A New Recipe Book

The time has come to start writing down some of what I feed to the tribe on a regular basis, or we get stuck in a rut. I was going to do this in a card file - I do like new stationery and I rather fancy little white cards to write on in my best handwriting, with my best ink-pen, and not get dirty, ever, by doing anything so silly as cooking near them.... Wait a minute, that defeats the object, doesn't it? Then I thought I might be able to cross reference the receipes so I could search for individual ingredients, or the main carbohydrate element, or the season, or the protein, or whatever. Then I thought it might take forever to build that sort of system, until His Lordship uttered the magic word 'metatags'. Does it all for me, in one easy move.

So, back to the Parson Woodforde idea that started this blog - recording what we had for dinner!

The changing face of shopping

I've never really bought into the idea of 'the dying High Street' until now. 'The changing High Street' perhaps, but not the dying High Street. Partly, this is because I've always been lucky enough to live somewhere relatively prosperous and vibrant. Now, though, even in the Affluent South, it appears to be really happening - but this time it's being accelerated by our own stupidity and snobbishness.

Take our very own High Street here. When I was growing up, a trip 'into town' (no, not London) was an exciting thing to do on a Saturday and where you always went for birthday presents after you'd exhausted the two newsagents in the village. You could find two card shops, a big newsagents, a record shop, an old-fashioned sort of haberdashers (material, notions, lace & ribbons, lingerie, gloves, stockings, swimwear, silly frilly things) and a big Woolworths. It filled the gap between village and major shopping centre half an hour away.

Now, what do we have? Woolworths closed, like the rest of the them, at the end of December. In the last three months I've thought 'I need to go to Woolworths' at least once a week every week (like I used to when it was open, before accusations of hypocrisy are levelled). Woolworths for us meant birthday presents for small friends, children's undergarments, photo frames, pegs, stationery, gardening bits (where is this year's new apple tree to come from now?), emergency school uniform and much more. Now it's gone, I have to leave town to find all of those things, and the other shops are suffering accordingly - if I'm not going to Woolworths, I don't stop at the bakers; I drive to another Post Office; I buy birthday cards at the supermarket or online.

In the meantime, the slow demise is being hastened by some frankly snobbish decisions by the local council. Our Budgens supermarket has been replaced by an M&S Simply Food - wildly expensive food that has been mucked about with. I wouldn't, by choice, cook with anything from there. And the ready meals are vile. Now, the suggestion is that the town really needs to close its branch of Iceland (so downmarket, darling - people from the (whisper it) council estate shop there you know) and reinvent it as a Sainsburys - a much better class of faffed-about-with food at a much higher price. Baby clothes can be bought locally, but only if you're prepared to pay £35 for a dress that will be muddy and grown out of in about three weeks. Which I'm not.

So where does this leave us, in shopping terms? Frequenting the market every week for fruit & veg that at least makes an attempt at seasonality; using Iceland while we still have it; walking a mile in the other direction to go to the butchers (fine on the way there, a long way on the way back with a month's worth of meat); ordering clothes we can't repurpose (now there's a buzz word) or make ourselves over the net. And the High Street slowly dies, because it's can't provide what a family need anymore - although there are two mobile phone shops, five coffee shops, two charity shops and a travel agent. I predict a pedestrian precint made of nothing but coffee shops within 5 years.

Snow

Well, I really can't avoid talking about it any longer, can I? It's snowed. No really, proper snow. Apparently the worst since 1991 which is, come to think of it, the last time I went sledging. The children only made it to school on Wedsnesday and Thursday this week, and on Thursday we went by sledge. The snow is still falling now - about three inches settled, on top of yesterday's frozen slush - and predicted to fall for the rest of the day.
It's interesting that the country is getting so het up about this snow and the 'lack of a precise forecast'. Since when has telling the future been a precise art? We were much happier, I'm sure, when people just sucked their teeth and stared at the sky and waited to see what the weather would do. If this week has proved anything, it's surely that our obsession with controlling all the variables in our environment is pointless. The weather is. Live with it.
I think it also helps to take the long view. In the last century or so, we've had a really hefty winter every 20-25 years or so - 1947, 1963, 1991 and 2008/9. Why is this year a surprise? Anyone with their eye on the calendar properly should have had an inkling this was coming.

It's also raised some interesting points regarding how we live and work. As a family, we are are very lucky - we both work from home and live a mile or less from the children's schools. We can get to school and to the shops, whatever happens, although this working week has been wiped out for me by the schools closing. The schools have been closing 'because the roads are too dangerous to ask teachers (and pupils) to travel'. When I was a child and we had six inches of snow, the only person who couldn't get to school was the headmaster - because he lived in Harrow, not within the village. All the teachers made it even though the school was down one Chiltern hill and up another one for some of them, because they came on foot. I never missed a school day through snow, although I do recall one cancelled birthday party because two friends in rural Hampshire couldn't get off their farms.

