January 27, 2012

Introducing… Scone Watch

Large scone served at the Scottish ParliamentThis is a new occasional column devoted to the humble scone, and most importantly, where to find the really good ones.

It is extremely disappointing to find the sort of teashop or café that looks as if it would do a fantastic scone, only to be served a day-old scone, or even worse, a shop-bought one masquerading as home-made. You know what I’m saying.

So, purely in the interests of the scone-loving community, I have decided search out the very best scones and post their details here. I shall of course make it my duty to sample scones further afield from Edinburgh when circumstances permit. And please, if you have experienced scone nirvana recently, share the good news in the comments box below!

What criteria will I be judging scones by? Well, we all have our favourite types but I look for a crisp crust, a fluffy inside, not too sweet, plenty of raisins, and freshly made, ie. that day. In a perfect world, it would be still warm from the oven. I’m not that keen on cream on my scones – sacrilege to some but I’d rather have butter and raspberry jam. Posh raspberry jam. With seeds too.

Yesterday I sampled the scones at the Scottish Parliament Café and most of my stringent criteria were fulfilled. Freshly made every day? Yes. Light, crispy? Yes. And warm too! Plain and fruit scones were available and a cream tea version if you like The Works. Ideally, I’d add a few more raisins to their fruit scone and have raspberry jam on offer as well as the blackcurrant and strawberry. On the subject of jam, I’d ideally swap the individual plastic containers for a wee jar or dish but then, I am fairly fussy about these things. (Or, as Mr Enemy would say, most things).

So, Scottish Parliament Café– definitely recommended. Enric Miralles’ cool architecture and a lovely design exhibition on at the moment. In the photo above there is a card in front of the lovely (large) scone, bearing the word ‘crèche’. If you have children under six, you might just want to check this out…

A quick note on making scones at home – I could tell you my own recipe but then I’d have to kill you and frankly, I’m loathe to kill anyone who reads my blog, and particularly anyone who has made it this far through a post.

However, I was very very happy to have found this wonderful article by Felicity Cloake in The Guardian. Her favourite scone recipe is quite different from mine (lard? Who would have thunk it?) but there’s a veritable wealth of scone information here.

Come across any Really Good Scones recently? Please let us know where!

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January 11, 2012

One way to do sculpture with children

It’s been cold and wet recently and with another month or two of this sort of weather expected (we are in Scotland after all) I’ve been putting my mind to Creative and Fun Indoor Pursuits.

The other day we had run out of bread and the thought of taking three bedraggled children to the supermarket was too unpleasant to contemplate so this was my solution – we’d make our own dough balls…

I did use the breadmaker for this, by the way  (recipe follows), but I also checked out this apparently easy recipe which I might try sometime with the children. It looks long but it does have video links to handy things like kneading.  (Note to Self – do NOT try this for the first time on a day when we actually need bread…)

After I measured the ingredients out (I cunningly distracted the children with a snack for this – it can be done but generally at the expense of my sanity), it took 45 minutes for the dough programme to run.

Excitement reached fever pitch with sprinkling flour on the table and turning the dough out. Oldest made sausage shapes and twists; Middlest liked cutting it up with a knife and Youngest liked the flour the most. I enjoyed it too; I tried to make a little dough bird and got so involved in the task that I didn’t notice Youngest dragging a stool across the kitchen and finding a tin of cold baked beans, which she proceeded to eat with her hands.

It was a pretty messy business and the kitchen was covered in a fine snowfall of flour, so I got them all to stand on the kitchen table while I pretended to be a shark with the hoover. Don’t ask me quite how this worked but somehow it did.

All the children enjoyed it and an activity which grabs a 6 year old, a 3 year old and a 1 year old is not to be sniffed at. And best of all, we got to eat hot doughballs with lashings of butter while the rain lashed against the window panes.

Recipe for Focaccia dough

  • 1/2 tsp yeast
  • 300g strong white flour
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 200ml water

Use ‘dough’ or ‘pizza’ setting on breadmaker. Ideally it should be left for 30 mins to rise after shaping but we were a bit hungry so…

Bake at Gas 5 / 190C / 375F for around 15 minutes, depending on the size of your creations.

