The weekend of nothing

This weekend has been about being at home.

This weekend has been about the pottering, about the wandering about and not really doing anything at all.

This weekend hasn't even really been about chores, it has been about the bliss of being a grown up without responsibilities.

No children, no parents, no other dependants, just a whole two days stretched out ahead with no demands on your time. Nowhere particularly to be, no-one to particularly see, nothing particularly to do.

What do you do on weekends like this?

You try your hand at baking something for the first time in what feels like a million years...

(Apricot & Cranberry bars from the Hairy Dieter's, super easy to make although don't think that you substitute tin foil for baking parchment. This stuff is sticky.) 

You spend some time hanging out with your gerbils, building them a super fun playpen with every obstacle and hidey hole that you can think of. Mostly in an attempt to encourage Ser Jorah to run off a bit of his bulk, as covered in this blog post.

(You get a bonus point for spotting the gerbil in this picture.)

You take a massively long bubble bath on a Saturday night because there is nothing to watch on a Saturday night anyway, and you run the bath so hot that you have to come out of it and drink about 3 litres of water to rehydrate yourself.

You read your head off in bed in the mornings because despite the fact that you've woken up annoyingly early you don't really need to get out of bed and can lie, lolling about, drinking multiple cups of tea for as long as you want.

(The Casual Vacancy was pretty good actually, I really enjoyed it, although it did go a little off the rails at the end. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn has been a revelation, I didn't know what to expect at all and it has taken me quite by surprise)

You binge watch Scandal because you find the box set on Sky On Demand and remember how much you loved the first series.

(Episodes watched over the weekend = 10)

You cross stitch and cross stitch and cross stitch because you'd forgotten how much you enjoyed doing it and because watching the picture slowly build is hypnotic and makes it impossible to put down until you've just...finished...this....last.....line.

You go out for a run because you want to feel like you've really done something with the weekend.

(Yeah, yeah I'm no Mo Farrah. But I did it without stopping so I'll take my wins where I can thanks)

But mostly you just savour it for what it is. A perfect weekend of nothing.

2013 Not Really Resolutions - The Conclusion

I very nearly didn't do this post.

My absolute shame at my performance in 2013 is overwhelming.

It is not going to be one of those "Oh look at me and how great I am".

This is going to be one of those "Well I don't call them Resolutions anyway so it doesn't matter that I basically didn't do any of them."

Prepare yourself for some class A excuses...

1. Get behind the wheel of a car again - Completed! This resolution was invaluable as it has meant that when I have had access to a car I've been able to get out and about, something which is impossible to do when living in the middle of nowhere. I've been able to hire cars to make long journeys rather than depend on the UK's expensive and unreliable rail service (and it does pain me to say that, having been a rail traveller for so long). There is definitely a post I want to write about being a first time driver on the roads - it was a bit of a baptism of fire for me. My first drive on a motorway was a 3.5 hour stint down the M5 to Tavistock which was all kinds of intense. But I'm pleased I've got this one under my belt - you can read about my refresher lessons and my experiences driving my sister's Tank.

2. Project 365 - Failed. I don't really know what happened here because it was actually going pretty well but then I just....stopped. I think I got busy with the impending move in the flat when The Person was moving here and just forgot to take photos. Plus I really didn't do anything and taking photos every day was a bit of a literal reminder of that. I'm amazing I made it through half of the year to be honest. Still, I did do Project 365 in 2011 so I'm not a complete failure (I tell myself).

3. Read 12 Classics - 9/12 - FAILED! I know! First year that I have ever ever failed this Not Really Resolution in all the years that I've been doing it. My downfall was finally picking up a Classic and a half in the shape of Vanity Fair. That is quite the tome you know. I have had a tendency sometimes to play it safe with my Classics and pick up slimmer volumes or easy volumes (for instance, one of my Classics this year was 101 Dalmatians...) so whilst I do feel sad that I didn't complete this one, I feel proud that I took on the challenge of Vanity Fair and conquered it.

1. North & South, Elizabeth Gaskell

2. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

3. Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger

4. The Pursuit of Love, Nancy Mitford

5. The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins

6. The Chrysalids, John Wyndham

7. The Edible Woman, Margaret Atwood (a review of which can be found HERE)

8. The One Hundred and One Dalmatians, Dodie Smith

9. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray

4. Crochet an Elmer Blanket - Abandoned! You may remember that I abandoned this Not Really Resolution back in April as I decided I want to make a Tetris blanket. The Tetris Blanket is currently ongoing...

