Jam today

It's the very start of the strawberry season here in Yorkshire. Over the next 3 weeks there will be enough strawberries to satisfy even Miss B, our resident fraisivore. Most of the strawberries aren't quite ripe yet but those that are, are perfect for jam making.

The strawberries from my garden, Strawbopolis, are for snacking purposes only. To be brutally honest, I forgot to water my strawberry plants last year the second the fruiting season ended (I'm a bad, bad plantswoman) and lots of them died. Those that did survive look ace and are producing lots of fruit, which is more than I deserve. Oops.

To pick my strawberries, I went to Kemp's of Horsforth. My friend Jean knew the elder Kemp back in his rugby club days and says he was a dashing blade. Jean's 86, so I guess the Kemp family's farm has been a fixture of North Leeds for a long while. I like getting produce direct from the grower, and even more when it's a local family business. It's much nicer than handing the cash to a supermarket. In addition, PYO means I can be as picky as I like about the fruit; and I am very picky.

Today's haul was a bit disappointing. I was clearly rather too keen and should have left it a week because so few berries were ripe that it took me best part of an hour to pick my 3 kilos. Still, the flavour was good and it's a nice way to while away a morning.

A few ripe strawberries for snacking

Back home, I put on Lily Allen's album Sheezus and set to work hulling the strawberries. My Very Excellent Mate Rachel gave me three Lily Allen albums recently and I love them. When it's a bit of a dead time for radio they are my songs of choice. Rachel also has Cary Elwes's memoir As You Wish for me, which I am very excited about.  Hurray for VEM Rach and her thoughtfulness.

When it comes to jam making  I refer to the mighty Pam The Jam, author of the River Cottage Handbook on Preserves. Pam Corbin's recipes are clear, well explained and almost always work well for me, although I prefer slightly less sugar when I can get away with it. Between cordials, jams, jellies, curds and marmalade I have used her book until it is stiff with sugar spatter and stained with fruit juice. I raise my elderflower martini to her.

Here's my version of what Pam recommends -

Strawberry Jam

2.85kg of hulled strawberries, with any bruises trimmed (3.2kg picked weight)
600g granulated sugar
1.75kg jam sugar
5 large lemons

10-12 clean jam jars with lids

If at all possible, don't wash the strawberries. Wipe any grubby bits off but generally just leave them. Dry strawberries make better jam.
Put the clean jam jars and lids on a lined baking tray and put in the oven. Turn the oven on to 150 degrees and leave the jars in to sterilise.
Stick all the strawberries in a maslin pan or VERY large stock pot. Add the granulated sugar and simmer on a low heat for about 5 minutes until mostly soft.

At this point I let the mix cool before pushing 2/3 of the fruit through a metal sieve with a messy combination of a silicon spatula and my fists. Then I plunge my hands into the jam pan and squish up any lumps of fruit until I have a mostly smooth and partially seed-free mixture.  Pam Corbin doesn't have this step in her recipe because Pam isn't trying to feed fussy family members who don't like pips or fruit pieces in their jam. Lucky, lucky Pam.

NB - By now I look like I've been involved in a massacre. I usually have to swap to a fresh apron at this point or everywhere I lean I make strawberry prints.

Put the jam mixture back on a low heat and add all the jam sugar. This contains the pectin we'll need for the jam to set. I use more jam sugar and less granulated sugar than Pam because overall my sugar-to-fruit ratio is lower - I like a touch of tartness because it tastes more of strawberry that way - so I need the extra pectin to get a good set.
Heat the jam through gently, stirring all the time to ensure the sugar doesn't burn to the bottom of the pan. When it has dissolved completely add the juice of all 5 lemons and turn the heat up. That acidity really lifts the flavour of the strawberries.
Incidentally, cold lemons don't produce as much juice. If your lemons were in the fridge, it's worth popping them in the microwave for about 20-30 seconds before you squeeze them.

Once your jam is boiling away, Pam says it will take 8-9 minutes to reach setting point. Personally, I find it takes closer to 15, but I'm probably doing something wrong.