 

 

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December 16, 2011

4 cheap things your kitchen needs…

A few people have noticed that I haven’t posted for what we will kindly call ‘a while.’ I was setting the bar rather high, because to be honest, interesting stuff like this only happens now and again. Most of the time I’m dressed in fleece, scrubbing at children’s clothes with damp flannels while muttering sweary words.

But more about flannels later. This post is about one of my favourite subjects – household organisation. Oh yes, my friend, it’s Christmas come early…

Here are a few of my favourite (kitchen) things:

Magnetic pens – £3.99
I have three of these; they stick on the fridge so I can always find a pen. In addition, they are the only grown-up pens in the kitchen as Littlest is a keen artist. Embarrassing but true – I scoured, I mean, bloody scoured the internet for these. Now you know the awful truth. Shhhhh.

A small spatula – £5.00
Leftovers on plates? BAM. Baked bean tin to scrape out? BANGO. Cake mixture to put in pan? HISTORY*.  This children’s spatula set does the trick – highly satisfying and makes washing up a lot quicker too.
* The bowl is so clean afterwards Mr Enemy and all the little Enemies fairly howl with disappointment. So idiot loving mother and wife that I am, I usually end up putting some mixture back in and smearing it back around the sides of the bowl again. Gah.

A spreading knife – £4.50
We make a lot of packed lunches and a knife like this makes the job a lot quicker. When I was given it (Thank you, Mother!) I thought I would never bother to seek out a knife to specifically for spreading. But I do, several times a day.

A cloth collection – priceless…
Mr Enemy struggles with this. In his ideal world, there would be One Cloth. This would be used indiscriminately on children’s faces, muddy shoes, cutlery, the floor, the kitchen table, car tyres and vomit. Here’s my system:

  1. A surfaces cloth – kitchen tables and work surfaces
  2. A floor cloth – high absorbency thingy, kept in easy reaching distance at all times
  3. A microfibre cloth – how did the world turn before microfibre? Really.
  4. A face cloth – sew a loops at the corners, put a couple of hooks up inside a cupboard door and it can hang neatly and not get manky. Have a couple in light-ish colours and chuck them into the washing machine whenever you put a wash on.

I mean, how frigging cunning is that??

Happy Christmas!

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September 9, 2011

7 ways to combat the post-bedtime slump

If you’re anything like me, by the time you’ve got the children into bed, you’re wrung out and more inclined to pour a large glass of wine / watch tv / or even just stare zombie-like into space than get stuck into any creative work. Here’s a few ideas to help you make feel make the most of that precious time:

Number 1Earlier in the day, decide what you are going to do with your ‘golden time’ – so you don’t end up (and I speak from extensive personal experience here), frittering it away on non-essential busywork simply because you are Without A Plan. Try to make it something i. easy and ii. fun.

Number 2Find ways to make the bed time routine less hectic – We’ve recently introduced Reading In Bed. The Oldest & Middlest are only 5 and 3 so can’t actually read yet but somewhat surprisingly, enjoy being in bed with their side-lights on. At this point in the day, this extra 15-20 minutes makes a huge difference to my energy levels.

Number 3Do a 15-20 minute Assault On Mess and Dirt – Somehow, running around around for a short period of time, being utterly focused on my mission to get as much as possible tidied in a short a period of time as humanly possible works for me. I think it’s because when I get tired, I get really indecisive, even about routine things like tidying, so then that final push to get the final household tidying suddenly expands to 45 minutes.

Number 4Build in some downtime while the children are still up – I’m a big fan of getting them all in the bath together and having a cup of tea while they splash around. Or watching In The Night Garden with a cup of tea (there’s a tea theme here!) or doing a little knitting instead of trying to get jobs done at the same time.

Once the children are in bed; allow yourself 5 or 10 minutes with your feet up – Read. Knit. Drink Tea. Just take a little time out.  Or lie on the bed for 5 minutes and read – slightly dangerous one, this one, because sometimes the urge to sleep is too strong.

