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Monday 31 December 2012

Auld Lang Syne

stokescroft

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Beauty from Ashes...

Mark and I spent Friday in one of my favourite places to be - Stokes Croft in Bristol - drinking coffee and red wine and eating cake at Boston Tea Party and the Canteen.

CeesNooteboom

I popped into the Amnesty Bookshop on the way down and picked up some Cees Nooteboom for 75p, so spent the afternoon flitting between that and The Fire Gospel by Michel Faber. When I finished The Fire Gospel I drank some more wine, contemplated what was in 2012, and what may be in 2013.

Auld Lang Syne

2012 was an odd year of ups and downs. I passed my Legal Practice Course with a mega-Distinction, despite spending most of January thinking I'd failed the interviewing module. Mark finished writing his book, despite it nearly giving him a nervous breakdown (it is now under review pending publication). We redecorated our living room, did a lot of gardening, and both developed a deep love for Benedict Cumberbatch (Parade's End...Parade's End! Oh my!).

The major flaw in the year was my 3 months of unemployment. It was a truly demoralising, soul-crushing experience, not to mention financially a bit horrifying as having not been resident in the UK for long enough in the last few years, I was not entitled to the pittance that is jobseekers' allowance. Gutted. I spent the whole time avoiding meeting people I already knew, in case they asked how the jobseeking was going. I also spent the whole time avoiding meeting any new people, in case they asked me what I did and I would have to admit to having no job, at which point I am pretty sure any last remaining threads of optimism and self-esteem would have snivelled out through my ear and promptly left the country.

Of course, being offered my job was a highlight of the year - not only was it the perfect job for me but in my dream law firm as well! Life definitely got a lot better, and the last few months have been fun, with trips to Cambridge, Oxford, London and even a day at the Thermae Spa in Bath for my mummy's 60th birthday a few weeks ago! I'm looking forward to more of this in 2013!

Hogmanay

I don't really do anything on New Year's Eve anymore. After 3 fun-filled NYEs in Sydney, out and about in the balmy night air with fireworks and friends and full-service public transport running all night, I don't really want to spend a night being overcharged for everything in an otherwise regular venue, before waiting for hours in the freezing cold to pay £6758688676 for a taxi home. I'll be at home in Nottingham, with a nice bottle of wine and, hopefully, some good food. I'll probably be in bed at five past midnight. So...Happy New Year and I'll see you on the other side!

Sunday 30 December 2012

Spoiled

Fellows family Christmas tree!
Our Christmas Tree in Bristol


Christmas continues...

After spending Christmas Day with Mark's family on the farm, we have come over to my family in Bristol for a few days, which means a second Christmas!

My parents bought me a new camera, which is pretty much the best present ever! It's a Canon Powershot A4000 IS and it's so tiny! My previous Canon Powershot I have had since early 2007, and while it was a great camera, it's no longer much use as the autofocus broke about a year ago. As a result, whenever you want to take a photo you have to spend ages zooming in and out to try and get it to focus! I still have my Canon EOS 30D DSLR, but that is a big serious camera and isn't really practical for carrying round all the time. So a new little point-and-shoot was definitely in order.

So I've been testing out this new camera photographing my presents! I am so lucky to have been given so many lovely things! My camera was really a delayed birthday present - I was meant to get it back in June (!) but it all got a bit mixed up, so I got a few more Christmas things from the parentals too, as well as from Mark, my sister Becca, and Mark's family.

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I got two owls! The larger one is a cushion from my mummy, the smaller is a doorstop from Mark's parents.

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I already have an Ampelmann tea mug (see here). But now I have an AMPELMANN CAPPUCCINO MUG TOO! From the Ampelmann Ostalgia shop in Berlin, via parents.

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Smellies! Soap & Glory Smoothie Star from Mark, Body Shop ginger sparkle bath crystals and hand cream from Bec, Sanctuary Spa set and Body Shop soaps from parents.

