Monthly Munch: January 2017

We celebrated New Year's Day with a party, and my birthday with a visit to the Mug Tug, a paint-a-pot place on a canal boat. We had about two hours of snow (It fell. It settled. It melted.) and some very cold days. And we made another trip to the children's emergency department.

Toby

- has really got into the latest bedtime book, The Secret Garden. He drew pictures of it and discussed what might happen next.

- thankfully seems to have pretty much recovered from his sickness bug.

though he did feel a little sick after this!

- notices which year every car licence plate belongs to, and which ones are personalised.

- started being allowed to wear slippers at school, which inexplicably made the national press.

- painted a tank at the Mug Tug.

Theo

- fell down the stairs and broke his finger. OUCH. Two-year-olds recover remarkably quickly; he still has it strapped to the next finger, but it hardly seems to bother him.

- gave his dummies (pacifiers) away to a friend's baby, with surprisingly few negative consequences.

- calls Scalextric "Scalelec", pajamas "jamamas" and trousers "trow-yers".

- wears his Gruffalo hat everywhere and gets so many admiring comments.

- painted a fire engine at the Mug Tug.

Thankful for:

- a Bible study group I've just joined - we have some great discussions while a lovely lady takes care of our kids!

- a quick trip to the A&E and a Hand Clinic which is apparently the best in the country.

- new bedding and a new tablecloth (I know. But the old ones were getting so shabby.)

And it'll improve my geography!

Recipe of the Month - Roasted plums with ricotta and honey

There must be a glut of plums somewhere, because they're really cheap at the moment. I had a tub of ricotta to use up, so this made an easy dessert.

6-8 plums, halved and stoned
Spoonful of brown sugar
150g or so of ricotta
Few spoonfuls of honey
Orange or lemon zest

Arrange the plum halves in an ovenproof dish, cut side up. Sprinkle the brown sugar over, and put just a splash of water in the bottom. Roast at 180C for 15-20 minutes or until they're soft.

Meanwhile, put the ricotta in a bowl and add honey and orange or lemon zest to taste. Beat well.

Put the hot plums in bowls and top each serving with a dollop of ricotta mixture. Eat straight away.

Comments

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions. The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?" This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them. Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone. That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of. Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died. And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was. His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...

Birmingham: Temples to many things

Birmingham's cathedral is overshadowed by more modern temples: the mirrored swirls of New Street train station; the dotted bulge of the Selfridges store; the lacy blocks of the library; the pillars and pediments of the museum and art gallery. Museum and town hall Next to all these, Birmingham Cathedral, in its square of dusty grass, isolated from the main flow of shopping and travel, seems less like a dominant building and more like a minor chapel. It turns out the unpretentiousness is deliberate. St Philip's Church was built in 1715 when the worshipping population of Birmingham had outgrown the medieval constraints of St Martin in the Bullring . Birmingham remained part of the Diocese of Worcester until 1905, when Charles Gore pushed for the creation of a new diocese and became its first bishop. Seeing the depth of need in the city, he decided to convert St Philip's to a cathedral rather than spend money on a grand new building. Birmingham Cathedral had to be restored afte...

Canterbury Cathedral

We were booking a trip to France, and I persuaded the family that it was madness to drive four hours to Dover and get straight on the ferry. "We should definitely stay overnight somewhere," I said. "Oh look, Canterbury is very handy - just twenty minutes from Dover." Of course, my suggestion was not influenced in the slightest by the fact that Canterbury contains England's most famous cathedral. On the way down, we stretched our legs on Dunstable Downs, an area of chalk grassland owned by the National Trust. I was pleased to spot a scarlet pimpernel for my 100 Plants Challenge . We also enjoyed watching gliders ascending and descending. We turned onto the M25 and made our way through busy traffic to the Dartford Crossing. This is one of those mythical points on the UK road network, like Scotch Corner and Watford Gap: the name familiar from traffic reports on the radio; the reality - for someone who grew up west of London - a hazy blur of imagination. It turns ou...

Martha's Marvellous Munchies

Search This Blog