5. Learn to Knit - Failed! It just....never happened. Nothing more or less to it!

6. Bake once a month - Failed! It was just too hard, living in someone else's house for half the year isn't really conducive to taking over the kitchen randomly and I spent most of those weekends travelling to Preston to see The Person which meant I didn't have much time left for baking.

Jokes. I just bought cakes and ate them rather than making them.

7. Go abroad - Done! I went to Corfu with The Americans and The Person in July and it was amezzing and beautiful and I loved it and I didn't want to leave. It was made even better by the fact that the day before flying to Corfu, The Americans became Engaged Americans which made me giddy beyond belief.

That's what it looked like. Damn. Now I want to go back immediately.

8. Makeover a chest of drawers - Failed. HA. We moved into an unfurnished flat in August and let me tell you, furniture is expensive, even when shopping for cheap stuff. We still don't have a bed in the spare bedroom so we can have guests over, I am far from having the time, willingness and energy to makeover a piece of furniture I already own.

9. Cross stitch a big picture/item just for me - Failed. In the same way that 2012 was the Year of the Cross Stitch, 2013 was the Year of the Amigurumi and I have crocheted my fingers off. I have barely done any cross stitch at all.

10. Only buy 12 books throughout the year - HA! As if. In 2012 I managed to go a whole year without buying books so this should have been easy but it seems that with me, it's either all or nothing, and looking at the state of my to-be-read bookshelves I may need to implement a ban in 2014.

------------------------------------------

So there we go. TWO out of TEN Not Really Resolutions completed.

You are totally allowed to sit back and feel pretty damn good about yourself right now.

Hey, at least 2014 is going to be better....right?!

------------------------------------------

Take a look back at my past attempts...
Not Really Resolutions 2011
Not Really Resolutions 2012

Cakey cakey cake cake - BEDM Day 14

Today's BEDM topic is Food Glorious Food so I thought it would be a good opportunity to do a bit of an update on my Not Really Resolutions, one of which was to bake once a month.

It's safe to say the first quarter of the year hasn't been a massive success and there's no way that Mary, Delia or Nigella need to be quaking in their boots just yet. In fact, a small child armed only with a fork could probably have had more spectacular results...

Gingerbread cookies

Some of you are going to go mental when I tell you how I made these. I made these from a ready-made dough that you can pick up from Tesco.

Hahahahaha. Guess what? I don't care.

I had to roll out the dough and cut the shapes and put it in the oven and bake them. Therefore it counts as baking.

And do you know what? They tasted really really good. I can't lie. There was the perfect amount of ginger in them, they cooked well and were the right side of chewy and best of all, there was no bloody mess making them. No 12 million bowls used. No spoons all over the shop. No light coating of flour over everything in the kitchen. Marvellous.

I'm not even sorry. I'd do it again.

Cookie Monster Cupcakes

We don't really need to talk about this again do we? Read this post and don't make me re-live the hell again.

Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip Cookies

Aah I had such high hopes for these cookies from the Hummingbird Baking recipe book. But it just wasn't successful. People who write recipe books must assume that the people who are reading them are like me - basically an idiot. So you need to tell me everything. And that includes giving me just a tiny cue as to how much dough I'm supposed to be splatting on my baking sheet. Just a hint would be lovely.

Which is why I ended up with gigantanormous cookies because I was putting way too much dough on the sheet.

This would have been fine if I hadn't made my second mistake which was to be afraid that they were too squishy and leave them in a few minutes too long. So I basically had really massive and really hard to eat cookies. Well done me.

The dark chocolate in them was horrible too. You can take your 80% cocoa and go whistle down the wind - I should have just used el cheapo milk chocolate and I'd have probably been a happier bunnier. Although still at risk of losing a tooth.

Raspberry Bakewell Cake

Technically this should have been April's bake. But it wasn't. I made it in May instead. Now the keen eyed among you may go "But hang on a minute, she said she would bake once a month, what a weaselly cheat!" and to those people I say, "Shut up". I'll bake twice in May to make up for it alright?!

God. Some people.

This cake has turned out the best out of all the bakes so far, although that doesn't seem difficult given what it's up against. I got to use my sister's fancy Kitchen Aid which I couldn't work and which sent flour flying all over the room - I'm yet to fall under the Kitchen Aid spell.

