Bringing The Holiday Home With Me

 

 Obviously one of the many reasons to holiday in Italy is the food. What's not to love? Seafood, pasta, pizza, risotto... the whole country is awash in marvellous things to eat. It would be daft not to make the most of it.

Inspired by my very excellent mate Kirsty's habit of going to a cooking lesson when she's on holiday, I booked Mark and I a morning of making the traditional Ligurian pesto and focaccia in a restaurant in the stunning town of Sestri Levante, a short ride on the local train from our hotel in Rapallo. 

Lovely restaurant in Sestri Levante

Yes, I've made pesto before, but it was just more fun doing it with the local ingredients - a scant tablespoon of pine nuts, mounds of fresh basil from Pra', Ligurian olive oil from cold pressed Taggiasca olives, and their preferred a mix of parmesan and Sardinian pecorino. Of all the things we ate in Italy, the warm focaccia lavishly coated in freshly made pesto was pretty much the best thing, and believe me there was some fierce competition! 

All the essential supplies

The charming  Davide insisted that a glass of wine was a very necessary part of making pesto. I remember my Dad saying something similar in Canada in the 1970s - if he didn't have a cold beer in one hand, the barbeque just wasn't going to cook properly. I wasn't entirely convinced that was true for pesto being made at 10:30 in the morning, to be honest. Breakfast Wine is not something I want. However, Davide said wine was what powered the pestle and mortar - without a sip of wine to keep you going as you pound away, you won't have the oomph to make a smooth and delicious pesto.

Like I say, he was a very charming fella. 

See? Charming!

 I was very surprised how little salt and pine nuts went into the recipe. It was maybe half a teaspoon of coarse salt with half a plump garlic clove and the pine nuts that we pounded into a cream to start with. Then it was picking the leaves off mounds and mounds of basil, thumping the bejeesus out of it in a big heavy mortar with a marble pestle, and then thumping some more. The grated cheese was added a tablespoon a time with yet more pummelling in between. If I did this often I'd have muscles Rosie the Riveter would be proud of. Three or four tablespoons of cheese later and we were finished.

Davide said the oil must never be added to the mortar because the marble (or stone) is porous and will absorb it. We scooped all the paste onto our pestles like a glowing green basil gelato cone and put it in jars to be topped by olive oil. Apparently, the pesto is mixed with the appropriate amount of oil when it's going to be served. Otherwise, as long as it was covered with a layer of oil to prevent oxygenation, it was fine as a fairly stiff paste.

Having a brilliant time 

 
When we got home I was keen to try out making pesto - nearly as keen as Zach was to eat it! I have a very small Mason and Cash pestle and mortar I use for crushing spices,so I had a go with that.

Nightmare.

The bowl was far too small and the pestle far too light to crush the leaves thoroughly. It took muscle power to break it down, and muscles aren't what I'm known for. I'm more of a limp noodle than a powerhouse and it was absolutely exhausting.  I am never doing that again.

Luckily there was a very big stone pestle and mortar in the sale due to one of Amazon's spurious reasons for an event (I can't even remember what that one was called, but it wasn't Black Friday) so I bought myself that enormous thing* and had another go.

Seriously enormous, weighs a ton

 

However, all that weight means the heavy pestle does a superb job of bashing the poor basil into submission.  It took less than a third of the time of the small one and was a great deal more fun. It was also rather intimidatingly loud, for which I probably owe my neighbours apologies. And poor Luke who was nearby and nearly jumped out of his skin.

Having tried pesto with the traditionally shaped Trofie pasta (very narrow twists) and with breadsticks and focaccia, I fancied a go at trying to replicate a delicious lunch I'd had in Santa Marguerita. It was big billowing sheets of fresh pasta with loads of pesto on top. It looked messy and awful, but it was so light and delicious. 

Least appetising, most delicious

 

I've not made pasta with 00 flour before, but as I was trying to do it all with the proper Italian ingredients I bought flour to have a go. Bloody hell, that stuff is so much harder to work with than plain flour! It was so very stiff I wondered if I'd got the proportions wrong. I was using Angela Hartnet's 400g to 4 large eggs and a tablespoon of olive oil. I rolled half of it out to thing, long lasagne sheets ribbons and cooked them for around 3 minutes.

I'd been a bit overly free passing homemade pesto around my friends and neighbours to have the quantity  the restaurant served on the pasta, but it was still absolutely delicious. The pasta was light and silky, the pesto was strongly herby with just a gentle kick of garlic and it all felt like a bowl of happiness. Z and I agreed we'd definitely have it again, although with regular flour next time unless I take up an interest in weight lifting in the meantime.

There was the other half batch of pasta dough left over, so a couple of days later Zach and I had homemade tagliatelle with a puttanesca sauce, one of our favourites.  It normally takes less time to make the sauce than the pasta takes to cook, but that isn't true when cooking fresh pasta -  fresh pasta is done in two to three minutes. It's still a ridiculously quick sauce and punches far above its weight in the effort vs flavour ratio. We enjoyed it very much. (Mark, the Philistine, chose fried chicken tenders and chips instead. There's no accounting for taste)

I love puttanesca

*If I am ever found dead in my kitchen, there's a fair chance it will be because I dropped this damned thing on myself when trying to put it away. It weighs a ton and could probably fell an elephant. 

Flying The Flag On Holiday

Mark and I have just returned from a wonderful week in Rapallo, a coastal town not far from Genoa in Liguria. It's a lovely old town full of beautifully painted buildings in the tromp d'oeil style so typical of that area. It's also Not The Pretty One, supposedly. At least, not in comparison to its neighbours Santa Marguerita Ligure and Portofino - which as Mark pointed out, tells you how thoroughly spoilt the Italians are for beauty, if they can regard a gem like Rapalla as the "meh" town of the region.

Rapallo in the early evening

 
 I have lots to say about the food and the beauty and the food and the people and also in particular, the food, but it's something else that I want to write about today. 

As anyone living in the UK will know from the news, there are the flags of St George popping up all over the place in England. Not just flags attached to lampposts but naff spray-painted red crosses onto mini roundabouts in the road, and any other available white surface. It's either declaration of pride and love of England or a dog whistle to show non-white or non-English people that they aren't welcome, depending on your news source.

So I was surprised to see the flag of St George flying absolutely all over the place in the Genoese region. And it's for an absolutely brilliant reason - It's not our flag anyway.

We have to go back to the middle ages. There's England, trading in the Mediterranean far from home. We had no reputation to speak of. No one was intimidated by us; our traders, merchants, pilgrims and vessels are all easy targets for any pirates, bandits or opportunists who see easy pickings. England was getting her butt kicked in the Mediterranean arena, and it was expensive. What she needed was an ally - help from someone too fearsome to be messed with who'd offer England protection.

This is where Genoa, The Republic Of The Magnificents, came in. Genoa was extremely powerful, wealthy and well-armed. It had colonies across the Mediterranean and into the Black Sea. The city was a major power from 1099 through to the 1700s, first through might and then through banking. It was Venice's main rival as a trading power and had a formidable reputation.

