Thank goodness for Mummy Milk

Poor Monkey is suffering this week with her teeth and a cough & cold. She is barely eating and as a result we are breast-feeding LOTS. Which I need to keep reminding myself of, because I do worry when she doesn't eat. And I get to eat lots of yummy things because I'm feeding both of us :-)

Almost there

We have exchanged contracts on our house and moving day is scheduled for next Wednesday! I can't possibly convey to you the stress of the last couple of weeks. At more than one point it looked like it wasn't going to happen. We had a deadline of 30th September before our mortgage offer expired. Last Friday we found out that our vendors had lost the house they were planning to buy. Thankfully they have decided to continue with their plans to move and are renting a house in the interim. Yesterday, after trying to exchange contracts for the previous two days, we were informed that our buyers had lost their buyer. Yep, they just decided not to proceed. The English system is appalling, it is a disgrace that there is no commitment until contracts are exchanged. You are relying on someone's word and planning your future lives with no guarantees whatsoever. With great relief we found out that our lenders were happy to proceed on the basis that we would be renting our house out, and even better news came when our buyers indicated that they would like to rent the house and buy it when they had secured another buyer. So now we have a week to pack our lives up and prepare for seaside life! Here's a few pics of our destination:

Mmmm, chilli jam!

Inspired by Nina over at Tabiboo (a soon-to-be neighbour in Broadstairs) I decided to have a go at making my own chilli jam. I wanted something piquant and sweet to accompany cheese, cold meats, sausages etc. This was my very first attempt at making any kind of jam or preserve, so I borrowed my Mum's preserving pan and hey presto:

A deliciously sticky chilli jam! I used Sarah Raven's recipe which you can find online here. I changed the recipe very slightly, using 3 regular red chillies and adding 1 Birds Eye chilli for some extra heat. I also used one of those sweet pointy red peppers. It set beautifully after an hour or so bubbling away, and the spicing is just right, a nice heat but it doesn't send you rushing to the tap for water (not that water helps but anyway!).

Unfortunately the recipe quantities only made one jar (plus a tablespoon leftover which was very quickly devoured!) so I will be making it again very soon and sizing up the quantities.

Just Because

And I'm out...

I'm sorry to say that I've given up on my second Booker Prize novel, How to Paint a Dead Man, by Sarah Hall. Sorry because I absolutely hate giving up on books, but life is too short and too busy, and this one has been sitting by my bed for 2 weeks now and I've had to force myself to read further. It's also a shame because the writing is beautiful. This, for example:

Still, there you were, together, from the very beginning. You shared a pillow of placenta, pedalled in tandem against your mother's belly. You heard concurrently the wet chamber music of her body, shared nutrients, and dreamt the same hermetic dream.

Elegant and poetic, but ultimately the narrative was just not strong enough to maintain my interest. There are four strands to the novel, each concerned with art and it's place in the world, but I read a third of the novel and became frustrated that there was no plot to speak of and nothing to urge me forward. I guess I need a good story. Maybe I should get the new Dan Brown (JOKE).

Knitting: The Proof

Some knitting to show you, at last! Here's my most recent project, a pretty teal bolero for the Monkey:

Nanna had to finish it off, however, because I couldn't work out the reverse shapings on the collar. Boo. Feel like a bit of a cheat.

How cute is she in her play buggy?!

My current W.I.P is another one of these contrast-edging cardigans.

Nanna knitted this one in white and green.

And I am knitting the next size up in a lovely grey and dusky pink. Let's hope I actually manage to finish it all myself...

Another foodie weekend...

This weekend was a rather successful foodie weekend. Successful for the tastebuds, deadly for the diet, that is! We had a lovely takeaway Indian meal on Friday evening, and on Saturday we pizza using Hugh Fearnley Whittinstall's recipe from the Guardian magazine a few weeks ago. Now I was a little dubious about pizza-making, never having made a dough from scratch before. Deciding that this MUST be done properly, I nipped over to the food hall at John Lewis in Bluewater to purchase a pizza stone. This nifty bit of equipment gets preheated in the oven at the highest possible temperature and is supposed to ensure that your pizza gets a crispy base. Hugh F-W does claim that the dough recipe is foolproof and he turned out to be right. The pizza was incredible, as you can see from the photos! Light and crispy dough, just perfect. We were so pleased with ourselves. I also made a roasted tomato sauce and we topped the pizzas with chorizo and hard goats cheese (the winner) and roast peppers and feta (a worthy runner-up). Saturday nights are now Pizza Nights, and we have spent today dreaming up our next batch of toppings. Controversially, we are both in favour of pineapple on pizza (Hugh is NOT), so that will be featuring next time...