If you have lots of frothy scum on the top of the jam, pop in a blob of butter and stir the jam until it dissipates. Then it's time to fill the jars, which have been sitting in the oven all sterile and ready to go.
I find it easiest to fill them on the baking tray. It contains any spillage and is easy to clear up.  Put a wide mouthed funnel onto a jar and pour in the jam until full. If you haven't got a jam funnel I find tipping your jam into a glass or earthenware jug with a spout will do as a way to fill the jars with minimum spillage.
Be careful, please. The jam is insanely hot, you do not want any of it splashing on you if you can help it. I got 3 tiny little dots of jam on my knuckles as I was holding the thermometer and they came up as blisters almost immediately.
Put the lids on the filled jars immediately (I use oven gloves or a tea towel) and leave to cool.

I absolutely LOVE the metallic pop the lids make as the jar cools and creates a vacuum.  I find something I "need" to do to make sure I'm in the kitchen for that. It's very satisfying.

Ten jars, two small dishes and a bit for tasting

A note about setting point - You can faff about with drops of jam in cold water or creases on cold saucers but I find my sugar thermometer far more reliable. You can get them from places like Nisbets, and they're well worth having.

Those two little dishes of jam are for my lovely neighbour Wendy, and Jean who knew the Kemps 'way back when.  Sharing a bit of jam will do when the red wine runs out.
All hail kick-ass octogenarian women!

J x

Cong-rat-ulations

Parenthood leads me in odd directions.  The other week I washed and blow-dried a hen's legs and undercarriage so she wouldn't be too muddy when I took her to visit a class at B's primary school.  (The hen was less than delighted but remained stoical.)  But more surreal than that was primping Zach's pair of rats ready to enter a show.

The Yorkshire Rat Club was having one of its bi-monthly shows in March. This one was held in a church hall very close to us. Zach heard about it and wanted to enter his rats Naruto and Kakashi into the Pet category.

Kakashi

Being a less-than-thorough kind of lad, he didn't read as far as the entry requirement, application deadline and so on.  Being a more-than-thorough type of woman, I did.  I contacted the breeder we got them from to check the details, filled in the forms for him and emailed them off. I reserved show tanks and read up what was expected.  I did not expect what was expected - giving them a bath and trimming their claws, ideally 3 days before the show.

Rats have tiny, tiny hands.  Well, paws, but they look like hands and rats sit up and hold things with them.  Their hind paws are bigger, although still pretty small, but the front have minuscule claws.  And they aren't best pleased at someone holding them and trying to clip the ends of their nails.

They have mixed feelings about baths, too.  Kakashi ran about a bit, clambered over the taps, splashed at the water with his paws and had a good explore.  He tolerated the claw trimming with only a few squeaked protests, but I was glad I was the one holding him not Zach - he was very wriggly. Zach was on towel-drying support.
Naruto was outraged by a bath, scrambling to get away. When I dried him and trimmed his claws he swivelled around and bit me.  He managed to rake a thin strip of skin from my little finger which took ages to stop bleeding. I knew I liked Kakashi best for a reason.
Somewhat unwisely, Zach pointed out I'd got blood on the rat's fur.  When he saw my face, he back-pedalled quickly and said how nice and clean the rats looked.  The damned finger lead for 25 minutes.

I am a wimp

Leaving the Big Lad to sleep as only teenagers can, the rest of us trouped along to Oakwood church hall on Saturday morning for 10:30 to enter the rats in the show.  One of the organisers had suggested putting one rat in Pets and the other in Varieties so they weren't competing against one another.  What the heck, we thought, so entered Kakashi as a Silver Fawn rat in the varieties and his plumper brother in the Pet section.

How long do you think a small local Rat Club show can last?  There are some bits and pieces to buy from a couple of pet stalls, a tea-and-bacon-butty type counter, and there's waiting for the rats to be judged.  I guessed a couple of hours.

I was wrong.

The first 90 minutes were quite fun - lots of people to chat with, animals to play with and so on.  The next 90 minutes were more dull.  The THREE HOURS after that really dragged, particularly as our phone batteries went flat.  Not to mention we were expecting to watch the 6 Nations Wales match that afternoon.

