From a friends Facebook page, I think I agree with the sentiment. It’s a bit apocalyptic, but things are getting bad for artist and performer friends.
Next time there’s a lockdown, nobody is allowed to watch Netflix, Amazon Prime or any other platform. You must NOT listen to music or read a book. Free online concerts from the biggest stars in the world? Nope, they’re out too. Learn an instrument? Banned Dance Classes? No How about listen to an audiobook? Not a chance! The UK Government have ordained the Arts as low skilled and, therefore, of no value. Now imagine life without them
I decided to make a pear cake with a couple of large pears off the tree. I didn’t have a recipe to hand so followed the one on the back of my bag of self raising flour.
The ingredients were:
150 grams each of self raising flour, butter and sugar.
Three medium eggs
A small amount of water
This was to make a Victoria sponge. I decided I would add raw sliced pears into the base of my glass flan dish (I don’t have a cake tin or grease proof paper).
Method. It said cream butter and sugar together till its light and fluffy, then add the eggs and a bit of water. Then gently fold the self raising flower in.
Problem. I can’t eat sugar. So I used sweetener that you can bake with. The amounts were questionable. 150 grams when you don’t have scales. So I guessed the amounts and I think I put about 200 grams in. The sweetener said 200 grams was five tablespoons, so I used four instead. Then the eggs? I used three, but they were large. Finally I guessed a mug full of flour would be about right….
I creamed the butter and sweetener together and made it softish and fluffy. Then I slowly added the eggs. The mix started to curdle. I tried adding a bit of flour and it started to look like undercooked scrambled eggs! I got my hand whisk out and tried to beat some of the lumps out. Then I folded in the flour, I made a batter, but still saw flecks of butter in the mix.
So I spooned the mix over the pears in a well greased Pyrex flan dish. I put the cake in the oven on gas mark 4 (medium heat) initially for thirty minutes. When I checked it, there were bubbles of gas coming out of it and it was still pale. So I put it on for another twenty minutes. The bubbles were still happening but the surface felt fim and was golden brown. When I tapped it, it sounded hollow, and when I pricked it with a knife that came out clean.
I eased the cake out of its case. Some of it broke up because it had stuck in the dish. It was greasy, but I cut a section out and it held its shape.
It tasted eggy but nice. The pears had cooked through.
Next time I might start making it with flour, then rubbing the butter into that till its like breadcrumbs, adding sweetener, then making a hole in the flour before adding the eggs. I wish I’d remembered that before I made this cake.
I write silly limericks each week on a friend’, Esther Chilton’s, blog. I don’t usually share them here but I thought I would with the one I wrote on her blog last week. I hadn’t been feeling well and I forgot I had written this. I can’t remember the word that we had to base the limerick on, I think it was State, you have a one word prompt. It does not have to be the word you rhyme with, it can sit anywhere within the limerick:
Just look at the state of my hair!
This lockdowns been really unfair
My mane has extended
Far more than intended
From the top to the foot of the stairs!
I hope it made you chuckle. Limericks have a two, two, one pattern, the first two and last line should rhyme and lines three and four are often shorter and have a different pattern to their rhymes.
The hedgehogs are about tonight eating catfood again. I quietly opened the back door and saw one of them eating the catfood I’d left out for the abandoned cat. When it realised I was there it slowly scuttled off up the yard. When I looked again later all the cat food had gone. When the abandoned cat arrived I gave him a couple of pouches of wet cat food to make up for him missing supper.
I love out hedgehogs, I’m hoping they will weigh enough to survive winter. I think they are living in the back of the shed. My hubby says he hears snuffling in there late at night.
Another doodle, this time a possible background for something, or even a stand alone piece of art. Created in ArtRage oils and sketch app, digital drawing. learning to use different tools in the apps. I did this a while ago. If I’m not learning and playing with things I get really bored.
that’s it for now, I really have tired myself out just sitting at the computer and typing. Need a rest. Phew! Plus I have not had an evening meal yet and I will have to cook it, might be back later if I feel a bit better.
That’s not what I’ve been doing this last week, in fact almost the exact opposite! I think I have realised what has been wrong with me. A bout of tonsillitis. It’s tired me out, I feel washed out and slightly dizzy. Today I actually left the house and did some shopping. I needed to get some watercolour paper and new drawing pens. I’ve been meaning to do it for a week. I had to get my hubby to come along to help me carry things and ended up spending far too much on some plants for the winter months in the garden. I also haven’t done much of my college work and can see it spiralling away from me. Will I catch up? seriously I need to be better now. I cant afford to get too behind with the course work.
My hubby, forty years together and we are both getting old. Various marker pens on cartridge paper. He didn’t keep still or I would have done a better job on it. I’ve bought a few more permanent marker pens. Some are OK, but some seriously smell of something like acetone? I used a silver pen to try and add grey to his hair and reflections/highlights on his face.
Rather a painterly effect. The cats fur has an interesting pattern in it. The newspaper layers are defined. The surface of the box has a slight mottled effect. This was all done by using the style tool and choosing effect number two. The background colours add to the composition. I would have liked to get the cat looking more directly at me, but she wasn’t playing tonight! She does like perching on boxes as you can see. I think it looks quite good.
In the northern hemisphere at least. We’ve hit the equinox, when the day and night lengths are the same. Cold, arrives, now. Unless we get some late summer heat. There’s been hailstorm in the North East of England and heavy rain in Scotland. Across the Northern hemisphere there have been hurricanes in North America and Typhoons in Asia.
The other side of the world is experiencing Spring. The South is getting warmer as the Earth starts to tip its south Pole towards the sun. The tilt of the Earth means that we have seasons. If the world was at 90° day and night would be equal across the whole world. 12 hours of light, 12 hours of dark. No glorious late evenings in summer or long dark nights in winter. What an interesting world we live on.
