Wednesday 17 September 2014

On a train, through an ocean


My four year old phone is on their way out of this world, and in between its fits of anger, struggle and defeat, I am desperately trying to salvage the photos and videos that it holds.

While giving the handset a time out the other night, I decided to edit a couple of similar videos together. Earlier this year, the UK had some crazy flooding, and as a habitant of both London and Devon, I travelled through the floodlands right as their depth peaked. Most routes were underwater and impassable. This video is just a go at using that footage.

It was my first time using iMovie and it was horrible and rubbish, but probably because I went in blind and kept clicking until the thing I wanted would happen. It was fun to pick out the music though!

Friday 4 April 2014

Physalis, raspberry and lemon zest macaroons!

I've been meaning to bake macaroons for a while- then earlier in the week I went to and found this post saying that i must not Under Any Circumstances, use a silicone whisk, which of course is what I had. Something science-y to do with a single protein or fat molecule will mean that the egg whites won't whisk. So I took a trip to TK Maxx (I'm doing a full time degree, honest), and bought a funky as hell one. It's got a whisk inside of the whisk and inside that is a steel ball, from maximum whisking capabilities.


It's crazy simple to make macaroons:
1. 150g of coconut (unsweetened!)
2. 100g of sugar (I used unrefined)
3. 2 egg whites
4. Half a lemon (for zest)
 + fruity bits for topping, I used raspberries and physalis'

Okay- I'm not a recipe person, but here's roughly what you do: 
(preheat oven to 180oC)
1. Beat the eggs whites into soft peaks, which means about 3 minutes of proper-going-at-it whisking, till the whites will drag into little mountain peaks when you lift the whisk away from them, but they don't stay there indefinitely (that's stiff peaks).
2. Fold in all the sugar(with something metal, not the whisk, like a palet knife) - don't worry about 'knocking all the air out', it's not a lot of sugar so you won't be folding long enough for the air to go from the whites.
3.Then fold in the desiccated coconut and the lemon zest
4. Put baking parchment down on a tray- a plonk scoops on the mix on to it, they don't really spread, but leave an inch or so just in case. Pop a cherry or raspberry or whatever on top now. 
5. Bake for 10-15 minutes. 
6. Leave to cool, or burn yourselves trying to eat them 




om nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom nom






Friday 28 March 2014

Head Planter

First thing i’ve drawn this year: succulents on my mind 28/3/2014
plants pictured commonly known as ‘Donkey Tail’ & ‘Houseleek’

Monday 24 March 2014

Whole-baked-butternutsquash

Ya gonna love it

So simple, so delicious

This is how it's done, okay, you'll need a pen and paper at the ready, okay? Ready?

You 1. get a butternut squash, and 2. you put it in an oven (170°C), for about an hour and a quarter, 3. then you take it out the oven. I know that's a lot to take in, but you'll get there. 

Seriously, it's so simple I felt like I was doing it wrong, you don't even need to prick it, cut the end off, or even season it. The skin (edible, if you fancy it) acts as a foil, and all the naturally occurring moisture in the squash steams it for the first 40 minutes or so, then cracks might appear in the skin and it'll leak a syrup-y liquid onto your baking tray- oh yes, that's a point, put it on a baking tray. I left mine to cool on my kitchen windowsill, and then scooped the flesh out and used it as a topper for some mince that needed cooking, like a butternut squash-y shepherds pie. Yum.

Straight out the oven

Halved

Gutted

Have a go next time you've got a butternut squash about, it's so delicious and ridiculously simple to do- would be great alongside a meat joint or casserole that also needed cooking on a low heat.

Bye for now!




Friday 21 February 2014

Latest botanical adventures: growing from seed

hello hello!

I've embarked on a new planty journey- growing from seeds. My lovely flatmate, Laura (link to her bloooog), gave me a herby boxy thing for Christmas, and so I have planted those up and they all seem to be getting along nicely- though the Parsley seeds are yet to poke their heads above ground, they're so far behind the Oregano and Chives, that I'm doubting if I planted them at all...
Chives and Oregano just saying hello, Parsley still covered in cling film

Most excitingly, I bought some Mimosa Pudica seeds from ebay. Also known as the shy plant, a touch-me-not and sleepy plant, here's a fantastic gif that may clue you in as to why it's known by these names:

Honestly this makes me shriek with excitement
(i love the etymology of plant names: in Latin, 'pudica' means shy or bashful)
The seeds are doing well, I received about 50 and have sown them in a mixture of circumstances and conditions. Some with a sandy (more succulent/cacti friendly) soil, some with normal soil (nabbed from the herb box collection), some in terracotta pots, some in plastic. So far- the best results have been my from the smallest experiment, which is annoying. I sowed around 10 seeds in a tiny pot with normal soil, but before this I had sped up the germination process my soaking the seeds in warm/hot water for about half an hour. I then covered the little pot with cling film and placed them in a dark, but warm, spot just to the right of my flat's large storage heater- well they loved that! Within a couple of days the seedling were poking through. During the day, I placed them (still clingfilmed) onto the windowsill to encourage them to get taller, but put them back near the heater at night. They are a week old today, well I planted them a week ago, and looking just darling:
 I've uncovered them now, as they were beginning to touch the wet clingfilm and I was wary that they might get rotten or mouldy. I have already noticed their 'sleepy' nature, though they aren't reacting to seismonaistic movement yet, such as blowing, touching or shaking, they are definitely reacting to light and dark: at night the little sprouts close up as if they've gone to sleep for the evening.  

I think I mentioned before, but for Christmas, I also received Lithop seeds (all the way from China), I have it on good authority that the time for sewing those is coming up, so I'll let you know how that goes, when the times comes. Here's a link to my last post about my adult lithops: My Little Green House.

There you are, you're all caught up with my seedy escapades. Have a good weekend!








Sunday 9 February 2014

dejected do-gooder, dejected hot chocolate

Yesterday I went to stay for the night at my buddy's house in Kingston- to do so I make my way to Waterloo and always pick up a hot drink from one of the numerous food/coffee chain places available on the platform. Yesterday I bought a medium hot chocolate (and a banana because I was slightly hungover and 'nanas are great for perking you up after a night drinking), - anyway, I paid with contactless, grabbed the drink and noticing it was quite small I said, "Is this a medium?" the girl said, "No, because you paid for a small", I thought ahhh never mind, if that's all I paid for,  never mind. I was running late for my train. On the train I found the receipt and I had paid the extra 50p for a medium. So today, as I walked past the cafe chain on my way back home from Kingston I noticed the same girl was there- I told her that I had paid for a medium yesterday and she was really apologetic and gave me the refund and a free hot chocolate. Which was all very embarrassing for me, after living in London for a while you get quite used to being treated like shit by service workers, just I know most customers are arseholes. 

Thing was I'd just finished a really large cup of tea and i had no room in my belly for a large, free hot chocolate. So i thought, "I know, I'll nip outside and give it to a homeless person", it was very cold out today, and there's usually quite a few homeless people outside of major London stations. But not bleeding today, my dress was blowing up in the wind, and I was getting rained on as I marched about trying to find someone to give this ruddy hot chocolate to. Eventually I found a man all wrapped up in blankets with what looked like a broken leg. I knelt down and said "I'm awfully sorry if this is insulting, but would you like this drink? I got it for free and I don't want it", he was said "Thanks darlin', yeah that'd be great", so I gave it to him (promising it "wasn't poisoned", which made it sound like it was poisoned, luckily he laughed), he took one sip and went "No, no, no, I hate hot chocolate, you can have that back- will you go and get me a coffee?". I was a mixture of apologetic and put-out (excellent do-gooder behaviour). I was sorry that I didn't have the drink he liked and put-out that he wanted me to throw away this one and go and buy him a bleading latte. I said sorry- gave him some change and walked off still holding this fricking hot chocolate. At this moment I watched my bus drive off, so then went a stood by the bus stop for 20 minutes trying to hold my dress down with the gale winds and holding this now nearly cold hot chocolate, too anxious to leave the bus stop in case it came during my search for a bin. As the bus pulled up I put the hot chocolate down on the pavement and watched it as the bus and me pulled away. 

Thursday 6 February 2014

Dry flowers



These are a few of the flowers that i picked for my Nan's funeral arrangement. I think these should all dry fairy well. I love the thistle particularly. It's lovely to have them up here in London with me, now is a difficult time to be away from my family.

Monday 27 January 2014

A passage to India, by Lauren Slater

Gosh that sounds like a novel, doesn't it?
Well it's not, it's better: one of my oldest, bestest, and loveliest friends, Lauren Slater, has set up a Kickstarter for her final major fashion project for her Fashion Design degree which she studies at Westminster University.