Yes, we were there for over 6 hours.  For 4 hours of that, we kept thinking "Surely they're about finished? Surely it will only be another half hour at most."  The friendly and enthusiastic people of the Yorkshire Rat Club told us later that it had been a pretty quick show; some can last another hour or two!  If we'd any idea we'd have stayed for 45 minutes at the start, left Z with a drink and butty (he was having a lovely time) and bobbed back for the last hour or so to keep him company while he waited for the judging and certificates to be done. It was a looooong and hungry day.

On the plus side we met lots of really lovely people. A family with a girl close to B's age kept us company for most of the time. We chatted about loads of things (although avoiding the topic of rugby in the hopes we could watch it on iPlayer later) and they shared their grapes with the kids.  We praised each other's pets to the skies, and had a good old natter to while the hours away.  Zach also made friends with several breeders and exhibitors. He was interested in all of it.

The pet judges having a play with some of the entrants

The judging was both interesting and funny.  The Pet category was judged on criteria that seemed to be "is this rat cute? is s/he friendly?"  The judges got each rat out several times and played with, cuddled and messed about with him for ages.  They both clearly loved these little whiskery beasties and made a huge fuss of them.  Naruto behaved just as he does at home - was quite friendly but mostly wanted to snuggle inside the judge's cardigan. He's a typical male rat -  preferring a cuddle and a snooze with people to the energetic exploring the female rats favour.  The judge thought he was lovely.

Naruto in the yellow cage, taking yet another nap 

The Varieties category, on the other hand, was like a rodent Crufts.  I kept wanting to laugh - I had no idea it could all get so regimented. The judge had a white jacket and everything. Weight, hair length, bone structure and colouring were closely examined against a National Fancy Rat Society standard, which the judge kept in her head (although I saw her google something once.) There was no nonsense, just a focused scrutiny of each animal. The judge ploughed through far more animals than the pet judge in a fraction of the time, while her assistant took copious notes.

4 hours in and Kakashi wasn't even judged.  The breeder told us he was a Silver Fawn variety but he was declared by everyone at the show as Argente Cream (don't ask me) and therefore disqualified as being misidentified.

It doesn't matter how alert you are, Kash, you're still out

I've included links to Google images. Heaven knows how they tell those colour varieties apart. Some are the same darned photos.

I was rather concerned for Zach. He was massively excited about it all, and I didn't want him to come home without even a certificate.  I'll also admit to feeling slightly aggrieved, about which I am embarrassed. I'm immensely fond of Kakashi, he's a lovely natured beastie and my clear favourite, but he isn't even my pet. He's Zach's. So, feeling defensive when others fail to recognise his aceness is doubly ridiculous.
When we spoke to the judge later she said "even in the correct category he'd not be a good example as he's too light boned and his face is narrow while the guard hairs on his rump are too long." I felt like saying 'Yah boo sucks!" because I think Kash is a poppet.  And that, my friends, is why I shouldn't go to these things. Well, that and the instant coffee.

 At the end of the afternoon the winners were finally announced.  Way to go Naruto! He won best buck in the Juniors category, 2nd best overall, 4th in the "Pet Challenge" (we still aren't clear what that involved) and a special award as the one the assistant judge wanted to keep for herself because he was such a sweetie.  Zach had and armload of rosettes and certificates, and was just over the moon.

Miss B "helping" him with all those rosettes

So it was worth it after all.  Zach was full of all the people he'd met, the rats he'd played with and bursting with pride and happiness at Naruto's rosettes.  It was lovely seeing him so delighted with his day.

There's another show in May and he's already hoping I'll take him.  As long as I have a book, a flask of real coffee and butty, I expect I will.

Because this time Kakashi will win.

J x

Roll With It

I'm teaching an evening class at the moment. It's called Family Cake Decorating, although sometimes I think it should be "Messing About With Icing" as mess is a pretty substantial part of the process. It's the 4th year I've taught this particular course and by the time it ends at 7pm I still find I'm glazed like a doughnut from all the icing sugar I've been handling. Not being messy is a skill I've yet to acquire.