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Tea towel from the Natural History Museum via Bec, 2013 diary from Bec, and cute purse from my aunt and uncle who also put a bit of cash in it :D

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Books and DVDs - I bought The Crimson Petal & The White for Mark and I, Parade's End DVD and Twenty Thousand Streets book and DVD were from my parents to both of us, and Winnie the Pooh in Latin and the letters of Arthur Conan Doyle from Mark's parents.

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And the culinary gifts! Mark's gift to me was a MAGIMIX!!!!! It has grater, slicer, blender, dough hook, ahhh! He also bought the super knife, for both of us. My parents bought us the two books - Nigel Slater and Nigellissima - the pestle and mortar, and measuring spoons (fulfilling a request as on my current measuring spoons, the measurements have rubbed off so you can't tell what they are!). The funky veg kit is from Mark's brother and his family - it's a growing kit with seeds for purple carrots, purple sprouts, multi-coloured chard, yellow courgettes and tiger tomatoes. I can't wait til the spring to get planting them!

Not pictured here are a lovely jacket and the perfume 'Chance' by Chanel, both from Mark, some chocolatey bits, a little recipe book and a lovely address/anniversaries book from Mark's grandma, and an awesome sparkly collar/necklace from Bec.

Moving on...

Tomorrow we are loading up the car and journeying back home to Nottingham, the Christmas break is over and normality will soon return. I have to go to work on New Year's Eve, but I don't mind that. And then we will be into 2013, but more on that another time! I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas.

Saturday 29 December 2012

Vegetarian Christmas Dinner

Mark and I are both vegetarians (well, pescetarians (fish-eating veggies), but that usually results in blank looks), which is always a bit of a pain at Christmas. Or rather, not a pain for us so much as for everyone else.

During our years in Sydney, Christmas dinner was an easier affair. In the heat of summer, the Australian Christmas feast includes as much fish and salads as heavy hunks of meat - with heaps of oysters and prawns, and tuna and salmon steaks flung on the barbeque amongst the sausages.

Back in the UK of course meat is the undisputed centrepiece. And so, wherever we go for Christmas, we are always met with the question: "what are you two going to eat on Christmas day?" It feels awkward. Extra effort has to be made to accommodate your 'difficult' dietary requirements. So, this year, we offered to cook the whole Christmas dinner ourselves: vegetarian style.

A preconception-challenging, tradition-upheaving, Christmas dinner revolution!

After some research and a few practice runs, we settled on a pie as our centrepiece. This pie to be precise - a triple layered feast of spinach, ricotta, pearl barley, mushroom, chestnut and butternut squash.

After the run-through revealed that the timings given in the recipe were overly optimistic (40 minutes preparation time was more like 4 hours), we made the pie on Christmas eve and kept it in the fridge overnight. It looked like this:

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We put it in the oven at 11am on Christmas day, and by 2pm it looked like this:

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Layers!

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And here it is as part of the full spread: we did all the usual roastie trimmings, with sprouts and peas too.

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For pud, we baked pears (again, the day before) in a mix of white wine, brandy and apple juice, seasoned with cinnamon and cloves. We thickened up the juice with arrowroot to make a syrup. It made a nice alternative to Christmas pudding, which I can NEVER eat after a big roast dinner and I am astounded by anyone who claims they can.

Of course, it wouldn't be Christmas without a bit of Christmas pudding. We didn't make a pudding, but we made a compote of stewed fruit in Marsala for the same effect. Delicious!

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Anyone got any other good alternative Christmas dinner ideas?

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Merry Christmas !!!

I thought I'd take some time out from my supremely lazy Boxing Day schedule of eating and lazing to come online and wish everyone a happy Christmas in retrospect! I hope everyone had a lovely day full of cheer and warmth.

We are down on Mark's family's farm in Cambridgeshire enjoying a bit of a break, although it has turned out to be a busy few days in their own right, with shopping trips and much baking. We even cooked a vegetarian Christmas dinner for the family, which went rather well if I may say so myself, and I will bring you more about that shortly!