For a 'substantial' annual fee, Genoa allowed England to fly the Genoese flag of St George, knowing that anyone seeing that flag will not want to incur the wrath of the republic known as La Dominante and La Superba. (Italian republics really went in for nicknames. Just look at The Eternal City and La Serenissima)

For literally hundreds of years England paid Genoa for the right to fly their flag. Hundreds of years .From Richard the Lionheart to the mid 18th century. We only stopped paying when Austria invaded Genoa. The mayor of Genoa in 2018 jokingly requested 247 years of back rent for the flag the English now think of as theirs.

I love this. When Tommy 'Not a racist, honest, guvnor' Robinson had his march in London the other week and there were countless images of people wearing the St George's cross flag as a cape, I like knowing that it's the flag of somewhere else. That we had to pay protection money to use the flag because our own name didn't count for much. When they talk about pride in their country while flying a cross of St George, I don't think 'borrowed muscle' is the pride they mean. 

That brought me to another public item on display - signs. I like signs in new places. I did see something else displayed in Liguria that delighted me - a handwritten sign, emphatically underlined and over punctuated, outside a street-side pizzeria in the tourist town of Santa Marguerita.

It was everything in one pithy sentence - the cultural difference between the Brits and the Italians, how common it was that this misunderstanding occurred, and just how frustrated both British tourists and Italian waiting staff found the behaviour of the other side. 

Line Has No Value

Line Has No Value is almost a declaration of war to a country with a penchant for queueing. There is nothing a Brit won't turn into a queue given the opportunity. When a bunch of people are waiting for something, we don't just rush in like some pack of savages, we form an orderly queue and shoot daggers from our eye while harumphing should someone attempt to push in. (This doesn't apply when getting on the Tube in London for some reason.)
 

The number of patiently queuing potential diners getting huffy that they aren't being seated, and the sheer impossibility of actually speaking to someone to request un tavolo when you could indicate your wish without having to exchange a word...  You know it has to be substantial if a sign written in Sharpie with two underlining and four exclamation points needs cellotaping over your cafe name.

I bloody love the Italians. And not just for their food. But mostly.

 

Drinking White Wine In the Sun

 Merry Christmas!

There's nothing I can say about 2020 that's not been said with more eloquence, style or wit by others so I won't even try. It's been... unusual.

Celebrating Christmas with just the five of us used to be a rare treat. Grandparents want to see grandkids and vice versa, cousins want to play, so that inevitably meant packing up and heading to North Wales of a good chunk of the holidays - pet care permitting. I used to fantasise about being Just Us - no packing, no complicated cat/hen/rodent/lizard rota with local friends, no fitting in with blended or distant family and their work/custody/travel commitments in a scheduling challenge that would stump lesser souls. The years we were home were fun, partly for the novelty, but mostly Christmas is Family.

Mum was very very into Christmas. In some ways, the rest of us were drawn along in her wake - she was the mover and shaker, the one around whom we'd orbit. It's our second Christmas without her; it's far more bearable this time but I still feel her absence sharply at the oddest moments. Memories crash through.

Christmas 1981: I was 12 years old. I'd loved ballet since lessons age 3 - and was a spectacularly incompetent participant of lessons for many years - but had never been to see one live. The National Ballet of Canada was celebrating its 30th Anniversary with a tour of The Nutcracker nationally so Mum bought tickets for the two of us at Hamilton Place (now First Ontario Concert Hall).

First of all we went to The Sirloin Cellar in downtown Hamilton.  This was possibly the most grown up I felt until I was around 25. First you descended the pokey staircase to enter the dark restaurant. As you entered it was a dim room dominated by dark wood and old photographs of Hamilton. To the left was that most macabre of restaurant trends, the aquarium. The twisted swine thought actively choosing which lobster to have boiled alive for your dinner would be fun is surely in one of the more baroque circles of hell. "You look nice, I'll have you murdered." It was a grisly fascination.

The thing that I most loved about the Sirloin Cellar was the starter - Swedish meatballs. A good 15 years before IKEA's ubiquity, these glorious creations were served above a sort of fondue arangement with a small flame to keep them warm. Sharing a dish with Mum as we discussed main course choices was brilliant. Just us women out on the town.

A short stroll away was Hamilton Place; a rather unusual looking brick and concrete structure that I knew more for the annual Lionel Blair Panto (yes, really! He spent every panto season in Hamilton Ontario) than the arts.  We were in the First Balcony, only a couple of rows back - a wonderful view. 

Now there's something you need to know about Mum - she took her disaster films VERY seriously. After Jaws she wouldn't go more than knee deep in the ocean for years. After Towering Inferno she took the location of Fire Escapes extremely seriously. 

We took our seats and Mum started. "Jackie, I want you to listen carefully;: if there is a fire you need to know how to get out. Look here - how many rows of seats to the front of the balcony?" "Three, Mum." "That's right. So if there's a fire you go forward THREE rows and climber the barrier. Smoke rises so there might not be a clear view up here, which is why it's important to know the count." "But Mum..." "No, listen, this is important. You climb over the barrier. See how it lines up with the aisle below? You wait until you can see it's clear and you drop. then make your way down the slope to that Fire Escape." "Yeah, but Mum..." "NO, Jackie, Listen to me. How many rows? "Three." "And then what?" "Climb over, wait for a gap, drop, head down the slope to the Fire Escape, but I could..." "No, just make sure you remember. Panic is as dangerous as smoke. You've got it?" "Yes Mum." "OK. What was it you wanted to say?" "Mum, there's a Fire Escape at the end of this row."

38 years. We teased Mum about that at ever theatre visity for thirty eight years. She took it in good heart, but I never see a theatre Fire Door without thinking of it.

The ballet was pretty much the most brilliant thing I'd ever experienced. I thought my heart would burst with joy - the music, the dancing, it was beyond my wildest dreams.

The Nutcracker's  Russian dance - the Trepak - is well known, but not to 12 year old me. I'd never heard or seen anything like it. Mum had to put a hand on my knee as it was positively bouncing. The dancers leapt impossible heights, did the splits midair - all perfectly normal choreography in the crowdpleasing juggernaut the Nutcracker remains. But for a first time viewer? My world expanded that day. I didn't know bodies could do that, and that such exhuberance was possible.  

When the music came onto the playlist in the kitchen on Christmas Eve, I was straight back there. Feeling like a Grown Up, out with my Mum as a co-participant and not a little kid, had laughed long and hard about what would become a family joke, and so swept up by the glory of the ballet I thought I'd burst with joy.

And I miss my Mum. 

I'm lucky to have such strong and wonderful memories. I'm lucky she showed me my favourite thing - and Ballet Weekend is always one of my annual highlights. I'm glad that for many years I could invite her here to Leeds to watch Northern Ballet's Christmas production, sometimes with her grandchildren too. 

NB - There's a link from that day and place to this day and place: a young second soloist of that production, David Nixon, has been the Creative Director of Northern Ballet since 2001. Check out the smart/casual vibe! 