I could try to tell you about it, but Lauren herself does a much better job than I could, here is a section copied from the Kickstarter page:

"A Passage To India // The Collection
A Passage To India is my final major project during my Fashion Design BA Hons at Westminster University in
London. The project is the creation of a six look womenswear collection.
The collection has been inspired by turn of the 20th century menswear fashion and draped traditional Indian silhouettes and named after the novel by E.M Forster. Initially inspired by the upcoming film by Wes Anderson (The Grand Budapest Hotel) the collection finds its details in tasseled keys of vintage hotel rooms, hotel workers uniforms from the 1920s and the drapes of bed sheets. 
The collection will be mainly handmade and entirely created in London, supporting British fabric suppliers and haberdasheries and the british fashion industry. 
Your donations will also help to get the collection to the Westminster Fashion graduate catwalk show in May!"
Lauren is a fantastic designer, illustrator and person- please help her realise this fantastic project by donating to her campaign!
Here is a link to the Kickstarter: A Passage To India // Fashion Design Final Collection, and here is the supporting video:

these are not resolutions:

moisturise your body, fi
-I don't have the softest skin. My body type renders me bumpy and stretched, utterly unlike every lovely lady on the first few pages of any magazine, or in the lovely sun flared photos on 'summer' or 'shred' blogs, which is fine, I've learnt to embrace this stuff, and not to berate myself for not meeting standards of beauty that I didn't set... But I could be softer, or smoother, I'm never sure which word I'm after of those two. So I plan on buttering myself up, after showers and before bed, like a lovely pork shoulder, yum.

speak to your family more, fi
-We had a tough christmas and New Year. Shortly before Christmas, after years of them struggling with their conditions (dementia, bi-polar, rheumatoid arthritis, pride), and my mum struggling to keep them above water; both my grandparents went into a local residential home. Then, on the 6th of January, my nanny became very suddenly poorly with pneumonia, and died less than 24 hours after being admitted into hospital. I love my nan a lot, she was stubborn and quite blunt, but fiercely loyal, generous and we could natter endlessly. Losing her has been awful. And as so often happens with death, it brought the rest of us together. I have a small family, my dad is an only child, and my mum only has one brother. So time spent with my cousins and brothers is special. I miss my nan already.


cook soup, fi
-It's easy to work out why, isn't it? Soup is cheap, warming, easy, flavoursome, packed with goodness and you can make loads at once.

do more stuff to your face, fi
-Since moving to London, I've had spots. As anyone who lives here knows, London air is dirty: you only have to blow your nose after a tube-heavy weekend to see the black evidence in your tissue. Lucky as a teenager, I was spot-free, so this sudden peppering of a few spots has caught me unarmed, I honestly don't know how to care for my skin. Perhaps the Devon coastal air is magical, but I've never had a face care routine. I've always just sort of shampooed my face while i did my hair in the shower? I know that's bad. I've not moisturised either. 'You definitely brought this upon yourself, girl'-- Oh I know.... I've always just let my face and body sort itself, it's not like w're born with anti-ageing night cream and a razor in our hands is it? Anyway, I've bought some face masks, an exfoliator, and a vitamin e moisturiser from Body Shop in their 40% off sale. Who knows if it'll help? I can but try, eh?

send more post, fi
-Send to family, send to friends. I love getting post, but these days it's mainly my impulse bids on ebay that deliver any post through my letter box. My mum is a great letter writer, keeping in touch with many of her friends that way, and she's taught me to do the same with cards, send thank yous, and happy birthdays... but as the internet replaces a lot of things, I think letter writing has gotten a bit lost. I don't resolve to write letters, but maybe write a bit more inside the cards and on the post cards that I will send this year.

go see movies, fi
-I love the pictures, it's one of my favourite things to do, but I've gone less in the last couple of years. So... I'm thinking... a film a month? I'm excited for Spike Jonze's 'Her', with the lovely Joaquin Phoenix, 'August: Osage County',  and Steve McQueens's 'Twelve Years and Slave' (going to see this with my 'American Fictions' class). Most of all, I am excited for the new Wes Anderson 'The Grand Budapest Hotel', which you can just tell is a Wes Anderson film from the name and poster alone, I think.











shoot more film, fi
I've had a ridiculously unlucky time with my film camera lately- last year I developed fourteen rolls of film, three of which turned out to be blank, which meant bye bye to my visit to the eden project with Rhiannon, and cheerio to my day on Dartmoor with Rachel . I think the film tore as I wound it on early on in the roll-  two out of the three blank rolls had maybe one or two photos on, but nothing on the rest of the roll. This is a mixture of me not loading it as carefully as I could- with the old and often expired film I use (which I love- so no preaching). And then, the shutter stuck on my trusty OM10 just before Christmas. I have since bought a replacement (old camera bodies are cheap enough on ebay, it's the lenses that cost a few bob), and this fucker just developed only half a roll- which was bizaar- as it was really sporadic on the negatives... like 1- 4 were fine, then 5-20 were blank, then the rest of the roll came as shadows and light. I'll get another one from a more reputable seller, perhaps. ANYWAY- this year I'd like to shoot more film. To quantify it, I'm thinking 2 rolls of film a month, starting February.


These aren't resolutions, they're not going to change my life considerably... but I want to do them... for reasons.