But enough of this. I'm off to shovel children into waterproof trousers and play snowballs.

What shall we do with the ill-advised change to a popular song?

I was heartily tickled yesterday to read on the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7860869.stm that Bookstart have got themselves into hotwater by changing the words to 'What shall we do with the drunken sailor?'. While I'm all for Bookstart as an idea - give a free book or two to harrassed parents of young children and it will encourage them to read to them - they seem a bit heavy handed. And I have to say that the books they gave to our three over a period of 4 years were of such woeful quality that they ended up in the charity box very quickly indeed. But then, we were reading anyway. Anything that encourages more people to read must be good I suppose.



But back to the drunken sailor. Bookstart's excuse that the reason it's now 'what shall we do with the grumpy pirate?' (I kid you not) was so that it fitted with pirate-themed reading events is SO pat and SO well practiced and SO disingenuous that it's probably true. It was just a very stupid thing to do. Like Baa Baa [insert culturally-appropriate fully-inclusive ovine-related colour choice here] Sheep, the song about the marine operative who's had a trifle too much pop is known at a subconscious level by most of the population, who do not take kindly to having the childhood props kicked out from under them. The problem is that every now and then, someone does an ernest survey that proves only 20% of parents can remember any nursery rhymes; and certainly, put on the spot by someone on the doorstep or the telephone while my child cries / wants their nose wiped / howls for a drink / destroys the living room, I'd be pushed to recite any correctly too. They're asking the wrong question.



The question isn't "can you remember any nursery rhymes?", it's "what did Little Miss Muffet sit on?" or "how many blind mice were there?". To gauge what people know in their soul you listen to what they sing when they're drunk, not what they recite at speech day.



I admit, I have a soft spot for the drunken sailor and the perennial problem of what to do with him. When Eldest was being induced (badly) and I was on the Gas-And-Air after 36 hours without sleep or food, I apparently sang all the verses I knew, then treated my husband and the midwife to a disquisition on the importance of the song as a social barometer. I rest my case.



Anyway, if you're running a pirate-themed event and do not wish to mention intoxication to the children, what's wrong with this ?http://lair2000.net/Mermaid_Lyrics4/lyrics/You_Are_A_Pirate.html

Back again

Well, I thought I'd posted on Sunday morning, but obviously not. Clearly my own fault for fiddling about with the picture and the header and suchlike.

So, to recap Sunday.... yes, I've been away a very long time. No, no real excuse except life got in the way with its constant round of mopping, wiping, cooking, changing, reading, building, laundering, ironing, bathing and so on. My happy plans for recording everything on here have rather been eaten, and so I must begin afresh with new plans but much the same aims and dreams.

Still not sure what to post, though.

The children are getting their first go at homemade Chinese this evening (which admittedly involves sweetnsour sauce out of a bottle) and are currently rollerskating around the kitchen table (well, it's too cold to go outside). Stir-frying in the middle of a roller disco wasn't my plan when we started this....

Wish me luck.

More about Piccallili

When I said later, I didn't think I meant this much later! Anyway, the piccallili was made, and it's something of a triumph. In truth, I'd prefer the sauce thicker and the vegetables more crunchy (note to self: trust instincts when cooking. I read the recipe and thought 'a tablespoon of flour won't be enough to thicken that much liquid' and lo, I was right. It wasn't.). The best thing about it is it's My Piccallili, Mr Wisteria likes it very much, and I can now put a lunch on the table that's entirely homemade apart from the cheese (I think that's overdoing it a bit).

Meanwhile, in the Wisteria household, those of you following Whitzend The Blog will have noticed that we've got to the carpet stage. We're SO nearly done, but not quite yet. This afternoon's tasks mean emptying the toy boxes that were filled last week to clear the playroom enough for the carpet to go down. Some of the Will Have To Go, though it cause tears and tantrums. Young Master #1 has lost his first tooth. Young Master #2 asked another corker of a question this morning. As he cycled past me at the playground, he shouted 'Mummy, do spiders poo?'. A reasonable question, and one I can't currently answer. Little Miss appears to be dropping her lunchtime nap, dammit, but we're coping.

Off now to clean the fridge we've sold - don't think the buyer wants the crunchy bits, or the finger marks!

Petticoats and Piccalilli

Well, today I am playing Traditional Housewife with a vengeance. Last night, I finished Little Miss's petticoat - she insists on wearing it as a skirt,, which it's a bit thin for, but it's nice to be appreciated. I'm about to finish the waistband on mine (just a tunnel with a bit of ribbon through it) and then I will be the proud owner of Additional Floofiness under my skirt. I tried it on last night, and it Floofs something lovely. It takes my skirt a good four seconds to catch up with me when I turn around.

Mind you, it's mightily impractical for climbing trees.

More about Piccalilli later, as I MUST finish this waistband before Little Miss wakes up.