I love teaching people new skills.  I get such a kick out of helping someone try something they've never had a go at before. Often all it takes is a little guidance and boom! they've made something marvellous. That grin of "look what a fab thing I did" from people in my class is one of my favourite parts of the week.

I usually bake many, many cupcakes to give my class of 12 plenty of stuff to decorate.  This time, however, I'm not. Taking in 3 or 4 dozen cupcakes each week gets expensive. The school subsidises the class but I do want to keep the ingredients costs from getting too high. It occurred to me that as long as my students had a surface to decorate, to didn't really matter what that surface was. A cupcake or a biscuit can work equally well as their canvas, and with a biscuit I can make bigger batches, so they get more goes. I'll still do a couple of cupcake weeks but so far the biscuits are going down very well.

Just a fraction of a week's biscuits

Several people in my class asked for my gingerbread recipe as last week's gingerbread men were a hit with their families.  I'm putting it here as well in case anyone fancies a go.  It's a pretty nice one, although the dough can be a pain to handle when the kitchen gets hot. However, there's an easy way around that. 

Gingerbread biscuits

180g butter

125g caster sugar

1 egg

125g treacle

420g flour

2 tsp ground ginger

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp bicarb

Cream the butter and sugar together until pale. Add the egg and treacle and combine thoroughly.  Sift the flour, spices and bicarb together and add to the mixture. Mix with a wooden spoon or by hand to bring it into a sticky dough - don’t overwork or knead the dough or the biscuits will be tough.

Ideally chill the dough for a while - the treacle can make it messy to handle when too warm. Roll out and cut into shapes, leaving room for the biscuits to spread slightly on the baking tray. Bake at 180 (170 fan) for 8-12 minutes depending on the thickness of your biscuits.

A NOTE ON ROLLING OUT DOUGH:

The more flour you add to a dough the tougher it will be. When rolling out biscuits dough - and especially pastry dough, where the thinner you can roll it the better- this can make the difference between a great result and a poor one.

You can avoid it sticking without adding flour by placing your dough between two sheets of clingfilm. Roll across the clingfilm until the dough is your preferred thickness (very thin for pastry, a pound coin thickness for most biscuits), peel of the top sheet, cut into shapes fitting them as close together as possible. Then lift up the bottom sheet of clingfilm and peel off the shape/disc and place it on the baking sheet or tart tin. 
 I can just hear Mary Berry congratulating you on the nicely baked tart without any hint of a soggy bottom. Paul Hollywood will tell you it's a nice thin pastry and a good bake overall.  Award yourself Star Baker and a smug grin.

I've Never Seen Star Wars - family style

Have you heard Marcus Brigstock's show on Radio 4 in the 6:30 comedy slot? It's about people trying things that they've not done before, then rating the experience.  It's often very funny - Sandi Toksvig in high heels and Ian Hislop buying jeans both made me laugh.

Confronted with rather bored kids this half term, I suggested we do a family version.  We'd each come up with things the others hadn't done and help them give it a go.

First up, Mark taught Miss B how to make coffee with the Baby Gaggia.  Oh how I love that machine! Miss B needs a little help removing the group head (the bit the ground beans go in) from the machine ready to fill it with fresh grinds, but other than that she's taken to it like a duck to water. That's brilliant news for me - someone else prepared to make me coffee. B's subsequently made 3 cups of coffee and does a pretty fine job. She gives it "5 or 6 out of 10, probably."

Next, Miss B was the instructor.  She showed Z how to plait.  I was the supplier of hair to be plaited, which did get painful a few times, but after B's expert tuition he got the hang of it. Sort of.  I don't think Nicky Clarke  - or even Chris Pratt - need worry though.

B remained in the teacher's chair for the next two tasks - showing Luke how to thread a needle and Z how to skip.  My ace mate Liz Merckel gave Miss B a small sewing kit for her naming day present when she was a baby.  In that kit was a needle threader, which B thought was a VERY useful thing when she rediscovered the sewing kit last year.  Luke's not got the best fine motor control, so a needle threader means he can easily do something that required concentration before.  Top notch.