The Big Smoke

I finished work last Thursday, so on Friday we took ourselves into London for the day. We began with my now traditional stop-off at the British Library - I love arriving into King's Cross/St Pan because the Library has brilliant coffee and always has something worth looking at on display. This time around, they had Jack Kerouac's manuscript scroll, which he later turned into On the Road.

Now I am not really a beat-fan, and I must admit that On the Road is one of the only books I have ever tried to read that I just had to give up on without finishing. I just couldn't get it. But that aside, the scroll was pretty cool and interesting in it's own right. And the Library's coffee was excellent as always.

The rest of the day was spent lunching at Koya in Soho, which was tasty, followed by a lengthy trip round Liberty Department Store!

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I had never been before but oh my! I loved it! Next year I will do all my shopping there! My sister, Becca, came to meet us and we had a good look round, and even did some big-name celeb spotting! My provincial-self was far too excited but Bec was all "oh you see famous people all the time in London". Haha.

We spent the afternoon ambling in Camden, before dinner at Pizza East in Kentish Town, and then back to Camden for a quick red wine in the Hawley Arms (no celebs) before the late train home...

...with a little souvenir in tow!

LibertyBauble

Tuesday 20 November 2012

Weekend voyaging

Had a nice little weekend away in Cambridgeshire on the farm at the weekend, primarily to celebrate Mark's dad's 60th Birthday! Daytime ambles through the Backs and the shops all twinkling with Christmas lights, and evenings in front of the fire (although it did spring a leak and try to smoke us out at one point - not quite so cosy!)

Mulled Wine

I also fulfilled a LIFELONG AMBITION (sort of) of drinking mulled wine in the fireplace nook at The Eagle. The Eagle does the Best Mulled Wine and we always try to get in the nook but it's always got people sitting in. BUT all of a sudden it was empty! RESULT!

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Looking forward to another wee trip to my hometown Bristol next weekend, and my mummy's 60th Birthday which means a special secret treat on Friday!

Saturday 10 November 2012

Anniversaries...

I celebrated two small but lovely anniversaries in the past week or so... Firstly, 10 years ago on the 31st of October, I found my way to the Broadway Cinema in Nottingham which was hosting Will Self for the evening. Will Self is my absolute favourite writer of all time equal with Vladimir Nabokov. But more on that in another post for another time. On 31st October 2002, Will Self did a reading from his (then) new novel Dorian, followed by some questions from the audience and an opportunity to talk to Will and get your copy of the book signed. I spent about 3 weeks thinking up glorious deep and intellectual remarks and got all prepared, waited politely with my book in my hand. But it was not to be. As Will Self turned to greet me, I froze for a few awkward seconds, before thrusting my copy of Dorian at him and spluttering, slightly too fast and too loud, "HELLOMYNAMEISANNA".

In mitigation, I was very young (only 18) and already a bit nervous as I had only moved to Nottingham a few weeks earlier and was unfamiliar with my surroundings and was there on my own (couldn't persuade any of my new uni contemporaries to join). And he was, as far as I can remember, very pleasant and eloquent and patient and engaging. And he signed my book thus:

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Will Self's latest novel, the Booker-nominated Umbrella, recently both was published and lost out on the Booker to Hilary Mantel's Bring up the Bodies (which Mark has declared one of the best books ever and so perhaps we can allow this indiscretion on the part of the Booker judges...). On 31st October 2012, I went to buy it from the bookshop after work.

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It's my Christmas present, really, so it's wrapped up in its bag until then, but I am so excited for my Christmas reading time. Especially so since Umbrella has been featured in the Guardian's list of the '10 most difficult books to finish'. I do love a book challenge.

And secondly? Secondly was my 9 year anniversary with Mark, on the 5th November. After a few fireworks-free years in Australia, it was nice to be back at Forest Fields watching the fireworks after a bottle of champagne and three courses at Petit Paris...

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Wednesday 3 October 2012

Mines and Mansions

Another couple of photos here from our little foray into the Peak District over the summer... Towards the end of our long day of walking, we passed through the pretty little village of Sheldon and joined a footpath leading across the fields back to our campsite. Just outside the village and a field or so away from the path, we spotted these ruined buildings and I couldn't help but go and have a look...