The other strong memory that hit me was this afternoon. 

We'd quite regularly go on holiday with our kids and my parents to Doña Lola, between Malaga and Marbella. My brother and his girls would come too. It wasn't always easy - a large group with different interests, food preferences and ideas of how to have fun. Mark and I like restaurtants and galleries,  Mark hates beaches, I love swimming in the sea and hate pools. The younger kids all love the pool and endless ice creams, eldest like pools or video games and quiet, Neil likes games and home food but thinks cities are boring, Dad's mobility was reducing thanks to his arthritis. You can't please everyone. Sometimes it would be frustrating, sometimes harmonious. Families  - love them, but also argue with them like a teenager. 

However, there was one perfect time every day. As the sun would dip low, Mum and I would carry a pair of chairs, a pair of glasses and an ice cold bottle of white wine down to the ocean's edge and we'd watch the sun set together. Best bit of my holidays in Spain by far. When the low sun hits my face I thinbk of those warm seashore moments.

Today Christmas dawned clear and mild. After so much rain it was a gloriously sunny day. I thought it would be foolish to miss it all so as Mark chatted with his parents I popped out to enjoy the last 10 minutes of winter sunshine. It's Christmas, so obviously Tim Minchin's beautiful White Wine In The Sun was a perfect accompaniment. "My brothers, my sisters, my gran and my mum..."

Idiot. 

That was it - floored because I really do miss my Mum. And drinking white wine with her as the sun set over the Mediterranean really was one of our happiest rituals. I honestly hadn't thought about it; I felt blindsided. 

Christmas is Family. I'm lucky to have mine, even if I can't see some of them right now. I hope you are with yours, and that you are all as well and safe as you can be.

Take care.

J

PS - my full name is Jacqueline. My family called me Jac, and Jackie was for teachers or being told off. You know, like when I'm not paying enough attention to a fire briefing. I've been Jay for 30 years because it suits me better,

Is there a statute of limitations in Florida?

11 years ago I committed a crime.
Recently, I admitted it to someone I only via Twitter. Only she and my eldest knew what I'd done.
That felt awkward, so I have since 'fessed up to a Very Excellent Mate and then my other half.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am a thief.

In April 2007 we went to Orlando for a family holiday.  It was brilliant, we all had a superb time. Theme parks, swimming, NASA, terrible food, brilliant weather - it was a marvellous trip.

Luke was 8 at the time and VERY MUCH deep in his Lego obsession. Lego in the US is vastly less expensive than Lego in the UK and Luke had saved accordingly.  In fact, both times we had an entire suitcase full of Lego on the return journey. It's a good thing we pack light.

In 2007 the ability to make personalised minifigs was unheard of in the UK.  The Lego shop in Orlando had a station (as does Leeds now) where you could assemble 3 minifigs and buy them. You could choose one accessory to go with it and mix and match hair/hat, heads, bodies, legs as suited you. Alien firefighter carrying flowers? You've got it. Mermaid wearing a chef's hat and carrying a fish? You bet. Go wild!
Coolest. Concept. Ever.

Luke made his 3 figures and proceeded with Mark to the till. I messed about with minifigs whilst toddler B dozed in the pushchair.

Being an ENORMOUS and wonderfully stocked building station, there were more combinations than I've ever seen before or since. I was having a wonderful time.

Back then I dyed my hair various shades of red or burgundy. I had a bob. I love bright red lipstick, always have. I used an online moniker with the surname Reckless, the ACTUAL name of one of Mark's ancestors.  It's a brilliant name, makes me think of a saloon keeper or pirate queen.

Faffing about, I made myself a red-haired pirate minifig with a sword in one hand and a wine goblet in the other. She was PERFECT. I had to have her.

Wait a minute - I had TWO accessories, and you're only allowed one.  And I don't want two other minifigs to fill a pack; I'd already created the greatest one possible.
Also, she is a pirate. You can't purchase a pirate, that's not how piracy works. It's un-piratical.

Readers, I stole her.

Later on, Mark said "I didn't see you at the till, when did you buy that?"
Umm... Little Luke and Zach, 8 and 5 years old, were right there with us. Able to hear every word.

I compounded my sin by lying to my partner of 31 years... "While you were dealing with the kids."

My pirate alter-ego stands on my shelf next to the coffee mat and my stack of books-I'm-still-reading.  She's my avatar online. She's still the greatest minifig I've ever seen, although I need to find a grey-haired bob for her one of these days.

It's nice to have a partner in crime.

Accentuate the positive

In July last year I started a list of happy and interesting things I'd like to do before January 1st 2020 - i.e. before the end of the year that Mark and I turn 50.  I have been thinking about other things I want to add to my list. This is about inspiring me, making me happy, stuff.  I'm not after a scary challenge but a "gosh I'm glad I did that!"  

Like the worst of list cheats I'm adding two things I've already done and can tick off instantly.  That isn't as audacious as it sounds - I mentioned it in the first draft of the list as something unattainable. Thanks to my amazing parents, it became attainable; they gave me a weekend in Tromso, Norway and I could fulfil a lifelong dream to see the aurora, and do whale-watching too. I'm astonishingly lucky.

Here's how my list of things to do stands so far:

1. Go fishing  - Woo hoo! Did this at the end of last summer 
2. See the Giant's Causeway - I'm making plans, hope to do it either July or the Autumn.
3. Try salsify and Jerusalem artichokes -  Still not tried them. They are in season in winter, so that's one for later.
4. Go rock pooling - Definitely a summer activity
5. Sing in a choir - I admit, I bottled it. Was absolutely going to do it and panicked. I'm a wuss.
6. Grow cut flowers - Some setbacks here - slugs had my seedlings and Mark accidentally dumped a mound of compost on my freesia bulbs, but I have a few other irons in the fire. - Update: masses of sweetpeas and sweet william, enough for numerous bunches per week. Hurray!
7. See live music -  I did this! With mates and neighbours, we went to the OnRoundhay festival as a family and saw James. They were fantastic. Of course they were. 
8. Visit Hadrian's Wall - Done!
9. Spend all day at the movies - Not done this yet.
10. Learn to apply make up properly - Thanks to my fantastic mate Heather-in-London, I've got a makeup look that works for me. She gave me links to tutorials and product recommendations, and was so amazing and supportive. Heather is a beauty product guru, as well as one of the best parents and most thoughtful people I know. She's as generous with her knowledge as she is with her time (Apparently, I have sexy hooded eyes, like Lauren Bacall and Ava Gardiner. Go me!)
11. See the Northern Lights - TICK! Best thing imaginable.
12. Go whale-watching - Also TICK! A morning watching a pod of orca hunt for herring before a night chasing Aurora Borealis. What a day.
13. Learn a new range of cooking - North African, Middle Eastern, Indian or Thai would be my thoughts but I'm flexible. I've learnt to make ramen recently and I want to expand to incorporate other dishes. NOT European food, though, because I understand the flavours of that already. Learning from Sabrina to make a curry was one of my favourite days, and it's time I tried to level up my culinary skills. Update: Thanks to Made in India by Meera Sodha I have a number of Indian meals I can make
14. Sew something I can wear - This is all about fear and ineptitude. One day I'll manage it. I'm such a wuss. I can't even cut into nice fabric. I have an almost-finished dress I was working on when I lost my job and I just couldn't face doing it again.
15. See a new ballet company - I see New Adventures and Northern Ballet regularly, and English Ballet occasionally but Id like to experience another dance company. I may seek advice on that.
16. Learn to play a song on an instrument - Even if it's Happy Birthday on the recorder, I want to play an actual song on something again. I have re-strung Mark's ukulele to make it left-handed and am thus far rubbish. I can only improve.
17. Go Birdwatching on the Farne Islands - This is Springwatch's fault. I'd love to see in person the remarkable sea bird colonies they've shown me on the telly.
18. Return to Paris - After the holiday from hell 9 years ago when Zach and Bonnie had a stomach bug and I was washing bedding and clothes every single day of the trip, I can't think of Paris without a shudder. Mark, who was NOT the one dealing with an exploding toddler morning and night, has incredibly fond memories of the holiday. I need to nice experience to banish the vile one. Update: It turns out Paris is still fantastic. 
19. Cook a decent roast dinner - OK, this one is scary, because I don't cook or eat big slabs of meat and I think a roast dinner is all about the roast itself. However, I feel there is a veggie alternative out there I could work with, and surely it's not The Law that the vegetables are boring. It seems a skill all competent cooks here should have and I'd like to nail this one at some point.
20. Build sandcastles - because it's fun yet I never do it anymore.