Out of love for him I have not photographed Z's attempts at skipping.  He remained positive and enthusiastic - which was particularly laudable given the conflicting advice B and I were offering - but he just couldn't manage more than 5 skips before getting tangled.  I surprised myself by being able to demonstrate it at all; my knees have been dreadful lately and I didn't think I had any jumping in me. 

Mark took Luke somewhere to have a go at driving.  He absolutely loved it!  It wasn't far and the car is an automatic, so there's less to worry about than with a manual stick shift, but Luke did extremely well. He was giddy as a kipper afterwards.

Luke and Mark undercoated Warhammer figures to teach us some painting techniques but one of the lads' mates turned up and activities were suspended while they played  hung out.

After dinner was the main event - getting me to play video games.

I do NOT play video games.  At all. Ever.  Over the years there have been many gaming devices in our house and I haven't been remotely interested in any of them.  I do love Civilisation on the laptop, but even then I turn war off if I can and just play the science and culture strands. I don't even know how to turn the Wii U on, nor how the PS3 controllers work.  Nor do I wish to. So, when I said I'd give their games a go the kids were very enthusiastic. They've been trying to get me to play for years.

Each of the kids chose a game for me to play: Portal 2, Mario Kart and Call of Duty.

Portal 2 was on the PS3.  I found the whole moving and looking around simultaneously thing quite hard - two little joysticks and some buttons for jumping and firing portals at the same time.  I disgusted the lads (and had Mark agreeing with me) by preferring "inverted" controls. Apparently people have different views on whether the command Look Up means you tilt the joystick up or down.  Charlie Brooker and Dara O'Briain have a long-running disagreement about it. I'm with Brooker - I push forward to look down and back to tilt my view upwards.

A nice thing about Portal 2  -  as there was no time pressure I could work each puzzle out and try again and again until I could move about without crashing into stuff constantly.  I didn't have to kill anything or get yelled at, I could work it out myself in a calm environment.

The story of Portal 2 contains plenty of wit and imagination.  It was a quirky and interesting game. 6/10

Mario Kart on the Wii U with the game pad was a very different controller.  The touch screen was nice - just like my iPad  - but I found the holding position a little uncomfortable when using it as a steering wheel in the game.  It is a brightly coloured and noisy game - like a soft play centre had thrown up on my TV screen. 

 The pressure to go fast and keep up - even on the slowest setting - had me clenching my feet and forgetting to breathe.  When I finished the races I had a dent in my thumb from pressing the A key so hard.

After my 3 warm up races we had a multi-player race.  It was awful.  The quartered screen didn't give me enough of a idea where I was going so I was endlessly crashing, going the wrong way and falling off the track.  My best race position was coming 11 out of 12 and I couldn't wait for the noise to end.

Not for me. 4/10

For Call of Duty I was back on the PS3.  This is a FPS - a first person shooter - which meant everything I saw was from my character's perspective.  I had the same move/look around controls as Portal 2 with the added aiming and firing, swapping between weaponry and being under time pressure as ghastly zombies came to kill me.

It was utterly horrible.  I couldn't control anything worth a damn, the look of the game was dark and horrid, the actual point of the game was all the things I don't like - violence, horror, fear - and I felt a knot in my stomach the second I started. I don't find shooting things remotely fun and I hate horror movies. (I am a wuss who gets nightmares) I think Zach was right to choose it for me as I couldn't really say I'd had a go at video games without trying a FPS.  But bloody hell it was unpleasant and I am NEVER going to do it again.

0 out of 10.

When we return to this project Mark will sew a little lavender bag on my sewing machine and B will try a physical activity she hasn't before.

I'm proud of my gang for entering into the spirit of things with such positivity. I like it when we all Fearlessly Attempt things.

Books, wine and red noses

I love books.  Not just reading, but books.  I surprised myself by disliking my Kindle very much when I got one -  I loved my iPhone and iPad, I'm not technology-averse, but I hadn't realised how much the physicality of a book mattered to me. A Kindle is handy for travelling (which I rarely do) and it would save on shelf space (a constant issue).  But if I really want to read something, I need an actual book.