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A small sign on a nearby fence told us that this was the site of Magpie Mine, and that the remains here form one of the best preserved 19th century lead mines in the whole UK! Workings on this site are first recorded in 1740, and the different buildings here now represent almost every era from then up until the mine's closure in 1954.

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I had to put a cheesy antique effect on this photo because the quality was so bad but it almost works with the mood of the mine site. (My camera is dying - a new one is on my Christmas list! The first photo is taken on an iPad so it's ridiculous that it's better quality when it's not even really a camera!)

A bit of googling also uncovered an interesting story about the mine - apparently the mine was involved in several disputes with neighbouring mines over which tunnels belonged to who, and miners would light fires underground to smoke out their competitors (obviously modern health and safety regulation was lacking...). In 1833, 3 miners from a rival mine were suffocated. Eventually, all Magpie miners were acquitted, partly because it was difficult to identify individual culprits, and partly because of the aggravating antics of the rival miners. But it is said that the wives of the dead miners put a curse on Magpie Mine, which ultimately caused the mine to temporarily close for some time during the 1830s as a result of financial ruin.

Chatsworth in the rain...

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From one historic site to another, the day after our walk we took it easy (our legs wouldn't let us do otherwise!), packing up at the campsite and driving into Bakewell for a super-long and leisurely lunch. We then headed out to Chatsworth, where unfortunately the weather turned and the heavens opened, lucky for you as you get to see me looking a bit special in my rain poncho! Haha. We'd visited the house and gardens before so as it's quite expensive, we decided to just walk around the surrounding parkland instead (although if you haven't been before/are not strapped for cash it's definitely worth the money). Even in the rain, it's such a beautiful place, if anything the weather made it even more atmospheric!

Tuesday 2 October 2012

The best type of flea

So I was planning to walk up to Beeston Library this afternoon to return my Edward St Aubyn books but it suddenly started pouring down with rain. So I am stuck in on the sofa, getting a bit emotional listening to Ed Miliband on Daily Politics Conference Special. But there is a benefit to you, dear readers, and that is that you get a lovely blog post!

Last Saturday we headed into Nottingham for a lovely brunch at Jam Cafe followed by a trip to the Pretty Dandy Flea Market held in the Congregational Church on Castle Gate.

The church was a great venue for the flea. You can see some photos of the day taken by one of the stallholders on their blog, here. It was the first time the market had been held, but I hope they do another one soon as it was amazing - so many wonderful stalls with artists and collectors selling beautiful handmade/secondhand homewares.

It would have been very easy to spend a LOT of money at the market, but we restrained ourselves as I am still out of work right now. One thing we have been doing recently in our home is trying to build up our cushion collection - it's amazing what a difference they can make to the living room! There were a couple of stalls selling cushions made from vintage fabrics and we this one really jumped out at us as soon as we saw it...


The front is a screenprinted fabric from 1964 called 'Stanhope' (you can see it in the V&A textile archives). The back is a Harris Tweed. We got it for £35 and it makes such a statement, it looks amazing on the sofa!

Most of the sellers at the market had online stores so we collected fliers from the stalls we liked so we can buy from them another time. In particular there was a lady there selling her own prints, I can't remember her name right now and Mark has the flier, but they were really nice and bright and hopefully we'll get one to hang on our wall soon.

Otherwise, Mark picked up a few records from the second hand record stall and we also bought this set of 4 bowls for only £4!


According to Pretty Dandy's Facebook page they are looking at trying to arrange another flea market before Christmas, which would be brilliant for present-buying! *fingers crossed*

Sunday 16 September 2012

Sunny afternoons....

So I couple of posts back I made the somewhat grumpsome indication that proximity to the Peak District may be the only good thing about living in Nottingham. This isn't true, there are a (very small) number of other good things about Nottingham too. One of them is Wollaton Park. An Elizabethan stately home (Wollaton Hall) lies in several hundred acres of beautiful parkland, less than a mile from where we live. The park is a deer park too, so wonderful if you like a bit of wildlife spotting! Anyone who's seen the new Batman film may also recognise the Hall as Wayne Manor, residence of Bruce Wayne/Batman!

