a rare opportunity to have all three at once!

Dinner time but the table is still covered so it's dinner in the loungeroom watching Masterchef.  Oh well.  It's Friday....

What I learned today.

It was a toss up today, whether to join in with the 'this moment' action over at soulemama or to write something more.  I decided that today, I have too much to say, to say nothing, because today I learnt something worth sharing.

In the past when something which should be relatively easy, like undoing a knot or disengaging a couple of pieces of lego has turned out to be annoyingly not easy, I have, more often than not, found that muttering "come on" to myself or, more precisely, to the object in hand, to be very effective.  I have taught David this little trick and I often see him putting it to good use.  Ari, for some reason, does not seem to have need of it.  Things fall into place for him.  He is charmed it would appear.  And Jovanka, as you will soon learn, has her own device.

To give you an idea of the tone required, in case you should wish to employ the "come on", the best I can think of is this.  Think of Lleyton Hewitt, if you follow tennis (which I don't) and the aggression of his now famous yell "COME ON!!!"  Well, that's not it.  In fact I find that this can exacerbate the problem.  In my case, it just makes me more angry.  It's more like Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, when she's at the Ascot Race Day and her horse is racing.  It's that quiet, hopeful "come on" that she utters shortly before letting fly at the top of her voice with "Come on Dover!!!  Move yer bloomin' arse!!!!!"

But today, whatever tone I was going to use, it was not going to open the door on my front loading washing machine.  The one that had just finished washing a load of sheets.  You see, the catch has been broken for some time and had been temporarily fixed by a very resourceful friend who knows how to fix just about anything, although never in quite the way you might expect, and certainly never in an orthodox fashion.  His solution was to wind a bit of nylon string around the catch and then through to the front of the door so that pulling the string released the catch.  It was meant to be temporary but it has been working so well that I don't generally think much about it and had not had it properly repaired.  So yesterday Ari thought he would help out by filling the machine with some washing from the basket and, in the process of trying to close the door, pulled the string out, couldn't work out how to fix it and wandered off.  Before I loaded the sheets in this morning, I fixed the string back in place (feeling quite proud of myself for being able to fix the problem relatively easily), closed the door and left the machine to do its job.  When I came back to unload my clean sheets, the door would not budge, no matter if I pulled on that loop of nylon string until it cut into my fingers.  I suppose the saying "Pride comes before a fall" exists for a reason.  Because it's jolly well true.  I did the obvious thing and went to the kitchen for a knife - one of my often-used 'handymama' tools, to see if I could weedle away at the catch from the outside and release it.  Nope and I was getting worried that the blade could snap so I went for a screwdriver but still no luck.  And my very resourceful friend was off being resourceful in a distant town, with his mobile  phone turned off.  (Could it be that he sensed something?)

The man at the electrical repairs shop probably heard the frustration in my voice when I rang to see if they could send someone around to fix the problem.  I wasn't expecting immediate service - some time today would be okay.  But no.  He answered calmly that they couldn't possibly have anyone here before next week sometime - mornings would be preferable.  This man has maybe never smelt a load of wet sheets that has been locked up in a machine for four days.  No sympathy what-so-ever.  I returned to the laundry, wielding the screwdriver menacingly, aware that I should probably step away from the situation and come back when I was a little calmer. Ha!!!!  After several more attempts which, in retrospect may have done more damage to the machine than actually fixing anything, I was getting pretty cross with myself for being so complacent about the 'temporary' fix and was muttering all sorts of things to myself about my own stupidity.  Soon after that I was kneeling in front of the washing machine in tears, giving in to the anger. 

That's when it dawned on me.  When Jovanka, my three year old daughter is feeling really frustrated, she lets out a very vocal,  but thankfully brief, scream of rage.  It seems to work for her.  "Why not?" I thought.  So I let rip.  Loud, brief and venting all the rage I felt at myself and at this 'stupid' washing machine.  In that moment, I pulled on the string and blow me down if the door didn't swing open, freeing my washing from the threat of everlasting stinkification.  I would have laughed victoriously, had my washing not been sitting in a pool of water at the bottom of the machine because it had not drained properly, meaning that I would still have to ask the repairman to come and fix it - probably "next week sometime - preferably mornings".  So I fixed the string again, taking care to do it right this time and to TEST IT before closing the door once again, setting the dial to spin and walking outside to reassure the children that Mama was okay.  They received the explaination for my outburst with good humour and at least attempted to laugh with me as I explained that I had got the idea from Jovanka and that it had worked amazingly well.  Our neighbours may have been a little more concerned.

After all that, I was free to go and prepare our morning tea and sit out in the Spring sunshine, making a daisy chain to adorn Jovanka's wrist.  My thankyou gift to her for a most valuable lesson learnt.

Loving these days

What do you do after two weeks of runny noses, coughs and fever?  Head to the beach of course!!!  Winter is finally coming to a close and, just to prove it, Mother Nature has sent us a week of the most beautiful Spring weather.  Sunshine all day and barely a cloud in sight.