Here are a few photographs from the marvellous weekend in Tromso. I had no idea I could love a place plunging in darkness quite this much - I adored it from the moment we arrived. And two days before the solstice is a very dark time of year in the Arctic! The water, trees and mountains thrilled me to my core and I could have stayed forever. Except for the cost, obviously.

It's Christmas All Over Again

Lots of people require Slade.  There are those who tell me it must be Mariah Carey. I'm sure there are a classy few who insist on the Unthanks with In The Bleak Midwinter, and I would happily agree but for me* Christmas starts with John Denver singing Silver Bells, Tom Petty singing It's Christmas All Over Again, then I Believe In Father Christmas for Mark. That one makes him a bit weepy.

So, Christmas playlist blasting out, we tackled The Tree today.  I've talked before about my deep and abiding love of Christmas trees.  The tree and the present wrapping are my favourite parts of the whole holiday season.  We opt for the less attractively shaped Norway Spruce rather than the beautifully regular Nordman Fir because the Spruce smells so wonderful.

We schlepped out to East Keswick Nursery twice this year because they had very few Spruce trees the first visit and promised they were cutting more the next morning.  When we returned the following afternoon they'd not got them yet and were very apologetic that we'd made a wasted trip.  They sent a young lad off to the fields to cut one down for us, which was very sweet of them and made me feel quite the Special Snowflake.

The one he chose was a bit shorter than we'd wanted but was ridiculously thick and bushy.  He struggled to get it through the netting gadget - and we had to shove it through the doorway at home. Raised up a few inches on railway sleeper offcuts, it fit perfectly in the space.  Well, perfectly after I pruned a few places where it sort of overwhelmed the couches.

The tree is decorated in a particular order. It's getting it straight in the base unit in the middle of the room, then moving it in situ  between the two couches and screwing the base down.  Next is pruning extra twigs off so those sitting on a couch over the next two weeks won't find themselves with pine needles in their ears. Then lights, then tinsel, then all the red baubles so they are evenly distributed, then all the silver ones, and finally all the decorations that aren't baubles.  There are zillions of those, so the least favourite ones get ignored if we run out of twigs to drape them on.

I do the lights and tinsel myself, faffing about until I'm happy it looks relatively even, and the kids move in to decorate. When they were little they tended to select a branch and pile decorations on it until that branch touched the ground or caused the tree to list rather alarmingly. These days it's all beautifully done.  If I were a better mother I'd probably miss the inexpert early years but actually I'm just relieved. I like my tree to be Just So.  And I keep forgetting it's 'our' tree and not 'my' tree**.

I was 17 when we moved from Canada to the UK. Back in Ontario we'd walk around the tree plantations in the snow, choose our tree and Dad would saw it down. My parents sold most of our decorations in the yard sale we had to slim down our possessions when we emigrated. Our first Christmas here they were nearly starting from scratch. Rejecting the colourful choices of the past they went for the plain white lights and a theme of white, silver or glass decorations.
Like the stroppy ungrateful teen I was, I had a fit.  Yes, it was absolutely beautiful, but I didn't care - it looked like it belonged in a department store window, not in my family home. I wanted the multicoloured lights, the homemade decorations, the red baubles I grew up with. I was further outraged a couple of years later when they bought an artificial tree.  Now it didn't even smell of Christmas! Like many kids, I hated change, wanted my Christmas to be like it always had been, down to the same Christmas films and soundtrack. You can add to a Christmas, but you can't change it.

(NB - 30 years on Mum and Dad still have the beautiful white and silver tree, and I still think of it as the New Tree. But I like it now because I know the 'proper' tree is in our house!)

Miss B seems to be following in the same path.  She commented today how nice white lights look around the house but that Christmas trees need several hundred multicoloured lights to look like A Proper Tree.  She insists the boys hand the decorations with their names on and she hangs the ones that are special to her. She made a slightly pitying comment about people with false trees  - "Their houses don't smell Christmassy at all." The smell is a massive thing for all 5 of us.

Tree up, Mark and Zach gave 'gentle' hints about the urgent need for mince pies.

I use my former tutor Judith's recipe for German Paste when making pastry, which is 3 parts flour, 2 parts fat (Trex, butter or a combination depending on your preference), 1 part sugar and an egg to bind it.  It's the crispest, lightest melt-in-your-mouth pastry of all the recipes I've tried.  Personally I find all pastry a bit of a faff and would rather bake cakes or cookies, but needs must.

The variation on Rachel Allen's mincemeat recipe (see here) is still my favourite. This year I forgot we'd run out of dried apricots and prunes so there are loads more cranberries to make up for it.

I made 3 dozen mince pies, have pastry for another couple dozen in the fridge and a tupperware containing about enough mincemeat for 5 dozen more. The kitchen smells of warm spices and brandy, while the living room smells of pine tree. All was going swimmingly until I burnt my finger through a hole in my oven gloves, which caused me to drop the tray of mince pies.  A hefty dollop of ice cream should fix that. Mince Pie Jumble is definitely a bona fide dessert, right?

So now I'm sitting in the dark with just the tree lights on, reflecting on our day's work.  Z's at a friend's house, Miss B is wrapping presents, L's taking a break from revising for mock A-levels with a bit of gaming and Mark's cooking dinner. This has been a hard year for many reasons but these quiet moments make everything better.