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We spent several sunny afternoons over the past couple of months at the park, with picnic basket in tow, relaxing and sunbathing. Although the weather is cooling down now, I'm still looking forward to some autumnal walks as the trees turn golden red.

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I even brought out my old Australian sunhat! Haven't really needed that in the UK so much, sadly. That dress is one of my old ones from my Australian days too. I love it *sigh*.

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The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit on the Kindle - one of my all time favourite children's books. I always go back to E. Nesbit's Psammead series when I'm in need of calming - they're such magical books, perfect escapism for any age!

Friday 14 September 2012

Book review: 'blueeyedboy' by Joanne Harris

I've had an account over at Goodreads for a while. I really like it as a website and the way it works as a social networking site with a difference, and I post up the occasional super-short review. I like doing this mainly because it helps me remember what I've read and what I thought of the book in the immediate aftermath of turning the final page. I just wrote one and noticed it gave you the option to share your review through a blog so I thought I'd give it a go! If this works well and my readers are interested, I may post some more in future!

BlueeyedboyBlueeyedboy by Joanne Harris
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I thought I would love this, as I recently read Joanne Harris's 'Gentlemen and Players', which I thought was a superb book, and was told this was in the same vein.

It has considerable similarities, based again on the idea of concealing your identity, and even set in the same town (the fictional school that formed the setting of 'Gentlemen and Players' also features in this novel). I liked the concept - the idea of characters hiding behind online identities, the blurring of the boundaries between fact and fiction. But I ultimately didn't get drawn into this book. The way it's told, through a series of fictional/semi-fictional blog posts by the two main characters, caused the narrative to lose momentum a little, and as a result the suspense didn't build enough for me and the twist at the end, while clever, didn't deliver the punch I was expecting.

Still, it's interesting, intelligent and well-written. I would still recommend this book, but perhaps not as strongly as some of Joanne Harris's other work.

View all my reviews

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I am a massive book lover and something I always wanted to do on my old blog but never got around to (there was always too much fun day-to-day stuff to write about while I was in Australia!) was to share some of my all time favourite books, what brought me to them and why I love them. Hopefully I'll get started on that soon!

Wednesday 12 September 2012

Summer Holiday

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One of the (only...?) benefits to living in Nottingham is its proximity to the Peak District, and we took advantage of the good weather in the first couple of weeks of August to get away with the tent for a few nights. We managed to get a spot on a site near the village of Monyash, about halfway between Bakewell and Buxton and about an hour and twenty minutes drive from Nottingham. Mandale Farm was a brilliant site - basically just a couple of fields near the farmhouse and very rural and peaceful. Very basic facilities but really good value. After setting up camp we walked across the fields to The Bull's Head in Monyash for excellent pub tea and beer. The following day we did an 18km circular walk from the campsite. I thought I was going to collapse at one point or my legs might fall off, but it was amazing! The morning began rather misty and we started with a walk through Lathkill Dale, which was lovely and idyllic, and is also the site of Bateman's House.

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The house is now ruins, but in the 1840s was the house of Thomas Bateman, agent of Lathkill Mine. It was actually built to conceal a 12m deep mineshaft, directly underneath the house, which of course meant that the house was a structural disaster! The site has been made safe now, and you can go down a ladder to see the shaft underneath.

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It was really dark, and you couldn't see the bottom of the shaft even with the torch on. This photo has the flash on so you can actually see better here than in real life!

We came out of Lathkill Dale into the lovely village of Over Haddon, and continued over the fields to Bakewell, where we stopped for lunch and smoothies in a lovely cafe with a sunny courtyard. Still left room for a Bakewell Pudding though....

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From Bakewell, we joined the Monsal Trail, which is a disused railway line, in the 19th century part of the line connecting London and Manchester. It includes a number of railway tunnels, and our section had Headstone Tunnel, a VERY long dark tunnel, which would have been quite spooky were it not for there being so many other people on the trail! It opens out and the line continues over Headstone Viaduct, which you can see in this photo, taken from Monsal Head. Monsal Head required a tough climb up (there is a road you can drive up if you don't fancy it!) but was well worth it for the incredible views.