Number 6Do only those household jobs absolutely must be done – for me, the kitchen always have to be done but ironing can nearly always be left to when there’s a film on I want to watch.

Number 7Consider moving your shower from the morning to after the children’s bedtime – this makes morning less hectic and also gives you a chance to unwind and refresh before you get on with your creative work.

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August 31, 2011

8 top tips for a first-time author reading

Having done three whole readings now, I feel something of an expert on the subject. Actually, the truth is, I went to an excellent masterclass on giving readings (part of the Story Shop 2011 programme), run by Alex Gillon. I wasn’t selected to read in front of the eagle-eyed (and eagle-eared) Alex but I learnt a great deal. In fact, it completely changed my thoughts on the subject. Highly recommended, if you get the chance.

I still haven’t told you the best bit – being a Parent Of Young Children actually helps with readings… I know, I’m excited too. More on this at the end.

Here are some ideas I found useful; some gleaned from Alex’s masterclass, some from a practice session with a few fellow Story Shoppers and some from my own (ahem) extensive experience.

1. Colour your words – figuratively speaking. Alex’s lovely phrase for  savouring the special words in your text: slow down for them, feel them on your tongue, allow the audience to really hear them.

2. Colour your words – my rather literal interpretation – I went through my text with a highlighter (actually a few different colours, yup, that’s how anally retentive organised I am) to show emphasis and to show when different characters were speaking. This  helped me stay on track when confronted with an actual audience. And a microphone.

3. Pause slightly between direct speech and the speech tag – this helps your listeners understand what is direct speech and what isn’t.

Here’s an example. Say you wrote:

“Darling,” said  Jeremy, “Is that your thigh?”

This is how you would read it:

“Darling,” [PAUSE] said Jeremy, [PAUSE] “Is that your thigh?”

It is disconcerting when, as a listener, you suddenly find yourself adrift in someone’s narrative, wondering who is saying what.

4. Read dramatically – yuss sirree! Interestingly, nearly everyone seemed to think they were completely over-thesping things but actually, everyone who tried it sounded much, much more engaging.

5. If you are doing an intro, make it distinct from the reading – apparently at first, it wasn’t clear when my intro finished… and my story started. Sounds pretty basic, I know,  but it’s easy to overlook this sort of (very important) thing when you can’t see yourself.

6. Practice, practice, practice – I have used imovie to record myself in the past; a truly horrendous experience but it did help. I also found it helpful doing practice readings. According to Mr Enemy of Art, I rock back and forth on the balls of my feet when I’m nervous. Hmmm, just a shade quirkier than I’m comfortable with…

7. Say your thank you’s – Is there a sponsor? An organiser? Thank them – profusely! Is there an audience? Thank them!

8. Practice reading aloud – When Alex suggested that reading stuff aloud on a frequent basis will improve one’s skills, a few participants looked a bit quizzical. I, on the other hand, only just managed to stop myself from thrusting my hand skywards and shouting “Miss! Miss! I do that already! I do that every night!” Fortunately for all concerned I was able to contain my excitement. However, it does feel good to be enjoying the bedtime story AND knowing I’m improving my presentation skills…

So the children are now being subjected to a considerably more dramatic readings. My first attempt was met with The Oldest (5) saying ‘You sound funny, Mummy’ (and he meant funny-weird, not funny-funny). However, now they seem to be enjoying it; so am I.

As for my reading, It went just fine; in fact better than fine, it went well.

  • Was I nervous? Extremely.
  • Did I enjoy it? Yes.
  • Would I do it again? In a flash!

If you want to check to see if I paused after direct speech, you can hear me here, link active until the end of September.