The downside of this book fetish is that we never have enough space to keep all the books we have.  With 3 reading-mad kids the problem is only getting worse, so some years ago I hit on the perfect way to pass on books - a book swap party.

This is how it works:

I invite everyone I know on an open house basis. We all pile books we aren't likely to read again on the tables, have a good rummage for new things to read,  drink a lot of wine while chatting to people about the books, and put £1 in the charity pot for each book we take home.

Genius, don't you think?  Everyone gets rid of books they don't need and can choose new ones, we have a good time and whichever charity I've picked gets some money.  A good deal for everyone.

This year I chose to raise money for Comic Relief.  Red Nose Day is a month away but there's no reason not to start early.  Also, I'd been looking forward to the craft book Comic Relief was issuing this year, so I guess they were on my mind.

Miss B was enthusiastic 

She did a lovely job on the signs and negotiated a later bedtime so she could chat to people and look for books.

I'd baked some cheese straws, although as it was nearly St Valentine's day I made them in heart shapes.  I love cheese pastries. I use a Nigella Lawson recipe from the kids' section in How To Eat, but with mature cheddar and smoked paprika. The trouble is, no matter how many I make they never quite last long enough.

2 of 6 trays I baked

When the people came I had a brilliant time.  We chatted, I poured drinks and offered snacks, greeted newcomers and prevented my over-enthusiastic kids from absconding with the crisps. I relied on the shared experience of the books to get people talking. I love the book chatter I hear from the swapping tables - the "I loved that one," "Ooo, my mum read this and liked it," even the "Just hated it." The shared experience and enjoyment, or the strong difference of opinion... it's just ace.  Books are such parcels of happiness.

My Very Excellent Mate Emma brought along a copy of her latest book for children, Wild Thing Goes Camping which she kindly let me raffle off on her behalf, and dedicated the book to the winning child.  Another tenner for Comic Relief and a very lucky girl - thanks Emma!

The last of my friends left about 11:30, leaving behind a kitchen full of used wine glasses and a full charity jar.  There were some bottles of wine too, so Mark and I "bought" them from the book swap and popped money in the jar.

I was too wide awake at that point, so I settled in with The Great British Sewing Bee to unwind.  I can't resist the Bake Off, Sewing Bee and Allotment Challenge.  I love enthusiasts having a go. Fearlessly attempting, even.

The next morning, having raised over £90 for Comic Relief with the books we swapped, there were still heaps left.  I could have had another event with the leftovers! by evening they were all delivered to the charity shop and we'd moved the furniture back to its normal position.

That's it until next year.  I wonder how many more book swaps I can host before ebooks kill it off.  A fair few more, I hope.

J xx

Birthday Hijinks

December may be given over to Christmas (despite being the birthday months of my friends, father-in-law and the fabulous Miss B) but the party doesn't stop with New Year.  With more birthdays than you can shake a stick at, January is a busy month too.

Miss B has more birthdays than the Queen. She had her ACTUAL birthday in December, celebrated with just us, a party tea in early January with her best friend Olivia and our ace WildThing Family mates who came to visit, and her party with school friends in mid January, which was divided into a party for 7 and a sleepover for 3. More of that in a moment.

Zach became a teenager this past month. We went out for dinner as a family on the night itself. With mates he didn't want a big celebration, just some close friends to sleep over after gaming through the night. He wanted a black forest cake like the one mentioned in Portal and Portal 2, but everyone knows that cake is a lie.  It said so right on top of it.
(piped with not-properly-melted chocolate on not-quite-set icing as he came down the stairs, so it was pretty messy)

Two nieces, my brother and my mum all have January birthdays as well. I'd taken over gifts for Neil and the girls with the Christmas stuff, but was uselessly behind with Mum's present.  I was making her a padded iPad cover, nice and snug to protect it when she travels, but I messed up the measurements and made it 2mm too tight. So I had to start again, and thus post it a bit late.  Not exactly ideal, but at least the finished present was nice.

I was really pleased with Bonnie's party this year.  I wanted to keep it fairly low-cost while still being loads of fun and something a little different.  Knowing how much she  loves to dress up and preen, we decided on a "photo shoot."