My very best wishes to you and yours,
xx

*I'm taking Bing Crosby as a given for everyone. He's non-negotiable.

**It totally is my tree. I'm just pretending I share. Everyone knows this.

Hail, Caesar!

That Hadrian was a top bloke.

Not satisfied with building ace stuff in Rome like the Pantheon - a building so perfect it made me come over all emotional -  he schleps himself to the furthest northern reach of empire and builds ace stuff here too. The jury's still out about whether introducing hipsters to the empire by making beards fashionable was a good or a bad thing, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

As I said in my last post, Hadrian's Wall is something I've wanted to see since I was back in Highland being taught History by Mr Regan. Jim Regan was a wonderful teacher. I've never met anyone here in the UK who was taught history in such a fantastic manner - from prehistory to WW1, hopping countries and continents to look where the most interesting stuff was happening. I learnt to think about how one event led to another and ideas spread from place to place rather than knowing a list of dates and battle names. Mr Regan inspired me to want to see these remarkable places we were hearing about.  I'll always be grateful to him for bringing so much history to life for me.

So, off Mark and I went first thing on Saturday morning for points North.

For my pals not from the UK:
 I live in Leeds, Yorkshire.  Hadrian's Wall is about 125 miles away roughly due North, about 2 and a half hours drive. On the map below, if you follow down the east coast from Hadrian's Wall to a downward pointing snag on the coastline ( the River Humber estuary) Leeds is inland from that. Not an unmanageable distance but quite a long way for a day trip.

We grabbed our breakfasts of choice - toasted cheese bread with marmite from Haley and Clifford for me, a McDonalds sausage McMuffin for Himself. I definitely win at breakfast - and made for Gateshead to pay homage to the Big Man, the Angel of the North.

He's a good looking fella, the Angel. I'm immensely fond of him.

Something I hadn't seen before were young trees planted nearby with decorations, stuffed toys, artificial flowers and memorabilia hanging off them.  They appeared to be shrines or memorials to people - a sort of Christmas tree to the dead.  Is this now A Thing?
Most unexpected.

Driving past the Sage and over river Tyne on the bridge those nice people from Springwatch tell me is a major nesting site for kittiwakes, we cut through Newcastle and headed out to drive alongside the Wall for as much of the journey as we could.

My ridiculously fit and active cousin Gaz O'Connor once ran the entire length of the wall in 13 hours 42 minutes.  Gaz is three weeks older than me and a world apart. He's amazing, and he mystifies me completely. A fun run is a contradiction in terms in my experience. I chose the more indolent option and navigated while Mark drove. I love maps.

We explored the Roman fort and village at Vindolanda, and the museum there. My lovely internet mates Sarah and Katie agreed with WI mate Morticia that it we should definitely visit it. I love having recommendations from mates, it makes trips more exciting somehow.

Amongst the remarkable discoveries in the excavated site there was a mystery. A body of a child had been found under the floor of a room in the barracks. It was against Roman law to bury people in forts or towns; the mausoleums were just outside. Whoever hid the body of that 11 year old girl didn't want her found, poor love.

Vindolanda is most famous for the Roman 'postcards,' the wooden tablets with letters, pleas and a birthday party invitation written on them.  There are photographs, translations and fragments in the museum, but the main collection is with the British Museum. However, the other finds there were also amazing.  The domestic details, the shoes, the child's sock and woman's hairnet are incredible. such small, human touches. I loved the betrothal pendant with two heads kissing on one side and clasped hands on the reverse. The carefully painted glasswork was crazy - two pieces of the same piece found 20 years apart.

One fascinating aspect of Vindolanda was a result of their reconstruction.  In the mid 1970s they built a reconstruction of both the earthworks and timber wall and tower and the stone wall and tower.  In the 40 years since, the earthworks have settled so much the height of that wall is now two metres lower than its stone counterpart.  No wonder they rebuilt in stone!

We had a lovely lunch sitting out in the roman style garden of the museum. Daring little chaffinches, tits and robins were darting from a nearby bush to pinch crumbs from under the tables. There were martin nests at the top of window lintels and a great many swallows zigzagged across catching insects.  It was a delightful way to spend a warm afternoon.

Driving on to Steel Rigg we had a short stroll to the Wall itself. It's a lovely thing. It snakes up and down the hills, sometimes disappearing where stones have been taken and used for other things over the centuries, sometimes rising up from the farmland abruptly.  Steel Rigg is absolutely beautiful, and I had my Wish You Were Here moment.

I am a tactile soul at heart, so I climbed over to the Wall to feel the warmth of the stones. I was there, I touched it, I saw the stonework follow the contours of the landscape and I thought of the men who built it and the men and women it was designed to keep out.

I only wish Mr Regan had been with me.

Small summery surprises

On the whole, I take a rather Dim View of big surprises.  I love anticipation - why remove so much of the fun of a situation by preventing someone from looking forward to it? Thinking of lovely things ahead is what helps me on tough days.

However, little unexpected things brighten my day.  Like finding self-seeded flowers in bloom at the bottom of my garden, or collecting a double yolker from the nest box.

One of the hens was certainly walking bow-legged after laying this monster - 

And one of the new hen laid her first tiny egg the same day, bless her feathery wee self, and strutted about crowing her achievement for all the world to hear. You'd think no bird had ever laid an egg before for all the obvious fuss she made -

Another nice surprise was being given all these gooseberries from my next door neighbour - 

which I cooked up with sugar in my big jam pan -

 - so I could make jars of gooseberry jam for my Dad. It's one of his favourites. Funny how the colour changes from that lovely green, isn't it?

Not really a surprise, but a delightful unexpected thing I discovered this summer was the presence of a grand piano in the middle of a covered square in Ghent. The roof of the structure was just amazing, the piano rich and beautiful, and watching passers-by sit down to plink plonk out Chopsticks, play some boogie woogie or carry us away with Bach's Toccata and Fugue was one of the highlights of the trip for me.

How does that even work? Wouldn't the changes of humidity and temperature constantly send the piano out of tune? And yet it sounded wonderful to my untutored ear, even in the pouring rain.

A few weeks later I was in Leeds city centre. I'd had fun chatting on BBC Radio Leeds with my erstwhile mentor Andrew Edwards and my partner in chat Caroline Eden. I like being on the radio with Caroline, she's good fun.  Later that evening I was going out for a meal with my Women's Institute pals for the centenary celebration, so I had some time to kill between the two engagements.

Look at what I found - 

A painted grand piano in the Trinity centre! A cluster of young men were hovering around, waiting for a chance to play it, egging each other on.  This lad is a student at Trinity University. He played a lilting piece of his own composition; others played a fair few pop songs to the delight of some school kids wandering by.  I know it's only a temporary feature to celebrate the triennial International Piano Competition, but I do so wish it were a permanent feature. One of my favourite surprises this summer.

Mum and Dad came over for a visit in July, which gave me a chance to surprise Mum in the daftest way possible. 