The mixture is very thick. You put half the mixture in the tin, then add the raspberries and then it says to "dollop the remaining cake mixture on top and roughly spread - you might find this easier to do with your fingers."

They are not kidding. It is not a pouring cake and I had to splat the mixture on and then smear it around. Sounds gross but it turned out ok, apart from the fact that it burned around the edges a little. I'd probably chuck in a bit of almond essence for good measure if I made it again - I couldn't have done with more of a kick of almond.

Recipe here

-------------------------------------

So I think we can say that it hasn't gone well. But that's cool, you know I only do these things so badly to make you feel better, right? That's what it is.

Bank Holiday - BEDM Day 6

I love May. Two Bank Holidays - what lucky ducks we are.

I had made plans to spend this Bank Holiday up at my sister's and the 2nd down in Preston with The Person although this plan has been slightly ruined due to the fact that The Person's work doesn't let him have the 2nd Bank Holiday in May off, instead giving them two in August.

Idiots.

Anyhoo. This Bank Holiday saw me in my adopted home town, ready to see what delights it had to offer me.

Here's how it went down;

Saturday

My new zebra friend; getting to grips with the Kitchen Aid; Raspberry Bakewell cake; Hull City get promoted to the Premiership; going swimming; BBQ time is here

Saturday was a busy old day for me. I got up early doors to make my way to the gym to go swimming for the first time in absolutely years. I used to love swimming and haven't been in so long, truth to tell I was kind of worried that I'd flounder and drown ungracefully in the pool but I actually managed much better than I expected and I'm definitely going to be making the effort to go again.

I spent most of the day crocheting. Hot on the heels of my crocheted zebra comes....another zebra. I haven't gone totally mad though. This little zebra is going to earn me some money. I was showing someone pictures of the other zebra and they asked if I'd make one for them to give as a present for a new baby that's arrived. Boom. Hurray for amigurumi being so damn quick to make up that I basically managed to do the whole thing in one day. 

It's a good thing I had something to keep me occupied as I was also watching the Hull City vs Cardiff game which would be the match which would determine whether Hull were automatically promoted to the Premiership or forced into the play-offs. I won't go into it but my god it was the most stressful game of football I've ever watched. I actually missed one of the goals due to the fact that I was stood in the kitchen with the fridge door open cutting cheese off the block and shoving it in my mouth. It's how I deal with stress.

I also helped my sister and brother-in-law put together the Mac Daddy of BBQs - probably the less said about the anguish that went into building this thing from a flatpack the better, but it's safe to say we all bear the mental scars.

Sunday

Today's biggest event? Attempting to go out for a long run. It wasn't my greatest success as you can read about in yesterday's post and it's annoying because when I feel like a run hasn't gone that well it just makes me mad for the rest of the day. I'm just a silly person like that.

One thing I do like about my long runs though is that I have decided to reward myself with a post-run smoothie - something to look forward to you know?

I got a recipe for one from a running website but I have been forced to bastardise adapt it so much that it bears little resemblance to the original. The oats are supposed to be wheatgerm. I don't even know what that is, which is a hindrance when you're looking for is in Tesco. There's supposed to be natural yoghurt in there too but I didn't have any so slapped a normal yoghurt in there as a replacement. Who cares? It tastes amazing and the addition of the oats means that it really fills you up.

The rest of the day was filled with total and utter sloth. Beautiful weather, plus the knowledge that there was no work tomorrow meant that I felt free to lie back in the garden alternating between reading and sleeping as the mood took me.

Reading with the blue skies; dandelions, I don't care if they're weeds, they're colour and therefore pretty; Rosie shows me how to properly laze on the Bank Holiday; Blinky uses my bedroom window as another door and heads out over the roof on important cat business; plane returning/leaving from East Midlands Airport; Blinky back from her important cat business.

Monday

My sister and I took to Calke Abbey a National Trust property which is just down the road from us. Our mission was to go to a craft fair which was being held there over the Bank Holiday weekend - craft fair? You mean something potentially interesting happening around here? Yes please.

We went and I spent money. I could have spent a lot more money. But you know what? That's all fodder for another blog post I think.

After wandering round the fair we had a sit down and enjoyed a wonderful past-time of enjoying the sun and passing judgement on what people were wearing in the sun.
e

As close to fashion blogging as I will come now - shoes from M&S (I know right?!); jeans from New Look; people's legs from Other People

I also forgot the word "Weather-vane" and called it a "Wind charm" instead. Not a high point.