I ordered some photo props on sticks made from card - glasses, moustaches, bow ties - through eBay for about £4.  We moved the big mirror into the kitchen, propped it on the table as a dressing area, and heaped costume jewellery, hair clips, scarves, hats, shawls and anything else we could think or up for the kids to play with.

Using a double duvet cover hung from a shelving unit as a backdrop and old bedside lamps to improve the lighting, we had our "studio."

 A couple of old frames with the pictures and glass removed and we were set for the party guests.  Of course, we needed a couple of practise models to make sure the lights and backdrop would work ok.    What can I say, I've a face for radio.

The girls had a fantastic time.  I took the pictures with my iPhone, nothing fancy, and kept a tick sheet next to me to ensure I got several photos of each child.  I didn't want to discover as I went to print them out I had 25 of Emily and none of Aaliyah (which nearly happened. Aaliyah is much the quietest of them all).  In fact, the person I got fewest pictures of in the end was Miss B herself.  She was so busy chatting, dancing and helping her friends create 'looks' she nearly forgot to be photographed.

One girl so heavily disguised even her mum didn't immediately recognise her!

I took loads of pictures in which the kids gurned, posed, went all Vogue and gangsta, and nearly fell down laughing.  It was great fun.

Then I put out the food for them to dig into before settling them down to watch Maleficent on DVD in one room while I edited and printed off the photos in the other.  Each girl got her photos as a party bag, along with cake and sweets. I bought 3-packs of those little perspex blocks that hold a crocodile clip for displaying a photo, so each party-goer got her own best shot displayed.  I emailed the others to their mums.

All in all, with the cake, sandwiches, brownies, mini-cupcakes, crisps, hummus, veg sticks, grapes, blackcurrant squash, party bag bits and photo paper, I think the cost of the party came to under £40.  My Very Excellent Mate Kirsty loaned us the DVD and most of the dressing up things were items we had already - especially hats.  We do love hats. One of the most fun and affordable parties I've done in ages. 

Before I took the photo studio down, Luke did a quick Zombie Apocalypse 3-D pose. Try not have nightmares OK? If you feed him pizza he probably won't kill you.

Taking Stock - This Year's Fearless List

Last year I listed some of the things I found the very thought of rather tricky. Pah! I knew NOTHING.

In 6 months of mentoring from the lovely Andrew Edwards at BBC Radio Leeds, I did so many things I was scared stiff of that my earlier list seems laughable. Walking up to total strangers to ask their views on a subject  - without the shield of a BBC ID badge or other legitimising item - was scary enough.  Interviewing people terrified me but I did it.  Interviewing people on topics I knew nothing about was harder still. Trying for an interview I didn't have to edit - eek!  I never managed that to a decent standard but even trying it freaked me out.

Source of many scary tasks

Then there was the techie side - trying to work out for myself how to edit and tweak a piece with just the software on my laptop.  I got pretty good, considering. (Considering I know nothing and I never mess about with my computer just to see what it does. And I'm a pretty analogue person in a digital world)

From last year's list I did do daily exercise for a month, read Lord of the Flies, ate meat and something aniseed (still hate aniseed, still find the taste of meat fine but the texture distressing. Except pastrami, which is ace), and even kept my opinion to myself several times.  It nearly choked me, so I doubt I'll make a habit of it.  I didn't knit something other than a scarf but I did learn to crochet toys and made two - a rabbit and a dragon - and that blanket for Miss B's birthday, so I consider that a yarn-based ambition fulfilled.

Remember him?

Looking forward, what are the things that seem tricky, intimidating yet worth having a go at this year? I've had a good think about the areas of my life that aren't quite right, and what I could challenge myself to do to improve them.

I'm in the midst of giving up wine. Well, not entirely, but drastically reducing my wine drinking. Mark and I always have wine with our dinner, and then more while watching TV.  It just crept up over the years.  So we're mostly giving up alcohol except for the odd occasion - like my ballet weekend and last night, after hosting Miss B's birthday party.  Cripes, that was a draining day. I've 3 or 4 more things coming up in the next 2 months that I won't mind my having a glass of wine at, but that's about it. The plan is to continue in this vein until spring. It's good for our health and our bank balance. I know both could do with the boost!