PS for more on the subject of readings, a quick internet search came up with Authors Dish on Stage Presence: “Un-Mic Before You Throw Up”

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August 14, 2011

How to support independent bookshops AND be a super-organised mother

If you have children at nursery or primary school, you’ll be familiar with this weekend scenario:

  • Check the diary – it’s little Amelia / Josh’s birthday party! Oops!
  • Rummage around house for a present – hmm, probably not the bath salts
  • Go to supermarket and buy branded toy (arrgh, too expensive but never mind…)
  • Drive child to party clutching gift-wrapped horrible plastic horse / weird fighting man
  • Hooray, ticked another thing off the to-do list but vague feeling of dissatisfaction lurks

Having undergone the above on one-too-many occasions, I started buying 5 or 6 books at a time from Amazon for birthday parties, partly because I love books, partly to make my life easier and partly for financial reasons.

Now, I knew that buying online had an impact on our high streets but I wasn’t really thinking about what supporting independent booksellers (and indeed high street shops such as Waterstones and Blackwells) really means. When I started reading Nicola Morgan’s blog, I started to understand some of the issues involved, and I decided that I actually needed to do something rather than just, um, think about doing something.

Going cold turkey on my Amazon habit isn’t an option (online shopping, what a blessing to the shop-starved mother!) but I’ve come to a compromise. I’m going to ‘adopt’ a local bookshop for buying birthday party presents.

As I was thinking all this through, I started wondering what would happen if other mothers liked the idea and started doing the same…

So this idea has blossomed into an idea for a campaign called ‘Books for Birthdays’ which is really about harnessing the spending power of mothers in the specific area of birthday presents, encouraging them to:

  • buy books for presents
  • support independent bookshops and / or high street chains by purchasing from them

I’ve had all sorts of wonderful ideas, involving a shiny new website to design; getting in touch with some industry bods and even one involving a launch party with dresses and cakes. Mr Enemy of Art very sensibly suggested that before I got too carried away, I should ask for a little feedback…

And this, dear reader, is where you come in:

  • Is there anything out there all ready like this?
  • What do you think of this idea? Is it something you’d do?
  • Who might be interested? Individuals? Organisations? (I thought of Edinburgh City of Literature, Scottish Government, Scottish Book Trust, independent booksellers organisation –is there one?! – Royal Society of Authors, those nice writer people at An Awfully Big Blog Adventure…)
  • What else should I think about?
  • Tea dresses and cakes or evening dresses and cocktails?!

I do have a briefing document (I know, very fancy pants!) so drop me a line if you would like to hear about the idea in more detail.

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August 7, 2011

Oh happy day! I’m reading @ Edinburgh International Book Festival

How did this happen? Well, the lovely folks at Edinburgh City of Literature developed a wonderful programme called Story Shop, to showcase the work of new writers in Edinburgh at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, where a slot has been made available in the very gorgeous Spiegel Tent at 4pm every afternoon.

Reading at the Book Festival features in those fleeting daydreams I have while pegging out the third load of laundry or chiselling old spaghetti welded onto the floor, so this is comes under the heading ‘super cool.’

Here’s the deal:

  • When – Saturday 20th August, 4pm
  • Where – Spiegel Tent, Book Festival, Charlotte Square, Edinburgh
  • How long – 15 minutes or so
  • Ticketing – Free and unticketed so  you can just drop by

Come if you can – I’ll be the ashen-faced lady looking longingly at the bar.

I met the other story shoppers at a workshop* last week and heard excerpts from some: Katie Craig, Roy Gill, Nasim Marie Jafry, RA Martens, Catriona Silvey and Sarah Stewart – I can recommend them all.

There wasn’t enough time for everyone to read but apparently there was a deluge of applications for Story Shop and just seventeen were chosen, so whatever day you go on, you’ll strike lucky. You can see the full line up here.

*This was a masterclass on reading aloud and it completely changed my thinking. I’ll be posting on this soon.

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July 30, 2011

Spilt milk: much wailing and gnashing of teeth

A while back, I started using a rucksack instead of a handbag; there’s just not enough room in my handbag for all the baby stuff and holding the Youngest on my hip for hours at a time has resulted in advanced scoliosis. Well, it might not actually be that, medically speaking, but that’s what it feels like.

Apart from rocking a slightly more sporty style than normal (and from envying those mothers who manage with a dinky little number – how do they do that??), it is working fine.