Then it was home, to enjoy yet more sunshine. Only for a little bit though. I'm quite the pale Janet and my skin basically bursts into flames when it comes into contact with UV rays. I wasn't alone though. You never are in a house of dogs. Rowan kept me company and I finished Capital by John Lanchester. Should you read it? Why yes, yes you should.

And I'm still here now. Sat in the garden, enjoying the beautiful weather as I know I should be. Although, if I was going to be pernickety I'd say that actually when you're in the shade it's pretty windy and not that warm. Also I can't really see my screen that well so I apologise for any spelling mistakes or garish errors but I'm British - the sun is shining so I'm sitting outside whether it's practical or not.

Bring it second May Bank Holiday - the bar has been raised...

Lessons learned in baking

So The Person baked me a cake for my birthday.

Here are the lessons that he said he learned;

1) Use the right equipment. When it asks for 2 sandwich tins, using 1 springform tin which is bigger isn't a suitable substitute

2) When you do put your mixture in the tin, ensure it is evenly spread across the bottom or you will end up with what we affectionately called the Slope Cake

3) When making your icing and you run out of icing sugar, do not try and substitute it for caster sugar

4) If the icing is supposed to be pink/red, keep adding the food colouring until you get the desired colour, don't be stingy and end up with flesh/raw sausagemeat coloured icing

No need to thank me, go forth and bake.

January and February Project 365 round up

Yay I love being late with posts like this.

But really what do you expect, it took me until mid-February to post about my Not Really Resolutions.

I liked doing these round-up posts last time I did Project 365 - they were nice for me to look back at each month and also means that I post about the stuff that I forgot to post about. I don't understand how I ever posted more frequently, I think I'm doing amazingly and back on my blogging track and then I look and realise that I have posted 4 times in March - what? Worst blogger ever.

Anyhoo. Here's post 5 the month and a quick round-up of my best* photos of January and February.

January

Clockwise L-R: SWAN, my new home, Rowan taking over my bed, reading on the train, fancypants house, SNOW

6th January - I took a picture of a swan innit? This is a lovely wee place that we drive to to take the dogs for a walk. This swan nicely floated into view for me to take a photo, then caught sight of Rosie, hissed and scared the shit out of me.

1st January - First photo of the year and a picture of my new nest. This is the box room at my sister's that I moved into before starting work the next day. Man when I think about that I'm impressed I didn't have some kind of breakdown...

4th January - ...but how could I feel rubbish when I was now living with this person? This is Rowan, taking over my whole bed which she still regularly does and I let her because I'm a fool.

20th January - Being away from The Person properly sucks but it does mean that I get a good load of train reading in. I love being on a train, forced relaxation is the bomb.

21st January - It snowed! Ha. I thought this was such a novelty - little did I know it would still be happening in March. Less cool.

29th January  - My first big work challenge - organising a Strategy Meeting for all the Directors at work. We went to the place pictured and I flounced about like I was in Downton Abbey.

February

Clockwise L-R: Cats vs Andrew, Peeking Fred, failed Cookie Monster cupcake, very early roses for Valentine's Day, Rosie got to my Valentine's card before I did, the beginnings of the Tetris Blanket.

10th February - The Person is a funny old fellow you know. I came back to the flat to discover this little set-up - my two ceramic cats (why yes, yes they are Fred and Lily!) set up looking into the fish tank. Apparently the idea is to give them some "stimulus". Personally I reckon Andrew could take them on.

1st February - I went back to Hull for the first time since before Christmas. This means some jolly good Fred and Lily time. This is a photo of Fred peeking at me from behind a curtain. I have no idea why.

9th February - Let us never forget Cookie Monster-gate. 'Nuff said.

11th February - I got roses for Valentine's Day! Wait. But this photo says the 11th February. Oh yes, that's because The Person kind of got the delivery date wrong. Hey, he tried at least!

13th February - The Person did manage to send a Valentine's Day card in time though. Unfortunately Rosie got to it before I did...

25th February - Hey I had a great idea in February, I was going to crochet a Tetris Blanket. This involved planning to the max. Excel to the rescue!

-----------------------

You see this is exactly why I've done Project 365 for another year. It helps you to remember all the daft little things. I mean who wouldn't want to remember the time they completely messed up their baking or when the dog ate your Valentine's Day card? 

Exactly.

*When I say "best" clearly I don't mean photographically brilliant, I just mean my bestest and favouritest moments.

