i've got a little list

I’m not one of those people who live by lists, making them every day and obsessively ticking things off, (though I live with and admire the productivity of someone who does). But neither could I live a completely list-free life. They definitely have their uses for efficient shopping, planning for events such as Christmas and generally making sure that things get done. When I was still working I had a daily to-do list to keep me on track and more recently I have discovered the beauty of what I can only call an aspirational list.

Three or so years ago I made a list of fifty things to do before I was sixty. You can see it here. It was a mixture of things to do, things to do more of, one off special activities, regular commitments and plans for the future. It wasn’t too prescriptive. It was fun to make and it was fun to do the stuff and interesting to revisit and see how I had got on. Clearly life has moved on; I am now retired and so is Steve, so the shape of our days and weeks has changed significantly. Spending eight weeks “home alone” in the summer while S was off volunteering on Iona made it reassuringly clear to me that I enjoy my quiet domestic existence with its gentle routine of one or two regular activities, friends and family within easy reach, sewing and knitting projects to keep me busy and creative. I am generally content to take things as they come and make it up as I go along, but there is always the danger of drifting, of frittering, of getting to the end of a day, or week and thinking “what have I achieved?” or “why did I spend the day on household tasks instead of something I enjoy?”

So I thought it was time to revisit the List and make some plans. I started by going back to the 50before60 list and merrily crossing off the things that were done and dusted, or that time had told me I was never going to do. Then I added in new plans; nothing huge, nothing too difficult, but little things to make the future look inviting and to help keep me a bit more focused.

This time it seemed helpful to divide the list into general headings.

PLACES TO VISIT OR REVISIT

• Cambridge
• St Ives
• Penzance
• Leeds
• Roseland Peninsula
• Exeter
• Cardiff
• Rye
• Amsterdam/Utrecht
• Ireland
• Venice
• Vancouver

HEALTH/EXERCISE/SPIRITUAL

• More walking – including more of what I did recently and which I would describe as a sort of prayer walk; spending the best part of a day walking in the city, stopping off from time to time to read a passage or a prayer from a book on pilgrimage.
• Reduce weight by 5% - yep, still working on this one!

REGULAR ACTIVITIES

• Singing with a community choir
• Knit and Natter

CREATIVE

• Finish “jewel” quilt (more on this soon)
• More indigo prep: (I love the dyeing, but stitching and preparing fabrics for the dye vat takes ages)
• Finish my mother’s canvas-work rug
• Finish my Kantha quilted scarf
• Complete green cardigan currently on the needles
• Chart and stitch some needlepoint cushions from a design by my daughter to go with some newly re-upholstered chairs which belonged to my grandmother

CULTURE

• More theatre.
• Regular cinema
• Read at least two books a month
• Exhibitions and galleries

COMMUNITY/FAMILY/FRIENDSHIP

• Spending time with family and friends: one of the most pleasurable activities in life
• Ithaca (our weekly get-together with friends to eat, talk, discuss a spiritual/philosophical theme)
• Share veg garden with H+F
• Support for local initiatives like the Bristol Pound
• Malago WI
  
  DOMESTIC/CULINARY

• Make another sourdough bread starter. I binned the last one when we went on holiday and never got round to starting another
• Batch cooking for freezer
• Making more interesting meals
• Small chunks of house clearing on a regular basis
• Egg custard!! No, I still haven’t got this one under my belt

when life gives you raspberries...

We went to Stratford again at the weekend. Not to see a play this time, but to look after a little grand-daughter so Hannah could go to a wedding and Felix could work.

We had fun looking after the little lady and Stratford upon Avon had laid on a food festival for us! I stocked up with some spices and we bought lovely fat olives and sinus-busting wasabi peanuts as well as good breads and posh pork pies. In the regular farmers’ market Felix bought fabulous mushrooms for a risotto and I found “jamming raspberries” on special offer.

So this morning, back in Bristol, I got out the maslin pan and bubbled up a load of raspberry jam. Scrumptious!

the summer in brief

How to break a long silence? A quick catch up.

I provided the admin and housekeeping support for our annual Arts Trail weekend.

The Mister was away volunteering with the Iona community and my photos were not as good as his would have been.

I did a bit of solo travel:

• By car to visit my sister and see the Lichfield Mystery Plays
• By train to Stratford to visit daughter, s-i-l and granddaughter and to see an understudy performance of Twelfth Night (brilliant!)
• By train to Glasgow to visit my cousin
• By train and ferries and coach to Iona for a week’s visit and catch up with the Mister
• And back home again by ferries, coach and trains visiting daughter no. 3 and all of her family in Lancashire en route.

I found that journeys completed successfully alone leave me with a real buzz of achievement. There’s something about it that makes me feel capable and alive.

I did the usual amount of knitting and stitching

  We had visitors:

• From Devon
• From Holland
• From the Czech Republic
• From Leeds
• From South Africa
• Daughter no. 3 and two of her littlies
• And currently an actor friend who is rehearsing and performing in Bristol

 That’s a lot of bedlinen!

We have celebrated some birthdays

 

We have had a reunion of college friends some forty years on

We have visited Devon for the Preview of an exhibition by friends

 

We have been to a “secret” gig

Seen a couple of films

Visited Stratford again to see the Comedy of Errors

 

We have watched the Olympics on the telly (and now the Paralympics)

 

I have watched these sunflowers grow painfully slowly to (finally) produce a tiny flower!

stage struck



Felix Hayes as Dromio of Ephesus and Bruce Mackinnon as Dromio of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors. Photograph by Keith Pattison

  I love that moment in the theatre when the lights go down. The tingle of anticipation never fails. I am eight years old again - in London with my parents waiting to watch Peter Pan (at the Scala with Julia Lockwood and Juliet Mills).