Until Mr. Enemy of Art did the unimaginable – mixing up a Normal Rucksack and a Handbag Rucksack. I know! Unthinkable! In our rush to get out of our holiday let on time, he decided to bung all the extra milk into MY rucksack. Two pints of semi-skimmed and three baby bottles of milk.

As I locked up, I picked up my rucksack where Mr E had kindly left it for me sitting on top of a padded garden chair. Out whooshed a couple of pints of the white stuff.

I didn’t cry over the spilt milk but I did feel like it. Mobile phone, purse, notebook, digital camera, random lipsticks, a load of my favourite pens plus some weird shit I was carrying around for the boys (pine cones, gravel, fire engine etc).

I would like to think that after the second apology I could have said something gracious such as ‘There’s no use crying of spilt milk.’ Instead I explained, rather tersely (and perhaps in slightly more detail than absolutely necessary) the difference between a Rucksack-Which-Is-Actually-A-Handbag and a Normal Rucksack.

However, every cloud has a silver lining. Such as splurging on a new Tala purse in the John Lewis sale. Such as finding my notebook, with all it’s scribblings and scratchings, unharmed.

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July 19, 2011

Let’s have coffee… here’s my card

For the last goodness-knows-how-many years, along with every Amazon order has been a Vistaprint flier. I finally succumbed and ordered business cards but – here’s the cunning twist – not necessarily for business purposes. They have arrived and they are very pleasing – tasteful (but quirky) ochre.

Now, I haven’t actually used them yet. In my mind, I’m going along to mum’s groups and writing events, hooking up with interesting peeps and instead of scrawling on an old receipt for Sainsbury’s Primitivo, I’m fishing out one of my ‘non-business’ business card and feeling very organised and perhaps just slightly smug. BUT – and it’s a big but – it could be that when I hand over a card, the recipient will look at me strangely and I will feel like a bit of a tit – I’ll have to keep you posted on that.

If you are tempted, choose your card  (excellent procrastination material here, folks) and then leave it to simmer in the trolley for a while. Vistaprint will then bombard you with all manner of offers. Hold on until you can see the whites of their eyes… and eventually, the premium cards will be free, or near as damn it. So 250 premium cards (the premium option means more designs to choose from) including superfluous (but cool) back print + vat + p&p = £5ish.

ps I did see that Vista Print have a section called ‘Mommy Cards’, so you could actually have the names of your children printed on them. Helpful for the recipient but really, the idea made me slightly nauseous.

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July 11, 2011

Hurrumph: Parents of older children who say ‘It just gets harder.’

I was chatting with another mother about Squeezing It All In. We agreed that it was hard to do.

‘Still,’ I said, ‘It’s been much better since Middlest started nursery, so I’m sure things will get easier.’

Mother-of-Older-Children said ‘Oh, it doesn’t get easier.’

‘Your children are 10 and 8,’ I said trying not to sound too incredulous. ‘That must be very different from having children of 5, 3 and 1.’

‘Oh, there’s all their activities, all the drop-offs, all the homework. I spend hours every week just sitting around in the car waiting for them. Really, I think you’ve probably got it easiest just now.’

‘Really?’ I said, as a polite alternative to picking up the heavily-buttered scone she was eating and ramming it down her throat.

Now, I am can quite understand that different challenges occur as children grow up, BUT:

  1. older children can help out – a bit
  2. older children can be reasoned with – a bit
  3. older children can occupy themselves – a bit – probably for more than a minute
  4. older children are unlikely to pull out the entire contents of the laundry cupboard several times a day or put all your sanitary supplies in the lavatory while you do the tiniest little edit to a blog post

Right now, hanging around in the car with my notepad and pen for 45 WHOLE MINUTES (that’s three-quarters of a flaming hour!) ALONE while one of the Little Darlings have a tennis or violin lesson sounds like heaven to me.

Hurrumph.

END NOTE
There are only a few things in life which make me grumpy; and it is going to give me no end of pleasure some small satisfaction to devote the occasional post to these topics.

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