When baking goes wrong

So often on blogs I see beautiful pictures of beautiful things - sunsets, children, crafty output, baking - the list is endless.

I am here to buck this trend.

Let me tell you a little story that may make you feel better and realise that everyone in the blogosphere is not a perfect human being, living in a Cath Kidston quilted world with bluebirds putting up my perfectly coiffed hair whilst I embroider with silk.

I decided for one of my Not Really Resolutions this year that I would bake once a month because I miss baking. (It's once a month because my hips do not need me to bake more frequently) In February I decided I would try something a little different and attempt to make some Cookie Monster fairy cakes that I've seen hanging about on the interwebs for some time now.

Everything went very smoothly at first which gave me a false sense of security. The Person's oven has a mind of its own and baking in it should only be taken on at your own risk but, by some miracle, I had 12 happy little fairy cakes all ready to be decorated with blue icing, cookies and marshmallows.

Easy.

"Turn icing blue" should be a simple enough task but I, in a feat which only I could be capable of, managed to cock it up. All I wanted was for my icing to turn a nice bright blue colour and logic told me that I should add more food colouring until it happened. But at some point, when my icing was refusing to turn any brighter than a powder blue no matter how many extra drops I added, this logic was replaced by a crazed obsession which flew in the face of reality and before I knew it, I'd used a whole bottle of food colouring without effecting any change in the colour of the icing.

So I think we can basically call this a fail. The Cookie Monster is supposed to be bright frigging blue, but instead mine were going to look like the Cookie Monster had gone 10 rounds with a bottle of bleach.

There can be no disappointment greater than that of someone whose baking has gone wrong. All that stupid time and effort (not to mention money) and nothing very impressive to show for it. It's gutting.

But I had started and I was bloody well going to finish.

I tried to do fancy piping to make it look like fur but guess what? I can't do that either so I just slapped the icing on any old way and decided that would do. I soldiered on with my decorating until I hit the next stumbling block which came in the form of a lack of white marshmallows (I could only find bags of pink and white ones!) meaning that half my Cookie Monsters looked like they were battling a case of pink eye.

So let us recap my baking adventure:
1. Icing didn't turn blue
2. Fancy piping to look like fur didn't work
3. Ran out of white marshmallows

Don't be jealous of my life bloggers.

And so I challenge you to put up pictures of your shit baking, your crap crochet and your blurry sunsets. For we shall represent what is real and make others feel better about themselves.

Artistic representation of the colour that I wanted my icing to go

---------------------------------

PS I took to Twitter to lament my icing woes and the consensus is that gel colouring/paste is the way forward if I want bright colours. Noted although I don't know I have the internal strength needed to face doing this again.

April Flickr Favourites

This was a good month for photos. The sudden appearance of the sun, a bit of craftiness, and a couple of bank holidays make for lots of photo opportunities.  

9th April - This was the first weekend that was gloriously sunny. I, like the rest of the UK, got completely caught up in it and I bought myself a summer skirt and went to sit in a park and read my book. However I failed to remember that blue skies do not a warm day make - it's still the beginning of April and all the sun in the world isn't going to make the temperature rise that far. But I sat and shivered it out like everyone else and made a secret little prayer to the weather gods that this weather will continue into summer.

12th April - Ok so I still almost shed a tear any time I think about the demise of my poor duck babies but instead I will try and focus on the good times. Even if they were only around for a week, I loved them so much it almost made my teeth hurt. And actually it's ok because I have discovered more duck babies, but they're for another post...

17th April - My first proper bit of embroidery and very proud I am of it too. Blogged about here, it still needs to be framed properly and I swear I will get around to it. Probably.

25th April - I don't even know if there are words for this one. Those cats crack me up something rotten and this is Fred at his very best. We excuse their poor behaviour on the fact that they are still babies, but they'll actually be three years old in August. I envy those people who have well behaved cats that don't jump on work surfaces and scavenge for food even though they're well fed - I have no idea why these two are such minxes. But I love them for it.

27th April - Oh hi. I can ripple now. WOOOOOOOO!! (I'll tell you more another time I promise.)

29th April - You may have missed this but there was a Royal Wedding recently. I had a tea party and it is officially one of the most fun things I've ever done and this photo will keep me smilling for many years to come. It's the product of a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears but an example of hard work paying off.

