Walking the tightrope

It's true walking a tightrope is tense. Having a nine year old and soon-to-be eleven year old can be the very definition of being on that taut stretch of rope. Say one thing to one of them and it's peace between the two but another and you wobble and off the rope everyone plunges...in our case into full scale arguments and fisticuffs.

Well...I can now safely say that being on a tightrope is indeed a tense business. Yesterday we braved the typical Arctic April showers weather to watch an actual tightrope walker traverse a lake and it was tense. We went to the Day on the Lake festivities at Rudyard Lake in Staffordshire and watched the great and fabulous Bullzini balance his way elegantly across the water. I was enraptured. He lay down on the rope, he hung (intentionally) from the rope and he did a headstand on the rope. It was great. He appealed to all: I was marvelling at his skill and watched with mouth open whereas I think my son did have a genuine interest in him falling in the water - each to their own.

Apparently Rudyard Lake in Victorian times was the Blackpool of Staffordshire, attracting thousands and thousands of Victorians to the lakeside. In 1864 Carlos Trower traversed the lake on a tightrope and returned a few times over the subsequent years to wow the crowds. The Day at the Lake, running over the bank holiday is a celebration of those heady days. We ooed and ahhed at the tightrope extravaganza; my children heltered full kilter down the helter skelter; they rode on donkeys; we looked round a very wonderful craft market and enjoyed the beautiful surroundings of Rudyard Lake all to live music.

Apparently Rudyard Kipling's parents met here ...hence his name. My son would have been called Stalybridge if we'd emulated the Kiplings.....

Hope the weather is kind today and tomorrow for the Day on the Lake and that Bullzini wows audiences again and again.

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.

Christmas Cake

I made my Christmas Cake the other day, following my Mum's recipe. It's full of fruit and cherries. I have tried it in previous years to absolute disastrous results as I think my thermostat had really broken on my old oven so any cake that had to stay in over 30 mins came out black. But now I have a new oven.

I lined the cake tin, I mixed the cake ingredients and in it went for 3 hours at a very low heat and came out with not one burnt mark. My Mum's tip to cover the top with milk before it goes in the oven  to prevent scorching worked a treat.

I am feeding it now with alcohol and resisting the temptation to cut into it to see if it's as deliciously moist and flavoursome as my Mums used to be...only 5 or 6 weeks to go. I will then inexpertly plonk some marzipan on top, sprinkle with glitter and other small cakey decorations that I can purchase in a tube at the supermarket and then stand my little models of a stag and fawn on top. You can tell I don't go in for brilliant decoration - more rustic is my approach.

Don't know whether to cut into it in the immediate build-up to Christmas and have with mince pies on offer for guests and risk it disappearing before Christmas Day or wait until the big day itself.

Think I'll have to make two.

Castle of Park

Castle of Park including two ghosts

I have been lazy and not posted for some time. It could in part be due to the fact I started a new job in September so all my energies have been going into that. But I'm back and I have a new tower. Not quite a perfect tower as we couldn't get out on to the roof but 2 spiral staircases and 4 floors and we had it all to ourselves. We were in heaven.

 

Castle of Park is a fortified tower house set in Dumfries and Galloway which we slept in for four nights. Lots of hide 'n' seek and chase and a monopoly game that went on and on which meant there wasn't quite enough time left to complete the intricate jigsaw that David started just too late. There was also the 'let's turn all the lights off on the stairs and then challenge each other to go up one set and down the other with just a torch while Mum makes spooky noises' game. I was too scared to even contemplate doing the challenge (I had to wake David up to go to the loo with me in the middle of the night) but the children loved it.

Egglestone Show

I never thought I'd say this but last weekend I felt a bit like a city girl. Me! A farmer's daughter. True enough I abandoned all thought of farming forty odd years ago. In fact I never abandoned the thought, it just never occurred to me that I would ever want to spend my adult life farming. And last weekend I guess I realised how removed I was from agricultural pursuits.

We went to visit family in Teesdale - a beautiful part of north England and we went to Egglestone Show. It was a lovely show. There was horseriding including tiny tiny tots riding ponies; a falconry display; carriage driving; glorious local food; sheep, cattle, even lamas and a tent full of homegrown veg to make David and I weep to look at the paltry size of own home grown efforts. The carrots, parsnips, leeks were ginormous.

It was a beautiful day and I had on my sandals which immediately outed me to be the city girl I have become. This was a September show with a slight chill in the wind even though the sun was shining. I needed knee high, leather boots. The type that are a cross between riding boots and wellies and are made from tip top brown leather. Every lady there from a three year old to a dowager duchess had on such boots. I had a bright green walking cagoule on too. Oh no...tweed or quilted jackets were de rigueur.

 

I quite liked the look and was quite tempted. But soon realised that to walk the children to school in suburban Manchester in such garb would look a tad out-of-place. It might do though for a walk over the local fields and hills so am very tempted by some boots.

