Cake mixture

Mix your ingredients for a cake: butter, eggs, sugar, flour. Pop it into your cake tin but do not use a spatula. Such an implement is too efficient, wiping the bowl clean of mixture. Instead use a spoon and hand the mixing bowl over to your daughter, eagerly awaiting to devour the mixture remnants......that is if her Dad doesn't get there before her. Smile when you see raw cake leftovers, smeared around her mouth or his.

September harvest

We tried our first bottle of 2015 elderflower fizz yesterday in the lovely sunshine and it's glorious. The same can't quite be said of the blackberries this year methinks. I went out blackberrying yesterday and was very disappointed, either bushes with no blackberries or very small ones. Now I may either be too late to the table and they've been picked or the wet August has played its part. I eventually did find a swathe of bushes which reaped a tub full and they are currently dripping through a jelly bag with some apples to make blackberry and apple jelly. I'll go out again later in the week and fingers crossed the sun we've been promised will have ripened some more and we can have a blackberry crumble.

We've had quite a good year in the garden, considering we do the minimum to care for it, having busy jobs and family life. At the moment we have sweet peas, chard, kale, beans and beetroot so no complaints and we have tomatoes on the way as well as celeriac. And all to be washed down with the sparkle of elderflower.

Ooops..forgot!

Turns out the forks were a pink herring

Boy or girl?

I rely on my 20 and 30 something nieces and nephew to keep me informed of the latest trends. One of them is expecting a baby and one is getting married so there will be ample opportunity over the coming months I expect and perhaps fear for me to get bang up to date with the latest must-haves and ways of doing.

For instance on Saturday I went to a picnic where my niece and partner let us know the sex of their unborn child through the medium of cake. Now I am always more than happy to explore any subject through the joys of cake and this was a particularly welcome exploration. The idea is that a very neutral looking cake is produced and cut into to reveal a slice that is either blue or pink thus telling the world whether the babe is a boy or girl.

One of my nieces told me she was completely left non-plussed when a colleague at work said she was going to a 'Gender Reveal Party'. Even my hip and trendy niece was at a loss and asked whether the person at the centre of the big reveal was coming out as a man or woman. My pregnant niece's 'come to a lovely family picnic where I'll let you know whether we are having a boy or girl according to the colour of the cake' party seems a much more friendly title.

Apparently sometimes even the parents don't know the sex of their own child at these 'reveal' parties. They get the scan person at the hospital to pop the sex of their baby into an envelope and then they take this to a cake shop and the appropriate coloured cake is duly made. Can this really be true?

Anyway we had a lovely time in Derbyshire, together, eating, laughing. My niece made the cake although she didn't quite know how much food colouring to put into the mixture so that once cooked it would be perfectly clear whether it was pink or blue but she ensured the butter cream filling left us in no doubt. The cake was all the sweeter for the excitement that it held for the coming months.

Pool Bliss

Just back from holiday where we had a full sized open air pool all to ourselves. It was brilliant. It had a springboard from where I made a huge splash and water rushed up my nose and from where my husband did a dive but didn't quite compensate for the spring. It had a little slide, depositing you into the water which the children loved and which I longed to go on but felt that it might just collapse under my weight.  This oasis was heated too. It was fun, fun, fun and it was really really cheap.

My tip for the summer is when it rains and you are wondering what to do on holiday venture to the nearest heated open air swimming pool. It's warm once you are in, it's great swimming in the rain and there'll be very few people in the pool with you. Bliss. The only drawback is you'll have three very bored lifeguards watching your every move...wobble...inferior stroke...funny dive....but what the hell. Take your contact lens out and you won't know they are there.

I know which cake I prefer to eat

If I asked my husband to go to the local fish n chip shop and get me fish cake and chips over here on the Lancashire side of the Pennines, he'd come home with chips and probably a small round soft burger-like 'cake' often coated in breadcrumbs and consisting of flaked fish and mashed potatoes.