---------------------

Can't believe I've made it through four months of taking photos every day. I marvel at myself, I really do. (Mainly because if I don't, then no-one else will.)

All Project 365 photos can be found here if you wanted to have a gander.

Easter 2011 Review

Easter's a bit of a funny old holiday really isn't it? It's kind of like Christmas but kind isn't. I know that I should feel uncomfortable celebrating Christmas because I don't really believe in the guy whose birthday we're celebrating but nonetheless I get on with it. Easter however definitely does make me feel a little awkward. I feel that in a way, Easter must mean more to Christians than Christmas because you're talking about Jesus rising from the dying for our sins and then, you know, rising from the flippin' dead - a much bigger deal. I feel like sitting at home and eating chocolate is completely missing the point.

But this is not a post about religious philosophizing (mostly because it took me about 20 attempts to write 'philosophizing' and I'm still not sure I got it right.)

Easter Sunday saw me de-camp to my Mum's house. We were going to be playing host to my brother and sister-in-law and my youngest nephew and niece. Happy days. Mum had decided to just do a buffet kind of lunch, her house is pretty small and it would be nigh on impossible to fit everyone around the table. I decided to make my own little offering and got myself in the kitchen.

For some time now I've been obsessed with the thought of making my own sausage rolls and Lorraine Pascal's Baking Made Easy came up with the goods. And she aint joking, this really is easy. I know this won't be a big deal for all you culinary competent people out there but this was a huge achievement for me and I did a celebratory dance around the kitchen when I took them out of the oven.

I decided I was clearly on a roll (geddit?! On a roll. Man I crack myself up.) and tried my hand at the Mini Egg Tiffin that was featured over on The Goddess's Kitchen. Oh. my. god. So good. So so good that I might have made two because I knew that one wasn't going to be enough. You know what I love about this? How bloody easy it is. As in, no baking required. And yet it looks bloody fabulous. A little like my sausage rolls. I know that Jesus went to all the effort of rising from the dead, but I'm afraid I took the easy route in the kitchen.

I set up an Easter egg hunt for my nephew. One that had a false start when Fred and Lily decided that they would hold their own Easter egg hunt. They were surprisingly good. Cue gathering all the mini eggs back in and opening another packet to replace the ones that had already been found and licked or batted across the house.

I remember how much I loved Easter egg hunts around the house when I was a kid. Hey I won't lie, I'd still like to do one now. Watching my little nephew's face as he went round the house gathering up all the eggs made my cold heart melt a little bit. Hearing him go "Oh LOOK!" when he found another one was lovely. And we even hid some foil wrapped eggs in the garden seeing as the weather was so nice. And bless his little heart, he shared them with us and each of us got our very own egg.

The rest of the day was spent playing in the garden, games of football and skittles and a particularly hilarious game of hide and seek where our wires all got crossed and we all ended up hiding from each other. There was lots of smooching and cuddling of my niece, who is now 6 months old and at the best age ever. There was lots of smiling and lots of kicking and lots of blowing raspberries, which is the funniest thing I've ever seen a baby do.

And there was also lots of eating...

Salad and home-made coleslaw and sausage rolls and garlic bread and sticky chicken wings. And meringues and cream and strawberries and mini egg tiffin. We ate until we nearly exploded.

We weren't the only ones to get in on the Easter action. Fred and Lily enjoyed themselves too. Mum had collected some twigs from the fields nearby and painted some eggs and had a very cute Easter tree thing going on with little ribbons tied round.

However Fred felt like it was missing a little something...

I'm not entirely sure which of us got in more trouble; Fred for knocking the whole thing over or me for taking photos of him instead of stopping him.

All in all, whether I should be 'celebrating' it or not, I declare Easter 2011 a winner.

The Person, Birthdays and Cake

I do believe they call it the law of sod. I get to see The Person for the first time in a month, book some holidays off work to use up my holiday allocation before April and I get sick.

Stupid stupid mega cold. I hate you.

I didn't let it spoil things too much, no amount of snot and mucus was going to get in the way of my weekend.

The good thing about hardly ever seeing each other is that we get kind of over-excited to see each other again and just hang out and do stuff. We don't have to do anything spectacularly exciting, just being together is cool. We call it being a real-life couple.

Although I felt like staying in bed and making groaning noises, I took The Person to see yet more fun things in Hull. I'm on a one woman mission to prove that Hull is brilliant to everyone that has the misfortune to cross my path it would seem. Next on the list was the Streetlife Museum which I like because you can climb on transporty things like trams and carriages. Who doesn't love that?