Anyway  a good time was had by all. The veg were beyond my imagination but I reckon that my lemon drizzle cake would have stood a good chance of coming first in the lemon drizzle cake competition. I'm tempted to enter next year and deliver my cakes in sandals and cagoule.

Make your mind up.

You know what really irritates me: actors who wear spectacles as a part of their character and yet clearly are very very confused as to why they are wearing glasses.  The actor just twiddles and fiddles with the glasses. They put them on their nose; they take them off as they discuss state secrets; they put them on top of their head; they balance them out of the corner of their mouth. But one thing is absolutely clear in 20:20 vision they are not using them to improve their eyesight.

I watched a drama last night. The actress started well. She was taking notes and popped glasses on when writing and off when looking at her interviewee. She clearly needed the specs for reading or so I thought. Then she was seen walking in the park with the same glasses on (big designer ones at that) and went into a café and popped them on top of her head when she started talking with someone. It didn't add up. Apart from anything if the actress knew how much her character had paid for those designer spectacles she wouldn't treat them so cavalierly pushing them casually onto her crown from whence they could crash to the floor breaking and costing lots of money to replace.

I watched a film on Friday and the main character wore glasses all the way through. Fine. He played a bit of an uptight, nerdy character but if he needed glasses to see then glasses he needed. Then at the end when he had transformed himself overnight and I mean literally overnight into a confident, trendy bloke he was sans specs. Now there is another blog post there as to why confident, handsome characters need to shift the glasses and nerdy ones need to keep them but it was a miracle: he could see. He went to bed one night, placing his glasses on the bedside table and the next morning he had perfect vision. A walking optical sensation. There was a complete film just in that and probably more interesting than the one I'd just watched.

Wood 4

We haven't been to Robin's Wood for ages and ages. But we returned in style last week for some wild camping and it was glorious. Even with all 4 of us squashed into a very small 4 person tent we still enjoyed it. As you can see below a lot of hard work was endured.

Potters

There is a time warp in Buxton, Derbyshire. There is a small space up a street in that town where everything is happy and good and all right with the world. The place is called Potters and it's one of those old fashioned miniature department stores from the 1950s. It sells women's clothes, men's clothes, makes curtains and cushions for you and sells bedding and a whole lot more which I haven't discovered yet down one of its corridors.

On the face of it it looks very old fashioned. But if you linger and peer in at its floor to ceiling windows displays, they do have some lovely, modern gems as well as more olde worlde fashioned items. It's a treasure trove of wonders.

I can't resist entering to be greeted by 10 million shop assistants because that's another wonderful thing about Potters: it is full of knowledgeable ladies waiting to help. And when you pay for your item you get a hand-written receipt and the money is secreted away in an old fashioned wooden till drawer. And apparently they have been serving the good people of Buxton since the middle of the 19th century.

There used to be a similar shop called Addy's in my local village when I was a girl. It had glass counters with drawers visible beneath full of gloves, handkerchiefs and other miscellaneous items. There was a lady called Betty in the ladies section whom my mum knew and I remember one Christmas my Mum gave her some money and Betty guided me through the wonders of the shop giving me ideas of what to buy my mum, dad and brothers for Christmas.

Potters is like that so next time you are in Buxton, don't be put off by the slightly archaic appearance of the shop windows but venture in, you'll find something to your liking.

Beetrootgate

Oh dear I had a nightmare last night. I dreamt that I spilled beetroot on my auntie's brilliant white table cloth and then just sat and watched the deep purple juice stain away.

Oh dear I had a nightmare experience last night. I actually did spill beetroot onto my auntie's nice clean tablecloth. I had been so strict with my children, serving them the beetroot and instilling in them the need to be careful that a slice did not slip slowly off their plate onto the tablecloth. And what did I do.......forked too many beetroot slices at one time and they splurged quickly and deliberately onto the white cloth.

A gosh, an uncontrollable giggle, a swear word and we all stared at the purple splodge on the cloth. Up we all got spontaneously and took all the plates, cutlery and etceteras off the table while my auntie whipped the cloth off and into soak.

Then we reset the table, sat down and laughed a lot about the beetroot incident.

Food hatch

Let us talk hatches.....food hatches to be precise. Now that's a bit of a blast from the past. The children and I have just been to visit my auntie. She has a food hatch between her kitchen and dining room and the children love it. It's about 45cm wide by 30cm high with a narrow ledge and two little doors. It is for handing food through to the table from the kitchen instead of taking it round on foot and for popping the empties back through but it is really so much more.

You can play peep-po; you can play shops; you can play restaurants; you can play knocking and then running; you can simply open and shut it; you can chat; you can even try to get your entire nine year old body through from one side to the next.

Believe me we had to stay for an extra few hours to get another lunch in so it was fair that both children had had the equal number of opportunities to sit by the hatch.

My brother used to have a hatch in his old house but it was very big and had no doors and thus lost it's appeal somehow. You need it smallish and it has to have miniature doors with little knobs on so that again the nine year old can pull them to and fling them open.

Now I was thinking that I had missed the opportunity to construct a walk-in wardrobe as part of our extension last year but my children probably think otherwise.