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The last part of the walk took us back across country (with a pause for Bakewell Pudding!) and through Monsal Dale back to the campsite. We also unexpectedly passed the fascinating site of Magpie Mine and stopped for a look - I'll post about that another time. After a hot shower at the campsite and a bit of a sit down, we drove back into Bakewell and had a wonderful pub tea at the Peacock. Two nights of scampi in a row. Amazing.

Monday 10 September 2012

Growing your own...

I'm quite good at growing my own stuff. I grow my own hair, toenails, waistline, occasional lifeforms in the back of the fridge.... Last year however we started growing out own food, albeit on a fairly basic level (chillies and tomatoes). We intended to branch out a bit this year, but time constraints at the relevant times meant we just stuck to what we knew, but on a slightly larger scale.

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We have four tomato plants this year and are currently revelling in tomato gluttony. Last year we found the tomatoes had quite tough skins (which happens when you grow them outside), but this year that's not been a problem at all. I guess the weather has made quite a difference - our garden is quite sheltered and south facing, and the latter part of August/early September has been quite pleasant this year compared to last. As a result, the little tomatoes didn't need to toughen up so much. We have three varieties and are scoffing them every day!

chillies

This is last year's chilli plant, back in full swing! Everything we read about chillies told us that it was unlikely to produce a second year crop, but we looked after it well all winter, keeping it inside in a sunny spot, and moved it back outside in May when the weather warmed up. Until late June it didn't do anything and we thought that was it, but all of a sudden it seemed to have all its seasons at once - dropped its leaves, regrew its leaves, flowered and started producing in the space of about a fortnight!

This was good news as the new chilli plant we got unfortunately failed on us - the appalling weather at the start of summer made it too depressed and barring a few new leaves it hasn't grown at all.

Next year we want to try some beans of some description, possibly some courgettes but I enjoy courgette flowers more than courgettes themselves! Mmmmmm courgette flowers stuffed with cream cheese......mmmm. Tomatoes again and of course chillies. If like us you eat a lot of asian/spicy food I would absolutely recommend growing chillies. If you get good weather (or have a greenhouse so it doesn't matter so much) just one plant will keep you in chillies from July through to January/February (and beyond if you freeze/dry them). Saves SO much money.

Saturday 8 September 2012

Irish Soda Bread

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I must admit to not having eaten much soda bread in my life - I think a few times on holiday in Ireland, and, strangely, a few times in Sydney. In Sydney it was always with my friend Aisling, who was on a constant quest for good soda bread to remind her of her Dublin home.

I have been slowly working through the bread chapter of my copy of The Great British Book of Baking and this recipe is in there, so I thought I'd give it a go. It quickly became a firm favourite. It really is one of the easiest recipes I have ever come across and takes no time at all (no yeast and no kneading like 'normal' bread!), and is UTTERLY delicious. You do need to get hold of wheat germ and wheat bran, neither of which were in my local Sainsbury's or Tesco, but find yourself a good health food shop and you'll be sorted in no time.

Mix 200g wholemeal plain flour with 200g white plain flour. Mix in 25g wheat germ, 25g wheat bran, teaspoon of salt, 1.5 teaspoons of bicarb. Add 350ml buttermilk and mix in with your hands to make a soft, sticky, rough-looking dough. Turn out onto a floured surface and shape into a ball. Set on non-stick baking tray, gently flatten to 4cm high, score the dough with a cross and dust with flour. Bake for about 35 mins, until it's golden brown and sounds hollow when you tap the bottom.

See? Easy. I'd really recommend this whole book too, if you are newish to baking or want to expand your repertoire. The recipes are super-easy and it has all the greats, from Bakewell Tart to pork pie, treacle tart to hot cross buns, challah to focaccia and everything in between. Also the best Death by Chocolate EVER.