There was so much pleasure in packing up a picnic basket and getting out of this house at last, leaving all thoughts of sickness behind us and just getting out there to enjoy ourselves.  Well, we were still cautious - more so than most it seems.  My lot did tend to stand out as they still had long sleeves, long pants and gumboots so they could go sploshing into the water and explore with warm, dry feet.  Around them, children were splashing about in bathers, shorts, t-shirts and (gasp) bare feet!  It did look lovely to enjoy such freedom but I am not prepared to risk going back to another two weeks of being house bound with four sick children.  Summer is coming and there will be plenty of time for bare feet.

It has also been a wonderful time in the garden with fruit trees beginning to blossom, promising crops of juicy plums, apricots and peaches.  Oh, yum!!!!  We also managed a trip to the plant nursery to choose a shade tree for the back garden.  At the moment it is still a rather tall and very bare twig but with time, will grow into a beautiful, frilly, white flowering Crepe Myrtle big enough for the children to climb and for those of us too old for tree-climbing, to sit beneath with a cool drink.  I am so looking forward to seeing it grow.

My Creative Space.......my what???!!!!!!!

Please....ahem......excuse me.......Just a moment while I  pick    myself     up.....humph....off the floor and dust myself off, which could take a while since the floors are so horribly....well, lets not mention the floors.  However, I was down there laughing mirthlessly at seeing the words "my" and "space" in the same sentence.  And as for the word "creative"?  Well!!  The only creative things going on around here lately have been finding 'creative' ways to ignore the gathering debris under the kitchen table and 'interesting and delightful' new ways to step over the mess everywhere else in the house because if I bent over to pick anything up I was rewarded with a massive pain ripping through my skull.

You see, a rascally flu virus took up residence in our house two weeks ago and settled in.  I could tell it was planning to stay for a while because it unpacked all its' bags, put everything neatly into the drawers and carefully placed a photo of its' family next to the bed.  So I have had to spend the better part of each day and night looking after the dratted thing, bringing it cups of chamomile tea / hot soup / cooling water / fresh juicy fruit, filling up the hot water bottle, soothing its'distressing cries when the nightmare inducing fevers hit, keeping a supply of clean hankies on hand.  It really has been the most ridiculously over-demanding house guest one could imagine and one we will not be sorry to say goodbye to. 

Some flues, in comparison, seem relatively meek and well behaved.  They settle gently over the household, lay you low for a day or two and then they are on their way.  If it were possible to choose ones flu virus, I would certainly be selecting one of these little numbers, perhaps in a nice shade of turquoise.  But our visitor has been nothing but greedy, violent and completely lacking in manners.   It landed suddenly (obviously uninvited), smacked us all about the head and neck, tied our shoe-laces together and roughly knocked us over, stuffed our heads with cotton wool and our noses with glue then applied tight torniques around our brains, lit bonfires in our throats and then sat back in our best chair, put its feet up on the table and demanded service.

You will understand then, why the idea of having had any "my space" in the last two weeks seems not only laughable but cryable (is there such a word?).  Throw the concept of creativity into the mix and I will be throwing myself on the floor once more, in a fit of sobbing this time for all of that lost opportunity.  Actually, I just had a quick look around me and there isn't really enough uncluttered floor space to throw myself on.  I could do myself an injury.  It would have to be a very well calculated throw, taking into account bits of furniture, baskets of wool, piles of paper, childrens toys that have snuck into what really is supposed to be "my space",  and a metal filing tray that doesn't know where it belongs.

Although it has been a tough two weeks, it hasn't been all bad.  I did make a sufficient recovery after one week to mow the disastrously overgrown back lawn and tidy up the yard which had become so bad I didn't like going out there anymore.  I'm pretty sure it set back a full recovery by a few days but I think it may have been worth it.  So nice to be able to walk outside and not feel like crying.  It has also given us time to watch...are you ready for it?......a Little House on the Prairie DVD set I bought months ago but haven't been able to sit long enough to watch.  The children are loving it, just as I did thirty odd years ago and join me in exclaiming at how nasty and horrible Nellie Olson is, not to mention her mother Harriet.  Oooohhhhh, just the thought of them...!!  I'm quietly hoping that some of Laura Ingles' work ethic will rub off on the children, along with some of Charles and Caroline's wholesome-ness. 

Another positive to come out of it is that our visitor has shown the children that they can find within themselves the strength to fight.  Some took to the challenge more readily and with more strength than others.  Jovanka has amazed me with her resilience and quiet determination.  She didn't want medicine (which I keep on hand as a last resort) even when she was in the grip of fever and could barely walk.  She lay silently on the couch with her pillow, her blanket and her favourite soft toy and stared off into space while her body did what it needed to do.  The following day she was up and about, still tired, but ready to get on with things.  The boys were, well....let's just say, they needed rather more help but they have both found their way through and we have had a biology lesson along the way on viruses, antibodies, blood circulation etc, etc.

At this point in my (aiming for) regular "Creative Space" posts I usually zip off and link into the Our Creative Spaces site to share what I've done with other crafters there.  I think I'll spare them this one but it's always worth a visit there anyway to see what everyone else has been up to.  And now that we're on the mend, I'm feeling open to a little inspiration.  Care to join me?  Just click here and we'll be on our way.

Hope your house-guests are of the welcome variety.