Sweet

So it took a week. But I stood on one of the busiest roads in Cambridge today and snapped this photo, prompted by two things.


1) Today's HS/MS prompt word is sweet.
2) On Saturday Neil pointed out this ad while we were on the bus and I couldn't get a good look at it. He is a complete Cadbury's chocolate addict and was very interested that Cadbury's has a new product out... but we didn't know what it was, he'd just noticed the ad without having a good look. On my walk home today I saw this ad and I'm sorry to report that it's chocolate with bits in it. The cranberry and granola bar looks tasty to me, but Neil is a chocolate bar purist (nothing with bits in it, unless it's a candy bar or a cream egg). Sorry sweetie.

September: outlook optimistic

So today felt really great. Nothing amazing happened, and it was hard to get my bum out of bed - but it was a good day. I think it's because as a kid I was used to September being the 'start of the year' because of school. And perhaps because I still work in academia I feel like it's the start of the year (although our students don't come back for a few more weeks). The start of the year is always good - I always feel like anything (good) can happen.

Today I was also sort of surprised (I knew it was coming, I just hadn't remembered it could be today) by starting my training for a new part of my job. It's a little surreal to be in the same job for 6.5 years but beginning training for something totally new. I joined the ILL (Inter-library loans) team today and spent two hours learning the basics and sending new loan requests to the British Library. I had a bad caffeine withdrawal headache and a case of persistent yawning... but I still totally enjoyed it. I've known that this was coming since June, but I didn't think it would be so organized as to begin precisely on the first day of September.

I also came home to discover that my research problems were fixed and I could get on with an assignment I'm determined to finish by the 20th of September. Determined!

My camera came with me to work today so that I could finally take part in the photo blog that I read regularly. The word prompt was gate though, and caused two problems: 1. I wasn't inspired by any of the many gates I pass on my way home (it's about 37 minutes / 2 miles from work to home). And 2. I was struck by a fear of looking silly if the owner of the gate noticed me or by the traffic. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get over that and be able to take part. I did take a picture of my 'decorative corn' plants... for some reason I'm quite happy with them.

The book

(This is a long one, just to warn you)

So I think it's time that I mentioned some of my thoughts on the book that dominated my free time for nearly a week and has frequented my thoughts ever since – The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I was totally captivated by this book.

1. The love story is central and strong – but definitely not cheesy or over the top. I think the plot and time line seem completely original, yet I know many love stories and novels about time travel have been written.

2. There is a point at which Clare meets Henry for the first time and vice-versa; but one knows the other first. While reading there are continual thoughts about the inevitability of their relationships. Their love and lives together are simply fact, not even fate. But that's not depressing, just thought provoking. The plot seems totally reliant on the wacky time line, and yet it feels more like time is reliant on Harry and Clare. This wacky time line means that it is important to tell the age of the main characters (Henry and Clare) at the beginning of each section of time, but this is distracting at first... the only downfall in my opinion although it's totally necessary. After awhile you just glance at it and refer to eat if necessary.

3. The flitting back and forth in time, affecting the past while old and young, the future while young and old, and the present as normal, young and old lead me to think about the possible inevitabilites of life (not just their relationship). What I am doing now my future self has already done, if time works like that – whoa what a mind trip!

4. At first it seems like Henry knows everything before Clare, but at some point (when Clare is 20) Clare knows more than Henry. There is no chance to feel sorry for one more than the other. Their relationship is completely unlike “normal,” but they are still just trying to do their best. For this I could relate to them. Niffenegger did a great job of making these characters believable despite the improbable timeline.

5. My work colleague said that it was “science fiction for women.” Which I can understand as he's a fan of science fiction but his girlfriend made him read this book. I don't want to agree with him, I don't think it's as simple as that. There is time travel and discussions of “medical science” in it but I don't think the dominating love story has to be just for women, nor do I think the science has to be only for men (yes, I am a feminist – no I will not vote for John McCain just because he has chosen a female running mate). I think the plot and time line are what they are and can be enjoyed by any gender. I do know men who like fiction, not just science fiction... and I also know women who much prefer science fiction to anything else.

6. Niffenegger tells the end of the plot about 100 pages before the end – but like the rest of the book that just made me want to read more because it wasn't the end of the story. This book stresses that life or even just this story wasn't about the beginning, middle or end it was about all of it – including the transitions between each stage, despite which comes first.

It's such a complicated love story. And Niffenegger never seems to get confused by it, which means the reader never gets confused by it either (although I'm sure you all are probably confused by my explination by now). As someone who has romantically dreamed of being a novelist since I was very young, I marvel at Niffenegger's ingenuity and creativity and engaging style. I'm sure I will be reading this again and loaning my copy to everyone I can. And anyone who wants to have a conversation about the book please, please, please comment.

Good weekend

Neil and I had another lovely weekend. Nothing specifically wonderful happened but this morning I have the feeling of just finishing a good weekend. I've designed a few new cards and become a little ahead of the September birthday game (and finally caught up on a very delayed graduation card). Neil has been working on a new project which he's excited about, I like it when he's excited. Unfortunately, I feel kinda guilty because I'm finding this project difficult to get behind. I'm being as supportive as I can and I'm sure it will look wonderful when he's finished. I just get nervous about building a large water container from scratch and projects that mean Neil's testosterone levels sky rocket. He's not very relaxed when it comes to the frustrations of diy (do-it-yourself). So far so good though.