Sunday 19 August 2012

Alfred Kubin at the Nottingham Contemporary


I found out that Nottingham Contemporary was holding an exhibition on Alfred Kubin just a few days before it opened. I find the Austrian artist a fascinating person and had seen a couple of his works in Vienna years back while I was studying at the University there on the Erasmus programme. Kubin's life, and particularly his childhood, was extremely troubled, but the way this spilled over into his art gives us a wonderful insight into his mind and clearly fueled his creativity.

I went by myself on the first Saturday that the exhibition opened, and then for a second time last week with Mark. The works are a lot to take in - you almost need to see them twice, once to feel the effect of them in terms of their dark, haunting nature, and a second time to really appreciate their artistry.

Kubin lived from 1877 to 1959, but all the works at the Contemporary date from a short period in Kubin's twenties, over the turn of the century, shortly after he suffered a complete nervous breakdown. Kubin's drawings are full of fantastical scenes with a dark, sinister edge. There are distorted figures, depictions of death and destruction, fear and terror. One of my favourites, 'Rapid Journey' features a giant, grotesque slug, carrying a number of well dressed, frolicking people in compartments along its back.


'Epidemic' (1900-1901)

A corner of the gallery, tucked behind a wall, housed the most disturbed and indeed disturbing works in the exhibition. These included the harrowing 'Scenes from Hell', a series of illustrations of extreme torture and dismemberment, and 'The Kiss', depicting a pornographic scene in which one party is a decomposed corpse.


'The Way to Hell' (1900) - another of my favourites. This is always how I always imagined the gates of hell to be, in Dante's 'Inferno'.

But Kubin's work isn't just about the horror or the shock-value. His view of the world may be dismal, but it is presented in such amazing detail and with such wonderful artistic skill. I guess that is why it has endured so well.

Kubin shares the billing at the Contemporary with a current artist, Francis Upritchard, whose sculptured figures contrast with and, in a strange way, complement Kubin. A couple of her older works, including grotesque fur monkey-type creatures, sit in the Kubin galleries, while two of the spaces are given over to her work alone. The first room contains 'War Dance', a number of figures on plinths that appear to be engaged in some sort of war. They are in smart white uniforms, and each adopts a battle pose. But rather than appearing threatening and powerful, they are gangly, puny and almost pathetic looking.


The second room contains the 'Hippies and Holy Fools', colourful figures with a psychedelic feel, who look like they have just wandered out of a late-1960s festival. They are extremes, almost caricatures.

I stared at one of the War Dance figures in the eyes for a long time to see if he would move, come alive. He didn't, but there is something in the figures that draws you in, just like in Kubin's work...something of the unreal. Something that takes you into a new, strange place in your imagination.

Friday 17 August 2012

Czech this out

Sorry for the TERRIBLE PUN use in the subject of this post. I rather overused it in the past couple of months as we gallivanted through Bohemia at the end of June. We spent a few days in Prague in some pretty extreme heat, meaning we took a fairly slow approach involving a lot of sitting in parks and cafes with cold drinks. Having visited Prague several times before and being pretty familiar with the city, this suited us just fine.

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Overjoyed by the weather on our first night there...we headed out to a little veggie restaurant called Maitrea, which was a great choice with fresh, interesting and supercheap food, and even a Buddhist retreat upstairs!

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We made our way up to the Loreta the following day, after a hot, slow walk from our hotel (via brunch at Bohemia Bagel, OBV). This was followed by a stroll on Petrin Hill, in the cooling shade of the trees, and taking in the views over the city.

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Then to St Vitus Cathedral and Prague Castle, before back to the hotel for a rest and a shower. The evening was spent eating at Lehka Hlava (the sister restaurant of Maitrea and even better - very welcoming and atmospheric), and reliving my 21st birthday with a martini (me) and mojito (Mark) at Café Savoy. We couldn't remember the exact table we sat at, and they had moved things around a little, but I think we got it about right! Note the tree behind me is still there, as is the bucket in the bottom left!

Aged 21....June 2005.
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Aged 28....June 2012.
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