We were taken regularly from school to see Shakespeare plays in Stratford upon Avon and during my teens I saw a lot of plays at the Birmingham Rep and Stoke’s Victoria Theatre, most of which I have forgotten, but including Pinter, Orton, Synge, Ibsen and Goldsmith which are just a random selection that come to mind. I revelled in all things theatrical when our children were members of the remarkable Thame Youth Theatre, serving on the committee and helping out with productions and watching one or two individuals hone their juvenile talent and go on to creative careers. Once the girls were old enough not to need babysitters we were able to get to theatre regularly again and as friends of Oxford Playhouse enjoyed half price seats for first nights, which made us much more assiduous at getting tickets booked in advance.

We are lucky in Bristol to live within easy reach of Bristol Old Vic and the Tobacco Factory Theatre and have seen great shows at both of them. We don’t go nearly as often as I would like – partly because I’m rubbish at forward planning. I’m slightly surprised that I haven’t done more blog posts about theatre, but I’m not really a reviewer or theatre critic; I tend to suck things up and enjoy them and move on to the next thing.

So it won’t be a surprise to learn that I’m simply loving the opportunity to see plays at the RSC and spend time in Stratford with Hannah and Felix, where our lovely son-in-law F has a second season appearing in What Country Friends Is This? Shakespeare’s trilogy of Shipwreck Plays. So far we have seen and loved Twelfth Night and The Tempest and have Comedy of Errors booked for August. In the normal scheme of things Stratford is just a little bit too far away to go to an evening show and drive back the same night – falling asleep at the wheel is never a good plan. So staying overnight at their temporary home opposite the theatre is just great. I know that living in a cute cottage opposite the RSC in historic Stratford upon Avon can feel like being part of a living heritage museum (especially last weekend during Shakespeare’s birthday celebrations), but it’s also a huge privilege and quite brilliant for us as visitors. I noticed that later in the year the RSC are staging an Indian-based version of Much Ado About Nothing, which appeals to me very much – may have to ask if we can have bed and breakfast again for that!

so long, Hermann my friend,and thanks for all the cake

I’ve been living in retroville for the past couple of weeks as it seems that German Friendship Cake (aka Hermann Cake) is doing the rounds again – perhaps he never went away?

Back in the eighties when we had hungry daughters in the house I was given my first Hermann starter – a type of sweet sourdough, consisting of flour, sugar, milk and wild yeast. It makes a moist spicy cake with the optional addition of apples, raisins and nuts – very nice with a cup of tea or coffee, or even as a warm dessert with cream or ice cream. The starter comes with strange anthropomorphic instructions (“Hermann is hungry – feed him today”) and takes ten days before you bake your first cake. Before the cake is baked, however, the batter has to be divided so that you can pass it on to other bakers.

I seem to remember that I kept it going for a few months, passing on batches of starter to school-gate friends, until I got fed up of the cake tyranny – “Hermann is hungry!” and the family got fed up of always having the same cake. I haven’t got so far this time. For a start I couldn’t find many people to pass it on to. Daughter no. 1 declined the offer as she had recently killed one in her care and didn’t feel up to the responsibility! Daughter no. 2 accepted and we carefully transported a batch up to Stratford last Monday. (I hope they manage to keep it going as I love the prospect of it being passed round the RSC). Other than that, no takers as the friend who gave me my batch is a member of the same Knit and Natter group, so she had them all covered.

I could probably have put a bit more effort into finding people to pass it to, but we’re off on holiday on Monday so won’t be here to stir it every day. So this morning I have stirred up a huge batch of Hermann and made three cakes for the freezer. Should keep us going for a while.

the hat that makes grown men cry

Something of an exaggeration of course, but it seems that this little baby hat is cute enough to render my husband slightly misty-eyed.

I’m so happy to be sending it off to a sweet baby girl who probably won’t be big enough to wear it for some time to come. I mentioned in a post at the end of last year that we were receiving regular bulletins on the progress of twins born 14 weeks early. Sadly, one of the little girls died at twelve days old, but her sister has kept going against the odds, surviving several crises in the process. She still only weighs 4lb 11oz, but is now well enough to go home with her mother and father to continue the adventure of living in this beautiful, if occasionally frightening, world. We wish them well with all our hearts.

more sourdough

Since my last post about bread-making I have continued to make bread regularly. We have had hardly any bought bread in that time. On the whole I have stuck with the same basic recipe, just varying the flour and trying both fast action dried yeast and fresh yeast and generally using a measure of the sourdough starter as well. The results have been good - a dough which rises surprisingly quickly and a fairly consistent, even-textured loaf.

Yesterday I decided it was time to branch out and make a different style of loaf, so I flicked through my book and settled on Pain de Campagne a rustic French style bread which uses just the sourdough starter and no additional yeast. After my previous experience with the sourdough solo I was a little anxious about whether it would work and warned Steve that he might have to go out and buy his breakfast bread today!

I was pleasantly surprised because it did in fact rise quite well. It was slow, and I went to bed rather later than I had planned, but I was very pleased with the final loaf. The recipe creates quite a slack dough and I resisted the temptation to add more flour, using the French-style stretching and throwing kneading technique that I learned at a workshop with Mark of Mark's Bread.

Because the dough is rather formless it needs support during its second proving so I sat it in a colander lined with a well floured tea towel. The trick then is to turn it out quickly on to a pre-heated baking tray and slam it into a hot oven before it has a chance to collapse.

This loaf has the more airy uneven texture of artisan bread and a very good flavour.