I was forty yesterday, and I confess that in all that time my baking skills haven't improved much. Or perhaps it's my decorating skills that aren't quite up to scratch - the cake itself (a whole orange cake I spotted on the Down to Earth blog) was extremely tasty. Basically you whizz a whole orange in the blender and add it to a sponge mix for a deliciously orangey, slightly squishy cake. It doesn't really need icing - the muffin-sized versions I made the night before were fine on their own - but a combination of a silicone loaf tin with no structural integrity and our tiny and slightly inadequate temporary oven led to a cake that definitely needed covering up with something. It might not win any competitions, but it went down very well with a nice cup of tea. Speaking of the Down to Earth blog, you might notice Rhonda's Down to Earth book in the background in that picture. This was my birthday present to myself, and I've spent the last couple of days happily flicking through it and wishing I was retired so I could spend all of my days making cakes and sewing and pottering in the garden. Today it's been raining, so I've ignored the dry stone wall that has been taking up quite a lot of my energy for days, and stayed inside. I had a vague feeling of time just drifting away, without me actually achieving anything, so in the spirit of following the book's advice, I decided to tackle a household job I'd been putting off for a while - sorting out the utility room. This is the entrance to our home, and acquires the usual household detritus that is either on its way in or out of the house. Wellies, recycling, dishes that have been used for chicken treats, rubbish bags, tools, all congregate here, and if we don't keep on top of it, getting into the house becomes a perilous navigational exercise. Yesterday Peter put all the shoes away and took the rubbish bags outside, and today I've spent a happy few hours washing dishes, cleaning walls, decanting slightly damp powdered cleaning stuff (borax substitute, laundry bleach) into airtight containers, and giving the place a good hoover. It felt good. In the course of all this sorting, I discovered a bag of soap I'd made - I never got the texture right, and after goodness knows how long sitting in a bag under the sink, it feels slightly oily. I've left it on the newly cleared side to dry out, and if it doesn't work as hand soap, I'll grate it to mix with the washing powder. I also discovered this candle-making kit that I had as a present some years ago and which got lost in the house move. Again I made use of my newly cleared surface to play with the beeswax. I like this picture on the box. It looks achievable - nothing fancy, nothing requiring endless patience, just a bit of rolling and cutting. I can't say mine look exactly like the pictures, but they're not far off. The instructions said the beeswax sheets would be pliable at room temperature but I had to hold them up against the radiator for several minutes to get them to bend without snapping - not sure what that says about the temperature of my house...
Anyway, I didn't come in here to waffle on about all that, I came in to waffle on about turning forty, but as I'm not sure how I feel about that, perhaps it's best that I don't. Tis only a number, after all - and after hearing of the death of a friend's daughter this week I'm grateful I've lived to see it. I will be sitting down to make some plans for the next decade soon though...
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Hello!Sit down and make yourself comfortable. I'm Jenni, and I write here about our new foray into country living, which includes growing food, knitting, baking, wandering around the fields, and seeing which local cafe serves the best cake. Categories
All
Archives
February 2024
|