Since first tasting Viennetta ice cream in the 80s, Mum is completely predictable. "Wouldn't you think they'd make that tray out of chocolate?" she'd say of the dark brown plastic tray the ice cream sits on.  She's right, of course, it looks just like it ought to be dark chocolate. But what makes it funny to us all is that Mum has said it every time without fail, for 30 years. She doesn't even realise she's said it out loud some of the time.

So why not? I bought a Viennetta the week they were due to stay. I removed the squiggly ice cream block and popped it back in the freezer while I washed the tray, lined it with cling film and painted it carefully with melted chocolate.  Once the chocolate had nearly set, I bobbed the ice cream back in its new chocolaty tray. 

After dinner I removed the plastic tray and clingfilm from the bottom, put the Viennetta on a serving plate and brought it over to Mum.

"Don't you wish the tray was made of chocolate?" she said, right on cue.

We laughed all evening. Couldn't stop.  The look on her face was absolutely priceless. I couldn't speak for laughing, and I'm giggling again just writing about it.

Some surprises are worth it.

Too much to say

I'm sorry for the gap in posts. Sometimes I can't blog because I don't have the words or the positivity to tell you stuff. Other times, life seems too full to step back and write about.
This past few months has had so many things in it I wanted to tell you about that I hadn't time to compose my thoughts about one before the next occurred.

I'm fine, my family is fine and we've had a lovely summer. We've seen some examples of the best and worst impulses of people, been to wonderful places, read/baked/pickled/cooked/made/tried all sorts of things and spent time with family and friends.

I hope to be able to talk to you about it all over the next few weeks.

In the mean time, here's a photo of a cathedral in Bruges in the late evening sun and a giraffe from Ghent's graffiti street:

Brunch for superstars

It's half term here in Yorkshire. The concept of half term confused me when I first moved here from Canada - only 6 weeks of school and already a holiday?  2 weeks as well at Christmas and Easter? Geez, those Brit kids are lucky slackers.  But then I realised to my horror that their summer break was only 6 weeks long. Shudder.  For someone used to 10 week summers entirely free from the drudgery of homework and classrooms it seemed cruel. How could you feel properly free with school looming over you.

Anyway, here the terms are about 12 weeks long, give or take. Six weeks then a week off in October, February and late May, then the rest of term until Christmas, Easter or late July sets them free again.  Once I got used to it I rather liked the rhythm of it. As a parent I love it - regular holiday time with the kids, able to relax and enjoy their company. I'd far rather have them here than in school.

One of the pleasures of the start of the holidays is feeling at leisure. We don't have to cram as much into a weekend, so we can have a lazy breakfast of French toast or eggs and sausages. I fancied making something new to start our languorous start of GMT - the best part of British Summer Time coming to an end. I'd seen a recipe on The Guardian's website called Breakfast of Champions: Rosa Parks' Peanut Butter Pancakes.

Discovered written on an envelope amongst the civil rights heroine's papers, it combined lots of things we love in our house. Pancakes! Easy recipes! Peanut butter!  What's not to totally love?

NB - peanut butter is wonderful stuff.  I don't mean the healthy, wholefood stuff; I want Skippy, the vastly processed peanut butter I'd had a kid. I never understand why so many people in the UK are resistant to it.  Or even worse  - spread butter on the bread before the peanut butter.  Seriously, that can happen.  My in-laws were awful for doing it and it took years for them to drop the habit.  It's like eating pizza with a knife and fork.

The recipe calls for 150g of plain flour, 2 tbs of baking powder, 2 tbs of sugar and a bit of salt to be sifted into a bowl.  In a jug, beat together 1 egg, 100g smooth peanut butter and 300ml of milk.  Because peanut butter is gloopy and milk isn't, I beat the PB and the egg together into a slack-ish liquid before stirring the milk in. They combined really well, and my concerns of blobs of PB floating in a jug of milk were unfounded.

Anyway, mix wet ingredients into dry and let sit on one side for 10 minutes.  Then fry blobs of batter in butter to make small American style pancakes.  I used a serving spoon as a measure and got nearly 20 pancakes.

They were LOVELY.  Miss B went for the traditional PB&J approach and spread them with raspberry jam.  Zach, Mark and I went for maple syrup.  I'd have sliced banana on them if we'd had any to hand.  I know from experience that peanut butter and sliced banana go beautifully on French toast, so I'm sure it would be ace.

Luke... well, Luke marches to the beat of his own drum. Lemon curd is his favourite spread by far.  Rather than branch out, he insisted his lemon curd/peanut butter pancake combination was delicious. However, he didn't join the others in mithering for extras. I think he'll opt for chocolate spread when I make them next time.

Once we'd finished all the pancakes we all headed outside to get the garden ready for winter.  The kids were absolute stars - helping with weeding, pruning, lawn mowing and clearing up. I cleared out and scrubbed down the polytunnel and did the winter sowing while Mark and the kids cleared the raised beds, top dressed the currant patch and netted off the veg beds from cats.  A lovely big empty raised bed looks suspiciously like a litter tray to the local mogs, so we need to keep them out.

Laundry done, shopping sorted, cakes in the oven and the early sunset definitely noticeable, we're feeling all tucked in and cosy.  It's a nice way to welcome Autumn in.

Summer memories

This summer started off with sunshine and happiness.  We had a wonderful family day out at Bolton Abbey, full of tree climbing, splashing in a river and eating ice creams.

It was so warm, happy and picturesque I felt like we were living a scene from Swallows and Amazons or Five Go Adventuring Somewhere Crime-Free.

A couple of days later we went to one of our favourite places: Chester Zoo. Part of our picnic lunch for this particular visit - at least for Zach and I  - was some lovely ripe melon. I think this had a large part to play in what happened next.

We headed into Luke's favourite part of the zoo, the Bat House. I always have to brace myself for entering it because the smell is appalling. I follow the advice of the bloke from Neal's Yard cheese shop of taking some big gulping breathes on the grounds I'll get used to it in 30 seconds. This never happens. The whole time I'm there I feel my nose is being assaulted. However, bats are cool and Luke is cooler, so I go in every time.

There is a little tunnel in the Bat House where hideous things like blind cave fish are kept. As we came out of it, Zach said there were loads of little bats whizzing around him. Luke dismissed this as the wishful thinking of someone mistaking the air movement caused by the larger bats and pooh-poohed the idea. However, standing near Zach very still for a while showed he was right.  Tiny fruit bats were circling his legs. As we all stood still they circled us as well and started to land on our fingertips. They were particularly keen on Zach and me. Several nibbled our fingers before flitting off again.  It was utterly remarkable. We stayed for a good 15 minutes in the centre of this colony of wheeling bats.

As we left the Bat House and washed our hands, I remembered the ripe melon. I suspect the melon juice on our fingers attracted the bats once we were still enough for them to approach us. Knowing Zach, I am pretty sure he'd have wiped his hands on his shorts, too, hence them starting by circling his legs.