It was a good weekend despite watching some bad films. We watched Ju-On: The Grudge 2... please don't bother. I'm easily scared by horror films but even I wasn't convinced by this one. I don't remember seeing the first one, but Neil says this sequel seemed like they were just cashing in and lacked the story to do a decent job. We did watch the whole thing though, which is more than I can say for Hellboy. It was recently on telly so we thought we'd see if it was worth going to the sequel which is coming out in the theatres now. We won't be going to Hellboy 2. Which is odd, because we've really liked other things involving Guillermo del Toro.

It was also a good weekend despite our suffering garden. We took in our last tomato harvest, and it's a big one. I need to find space to ripen tomatoes and things to do with them after. Tomato blight hit the crop again this year, but counting or blessing we at least managed to ripen some tomatoes this time. We won't be deterred! We'll just rotate our vegetable plan and try again next year. In the meantime, anyone have a great recipe for tomato sauce that I can keep in cans to use for pasta and pizza over the winter? I mowed late yesterday, about 7pm (I can do this because it only takes a half hour to mow our grass, at the most). After finishing we had a wander around the garden pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. The ugly was already gone since we'd taken out the tomatoes on Sunday. But the bad is that we have a lot of hard graft planned for the winter in the form of digging over lots of soil, digging out lots of rubble to possibly extend the pond, and digging in more soil for the front flower beds. Lots of digging. We also need to plan the vegetable garden a little better so we order our organic seeds and start our plants off on time. The good is the fabulous looking decorative corn and things we learned from all the herbs and flowers and vegetables we planted this year. Gardening has a steap learning curve, but it's very rewarding and there's always next year to do improve. I'll try to add a picture of the corn later when the sun comes out (hopefully).

Pizza! Pizza!

This is such an easy pizza dough recipe that I thought some people might actually want to know about it. It was developed (based on existing techniques and recipes) by Neil.

The recipe:

Group A

150g of strong bread flour
1tsp of sugar
2tsps of yeast
250g of warm water (hand hot)

Group B
30g of oil
1tsp of salt
250g of strong bread flour

Mix ingredients of Group A together in a large bowl then set aside (someplace kinda warm and not drafty is good) to double in size. Then add ingredients of Group B, knead about 10 minutes (we rarely ever knead for more than 3 minutes if making pizza dough) and set aside to rise again. Use for pizza crust, bread, rolls, even donuts.

On Monday night we used it, with some slight alterations*, to make this...... and a small deep dish pizza that was so tasty we couldn't wait to dive in before I took a photo. We also used our latest tomato harvest to make the tomato sauce and tomato slices. Maybe someday we'll be able to make a pizza entirely from ingredients in our garden. Lets see, we'll need a wheat field, a mushroom forest, a cow or buffalo, a sugar cane field, onions, tomatoes and herbs. 3 out of 7 already!

* These alterations were due to a lack of plain bread flour and my herb fixation. I had enough strong plain bread flour to start the dough, but not enough when adding group B. So I used strong soft grain bread flour which gave a really nice nutty flavour and a bit of crunch. I also added some fresh chopped rosemary to the dough which made it smell fantastic!

And this week...

Looks like I'm turning into a weekly blogger. I don't want to be, I've discovered there are usually enough things on my mind to blog every day or two. I have been busy, but I've also been lazy lately and one of the victims of my laziness has been this blog.

Last week I was obsessed with reading "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger. I'm going to blog about that on another day because my mind is still swimming with thoughts about that incredibly original novel.

This past weekend Neil and I did something totally unusual for us; we rented a car and didn't go to either Ikea or a garden centre. LOL! The purpose of renting the car was to go to Clowne, Derbyshire to meet our new niece. She was utterly tiny and utterly gorgeous. Neil was smitten. He only gave up holding her because she had to feed. We got in the car to go home and both wished that we lived closer so we could hold her and spoil her more often. But we'll do our best to love her and spoil her from a distance.

On Sunday we drove to Great Yarmouth, Norfolk for a bit of seaside walking, sunning and sand castle making. Some pictures:
The sun came out late but was most welcome. We ate too much, although it felt like we didn't eat much at all. I tried my first cockle. It was edible, but too gritty to eat again by choice. That was the best seaside treat I've ever had: a pot of prawns, cockles, king prawns and crab sticks. The only shame was that it was served in a polystyrene cup. The cup was most useful for making the top of our castle though, as we didn't come prepared with bucket and spade. Next on my list of seafood to try is the whelk.

Today I'm trying to focus on my studies by taking regular breaks so I can intensely study in between. Not working so far, but I'm trying. The next break will be to collect the ripe tomatoes from the garden for tonight's pizza making, but before that a lot of reading about collection management.

today's garden harvest

Neil and I collected a good looking harvest from our modest vegetable garden today. What do you think?


This is the second harvest of the tomatoes and potatoes. The first harvests were cooked and eaten right away (and I didn't think of taking a photo until we'd sate back with full tummies). They made delicious roast potatoes and a tasty tomato sauce, respectively. It is the final harvest of beans though, I pulled out the poor plants today which have been devastated by slugs, snails and caterpillars this year but still provided beans a plenty, they were some hard workin' organic dwarf bean plants!

We also took in a crazy tomato today.


Neil thinks it looks like an angel; I think it looks like a rabbit; what do you think? (Don't say tomato, because we know it's a tomato.)