If I asked my brother to get me cake and chips over on the Yorkshire side of the Pennines, he'd come home with a small parcel about the size of a large flattish potato, made of up of a piece of fish, sandwiched between two scallops of potato and then covered in batter and deep fried. Ahh...the taste of a special treat of fish n chips and/or cake as a child.

I wonder at which point along, across the border the one transforms into the other?

Going solo

I found myself in an unusual position yesterday. I am a mum of young children and I found myself at a loose end. It's not often 'mum' and 'loose end' find themselves juxtaposed in the same sentence. This liberating situation came about as my husband is away with work and my children were away at their grown-up cousins for the weekend.

So I went solo. Off to The Hepworth Wakefield I made my way. It's a new art gallery dedicated to the sculptor Barbara Hepworth who was born in the city. Got my priorities prioritised and straight into the café I wandered. Up to the counter and made my mind up in lightning fashion. No children of my own so I didn't have to clarify to them what was on the menu nor wait 10 minutes for them to decide what they wanted to drink nor spend some time in debate as to where to sit nor point out where the loos were nor have to keep them amused while we waited for the food to arrive. In, ordered, observed, received, ate, observed, out. Fabulous.

I loved some of the sculptures, didn't like a few; didn't understand quite a lot but enjoyed making my way around at my own pace. It's shame you aren't able to touch any of these sculptures. So many seem very tactile but I guess it would destroy them if thousands of grubby hands started caressing or nudging them. It would be good to have just one which you could touch.

The Hepworth stuff was interesting especially the explanation of the process behind the creation of the sculptures. The guest exhibition by Lynda Benglis was really very good - bright, colourful, textural, covetable. And all of these works of art in a rather lovely building which seems to sit naturally on the banks of the Calder River. Every so often as you wend your way around the galleries you come across a huge picture window which invites you to look out onto the river. A heron stood there on the weir in the sunshine. I wonder how much it gets paid to just be there?

Anyway I would recommend going solo every now and then. My 8 and soon to be 10 year old are due back any minute. I am very much looking forward to having them back......I think. Perhaps another few hours to get out into the garden without being asked to play rounders. Oh there we go a thump on the front door - they're back.

A sieve

Take an old-fashioned garden sieve and thread lights through:

Are you boring?

Is your coat black or dark grey or brown? In other words is it really boring? It struck me as I walked into the playground at school and waited outside the classroom for my daughter that every parent there was in a black coat. My coat is red.

Silver spoon in your mouth

Stick a spoon in your mouth whilst cutting up onions and you won't cry. David tried it today and it supposedly worked although he told me after the event.....although I might have been the one crying looking on at his efforts with spoon and knife.

Recordering

By popular demand I'm back. Well...when I say popular I mean a few people have asked where have I been. Well...when I say a few people it's actually one person who wants to read new erudite and compelling blogs from 88. Well... when I say one person is interested in my writing I mean it's actually a close friend who is nosey and wants to keep up with what's happening in the Blakeley household. So I'm back.

So Dermot....sorry I mean my whole readership....my daughter is learning the recorder and I am so excited. I realise I've been waiting for this day since she's been born. My daughter is learning the recorder. Not that my son couldn't do it too if he wanted but he thinks it's an awful instrument and makes a terrible racket. He thinks the recorder makes a terrible racket too.You see I never got to learn the recorder when I was seven and I wanted to. I can't remember why I didn't get the chance. My best friend did it but somehow it passed me by and I've sulked ever since. I was fascinated in assemblies when older children got their descant recorders out: a little recorder that had been fed and had grown and grown and grown.

Still I have my chance now. I'm mastering Twinkle Twinkle Little Star at the moment. And in a fashion it does sound like the nursery rhyme. Oh yes and my daughter is learning too and I'm being encouraging and supportive and smiley. I look forward to her performing in a little school concert and moving onto fatter and  bigger  recorders. I will enj She will enjoy performing I feel sure.

P.S. Hope this keeps you up-to-date, Dermot.