There are also grocery and pharmacy stores which have been preserved from the days of yore. Who doesn't love old stuff?

Then we went to enjoy the vaguely Spring-like weather by sitting in Queen's Gardens and laughing at some of the sights in Hull, like this guy, who was completely sparked out and yet had managed to make sure his super-strength beer can stayed upright.

Other highlights of the weekend included baking (with The Person valiantly trying to help but kind of not really) and a meal out in a lovely bistro down the road - we again marvelled at our real-life coupley-ness.

On Sunday the cold was doing it's best to try and strike me down in the prime of life but there was no way I was allowing it to take hold because Sunday was the Day of Birthday Parties. The Person was packed off home whilst I went to York for my nephew's 3rd birthday and then it was back home for Dorothy's tea party for her birthday. It was more than a little marvellous - there were muffins with cream cheese frosting, lemon drizzle cake, banana and honey teabread, Dundee cake, scones, lemon meringue pie, rose flavoured cupcakes, cucumber sandwiches...in short, just too much goodness for words.

I get over-excited about birthdays, I love the build-up to them, I love the cards, I love the opening of presents. And this is just anyone's birthday - when I arrived home on Saturday to find some cards on the mat for Dorothy I did an excited birthday jig. Imagine how unbearable I'm going to be this time next week when it's my birthday.

I am so thankful that I booked today off, I would need a day to recover at the best of times, never mind when I'm fighting off the lurgy at the same time.

And now I will go because my nose actually literally just dripped. Gross.

(But do you know what's awesome? I don't have to wait another month to see The Person - he'll be coming next Saturday for a visit for my birthday - see?! Like a real-life couple!)

I have absolutely no idea why I wrote this post.

When I embarked on Project 365 I heeded the advice of Lucy who said that there would be days when you struggled to take a photo at all and days when there were too many to choose from.

So far I've had most of the former situations, desperately scrabbling around for a photo. But this weekend was different and I wanted to put up a montage. This was weird for a few reasons, not least because I found myself with a rare day off this Saturday. A day where I didn't have anything planned or anyone to see, a day where I could legitimately sit on my behind and do whatever I wanted to do.

So whilst I sulked about having to choose just one picture it suddenly occurred to me that I have a blog where I could put up as many freaking pictures as I want to.

So I'm gonna people. I'm just gonna.

What does a girl do when she has a whole day of nothing ahead of her?

She crochets people. She gets her hook out. She gathers together all her left over scraps of wool and she embarks on a project. The latest project is a cushion cover. Mainly because I've been wanting to do one for ages and also because I wanted to do something that required little brain power. I worry sometimes about the ease with which I reach for things that don't require much brain power - I can feel my cells atrophying sometimes.

At the moment the cushion is going to have 9 granny squares on one side and I'm thinking about doing something different for the other side. See? See how my brain is dying? "Something different" I'm just so articulate sometimes.

There are 6 squares made up so far and I am most definitely feeling the love. I think that something strange happens when you edge your squares in white, it seems to instantly add some kind of vintage feel to the squares. Everything begins to look kind of kitschy and cool. I'd explain better but clearly the power of speech has escaped me at the moment.

The only downside of sitting on my backside all day is that I get a severe case of the guilts once it gets to the evening. I try to be lazy I really really do but I will just never be that good at it. I'm not properly built for lazing. The guilts hit on Saturday night and I knew I had to do something to stop me feeling like too much of a lazy bint. Lucky I have a fallback for such situations...

I get my bake on.

It's easy and quick and the results always look slightly disproportionate to the effort you put in (at least if you bake like me and don't pick anything taxing). So after one hour and only one major incident involving a flour explosion I had managed to create the last Mincemeat Cake of the season, using up the last of the mincemeat from Christmas and also some Snickerdoodles from Rachel Allen's 'Bake' book which I decided to bake on a whim because I had the ingredients already in (loved that feeling, I felt like a real-life baker for a moment. Until the flour explosion.)

And now I've written all this and I've realised that really there weren't that many pictures to choose from for Project 365 and I have absolutely no idea why I'm writing this post.

Don't be too mean to me. I've decided to stay up to watch the Superbowl and I think I'm delirious with lack of sleep.

-----------------------------

There's a link to my photostream on the sidebar. You can see what picture I did actually go with for 5th February. (Note. It wasn't one of the ones in this post.)