I've also realised I'm lonely. I used to see people far more often - whether it was my marvellous pal Julie at sewing class and pilates, the truly ace Emma on our dog walks, or even my monthly book group with women I've been friends with for over 10 years.  Somehow I've retreated inwards and just don't see most of my friends very often. Thank heavens for my mate Kirsty and our procrastination coffees. Without them I might never see anyone. And the less I see people the easier it is to retreat inwards - never a good thing for me. I need people.

Essentially, I'm now unemployed. The school is offering loads of free clubs run by staff members, so demand for the clubs I run (that they pay for) has dried up. Understandably.  In fact, I think it's good for the school and good for parents (Miss B attends a couple and I'm grateful for the free activities) but it means I only had 2 sets of lessons to teach instead of 6.  I'm only baking a couple of cakes a week for Haley and Clifford's regulars, as wholesale baking margins just evaporated in the rising cost of ingredients and power. The franchise "Eggfree (in tiny letters) Cake Box (in big letters) played merry hell with my bespoke cake business, what with using the same damned name to all intents and purposes.  And the more pricey wedding/celebration cake end of things was something I did under sufferance anyway.

So I need a new way to spend my days. For the first time I have no day to day business and no tiny children at home. I need to look into ways to earn money without doing a soul-destroying job I hate, or to volunteer/train at something worthwhile. That could help with the loneliness thing too. The lack of schoolyard chatting, toddler group mornings and work interactions (and the lack of a home-educated kid, who gave me 18 months of good company at one point) and the lack of cash to go out and about only compounds things.

I don't want to think of myself as someone who doesn't work, doesn't contribute to the world, hides away from people. Although in the long dark stretch of the year, those are the easy choices. If I'm to be the Me I like, I need to alter this.

Still, making changes is scary.  Even looking into possibilities of changes is scary.  It is particularly so for me - for the last 16 years I haven't dared to look more than 6 months ahead, and the thought of the future repels me completely.  In fact, since I was about 25, the only time I've been happy to look ahead a year or two was when I was planning my first baby. The future - my future - scares me rigid.  But this blog is called Fearlessly Attempting, not Shying Away From, so I'd better up my game.

 Here are things I'd like to Fearlessly Attempt at least some of this year-

• Give up regular alcohol consumption until Spring
• Look for a new way of earning a living
• See friends regularly
• Attend at least 5 book group meetings 
• Have a week of decluttering one room a day.  A month of decluttering weekends would do too
• Walk 30km in a month
• Sew something someone could wear (me or the kids)
• Sew a copy of my favourite tunic by making a pattern from it
• Learn a new skill
• Go to a WI meeting
• Volunteer on a weekly basis 
• Apply to work at a community radio station
• Learn to quilt  (please help, Liz Merckel!)
• Build a new garden project

Yikes.

One thing I have decluttered already is my work shelving unit.  It was covered in a profusion of baking supplies and equipment, all jumbled together. Much of it I no longer need, other bits could be consolidated.  However, downsizing the baking shelves felt like admitting I wasn't working anymore, so I'd put it off.

Happily (!!) my craft supplies were slowly eating my bedroom.  It was chaos.  My lovely calm room was in a dreadful state and I had nowhere to put anything.  It was depressing.  But it was also the spur I needed.

So, I attacked the shelves. I binned some things, reorganised others, bought more IKEA small crates and labelled everything with my Sharpie. I have a shelf for cake boxes, boards and packaging, one for ingredients and the top shelf for things I only occasionally need, like sugar craft supplies and jam-making things.  I have 2 shelves for fabric, needle felting, craft supplies, pens, projects and equipment. The old CD shelves are stuffed with yarn (it looks like a wool shop!) and the tiny wall-mounted boxes that used to hold cupcake sprinkles now hold the kids' Hamma beads, sorted by colour.

It's ACE.  I can find stuff.

Here's a shot of it, part way through:

So, lots to think about, lots to do.  I wish you luck with your aspirations, and I'll let you know how I get on with mine.

J xx