The rest of the day was fun as usual. I happened to be at the Giraffe House (my favourites - such beautiful eyes!) as they were getting their evening meal and enjoyed watching them run in. With such long legs they look like they are going in slow motion while moving very quickly. It's surreal. The keeper told me some new stuff about them - personalities, a possible pregnancy etc - which only reinforced my opinion that all zoo workers are lovely people.

The kids had a week at the grandparents' houses, swapping about a bit between them and generally having a wonderfully indulged time. They never miss us while they are away. This either means they are secure and happy or that we're just rubbish.  Pollyanna soul that I am, I'm choosing the former. Sad thoughts? La La La I can't hear you!

While they were away, some entitled soul smashed a side window in our front hall and snatched my handbag. This has caused more flipping effort than you would believe. It's astonishing how much stuff I keep in the handbag I use every day. It's not just the cash and the debit cards, it's all the other gear. Kids' library cards, gift cards, stamps, repeat prescription, Oyster card for London trips, photos of the kids and of my Dad as a toddler (I found it in my grandmother's things when she died and liked it.) Useful numbers, loyalty cards, a couple of tiny souvenirs that make me happy when I see them. Most of the make-up I use regularly. Indeed, I am mostly bereft of make-up as it appears I just shove everything in my handbag and apply it using the living room mirror. I lost 6 lipsticks amongst all the other stuff, which is VERY annoying.

Anyway, a good few days were chewed up by dealing with the police, crime scene team, insurance company, glaziers, and every single company I had a card with. My 'free week' felt a lot less free.

Fortunately, one of the highlights of my year occurred on the Friday - the annual trip to RHS Tatton with my Very Excellent Mate SJ. SJ is one of the most ace people I know. Unfortunately, my kids share that opinion so it can be very hard to have an uninterrupted talk when they are in the vicinity.  Tatton is our luxury - a full day looking at garden things, having a picnic and a damned good chat.

We got dressed up for Ladies' Day this year. Here we are reflected in chrome panels flanking one of the show gardens -

I am crediting my dress and the fancy hat thing I borrowed from my friend Kirsty for the fact that SJ and I were invited into one of the show gardens to sit in a remarkable globe chair I'd admired. Stepping over the barrier, I felt like royalty. Or Monty Don, which for gardeners seems to be the same thing. It was great fun.

On the Sunday Mark and I celebrated our 20th anniversary. Or 10th, depending how you count.  We spent the wedding money on the deposit for a house 20 years ago. Ever since then we've counted the day we moved in as our anniversary - other people had a wedding; we lived in ours.  On our 10th anniversary we went to the registry office with SJ and her partner Rich and got married. (We picked that date so there would be no confusion over when our true anniversary is.)
My idealistic feminism may reject the patriarchal institution of marriage but my pragmatic self wants access to Mark's pension and for him to have rights over the boys (they were born before the law about unmarried parents changed.) So, we think it's our 20th anniversary this year but other people might think 10th.

My lovely parents had the kids to allow us to go to London overnight. We ate a refined and delicious lunch at Rowley Leigh's Cafe Anglais on Sunday (Mark arranged it with himself in mind) and saw the truly wonderful Boyhood by Richard Linklater in the evening. We cried, we smiled, we were charmed beyond words. I do recommend it wholeheartedly.

The next day we went to the Matisse exhibition at Tate Modern. Mark bought me a Matisse lithograph for my 40th birthday - made during his lifetime and overseen by the man himself. We didn't know the original would be included in the exhibition as it is in private hands. It was - hurray! And WOW is it ever massive! I was thrilled to see it in the flesh, so to speak.  The whole exhibition was marvellous.

We had lunch at Bocca di Lupo (which Mark arranged with me in mind. I think Italian is the best of all types of food) which was utterly amazing. If you ever get the opportunity to go, I urge you to order a granita cocktail. I had the Bramble - gin, lemon, blackberry liquor - and Mark had the Bloody Mimosa - blood orange juice and prosecco. It was a good job the food was so amazing; in any other restaurant those cocktails would have been the highlight of the experience.

Back home we had a day divided between the den building event in town and the free Breeze festival, which involved me, the kids and a whole pile of their friends.  I used my Christmas vouchers for a patisserie day at Betty's (just fabulous). We had a big get-together with many of my Very Excellent mates and their families that ended with 16 people sleeping in our house. There was barely a patch of floor not covered in sleeping bags.

Miss B spent 16 days in Spain with her uncle and cousins. The lads joined her after a week, travelling with my parents. While they were at home without her we nipped off to watch Guardians of the Galaxy - top fun. We also had the highlight of Zach's whole summer: meeting the author of the Scott Pilgrim graphic novels. Bryan Lee Scott was touring to promote his new graphic novel, Seconds. It's a more mature story; very much a novel that happens to be told in pictures rather than a comic. Bryan was a lovely bloke, very friendly and encouraging. Meeting him, getting an autograph and a photo with him put Zach in a giddy, euphoric mood for days.  He even enjoyed queueing for 2 hours to be at the front of the line because talking to the people in the queue "was like finding my people, Mummy!" 

While the lads and B were away Mark and I were very busy on our summer project. I'll post all about that in the next little while.

How to have a perfect weekend (if you're me)

Hello webby mates!

I am in such a wonderful mood. Every year my Very Excellent Mate Bon and I go to London for the third weekend in January to see Matthew Bourne's ballet. I go down early for a day to myself. It's my favourite weekend of the year - like a private Christmas with none of the hard work before it.

This year it was especially great. Somehow everything worked out Just So, with happy accidents, great artistry and people being lovely all conspiring to leave me glowing with happiness for 3 days.

 First I met up with my internet pal London Heather (as opposed to my friends Leeds Heather and Heather-In-New-Zealand) and as is so often the case with internet friends, we were Real Life friends right away. She took me to the British Museum exhibition on Columbian gold. If you do get a chance to visit it, I recommend it.  It was fascinating.

I spent more time in the British Museum after the exhibition. I just love the enclosed courtyard with its glass diamond roof. I have been a visitor long enough to remember it before the renovation and it still thrills me every time I enter.
I said hello to old friends in the Museum - those things I pop by to see whenever I'm there - and headed out into the rain.

My evening plan had been to spend time with my Very Excellent Mate Alison. However, we'd got our dates confused and decided to meet for breakfast on Saturday instead.  I wanted something great to do that evening on my own - ideally something other than a trip to my beloved Everyman cinema - but everything I wanted to see was so expensive.

I thought I'd wander down Shaftesbury Avenue and along to the Leicester Square ticket kiosk to see if I could find something affordable. Excellent decision, Jay!

The English National Ballet's production of Le Corsair had two of my favourite things - ballet and pirates. How could I go wrong? The £55 ticket was available for £30 and at that price it would be rude not to.

I walked up the side streets from Leicester Square to Carnaby Street and then into Liberty. I'd seen the most wonderful fabric there 10 weeks ago and hadn't bought any. I decided to splurge on 1/2 a metre. It's so lovely. I feel happy just looking at it.

