I broke the oven?

Posted on July 10, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Baking, Blogging, Bread, Cooking, Double oven, Fun, Humour, Learning, Life, Mistake, Reflections, Timer2 Comments

When I got in from choir last night my hubby was standing in the kitchen looking perplexed. He had some bread dough in a tin because he’d decided to make a loaf. He had attempted to light the oven but it would not light. It’s a double oven with a small oven/grill at the top and a main oven. He was convinced we would have to contact the shop we got it from or get hold of a repair service. I said let me have a look…

What I saw was an egg timer symbol and another one of a casserole dish. I tried pressing the ignition. Nothing happened. I looked again at the clock display. It was several hours out? Something was clearly wrong. I asked him if he had pushed any buttons? Yes to set the timer. I looked again and realised there must be a delayed start on the main oven as it showed a casserole dish shape with a little clock face on it. I dialled that down to zero, and the egg timer down to zero. Then I tried the ignition again… It lit! I checked why the top oven was blowing out hot air… He had the grill on with the door closed and he had thought the heat had been from the main oven, so he didn’t understand why the bread hadn’t started to cook. Finally he put the dough back in the oven. The resulting loaf (which is nice and tasty) is in the photo…

THUD! Patter, patter, patter……

Posted on July 10, 2019July 10, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Birds, Environment, Fun, Garden, Humour, Kitchen extension, Life, Magpie, Pigeon, Poem, PoetryLeave a comment

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On my kitchen roof

Bouncing around,

Pesky magpies and pigeons.

I like them,

Don’t get me wrong,

But just as I’m about to

Pour a coffee

THUD patter patter,

Or get the bread out of the oven…

THUD patter patter

Delicately lining up some icing

THUD! Patter…. Patter!

Do you have to?

You make me jump…

THUD!

Plants today

Posted on July 9, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Fern, Gardening, Green, Hanging baskets, Photos, Plants, Spode site, Stoke-on trent, Stoke-upon-TrentLeave a comment

My back yard, fern at spode, carnations at spode.

Just a few plants I saw today. The ones in the yard are mostly in hanging baskets that are billowing out in great waves of colour. The fern is a shuttlecock fern I think because its fronds radiate out from the centre and it looks like the shuttlecock used in badminton. The third picture is of carnation flowers planted up with a blue grass. These last two were taken at the Spode Site at Stoke. There are plants that are planted up by our stairs that soften the edged of the semi derelict buildings there. I love plants.

The process of making a pretend thrown clay pot

Posted on July 9, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Design, Painting, Papier mache, Penkhull, Penkhull mystery play, Pretend pot, Props, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Throwing potsLeave a comment

Started with a large flowerpot covered in glue and paper (Papier-mache). Then painted it with a base coat of pale orange / brown acrylic paint when it was dry. I had put a slightly smaller pot inside to bulk up the sides and it gives a nice ridge around the top as if the Potter was starting to thin out the sides. I’ve painted light and dark bands as I wanted to give it texture, partly to hide the crinkly nature of the paper and also to make it look like he is putting ridges around it.

I’m not 100% sure of the colour, perhaps it should be darker, it’s like a pale terracotta I think.

Cheese (chayse) Oatcakes (owtcayks)

Posted on July 9, 2019July 9, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Bacon, Blogging, Cheese, Cooking, Food, grill, Microwave, Oatcakes, Staffordshire, Staffordshire oatcakes, Stoke-on trent, TastyLeave a comment

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Fast, old fashioned food.

The Staffordshire oatcake (words in brackets are my attempt to write it in a Stoke dialect).

Oatcakes in Staffordshire are thin, lace like and tasty. Unrolled they fit on a small dinner plate. They can be eaten with various fillings including savory ones like cheese, cheese and bacon, cheese and sausage (I feel a theme developing). Or you can have them sweet with jam or marmalade which is probably unacceptable to traditionalists. Oatcakes are food or ‘snappin’ to be eaten for breakfast with a strong cup of tea. They are tasty and if you are lucky to have an oatcake shop nearby they are delicious hot from the griddle.

They are an inexpensive meal and can be filled with your own fillings, perhaps chilli con carne or crispy duck? I guess you could even cook them with stewed apple and cream.

I cooked mine in the microwave rolled with grated cheese and added brown sauce. If you grill them you are better heating them flat to make them hot and crispy. Then sprinkle your filling all over like on toast so that the edges don’t burn. They can then be folded in half and finished under the grill. You can eat them with a salad garnish or coleslaw.

You never know you might enjoy them.

Blue smile

Posted on July 9, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Artrage oils, Blogging, Blue, Digital doodle, Life, Poem, Poetry, Sad, Smile, Thinking2 Comments

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I see your blue smile

Sad and sorry

Waiting to leave,

Waiting for a second

Before you go.

Before the smile fades

And you start to cry

Seeing nothing but tears.

At least you had a smile

Once….

Words

Posted on July 8, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Books, Fun, Humour, Learning, Life, Playing, School, WordsLeave a comment

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Do you find yourself thinking of a word that just pops into your mind? I thought of a few today. Gestalt, Normality and Defunct all jumped into my head today.

Another day it could be crumble, grunge or fanciful, which is probably what this is.

I think I need sleep when I can dream of words chasing each other through the sky and over hills. Trundling into the sunset where they burst into brilliant petals.

Words are fun, they need using or abusing, but they definitely can make life interesting, exuberant and startling!

Papier-mache pot

Posted on July 8, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Clay, Design, Fun, Papier mache, Penkhull, Penkhull mystery play, PropLeave a comment

In the play we are doing this weekend my partner has to pretend to throw a pot on a wheel. We don’t want anything big, heavy or breakable, so I’m Papier-macheing a black plastic flowerpot. I had to buy some pva glue but only wanted just enough, not a great big tub or a tiny bottle. So instead of the adult craft section I found a bottle of clear pva in the children’s section at a craft shop.

Got home and started ripping up newspaper. This is many layers later, I’ve added a few layers about two thirds up to give it a slight bulge. When it’s dry I will paint it white as a base coat then a pale brown “clay” colour with shading to make it look hand thrown. I’m hoping it will look reasonably realistic.

When I was forty

Posted on July 7, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Acrylic on canvas, Art, Design, Forty, Fun, Memory, Painting, self portraitLeave a comment

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I did this self portrait. I don’t do many and haven’t done one recently. Maybe I should. At this time I had the front bedroom as a studio, until we got too much stuff and I moved my painting stuff out. My tee shirt was a recycling one but I haven’t seen it for years. I’m not sure what I think about this, but it’s another Facebook memory. It’s a bit blurred. I still have the original upstairs, will have to find it out.. Almost twenty years later.

Moon and Jupiter

Posted on July 7, 2019 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Branches, Crescent, Jupiter, Life, Moon, Photo, Sun, Trees, View, WinterLeave a comment

Well you could barely see them really, but a few months ago , in winter, one dawn I saw the crescent moon and the planet Jupiter. The planet was up on a diagonal from the curve of the moon. Like a parachute blowing out of control in a strong wind, canopy downward and the planet swinging up and away into the morning sky. The branches made it hard to see, hard to locate, and as the wind was blowing the view was obstructed by the swaying trees. Most of the time the planet would be visible and the moon not and then vice versa.

So why am I telling you this? Because I spotted the photo and I wanted to practice describing it. I’ve mostly spoken about the Moon and Jupiter, not about the surroundings. The horizon. Is hidden by the line of shop roofs and tree branches. The sky has lightened but the sun is not up. The position of the sun (down and to the left) is indicated by the illumination on the moon (trust me it was a crescent curved downwards to the left). So that’s it. Not a story, a description.

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