Just Jot it January - 2 days in 1! (15 & 16/1/24)

I missed a day!

I am so cross with myself.  I saw the prompt for yesterday which was "craft" supplied by Astrid  and immediately had ideas for a post but then I whiled away the time during the day and we were out for the evening.  So no post!

We did have a nice evening though using a voucher Hubby had for his birthday last year from our daughter and her wife which was for a meal out at a venue in Mayfair - yes the posh part of London.  The venue also has live acts on.  I'll write about that in more detail later this week.

But back to crafting - I do enjoy crafting, particularly knitting and crochet.  Regular visitors will have followed my progress on making Maisie for my Granddaughter's birthday.

I'm not sure Ella was too impressed with Maisie initially but she has recently discovered that Maisie can be undressed.  And redressed.  And undressed.  I'm sure you get the picture.

Another project is still a WIP. 

I started this back in 2015!  Trying to use up odds and ends of wool.  When I posted this picture I reckoned I needed another 7 squares to have enough to start sewing it together.  Well I revisited it not long before Christmas and decided I still needed another 9!  Thankfully I have just started square #9 and then I will definitely be making it into a blanket.  I've already bought the yarn to make another knitted animal (a dog) but I'm determined to finish this blanket first.

But then I sign up for blogging challenges and book reading challenges and ......I'm sure you know what I mean.

Anyway, moving on to today.

The prompt is "variety" provided by John.

John is a prolific blogger and heavily involved with the A-Z challenge.  He is also very knowledgeable on music, adverts and a lot of other things.  Variety is a good word for John.

I think I need to put more variety into my blog but much as I tend to start crafting projects and then get distracted I seem to be the same with blogging.  I've had various things going on here on the blog over the years but they tend to fall by the wayside.

One of the things I used to post about for example was items in the news each week - I would bookmark items on various topics such as news, sport, entertainment etc and then write about them.  Now I hardly watch the news - particularly at the moment as it's too horrific.

But maybe I shouldn't switch it off.  We need to be informed and not just let it all wash over us.

Hmm food for thought!

Right I'm off to bed now - I have an early start tomorrow - taking Granddaughter Ella to nursery.  I might need an afternoon nap!

I'm done with cooking! 13/11/23

This was the setting for our meal for Nick's siblings on Saturday - we emptied out the living room and used folding tables, our dining room chairs and the new folding chairs I'd ordered so we could seat everyone comfortably. 

The dining table was used for drinks and nibbles.

The menu consisted of:

Velvety chicken liver parfait (posh word for pate lol)

Followed by Fruity lamb tagine with couscous

Finished with Chocolate & coffee truffle pots accompanied with crisp orange shortbread.

Except I forgot to serve the biscuits with the dessert so we had them with tea and coffee afterwards.  

We also had cheese and biscuits ready but everyone was too full.

The pictures above are taken from the recipe book I used.  The only photo I took was this one of the empty dessert pots! (I didn't have enough coffee cups but the glass dishes saved from shop bought desserts worked just as well.)

It was worth all the hard work though as everyone seemed to enjoy their food and we had a lovely evening.  One sister and her husband stayed overnight but they left fairly early on Sunday morning so Sunday was a nice relaxing day of doing nothing once all the clearing up had been done.  So glad I have a dishwasher.

Today I've been busy finishing Maisie!

Just in time for Ella's birthday on Friday.

I had previously bought more wool to make another animal but I found assembling the body quite a challenge so I'll probably use the wool to make more clothes for Maisie.  Thankfully as Ella is our only granddaughter I can get away with that option.

I also managed a walk today as it was dry although very windy.  So a good weekend and a good start to the week.

Hope your week started well too.

I'm a blogger who blogs.

I noticed this title come up in my reading feed today:
Are you a blogger who writes or a writer who blogs?

I think I'm a blogger who blogs.  Of course I know by blogging I'm writing but I have no real ambition to become an acknowledged as in published writer.  I write here for various reasons, mainly because I enjoy it and it provides a sort of journal but also because I love the interaction with other bloggers.

I also have fits and starts.  Some months, particularly like April where I'm following a challenge, I'll blog most days.  Then there are quiet spells when I'm either too busy to get on the laptop and blog or I just don't feel there's anything worth blogging about.

I'm having a better spell at the moment but that was mostly facilitated by having a bad leg and not being able to get out.  That's changing.  The leg is improving, slowly, and today I managed to drive the car without it being too painful so I no longer feel housebound.  Yesterday hubby and I also managed to successfully babysit Nathan and will do so again tomorrow, one of my regular days.  I'm not doing Thursday this week though as I don't think I could get him upstairs yet on my own.  Stairs are still proving a bit of a challenge.  Today in particular as I probably overdid it a bit yesterday.  Two steps forward one back!

That also happened with new meals.  I made a lovely mushroom and ricotta filo tart at the weekend.  I've never used filo pastry before and yes I confess, it was shop bought not homemade.  Why would you make your own?  Have you seen how difficult it is?  I looked up a recipe that gave the instructions but more or less told you not to bother and wished you good luck at the end!

Anyway the tart was delicious and I remembered (in time) to take a photo.

So that was a step forward although I won't be making it too often as it has a lot of butter and Hubby needs to get his bad cholesterol level down so we're working on that.

Today I attempted another new recipe, a prawn curry.  Well that was a step back, in fact a giant step back.  It was edible, just, but not one I will be repeating.  Not sure what went wrong but definitely needed a stronger curry powder as even I thought it was bland! (I used mild as I don't like things too spicy.) I also overcooked it so the prawns were too chewy.  In fact it was just a disaster so I've binned the photographic evidence.  Actually it didn't even merit a photo being taken.

But today wasn't a total write off.  We managed to drop off and collect Hubby's CPAP machine for its annual service at the hospital.  We (ha as in the royal "we" as Hubby did both trips for this) also got the car through its annual safety check.  We thought we might have to get at least one new tyre but they all passed and we got the garage to replace one of the brake lights we knew wasn't working.  We were going to attempt that ourselves but they're a bit tricky to get to and neither of us are that hands on.  

We also secured a new window cleaner.  Hopefully she will turn out to be more reliable than the last one who just stopped coming.

I mentioned a few weeks back about securing some label holders for drawers online well today I actually got 2 of the 3 sets of drawers kitted out with the holders:

I'll get things organised even if it does leave a blister on my hand from tightening the screws!

Tomorrow we're back on Nathan duty so I think I should get an early night plus I've done enough waffling (writing?) on this post!