From there I went back to the Covent Garden area to have dinner for one at Poplo. I don't know if you've ever been but I HIGHLY reccomend it. Each little plate of food was so delicious I decided it was my favourite - until I tasted the next one.  However, I think my Limoncello martini won on points.

The ballet was just lovely. 

It's been a while since I saw a ballet by a company other than Matthew Bourne's New Adventures. I love his ballets for the storytelling - they get right to the emotional heart of things and make me feel heartbroken, ecstatic, full of longing or so full of joy my heart hurts my chest. I can't help but give them my heart to play with for the evening. They aren't 'traditional' in choreography - not so much pointe work and lifts and leaps - but have a more muscular, expressive style.

In sharp contrast are the Russian ballet companies.  All of those that I've seen have been technically excellent but dead. The point of them seems to be exercises in athleticism and craft rather than emotion.  They manage astonishing feats of endurance - ballerinas posed on pointe for unimaginable lengths of time, lifts higher, backs arched deeper - but it demonstrates technique rather than soul.  After seeing about 8 of them I gave up.

English National Ballet are different again. The dances were astonishingly beautiful and difficult.  The only sane explanation for how the men could leap so high and so fast is that they have springs in their legs, while the two principle ballerinas seemed to hover in the air thanks to sky hooks or electromagnets.  But these were beautiful, graceful sights rather than Olympic standard exhibitions.  The story was silly (Lord Byron is a nut-bucket. "Look, they're finally safe. Oops, no, can't have that, let's drown everyone in the last 2 minutes") but it allowed for wonderful costumes and set pieces.  I wasn't emotionally engaged but I was entranced.

During the interval I got chatting with two lovely women seated near me.  We hit it off so well that we stood outside the theatre afterwards chatting for another 15 minutes. Hello Immi and Nicci! I wish I'd known them before Emma was about to head back to Australia by way of New York, but the internet makes all friendships possible.

Here comes the dumb luck. ENB perform at the Coliseum. Across the road is the Duke of York theatre, where Mark and I had seen Jeeves and Wooster: Perfect Nonsense a few days before.  It was utterly joyous and I urge everyone to see it.  It is perfectly cast with Stephen Mangan as Bertie and Matthew Macfadyen and his perfect diction as Jeeves. That man makes every word in the English language sound beautiful. He is immensely charming, was marvellous as Tom in Spooks and also my favourite Mr Darcy. (I love Colin Firth in many things but I hate that lake-jumping nonsense. Darcy never would.)  I carry such a torch for him.

Having lingered to chat with Immi and Nicci, I crossed the road to walk up to the cash machines a little further along. There was a tall bloke in a flat cap outside the Duke of York. Matthew Macfadyen. I managed not to actually swoon, but only by a hair's breadth. He was utterly lovely and friendly. I took the most dreadful photograph of us because I was still saying "I'm SO sorry about this" as I took it. But I don't care, I'm going to post it anyway. Matthew Macfadyen spoke to me in that beautiful voice and I was done for. Stupidly, ridiculously happy.

I must confess I have spent the last two evenings re-watching Pride and Prejudice. Told you, done for.

The next morning I met VEM Alison at Carluccios for breakfast and a massive chat. Then Bon arrived - cue more chat and hugging - and we talked and grinned until even my jaw was tired. Which takes a lot, believe me.

Alison and me

Bon and I spent the afternoon walking, chatting, browsing in shops, having cuppas and cake, chatting some more, and generally catching up on a whole year's news. I really miss her in the gaps between hanging out each January.

Ticket, and some stranger's shoes

The evening was our Main Event - ballet at Sadler's Wells. It was Swan Lake again - I think this was either my 9th or 11th time seeing it; I've rather lost count. I think it is about as perfect as art gets. Bon and I were both looking forward to it.

But it was different. The choreography had changed. Not massively, but enough to affect the whole ballet.  At the interval we were each trying to avoid saying it - "It's not as good."  Yikes.
The thing that sustains us as our hearts break for the poor prince, so isolated and alone, is scene of the tenderness between him and his Swan at the riverside. Saps that we are, we are so desperate for him to receive comfort that their time together is crucial to us. Too much unkindness and alienation is too hard to bear. (That's why Dumbo is such a horrible film)

This Swan was wilder. He physically struck the prince several times - through his untamedness rather than viciousness - and their dances together were more cautious. The chemistry was very different and the the prince's euphoria after made a little less sense.This continued with The Stranger - always cruel, now even more sadistic in his taunts and sexuality. Oh that poor, poor boy.

Some of the new aspects added much to the story, and the final section had us shuddering with suppressed sobs as we cried our mascara towards our chins. It hit us more powerfully than it ever done. We were both wrecked by it.

Bon said it's our old age. I think it was that tweaking of choreography - less relief of the prince's agony in the first act made the second even more tragic.  Just amazing. But why? Why take that little bit of joy from the audience?  He is Matthew Bourne's creation but after this many visits he feels like he belongs to us, the audience, too. The humour - and there is so, so much that is extremely funny - doesn't take away from our (well, my at least) need for respite for the prince.

So, utterly utterly wonderful by the end but the world's a little colder for a while.

After dinner at The Gate - delicious vegetarian food! Do go if you're ever in the area - and a restorative glass of wine to bring us back down to earth (and fix that mascara) we headed back to our hotel for another chat, then bed.

On Sunday we met Bon's niece Em for breakfast. She took us around The Stables market in Camden. So much of it looked just as markets did when we had student digs in the late 80s. Tie dye, sandalwood, old movie posters, geeky T shirts:  le plus ca change... Anyway, it was good fun. I took a picture of the crazy robots outside Cyberdog for my steampunk enthusiast son and managed to stop myself buying a My Neighbour Totoro back pack for Miss B.

After leaving Camden and Em behind, VEM Bon and I went to Islington to browse the little shops and cafes. We HAD to go into Loop. Bon couldn't get over the beautiful yarns there. It's a lovely shop, although they stock extremely expensive things I couldn't afford this time. Last year I bought two skeins of alpaca yarn and made myself a wonderful cable knit scarf. This year I resisted. It was hard, though - the staff are wonderful and the stock so tempting.

Bon having a browse

Bon left to catch her train. I walked on to Ray Stitch, where owner Rachel sells more beautiful fabric than I knew existed.  I mean, look at it. Doesn't it look lovely?

Temptation lies this way

There were fabrics from all over, although the Japanese printed cottons were particularly tempting.  All the restraint I'd shown at Loop and Camden market crumbled in the face of a fat quarter bundle. Oh dear.

After that, I remembered I'd not had lunch. I had a lovely coffee and peanut butter brownie on the way back to the tube, grabbed my bag and headed to the station. I was spent up (and then some), footsore, and riding high on the most wonderful, exciting and happy weekend.

Last of the sunlight lighting up St Pancras

I hope your weekend holds something just as lovely for you, full of whatever floats your boat - I know ballet, cake, fabric and chatting aren't for everyone. (Matthew Macfadyen is, of course)

Be happy,

J x