Tag Archives: Poetry

Blackberry Day

Saturday was one of those days I’ll remember for a long time. I spent the day with the OH, my sister and her fella in the countryside, picking blackberries and roaming around looking for water voles. For most people, it was probably nowt special, but for me it contained lots of the little things that make me happy, including sunshine, fresh air, food and family. Here’s a round up of the day in pictures:

Mud!

Cute little tiny frog!

Blackberries

Blackberry and apple crumble- yummers

I’ll end with a poem written by my sister, Rachel McGladdery

Jelly Babies

We braved the wasps and nettles,

feet fearing the moist scrabble of tiny frogs

and came home

Twice

with bags of dripping berries.

Elicited nods from sweet old ladies

and questions of recipes.

Oh I scored points for making jam not pies.

To see my babies lined up

neatly labelled

little bonnets

crisp.

To see the sun slant through the ruby

and feel that female pride

of storing bounty up for winter,

anticipating spooning scented jelly

on toast on steaming cold mornings

before school

negates the quarrelling,

the carping,

the thorns in fingers

and dresses ruined with purple.

I am,

in some small fragrant way

that kind of mother.

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Filed under Baking, Family, Food, Mr Pavlova

Banana and Oatmeal Loaf

Hey,

I’m back and I’m on a roll. Here’s a scrummy banana and oatmeal cake I made last week from a recipe from Joy the Baker. I used olive oil instead of canola oil, cos I don’t have any, in fact I don’t even know what canola oil is!

Have I mentioned how utterly amazing Joy is before?! Well she is, so go look at her blog. But be sure to come back here too!

Someone else who is stupendously talented is my sister Rachel who has just won her first ever poetry slam. Check out her poetry, she’s ace. Well done Rach!

OK, that’s it for now. I’m going to my first Pampered Chef party tonight, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

x

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Filed under Baking, Family, Food

The Other Half Cooks, Plus Word Soup

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. No, I wasn’t stranded somewhere hot and tropical, unable to get back due to Paddy Ashcloud (OH’s invention, not mine) but I have been busy. So what have I been up to?

Well, last night I attended my first Word Soup, where my ever so talented sister, Rachel was performing. It was good, I was worried it would be a bit too highbrow for me but I enjoyed it. And it’s got me writing again – I woke up at about 6.45 this morning ’cause I had to scribble a poem down.

Saturday was spent with my friends. We ‘lunched’ and then went to see my friend’s new house. It was lovely – I’m so jealous. Subsequently, I’ve been giving our flat a mini makeover, but more about that later this week.

While I was out on Saturday, the OH took my absence as an opportunity to embrace his inner Heston Blumen’eck and try out a recipe from his new cookbook. Here’s what he’s been cooking up over the last few days:

Jamie Oliver’s Crunchy Garlic Chicken

I hate to be negative but this was OK, but not great. It’s not really OH’s fault though, we didn’t have fresh parsley so he used dried n I think that’s why it didn’t taste right. He also made a french dressing to go with the salad, which was good.

Classic Tomato Spaghetti

OH chose the tuna variation, using a tin of tuna, cinnamon and lemon juice. He missed out the olives as we don’t like them. This was one of the nicest meals I’ve ever had. We eat a lot of tuna pasta bake ’cause it’s cheap and easy but I think this is going to replace it. The chilli (we used powder rather than fresh chillies, works fine) and cinnamon taste really good with the tuna, even though I was dubious about the combination when reading the recipe. The OH was really pleased, so hopefully he’s going to carry on with this cooking malarkey.

Anyway, that’s it for now, except for a quick herb update as I know that’s what you were all waiting for…   🙂

Bye

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Filed under Baking, Family, Food, Mr Pavlova, Recipes